The Merde Factor by Stephen Clarke

The Merde Factor by Stephen Clarke
Buy The Merde Factor by Stephen Clarke at Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com
Category: Humour
Reviewer: John Lloyd
Summary: The fifth in this series shows little sign of failing to amuse, as life gets even worse for Our Man in Paris.
Buy? Yes	Borrow? Yes
Pages: 304	Date: September 2012
Publisher: Century
ISBN: 9781780890333
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Meet, if you haven't already, Paul West. Before now we've had four chances to meet him and see his struggles with all things French – their cuisine, their language, their social life and their bureaucracy – in order to run an English-styled tea-room in the trendier side of Paris. Four books then, and we might have expected him to have settled down into some form of success – were it not for the fact this is a comedy series. But no, he seems to still be in France on borrowed time, on borrowed (or sub-let) land, and things are certainly not turning out tres belle for him.

For one, his best friend is just the worst kind of poet, and seems to have wrangled a regular bi-lingual poetry night Paul has to show interest in. His ex-business partner (ie the one out of the two that could actually afford to run the tea-room in the first place) has got it into his head that American diners are the way to go. Paul has a new job, and new friends, but both of those might as well involve decisions reached behind his back, and conveyed by committee on a need-to-know basis. His neighbours are uncouth, bureaucracy is still another dirty word – is there any escape?

One of the good things about this series is that, however easy the target may be (the French), it really doesn't try to pick anyone out as an enemy, or prod at any stereotypes. Yes, the ruse of an Englishman facing up to the galling task of a Gallic business, treading on their own feet as regards their beloved cuisine, is the basic set-up, but instead of the broader, racial touches, we have a soapy look at Paul's life, with returning characters adding to his woes, and just generally anyone he cares to mention ganging up on him and doing him ill, either intentionally or otherwise. It is, then, a sitcom, rather than a comedy of manners or one regarding pure social differences. Here is the risqué modern art, the boss letching over his younger female intern, and the social faux-pas of avoiding voting for your mate with his diabolical verse in poetry slams – things that could be funny under any circumstance, given the right author – and are gifted that person with a particular Anglo-French bent in these pages. The cover proves it does concern French cuisine in a frivolous manner, but one could even see this as being very much in favour of the French tradition in the face of mid-Atlantic crap.

The prime reason to return to this series is that the books still make you laugh – or this did me. It's not top-loaded, so that one might laugh, then perhaps giggle, then just read on silently, and it's certainly not one of those books where you only discover from the blurb that it was a comedy – no, this has a decent level of humour generally throughout. I don't think I missed much from having had the third and fourth volumes pass me by along the way, but I liked Mr Clarke's books and sense of humour, and especially his intelligent whimsy, before now, and I found both in this latest volume. I must thank the publishers for my review copy.

We started reviewing this series here.

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