Curious Earth

Publishers Weekly

Woodward's I'll Go to Bed at Noonand Augustwere Man Booker and Whitbread finalists, respectively. In his warmly comedic latest, Aldous Jones, following the death of his wife, has retired as an art teacher and begun declining into a fetid self-imposed exile on London's Fernlight Avenue. Daughter Juliette's exasperated comment on Aldous's having "failed" when he gave up painting long ago rouses him to visit the National Gallery, where he makes a life-changing reacquaintance with a lusty Rembrandt portrait. Son Julian's seeming unraveling and Aldous's short hospital stay following a fall prompt Aldous to visit Julian in Ostend, Belgium; there, a madcap series of encounters ensue with much younger women, one of whom inspires him as the Rembrandt portrait does. Upon returning to London, an inspired Aldous enrolls in a language class, paints madly, travels the city with various odd companions and houses his son James and James's family, leading to further adventures. Persistent themes of aging, illness and art are seamlessly woven in via Woodward's slowly paced and beautifully written prose. Aldous is at once endearing, sad and inspiring, and he's given a vibrant set of foils in the flamboyant supporting cast. His subtle and understated deterioration is funny, haunting and human. (Mar.)

School Library Journal

In this third in the author's series of witty novels about an eccentric and driven English family (after I'll Go To Bed at Noonand August), the family patriarch, retired art teacher Aldous Jones, is trying unsuccessfully to adjust to his new status as an aging widower. More or less in a continuous stupor, Aldous spends his time drinking heavily and settling into a vegetative state not much removed from the potato plants he has permitted to grow in a neglected cupboard-until the sight of a beloved Rembrandt painting captures his imagination, revives his flagging libido, and sends him off in search of romance and adventure. Following a memorable visit to his son in the bohemian quarter of Ostend, Belgium, Aldous pursues love and art with an intensity that spreads sound and fury among relatives, neighbors, and beyond. Rich in humor and pathos, this comedy of modern urban life with its richly defined main character will have wide appeal among readers of literary fiction. Recommended for most collections.-Starr E. Smith, Fairfax Cty. P.L., VA

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Kirkus Reviews

The Barnes & Noble Review

The most interesting thing in Aldous's life is the old sack of potatoes sprouting in the moist depths of a rickety kitchen cabinet. The vines have sent thin tendrils of green through the cracked doors and out into the light. Aldous sees them and, in his alcoholic haze, is heartened that "a bunch of old potatoes could yen so strongly for the sixty-watt gloom of [his] winter kitchen."

Not so thrilled is Juliette, Aldous's journalist daughter. She wants her father to quit drinking, to take a bath, to please eat something. It's not until she loses her temper and calls him a failed painter -- he's a retired elementary school art teacher -- that he finally responds. In a fit of pique, Aldous decides to paint the backyard garden and winds up in the hospital with a burst ulcer.

There, a visitor begs him to go to Belgium and visit his son, Julian, who has been behaving eccentrically. This leads to one of the funniest -- but not the strangest -- set pieces in the book. Aldous is out on the windy deck of a ferry, watching his fellow passengers and enjoying the blustery weather as he crosses the English Channel: "The long hank of one man's comb-over writhed like a cobra. A woman in a plastic headscarf rattled past, the plastic rasping like a kazoo as the wind rushed beneath it, her hair set beneath it not budging an inch."

Ecstatic in the gale, feeling alive for the first time in years, Aldous opens his mouth to shout "I love you" to no one in particular and everyone in general, when the wind whips his false teeth from his gums and out to sea. Here, you get the feeling that Woodward sat back in his chair, closed his eyes, and pictured the scene aboard ship -- and when his whimsy sent Aldous's dentures flying, he simply leaned forward and typed it in. The whole book has that kind of wacky, lurching, listing logic to it. It sounds like a shortcoming but is, in fact, one of its greatest charms.

When Aldous arrives, toothless ("You look terrible, if you don't mind me saying," Julian tells his father. "Your face, it's gone...") he promptly fails in his quest. He's there to get Julian to quit drinking. Instead, the two go bar hopping together. Along the way, Aldous develops a taste for absinthe, meets an impotent sexologist, and has a kinda sorta fling with a gorgeous young artist. Then just as suddenly -- but with a new set of teeth -- he's gone from Belgium and back to his cold and empty house, where the potato vines are still growing.

A Curious Earth is a sequel, but don't let that throw you. The same savage wit and strange, sweet innocence that propelled Woodward's previous novel, I'll Go to Bed at Noon, onto the shortlist for the prestigious Man Booker Prize, shows up here. It helps, too, that Woodward loves his characters so much. He gladly reintroduces them to us, as though for the first time.

He covers plenty of new ground, too. Back at home, Aldous discovers night classes, a whole new world of people to meet and things to do. He takes Beginning Flemish, reconnects with his passion for Rembrandt (or at least, for Rembrandt's mistress and sex life), and meets Maria. She's either frail and mysterious or secretly dying of a terminal illness. Either way, Aldous is hooked.

It's a mug's game to try to predict where A Curious Earth is going. Much better to revel in the language and humor. Here's Aldous, seeing a neighbor's wife for the first time: "The woman was exceptionally tall and angular. She looked as though she could be folded away like a trestle table. Her hair was bright yellow, and so sculpted it seemed more like a hat. Her mouth was big and pouty, and when she spoke she stuck her muzzle out, sulkily."

By the time Aldous, in a bid to spend time with Maria, takes a job teaching painting to the blind, Woodward has us so well trained we just think, Of course. And when he suddenly decides to share his solitary house with a family, we think, Why not?

Even at the very end, as Woodward brings A Curious Earth to a gentle, circuitous close, we're waiting for the joke, for the quirky twist that might save Aldous -- and us -- from the inevitable ending. --Veronique de Turenne

Veronique de Turenne is a Los Angeles-based journalist, essayist, and playwright. Her literary criticism appears on NPR and in major American newspapers.