Rating: 
Summary: Awesome!
Review: If you love the pessimism of George Orwell you will love this book. This is a good read.
Rating:
Summary: The post - modern man
Review: In Mr. Phillips, John Lanchester has created not only a bitter-sweet chronical of middle-aged suburbia, but also a psychological study of the existentialist nightmare. For the coffee-table reader there are plenty of pleasing encounters covering all the major socio-literary themes of our time, but don't be deceived, these are not merely to tease and please. By all means chortle at the unfortunate antics to befall the eponymous Mr. Phillips and then enjoy reflecting on the wider social implications of this clever and witty novel.
Rating:
Summary: Deceptively slight but a minor masterpiece all the same
Review: John Lanchester makes it look so deceptively easy, it's tempting to dismiss "Mr Phillips" as a rather slight follow up to the celebrated "Debt To Pleasure". Writing in a different vein, Lanchester's sophomore effort is an astounding work of pure craft and genius. A day in the life of an accountant who has been told he's fired but his wife doesn't yet know. He leaves home at the
usual time the next day but instead of heading for the office, spends the day wandering about town observing the movement of normal human traffic and figuring out the statistical probability of conventionally held beliefs about normal human activity including how often people have sex, meet with accidents, etc. Before the day is through, he would have had a few strange
encounters with unlikely social specimens, watched a pornographic movie in Soho, London, stalked a favourite TV personality he spotted in Chelsea and been caught in a bank hold up. All this may sound quite inane and absurd but it isn't remotely. In losing his job, Mr Phillips also loses his bearings. As his defence mechanism goes into frantic overdrive, he starts playing mind games with himself. He tries desperately to recreate a new reality to define and validate his own existence. An equilibrium of sorts restores him to the world by the time he makes it back home. Maybe now he can tell his wife. I loved "Mr Phillips" because Lanchester has chosen for his subject an area of our subconscious we're all secretly familiar with but never
thought somebody would unrevel on paper with such incredible lucidity, poise, humour and finesse. He has released the dream of the everyday man into the public domain. It may seem like an overstatement but "Mr Phillips" is so emotionally accurate and satisfying I reckon it's a minor masterpiece. Don't have any preconceptions. Just read and enjoy it !
Rating: 
Summary: Ordinary people have extraordinary lives too (3.5 stars)
Review: Lanchester's A Debt to pleasure was one of the best first novels by an English writer in recent years. The central character was beguiling, witty, snobbish, urbane, and seemed to have fallen from the pages of a Nabokov novel.Mr Phillips is not as satisfying, but it is still enjoyable. It is a day in the life of a man that has lost his job, but cannot face telling his family. He gets the train, he walks about, he stares at pretty girls, he thinks about sex, he stalks, (the humdrum normality of suburban English lives. Anyway, you get the idea)... The prose is understated, and consciously mundane. In its own way the novel is as stylised as A Debt to pleasure. From the mundanity Lanchester works (Sometimes too hard) at deriving humour. Sometimes, the humour is heavy handed, at other times - when it stems from the character's foibles - it works wonderfully. As the eponymous anti-hero has an accountancy background much of the humour stems from his obsession with numbers. For example, his consideration of sex is based around numbers, statistics, and percentages. The mundanity does not work as well as in books such as The Diary of a nobody. However, Lanchester does make tedium fun. Despite the humour the central character is well drawn, with a human side (although Lanchester occasionally totters on the brink of mawkish senitmentality in relation to him). Mr Phillips is an enjoyable book, and is easily read. It feels, though, as if this is an exercise by Lanchester in ventriloquism (reminding me in parts of the short stories of Candia McWilliam). Now that he has tried on a couple of voices, could the real John Lanchester step forward please. Because when he does, the signs are that he will produce something great. People who like Martin Amis (his pre-dental work stage) should enjoy this.
Rating: 
Summary: Sophomore Jinx
Review: Let me start off by saying that I thought "The Debt To Pleasure" was a very fine book. Unfortunately, no such luck with Mr. Lanchester's second effort. I think the author wanted to have his cake and to eat it too. He was attempting to write a serious book but he was also looking at the market and trying to make sure he was writing something that would sell. He throws in way too much sex. I imagine that Mr. Lanchester would reply that he is just holding up a mirror to our society as he uses "Mr. Phillips" to show our obsession with all things sexual. There is a fine line between trying to make a point and pandering and I think the author has crossed way over onto the pandering side of the line. Even putting aside this criticism, I have other problems with this book. The targets that Mr. Lanchester takes on are just too easy to mock. It is like shooting ducks in a barrel. I have already mentioned sexual obsession as one target. The author also takes on religion; alienation in the crowded and hurried life of the big city; the corporate world; the banality of modern music; and the "pearls before swine" critique of putting anything highbrow in front of "Joe Ordinary". I suppose that Mr. Lanchester's "big theme" is the unpredictability and randomness of life, exemplified by the protagonist's concern with order and statistics in a world where he has gone from 25 years of job security to being made "redundant". To me, this main theme gives this book what value it does possess, but it is not enough to make the book a success, for I don't think Mr. Lanchester has made the right choices in his attempt to "flesh out" (if you'll pardon the expression) his theme. Having Mr. Phillips being present at a bank which just happens to be entered by armed robbers at the same time (and a lady television personality that Mr. Phillips is obsessed with also just happens to be present) does not show the elements of randomness or chance. It just smacks to me of being a contrived plot mechanism and does not ring true. And did we really need Mr. Phillips going to a porn shop, where we are given graphic descriptions of what he is looking at in the magazines or watching up on the screen when he decides to take in a porno flick? Sorry, Mr. Lanchester. Here's hoping you return to form in your next book.
