Major Thompson is a rather stuffy Englishman who, because he is married to a French woman, makes his home in France. If you would like a mental picture of Major Thompson, just picture Nigel Bruce's Dr. Watson in the many Sherlock Holmes films. A bit pompous, a bit of a stuffed shirt, well meaning, and above all, "veddy, veddy" proper as only an Englishman can be. That's our Major Thompson.

But wait a minute, there's something wrong with this picture. Oh, I know what it is; this book, written in the first person (i.e. in the voice of Major Thompson) is really written by a Frenchman! So what we really have is a Frenchman, disguised as an Englishman, commenting on the foibles of the French and along the way, making "inadvertant" fun of the English.

THE NOTEBOOKS OF MAJOR THOMPSON does not have a plot in the traditionsl sense of the meaning of plot. It is a series of observations purportedly from the notebooks of the title.

A few observations from the book will show how successfully Danino, in his English persona, has skewered both cultures:

"A Frenchman without a mistress is like an Englishman without a club."

"When an Englishman passes a pretty woman in the street, he sees her without looking at her . . . .When a Frenchman passes a pretty woman in the street, he first looks at her legs . . . . then turns to have a better view, and eventually realizes he is going in the same direction as she is.

And much more of the same.

There is a chapter devoted to the problems involved in educating his half English, half French son. The Major wants him to have a "proper English education," and his wife, of course, wants a traditional French upbringing. This leads to sending him alternately to an English Boarding School and a French one. He gets totally contradictory views on every French/English conflict in history as well as Napoleon, Wellington, Joan of Arc, etc. Additionally, there is an attempt to have him taught in France by a live-in English woman named Miss ffyfe (with two lower case f's) who could have doubled as a drill sergeant in a very tough army training camp. This proves totally unsatisfactory. Finally a compromise is reached and the boy is sent to a Swiss boarding school.

All this is written utilizing dry English wit filtered first through the French author, Daninos, then through his English creation, Major Thompson.

This is not a book that will appeal to the reader who searches for extreme violence and/or sexual innuendos on every page. It is for the reader who appreciates subtlety and understated humor. I guess that I fall into this latter category because I really enjoyed the book.

In this dreary novel, an over the hill English Major comments on the differences between the English and the French. I though that this book was boring, and in some places so akward that it was hard to understand. I do not recommend this book to anyone unless you like this kind of dry literature.