The Restraint of Beasts

The gentlemen of the fences ( engl. The Restraint of Beasts ) is the title of the first novel by Magnus Mills. The original was released in 1998 at the Flamingo, the German translation of Katharina Bohemian followed in 2000 by Suhrkamp.

Content

The anonymous narrator of the novel works as a fence builder in Scotland and is at the beginning of the foreman of two notoriously lazy colleagues, Tam and Richie, named. Your boss Donald, the efficiency and work are very important, they commissioned to build some fences in England. The work progresses very slowly, is regularly interrupted by visits to the nearest pub and errors are laminated on the surface.

Style and theme

As in his later works, Mills used a lot of dialogues and a very dry sense of humor. The novel deals mainly with work and everyday life and parodies it, with its many bizarre approaches.

Awards

The gentlemen of the fences was nominated in 1998 for the Booker Prize and the Whitbread First Novel Award and won the 1999 McKitterick Prize for first novel by an author over 40

Filming

In 2006, a film adaptation of the novel by Pawel Pawlikowski with Ben Whishaw was started in the lead role, but had to be discontinued because of a tragedy in Pawlikowski family.