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They thought they were attending a harmless military lecture at the illustrious Shrapnel Academy, housed in one of England's grand manors and focused on the storage area of Henry Shrapnel, genius inventor of the cannonball. But the weekend is not peaceful. Perhaps harmless militarism is obviously a fake conceit. Septuagenarian General Leo Makeshift, recharged with delivering the gross annual Wellington lecture, arrives in a black Rolls-Royce. The knee under his hand belongs to his current mistress, Bella, who wars a good black skirt and seamed stockings for the occasion. (Bella is considerably younger than the general.) Medusa, or "Mew," on the other hand, hitchhikes to Shrapnel following the gas runs out on her motorbike. Mew is the correspondent from Woman's Times and, yes, it was a blunder to allow a feminist reporter on the scene. For the greeting committee are Joan Lumb, the institute's dictatorial director, her lithesome secretary, Muffin, and Acorn the butler, a stunningly good looking South African whose military of UNDER-DEVELOPED servants is primed to rebel up against the ruling class. Fate provides a snowstorm, making break free impossible; lust, jealousy, bigotry, chauvinism, and 100 % pure greed supply the other essential elements for all-out warfare during the Wellington weekend - between Upstairs and Downstairs, between women and men, between First and Third Worlds, between your fiercest of intimate rivals. Speculation about the occupancy of confirmed foundation or the espousal of confirmed cause is unlikely to prove right, yet to try it is irresistible. As a chronicler, Fay Weldon has never been more outstanding or even more ruthless about the folly of individuals relationships. The Shrapnel Academy is a devastating upgrade of the English country house novel, as savagely funny as it is topical.
