Talk:The Old Men at the Zoo

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

	Literature Portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Novels, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to narrative novels, novellas, novelettes and short stories on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit one of the articles mentioned below, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and contribute to the general Project discussion to talk over new ideas and suggestions.
Stub	This article has been rated as Stub-Class.
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the importance scale.
	This article needs an infobox template! - see Novels InfoboxCode or Short Story InfoboxCode for a pattern
Assessment comments This article has been rated for quality and/or importance but has no comments yet. If appropriate, please review the article and then leave comments here to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the article and what work it will need.

I don't know about the BBC production (haven't seen it), but how can a novel first published in 1961 possibly be a satire on Thatcherism (as it is claimed in the stub) -- even if the novel is set in the not-too-distant future, c. 1970? Does that mean the plot was sort of updated for the filmed version? <KF> 15:11, 24 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Hah, good point. The TV series seemed to me at the time to clearly be a satire on Thatcherism; it was a dystopia, but clearly a right-wing one, where arrogant but human aristocrats were gradually supplanted by faceless businesspeople. I suppose there's nothing specifically Thatcherite about it -- it could have been done at any time and seemed topical.

To my shame, I haven't read the book, so I probably shouldn't have written the entry in the first place... newbie mistake. Sorry. Should we remove the entry? Wwhyte 02:35, 26 Mar 2004 (UTC)

No no no, and there is no need to apologize either. I'll try to add something about the novel. And if you're really a newbie, welcome to Wikipedia! <KF> 17:27, 26 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Just ordered it off Amazon myself, so we can both edit the entry (and disagree about whether it's a satire on MacMillanism or a prediction about Wilsonism...). Thanks for the welcome! I like it here. Wwhyte 01:31, 27 Mar 2004 (UTC)