The Bulgari Connection (Women's Fiction) - Hardcover

Weldon, Fay

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0786238577 ISBN 13: 9780786238576

Publisher: Thorndike Pr, 2002

Synopsis

Weldon, Fay

About this title

Review

The Bulgari Connection finds Fay Weldon on familiar ground, chronicling the pains and pleasures of the battle of the sexes, in this enjoyably funny novel. Set in glamorous contemporary London, Weldon's novel begins with the proverbial love triangle. Wealthy, dissatisfied self-made businessman Barley Salt leaves his frumpy wife Grace for the glamorous TV presenter Doris Dubois. Grace concedes that her husband "has aged better than I have", and that Doris "is 23 years younger than I am. She is slimmer than I am, and more clever". Grace tries but fails to run Doris over, and for her pains is sentenced to three years in jail. However, when she meets the struggling young artist Walter Wells, with his preference for "the blown rose not the bud", Grace literally has a new lease of life. As her life takes on new meaning, Barley and Doris start to lose control of their own self-centred lives.

The Bulgari Connection is a fast-moving, readable novel of greed, middle-aged deceit and love, but feels like it was written in the 1980s, not the early 21st century. Weldon's attempts at a very English version of magic realism evoke strong echoes of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray (as the novel itself admits). This is effortless Weldon, but many of her fans will feel that it is marking time rather than breaking new ground. --Jerry Brotton

Review

Praise for Fay Weldon:

‘Our most intelligent and hard-hitting feminist novelist today.’ Daily Mail

‘Weldon is a gifted tease of a writer.’ Sunday Times

‘Prolific and provocative, Fay Weldon shines brightest in the league table of British women novelists.’ Time Out

Edition details

• Publisher: Thorndike Pr
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0786238577
• ISBN 13: 9780786238576
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 285