The Imperial German Dinner Service
Encyclopedia
The Imperial German Dinner Service is a 1983 novel
by British writer David Hughes
, republished by Paladin
in 1987.
set which depicts an enormous range of typically English urban, village and pastoral scenes, and which has been forgotten if not irretrievably lost throughout the course of two world wars. Patcham becomes obsessed with retrieving the surviving pieces, all the more so that his rival, Courtney Ranston, has already become engaged in their collection on behalf of the nation.
Rummaging through South-East England, Belgium, Holland, France, Denmark, Sweden and finally Iceland, sparring with a carnival of eccentric characters, Patcham manages to outflank and defeat the National Arts, and in so doing win back his wife.
The Dinner Service is quickly established as a metaphor for a destroyed past, both in the sense of an “olde Englande”, and in the joy of youthful love, and its partial restoration – both rediscovery and repair – describes the mitigated reconquest of love.
“You realize you can never collect it all?” said Zinzendorf. “Too many people are working against you.”
“Are you saying a man can never be completely himself, however hard he tries?” (pp 88–9)
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
by British writer David Hughes
David Hughes (novelist)
David Hughes was an English novelist. His best known work included The Pork Butcher and But for Bunter, published as The Joke of the Century in the United States....
, republished by Paladin
Paladin
The paladins, sometimes known as the Twelve Peers, were the foremost warriors of Charlemagne's court, according to the literary cycle known as the Matter of France. They first appear in the early chansons de geste such as The Song of Roland, where they represent Christian martial valor against the...
in 1987.
Outline
The narrator, Roland Patcham, by his own introduction a “redundant… spoilt, angry, bored and aimless reporter”, is losing his younger wife Sophie (“a spoilt, well-off, beautiful and busy journalist”) to her lover, the Director of National Arts. Sophie uncovers the existence of a one-thousand-piece dinner service made for Kaiser Wilhelm II in 1914, a WedgwoodWedgwood
Wedgwood, strictly speaking Josiah Wedgwood and Sons, is a pottery firm owned by KPS Capital Partners, a private equity company based in New York City, USA. Wedgwood was founded on May 1, 1759 by Josiah Wedgwood and in 1987 merged with Waterford Crystal to create Waterford Wedgwood, an...
set which depicts an enormous range of typically English urban, village and pastoral scenes, and which has been forgotten if not irretrievably lost throughout the course of two world wars. Patcham becomes obsessed with retrieving the surviving pieces, all the more so that his rival, Courtney Ranston, has already become engaged in their collection on behalf of the nation.
Rummaging through South-East England, Belgium, Holland, France, Denmark, Sweden and finally Iceland, sparring with a carnival of eccentric characters, Patcham manages to outflank and defeat the National Arts, and in so doing win back his wife.
The Dinner Service is quickly established as a metaphor for a destroyed past, both in the sense of an “olde Englande”, and in the joy of youthful love, and its partial restoration – both rediscovery and repair – describes the mitigated reconquest of love.
Quotes
"It seemed at this moment that the Dinner Service was a portrait of my life, certainly its past. Perhaps the future too." (Paladin edition pp 71–2)“You realize you can never collect it all?” said Zinzendorf. “Too many people are working against you.”
“Are you saying a man can never be completely himself, however hard he tries?” (pp 88–9)