Though not the first to be published this is, in effect, the opening novel in Raven's deliciously scurrilous "Alms For Oblivion" sequence.
The novel opens in May 194 with Fielding Gray (a scarcely disguised avatar for Raven himself) nearing the end of his first year as a sixth former at a prominent public School (clearly meant to be Charterhouse, Raven's own alma mater). Various notable old boys have come back to attend the School's memorial service to mark the end of hostilities in Europe, and Gray and his contemporaries start to look to the future.
Gray has set his heart upon pursuing a Classics degree at Cambridge and has already secured a partial scholarship, which he hopes to consolidate with a further year at school. In the meantime he looks forward to being Head Boy in his house, and possibly even of the whole school, and in the closer future, some high quality cricket matches.
He also wants to spend more time with Christopher Roland, a younger boy for whom he has developed a passionate crush. Unfortunately Christopher is not mentally stable, and the relationship goes sadly awry.
Gray's plans for his future are further obstructed by his own father who despises Fielding's academic aspirations. Just when all seems lost, Gray's father, who has bullied his wife and son for years, dies in farcical circumstances. Suddenly everything seems to be back on track, until Fielding's mother throws her own spanners into the works.
Fielding Gray is a very selfish, self-indulgent and, despite his father's oddities and vindictive parsimony, largely spoilt character, but the reader can't help sharing his mounting frustrations as obstacle after obstacle is thrown in his path. Raven himself lived what many might deem a somewhat dissolute life, and his autobiographical novel sequence beautifully captures some of his finest (lowest?) moments.
His prose sparkles throughout, and it is a joy to read. ( )

Though not the first to be published this is, in effect, the opening novel in Raven's deliciously scurrilous "Alms For Oblivion" sequence.
The novel opens in May 194 with Fielding Gray (a scarcely disguised avatar for Raven himself) nearing the end of his first year as a sixth former at a prominent public School (clearly meant to be Charterhouse, Raven's own alma mater). Various notable old boys have come back to attend the School's memorial service to mark the end of hostilities in Europe, and Gray and his contemporaries start to look to the future.
Gray has set his heart upon pursuing a Classics degree at Cambridge and has already secured a partial scholarship, which he hopes to consolidate with a further year at school. In the meantime he looks forward to being Head Boy in his house, and possibly even of the whole school, and in the closer future, some high quality cricket matches.
He also wants to spend more time with Christopher Roland, a younger boy for whom he has developed a passionate crush. Unfortunately Christopher is not mentally stable, and the relationship goes sadly awry.
Gray's plans for his future are further obstructed by his own father who despises Fielding's academic aspirations. Just when all seems lost, Gray's father, who has bullied his wife and son for years, dies in farcical circumstances. Suddenly everything seems to be back on track, until Fielding's mother throws her own spanners into the works.
Fielding Gray is a very selfish, self-indulgent and, despite his father's oddities and vindictive parsimony, largely spoilt character, but the reader can't help sharing his mounting frustrations as obstacle after obstacle is thrown in his path. Raven himself lived what many might deem a somewhat dissolute life, and his autobiographical novel sequence beautifully captures some of his finest (lowest?) moments.
His prose sparkles throughout, and it is a joy to read. ( )

Fielding Gray is the fourth novel in publication order in the "Alms for Oblivion" sequence, and it has a frame story that is set in 1959, overlapping with Friends in low places - Fielding Gray is working-up his journal into a novel for Gregory Stern - but the main story, the events of Fielding's journal, as written down in Crete in 1956, is set in the summer of 1945, and thus serves as a sort of "prequel" to the other novels.

The central character is, of course, the semi-autobiographical Fielding Gray. At the outset of the story he is a pupil at an unnamed public school (obviously meant to be recognisable as Charterhouse), where his contemporaries include Somerset Lloyd-James and Peter Morrison, who become central characters of the "Alms for Oblivion" sequence. They were notoriously intended as caricatures of Raven´s school-fellows William Rees-Mogg and James Prior, respectively.

Everyone who has read some of the other novels in the sequence will have a pretty good idea of the story-line, so there's no real need to go into details. Suffice it to say that it's well up to Raven's usual standard of outrageousness, and would have had trouble getting published much before the Lady Chatterley trial. Raven uses this book to set out clearly the moral argument that is at the heart of "Alms for Oblivion" - that the only moral value that actually matters in life, and the only one that most people actually stick to, is loyalty to ones friends and companions. If, like Fielding, one allows self-interest to over-rule loyalty, one deserves what one gets. ( )