PARADISE POSTPONED

Class is also at the core of John Mortimer's Paradise Postponed: the ironies are naked and the comedy acid. The novel portrays the unedifying struggle between the upper-middle class and the lower-middle class, in the shape of Johnny Jump-ups, for hegemony in post-1960's Britain. It also takes on a few minor upper-class, middle-class, working-class and under-class skirmishes on the side. All this is couched as a pretty good mystery. However, the book's real beauty lies in its ironic taxonomy of the English social classes and their various manifestations. Paul Shelley's modest rendition of the varieties of speech is pleasantly unobtrusive, and the air of weariness his voice often carries seems right for the narrative. K.A.P. ©AudioFile, Portland, Maine [Published: FEB 96]