The Rosie Result is a handbook for those who believe the world can be organised by rationality. It is,above all,sensible. Simsion indexes many of the fads currently piercing the stately fabric woven by Team Enlightenment. Homeopathy,non-vaccinaters,mouthy sports parents,25-year-olds with psychology degrees let loose on the public,junk food,veganism,teachers and others who unthinkingly label,education in general,all get a run. And men.
Simsion writes amiably of difference but makes his own views apparent. He also writes about making cocktails with a degree of intensity and length that could get dull. But that's the point. Don Tillman,wearing a breastplate of optimism,knows there is a correct way to do things and he also knows there is little that cannot be improved upon. Find the problem then seek the solution. Slow,careful,steady are dull in a world where instant,careless,erratic are rewarded. The fable about the hare and the tortoise is as irrelevant as the rounded vowel.
Don Tillman and Rose Jarman are fiction's most unlikely couple but Graeme Simsion's skills with dialogue and tone make them,and their relationship,(just) believable. Hudson,too,is uncomfortably believable. Simsion has mighty intellectual confidence but behind all the steady wit,the rolling jokes,the faux innocence and the cocktail instruction,this is a thoughtful and provocative novel.
It is less a recreational novel than its predecessors because it has a grand design that will have relevance in the lives of many individual readers. Simsion needn't worry,men will love it quite as much as they didThe Rosie Project. Accomplished novel,mission accomplished.