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A Good Man in Africa | 
| Author: William Boyd
Publisher: Penguin
Category: Book
List Price: £7.99
Buy Used: £0.01
You Save: £7.98 (100%)
New (23) Used (79) from £0.01
Avg. Customer Rating:  14 reviews
Sales Rank: 9075
Media: Paperback
Edition: New edition
Pages: 320
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5 x 1
ISBN: 0140058877
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780140058871
ASIN: 0140058877
Publication Date: February 25, 1999
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: A SOFTCOVER in Good condition been read but still fine. Postage from UK warehouse Next day despatch - From UK to anywhere in the world.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 9 more reviews...
 the more you read the better it gets May 3, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
At first I thought I wouldn't enjoy this book, most of the characters being really hard to like, from the main protagonist Morgan, inefficient, jealous, often mean-minded, to his arrogant, overbearing and pompous boss Fanshawe. And then , Boyd weaves his magic. He makes us understand how Morgan became the way he is, we share all the disappointments that made him bitter and sarcastic...And, I have to admit, the people he portrays are a lot more like real life than selfless heroes and put upon heroins who suffer with great calm and endurance.Each of us can see some of their flaws mirrored in some character and though that might not make comfortable reading it is quite salutary to remind ourselves how mean-spirited,selfish and conniving we can be.
And the comedy is really entertaining so, a complete change of heart from the moment I started on the first pages. By the time I reached the end, I was sorry to let it go...
 Funniest book i've ever read April 18, 2008
Cannot add any more than has been written in the other reviews. I've nearly read all the author's books, and wish he would write more funny stories.
Grimly comic, desperately ironic August 29, 2007
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
Morgan Leafy is the overweight and morally questionable first secretary of the British High Commission who suffers from an interminable lack of self-esteem which manifests in himself allowing others to manipulate him until the point when he cracks...
The comedy is wince-making because it is more at Morgan's expense, generally, than any other's, and it is a cynical satirical look at the mess of Africa from the perspective of someone who is paid to understand it but really doesn't have a clue. Bribery, corruption, cuckolding, gonhorrea and pidgeon English meld the story into a tour-de-force of little-mindedness and cowardice, stiff-upper-lipped sacrifice and closed-minded stupidity.
It's just wonderful!
An Imperfect but Hilarious Man June 3, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Morgan Leafy works for the Deputy High Commissioner Fanshawe in Nkongsamba, capital of the mid-west region of the Western African country of Kinjama. When we meet Leafy, he is festering with rage - hatred for the hot, humid, dead-end place he has been posted to for the last few years, simmering resentment for his junior colleague Dickie Dalmire, a thoroughly pleasant plummy Ox/bridge graduate who has swanned in and impressed both Fanshawe and his daughter Priscilla on whom Leafy had designs, and impotent teeth-grinding fury at the dour Scottish university doctor Murray whose dry professionalism thwarts Leafy's sense of entitlement and attempts to slide under various official gates. Leafy is a hilarious character, as funny in his boiling, exploding fury as Basil Fawlty. He is selfish, jealous and covetous yet he is a fascinating character. The book is far more light-hearted and unamibitious than Boyd's later novels but the familiar Boyd wit and eloquence and strong, vivid characterisation are evident, making this a riotously funny comedy of errors pitched halfway between the sharp, innocent drolery of PG Wodehouse and the more lecherous romping laughs of Kingsley Amis. Unlike Kingsley's protagonists, though, the reader gets the impression that Boyd recognises the faults of his hero and doesn't condone them. Intriguingly, Boyd has said that the crisp man of few words characterisation of Murray was based on Boyd's father, who was also a doctor in Africa.
A great light read.
Good, not brilliant October 13, 2006
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Highly entertaining, but lacking that certain something that would push it into brilliant to my mind. Any Human Heart has a grace that sets it above this in terms of skill and acomplishment, but this is easily good enough to keep me working through his backlist and worth recommending
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