All Comments on 'My Learned Friend'

Well developed character and very full development of career and marriage.

I enjoyed all of this author's works.

and the thoughtfulness and care makes it stand out from much of the crap which dominates Lit nowadays. Thank you.

This, as said before, is one of those very good stories this author has made a habit of producing. I make it a habit to look for his name and it's a shame there aren't more of them.

Loved this story 5stars going to check some of your others now:)

and i used to drive the old ford pop.Well researched and on the money story

Unusual for Lit, a really well thought out, beautiful story, with the sense that the reader is dealing with reality. 5 stars for sure

Well that was really special and makes all the stories I have previously read on Lit seem very ordinary. I must concur to the immediate past comments which interestingly are from many of those authors.

I think a more suitable category for this would be under 'Interminable and depressing.' And apart from that, the characterisation of the father is beyond belief - i.e. that he would want Clem to defend his brother after the latter had raped his wife. After that the plot just gets sillier and sillier. Well below your usual standard.

romance story. Poignant, for certain. Love your writing style. Very unusual for Lit.

Thanks........

I read for entertainment and, although depressing and melancholy it was a really good story. Thank you for writing.

I thought I was too old, too cynical and too bitter for tears. I was wrong. Beautifully done!

I lived in Essex as a young man in the early 60's. Much of what you write strikes deep and true. The societal expectations. The unquestioned demands from generations of tradition loom heavy on the unsophisticated.

This was a time when all in the theatre stood at the close of movie credits to hear God Save the Queen. Before Pirate radio and the Beatles, but right in the middle of the initial volleys fired in the name of equality came a glimmer of the new society. It was when everything was being questioned while the past still dominated polite society.

I admire the devotion and respect he had for Chrissie. I wish in the age of the hook up people still valued honor and fidelity.

But there was nothing depressing to me in this story -

Challenging, disappointing, unfortunate - admirable, powerful, real - but not depressing.

Ramsey should have died long ago - he should have stepped in to break the pattern - but he did not know how bad it was -

His father was a blind old fool - from a young age.

He was a painfully self controlled man - I have known some and they will do "right" ( as they see it) to the exclusive of all reason (sorta like his dad but not to the detriment of others). He took his vows beyond the normal - reasonable - accepted bounds. Maybe if someone had made the argument that he would have wanted Chrissie to move on and be happy if the positions were reversed would have helped?? Ah well we will never know.

Samira was a very strong woman and she should have made the argument and then tripped him into bed LOL/

Quite a ride from young romance, failed hopes, tragedy and an indomitable spirit. Not the usual story here but one of the best.

SUCKED! JUST LIKE YOUR ATTITUDE! LEARN HOW TO WRITE!

It was a different world & a different time. Both,Chrissie & Clem,would have been totally out of place in today's world. Misfits in the 'modern society '.

A wonderful tale about the way things used to be, should be now, but, sadly are not.

A little bit of Chrissie should fall in every man's life.

Amen.

I have read hundreds of stories here. Some filled with crude sex & some a little less. And then there is this one. This is one of the most beautiful & well written story on this site. Thank you for sharing.

a second time.

so many emotions, so many deep feelings.

He(?) is to be pitied rather than censured. The story is one of the very, very few I have felt compelled to affix FIVE STARS to. Excellent story, nearly perfect grammar and very good usage of languages.

Yes, stay in U.K. as long as YOU wish but please continue to permit us "colonials" the pleasure of viewing your great talent.

The pitiful ignorant rednecks that require salacious tripe to satisfy their hunger for pornography need only find it in other less intelligent venues

Thank you,

de Jay

A good story, well-told.

A bit of a history lesson properly included, since the morals of today are very liberal by comparison to the 60s.

73

HP

It looks like Harry in VA as at it again complaining about English writers. Harry still thinks that the English literature was invent in the USA, lol!

The rape destroyed the story for me, with that cheap plot device everything went sharply downhill, and honestly if Ramsay was willing to rape his sister-in-law, one wonder why he didn't do it in the years where she was at her most attractive.

If Clem at least had married Samira afterwards so that there would be some sweetness to balance out the bitter, this wouldn't be so bad a story, though I would still have found the gratuitous rape abhorrent.

As it is, I wish it had been half the length that it was to spare the reader everything that came afterwards. To spare the readers of the dreary and boring finish.

I was looking forward to critiquing Harry inVA's crap review but it appears to be missing. You should have kept it so the rest of us could comment on his incompetence. I have met many intelligent Americans over the last 30 years but I don't include Harry in that group! He is just another dumb American who got suckered into voting for Trump, enough said!

PS - I'm not a Brit.

One of the tags is "making the best of life." I have to disagree. Clem's actions were anything but pragmatic. "The exit?" Wow, that's ridiculously morbid. "Chrissie's depression?" Is that a thing? No, this is the only story with that tag.

With tags like this, who needs nasty comments?

A thoughtful story that required a whole lot of research, into the details of English legal practice and the customs of Iraqi Muslims.

The author designs and builds his stories with extreme care, as one would design and build a castle, or a bridge, and his writing is as smooth as silk. It's hard for me to imagine being in a state of mind that would produce sharply worded criticism of writing that is obviously superior to most of the stories on this site.