Type of bind: Paperback
EAN num: 9780140014907
ISBN number: 014001490X
Label: Penguin Books Ltd
Manufacturer: Penguin Books Ltd
Page Count: 832
Printing Date: 1969-04
Publishing house: Penguin Books Ltd
Sale Popularity Level: 6443976
Studio: Penguin Books Ltd
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers 
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Okay. The very first thing a person reading this will ask "why only one star?" Let me tell you now. I really was excited to start this book, having heard this book greatly influenced Fitzgerald and his masterpiece "This Side of Paradise." I was instead bitterly disappointed.
Mackenzie obviously possessed a solid education and impressive talent, but he falls into one major pitfall: discretion. Mac throws in everything, every detail, emotion, incident, excursion possible as this novel clocks in at 829 pgs (with a very small print, I might add). Was there every an editor assigned to this novel? I just gave up on it. SS was so abysmal I don't really care if I don't ever get a helpful review. I must offer a major CAVEAT EMPTOR.
And I must say that the portion of the novel that I did suffer through was VERY DEPRESSING AND JADED. The main character, Michael Fane, an illegitmate child whose peripatetic mother is away most of the time, rails against everybody around him, including his sister Stella, his nannie and governess, and ultimately his own mother. Michael Fane just mean-spirited. And I did not find Michael's laziness or immature antics at his secondary school amusing one bit.
Upon reading it I couldn't believe that SS ever influenced such a talented genius as Fitzgerald. Intead read the delightful and inspiring "This Side of Paradise" (or any Fitzgerald for that matter) and make sure to steer clear of "Sinister Street."
This one's being tossed in my box labelled "LIBRARY DONATIONS" right now.
Rated by buyers 
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This book is still widely read in England. I was introduced to it while a student at Oxford University, and found it stunning. I now live in my native U.S.A., and have reread it to great effect. Compton-MacKenzie's great talent is creating the moods of life: the scenes of Oxford are the definitive in a long line of genre attempts at the same. The book was widely read for nearly half a century, and was in print for that long, with reissues happening periodically therafter. The life of Michael Fane is the life of a kind of sensitive, English upper-class Everyman. The dialogue is wonderful, all the inner life narrated is accessible and sympathetic. It remains a favorite among most who have read it.
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