FOWLERS END

Despite the claims of the publishers that this ""is a book impossible not to enjoy"" I found it very easily possible to be bored, and to find it difficult reading because of the weird speech- not even authentic Cockney but a lingo all Sam Yudenow's own. (Perhaps a blend of Yiddish and Cockney and a permanent sinus infection?). A man, of reasonably high degree, finds himself thrust into the job of bouncer (General Manager, according to Sam, his employer) at the Pantheon, sordid, unpleasant cinema-cum- eating and drinking joint in London's odd slum corner, Fowlers End. The characters are drawn in caricature; the grotesque attitudes and twisted thinking may provide some wry moments of humor, but the whole follows a tortuous path of recording the descent of man. Individual incidents supply the pieces of the puzzle, but the whole adds up to an unpalatable piece of reportage and photography. There may be a Kersh clique, but this reader does not qualify.