Tangerine dreams
Francis King reviews Tessa Codrington's new book
Codrington provides brilliant pictures both of a city that, paradoxically, has become less and less attractive over the years as it attracts more and more visitors, and of a small, self-contained, mutually admiring little expatriate community that might be the elite of a North African Ruritania. My only regret is that Patrick Thursfield, an inexhaustible source of gossip, a dazzling wit and an irreproachable stylist, did not write the text. As I have already indicated, much of it is inconsequential and trite. I suspect that Codrington’s problem was that, writing about her friends, she did not wish to jeopardise her universal popularity by recording anything in the least unfavourable about them. That makes for enervating reading. But, let me repeat, the photographs are a joy. For them the book is well worth buying.
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EDWARD SYNGE
June 28th, 2008 8:49amI confess that I loved every bit of it,cliches and all.But Mr King knows Tangier far better than me.