Rating: 
Summary: serious/comic view of a mid-life crisis; a British 'Garp'
Review: Mr Phillips is a simple yet well-crafted story of a 50-ish London man who, upon losing his job, spends the day wandering around town. That's the story in a nutshell. For many this would be a complete turn-off, not wanting to bother about some bland man walking around London. But the story works. Firstly, the book is rather funny with its ironic views of day-to-day life. Secondly, one gains a sense of sympathy/empathy with this daydreaming (..with heavy sexual references) fellow who is completely lost when, due to losing his job, he is forced to re-evaluate his life. Mr Phillips doesn't break new ground. While having a more serious undertone, the story reminds me of 'Wilt' (by Tom Sharpe) and 'The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin', two well-known British novels (with the latter being a successful 1970s TV series). And the funny/sad male mid-life crisis element is handled better, in my opinion, in 'Garp' and 'The Water-Method Man' by John Irving. Bottom line: a fine, fast read which should appeal to most guys, especially Brits. Since the sometimes crude sexual fantasy elements are a bit excessive I expect most women might find Mr Philipps to be a bit vulgar.
Rating:
Summary: Thoroughly Modern Mitty
Review: Mr. Phillips chronicles the first day of unemployment for aredundant accountant in London. No one knows he is out of work; hegets up and goes into town, as he normally would. The fortunate reader gets to occupy the imagination of this middle aged ex-accountant as he ponders on sex, family, city life, and death. John Lanchester 's writing is droll and at times will make you laugh out loud. But there is a deeper story in this novel which will move the reader to a feeling of satisfaction and delight at the end of Mr. Phillip's day. Mr. Phillips remains with the reader long after the last page is read. A well written and entertaining novel.
Rating:
Summary: A Great, Once-in-a-Decade Novel
Review: MR. PHILLIPS is a recent inductee into my personal Pantheon of great modern literature. This is a terrific - indeed, incandescent - little book about a single day in the life of a very ordinary middle-class Englishman who has just lost his job and hasn't yet broken the news to his family. There's nothing, and yet everything to this seemingly inconsequential work. It reminds us, again, that even at its bleakest, life is more comedy than tragedy. As a writer, Lanchester is, in the English way, a precisionist. Most of his conceits are so economic, sharp, original and outrageous that you read the entire book (it can be done in a few hours) shivering with pleasure and wishing that you yourself were half as talented.
Rating:
Summary: Walter Mitty meets Masters and Johnson.
Review: Rarely has an author shown in such a delightfully humorous way, the extent to which fantasy, including sexual fantasy, dominates both the conscious and unconscious life of the main character. On the surface, Mr. Phillips, a likeable, 50-something accountant, seems very ordinary, predictable, and restrained. Beneath the surface, however, he's a tiger, with an energetic fantasy life that never quits. From his first semi-conscious moments before getting out of bed, a time in which he rates his waking-up dreams from 1 to 10, he shares his innermost longings, repressions, and concerns with the reader and comes to life in a uniquely amusing way. The author does a remarkable job of resisting the temptation to let the humor go over the top here, preferring, instead, a subtler (and ultimately funnier) approach--even in the midst of his liveliest daydreams, Mr. Phillips does not forget that he is an accountant at heart, calculating data, numbers, percentages, and the odds for his fantasies. The reader will be charmed by Mr. Phillips and thoroughly entertained by his offbeat views of the world and the surprising numbers he dreams up.
Rating:
Summary: A negative-positive influence?
Review: Should I declare that the review by a Mr Loveitt influenced me or not? I was definitely wavering after reading all the favorable professional reviews and then Loveitt's very negative opinions. But I finally decided, on the basis of his dislike of the amount of sex in the book (a somewhat unusual reaction for a man) and his use of the phrase"it seems to me as being" contrived, I felt that he had tipped the scales back in favor of buying the book, so I guess he influenced me positively, wouldn't you say? I also happened to hear Mr. Lanchestor on the "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell me" radio show today, and he was a very witty man.
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