Muristek
One Day I Shall Astonish the World by Nina Stibbe review – everyday comedy
An old friendship is put to the test in this light tale of university admin and bad dresses
Susan Faye Warren, Nina Stibbe’s self-consciously droll narrator, does her best to juggle her dull older husband Roy, unreliable best friend Norma and an uneventful office job, surveying departmental and marital strife with the same eager yet naive eye that she brings to energetic Norma’s reports of the local dogging scene. Susan’s travails make for pleasant if inessential reading; but if you approach the novel as Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend transposed to the fictional University of Rutland, with the local golf club standing in for the Camorra, bathos takes on an irresistibly comic tinge.
An English undergraduate, Susan meets Roy and Norma on the same day, the former when he turns up at the cafe where she’s having breakfast, the latter at her Saturday job at The Pin Cushion, a dressmaker’s supply shop. Norma is clever, strange and compelling, despite her dreadful homemade dresses. Susan is immediately intrigued, but Norma’s mother, co-owner of the shop, warns her off: “I don’t think you and Norma-Jean will be friends.” The pair swiftly bond over Norma’s literary ambitions, but such are the subsequent ups and downs of their friendship that Mother clearly knew best.
Continue reading...