Angus Wilson, Such Darling Dodos

Marina MacKay (University of Durham)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.09: English Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary Britain , 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Gina Lyle (University of Glasgow), Graham MacPhee (University of Manchester), Kerry Myler (Birmingham Newman University), Jenni Ramone (The Nottingham Trent University)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1950

Places

England (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Story Collection

Resources

Save to Bookshelf

The “darling dodos” of the collection's title represent the anachronistic types flushed out by the Second World War: aesthetes, Catholic converts, liberals, scroungers, rakes and beggars. In the title story, rightwing, homosexual, Catholic Tony arrives at the home of his cousin, Priscilla, in the facile hope of provoking the deathbed conversion of her dying husband, Robin. Robin and Priscilla are good-works, Labour-voting liberals in the nineteen-thirties mould. Tony is delighted to discover that the young friends of his cousins believe him more in sympathy with their times than Priscilla and Robin, but it is clear that their rather repellent dogma about moral centres is not equivalent to Tony's passé embrace of fascist politics and the Catholic church. Tony is just a different kind…

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

470 words

Citation: MacKay, Marina. "Such Darling Dodos". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 01 December 2000 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=1858, accessed 23 April 2024.]

Save this article