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Rhine Journey – Ann Schlee

Recently reissued by both McNally Editions and Daunt Books Publishing, I read Ann Schlee’s Rhine Journey as part of #SpinsterSeptember hosted by the wonderful Nora (@pearjelly) on Insta and Twitter, and it turned out to be such a gorgeous, evocative read. I loved it!

First published in 1980 but set in the Victorian era, Rhine Journey is a hypnotic, beautifully written tale of repressed desire, memory, and awakening unfolding over the course of a languid German summer in 1851.

The protagonist of the story is Charlotte Morrison, a spinster in her mid-forties, however, while she might be the central character for the reader, it is quite clear from the opening lines that to her family, Charlotte plays second fiddle…

“The luggage has simply been left on the deck,” said the Reverend Charles Morrison. “I had thought, Charlotte, that you were with it.”

Charlotte’s family comprises her brother Charles Morrison, a devout priest, his cold, uncaring wife Marion, and their impressionable teenage daughter Ellie. The family has arrived in Germany for a holiday for Marion’s sake, whose health has recently suffered. Her husband, despite a busy church schedule, hopes that a restorative break will do wonders in bolstering her energy.

Charlotte’s role, meanwhile, is secondary in nature – minding the family baggage, chaperoning Ellie, and being a companion to Marion – not that she has any problems with this arrangement, in the beginning at least. But there’s an undercurrent that makes itself felt of the sparseness of Charlotte’s existence, the narrow contours of her life.

We learn that before she began staying at her brother’s house, Charlotte was employed as a housekeeper to a certain Mr Ransom at Ditchbourne. She comes into some money after his death, income that guarantees her some financial freedom, only that she now has no place to go and no place to stay. Charles and Marion decide that Charlotte come and live with them.

Thus, Charlotte’s life is constrained, defined by ‘pressures’ of Victorian respectability and other conventional mores broadly determined by Charles and Marion. Charlotte unquestioningly accepts this, until a chance sighting on the landing stage at Koblenz prompts a searing pain in her heart triggering memories of a past she thought was buried.

Charlotte spots a tall, handsome man bearing an uncanny resemblance to Desmond Fermer, a man she had intense feelings for in her youth.  A miller by profession, Fermer had wished to marry Charlotte, but this chance at a new beginning was snuffed out even before it began by Charles and Marion who considered Fermer beneath them in terms of class and status. Charlotte’s opinion was never taken, she was deemed too young to decide for herself.

Overcoming those piercing seconds of sadness, Charlotte realises that this man, of course, is not Desmond Fermer who would now be approaching sixty. This stranger who seems to be in his late forties, just like Charlotte, is a married man with two teenage sons, and his name is Edward Newman. When Newman starts appearing frequently with his family at the same hotels and destinations as the Morrisons, Charlotte’s obsession with him begins growing alarmingly – she sees him as Edward Newman, for what he is but also as a stand-in for Fermer, a symbol of a love she lost all those years ago.

Edward Newman seems to be present everywhere – at Konigswinter, on the ascent to Stolzenfels and the summit at Drachenfels as well as their passage to Cologne, to the point that he begins to invade Charlotte’s dreams and imaginings. The first outline of these dreams is revealed to us in the earlier chapters where Charlotte is walking with a man arm in arm through a shrubbery marked by dark foliage, a man whose face she can’t quite see clearly, where the conversation ends abruptly because even in her dreams Charlotte’s inexperience in romantic matters prevents her from getting a hold on how these conjured up situations will pan out. Subsequently, as her dreams and flights of fancy heighten, the rumblings of desire become all too palpable frightening even Charlotte who worries that these perplexing emotions will be outwardly seen.

Running parallel to Charlotte’s story is that of Ellie, Marion’s excitable and impressionable daughter who during their trip is subject to the full force of Marion’s passive-aggressive nature. For poor Ellie, Charlotte is her confidante, but she pines for the young soldier who has fallen for her, the latter persistent in meeting Charles to ask for Ellie’s hand. Unwittingly Charlotte is pulled into their orbit, and this scenario feels disconcertingly familiar to her own thwarted situation when she was a young girl. Out of no choice, Charlotte sides with Charles and Marion on this issue; unsurprisingly they have no intention of encouraging any alliance between Ellie and the soldier. Will Ellie’s fate, then, play along the same lines as that of Charlotte’s all those years ago? Meanwhile, as the novel progresses and certain unexpected events take place, tensions between Charlotte and her family reach their peak, hurtling towards an immensely satisfying conclusion.

Charlotte Morrison is a wonderfully realised character. Schlee artfully conveys the turmoil raging within her, and the sense of conflict she feels. For much of her life, Charlotte’s world has been devoid of colour, her behaviour and attitude moulded by the dictates of society and a rather rigid upbringing, where because marriage did not materialise, she is relegated to the role of a caregiver as part of her duties.

On the one hand, Charlotte is grateful to her brother for immediately letting her stay with them the moment her employment ends, but she’s well aware that there are strings attached; it is insinuated if not actively expressed that her views and behaviour must align with those of Charles and Marion’s. On the other hand, the journey through the Rhine mirrors Charlotte’s internal journey – not only the reawakening of hidden passions and desires but also a growing internal rebellion against her status and role within the Morrison family as she increasingly begins craving independence.

Known for penning historical fiction, Schlee has expertly woven in the essence of the political landscape against which Charlotte’s story is set. At the beginning of the novel is a historical note that provides some context – the 1848 revolutions in Prussia where workers revolted against Frederick Wilhelm IV’s regime for censorship of the press, restrictions on the Church, and other freedoms all of which were curtailed in the ensuing years as Wilhem’s regime pushed harder to suppress the workers’ movement. Into this environment, the Morrisons arrive in Prussia on holiday with Charles constantly reminding them of their English liberties in stark contrast to the distressing upheaval in that part of Germany. Specifically within Charlotte’s sphere and on their journey, certain events unravel that are tied to the discontent in the region, and Schlee’s craft lies in how she subtly incorporates these elements into the broader plot all the while ensuring that Charlotte’s personal journey remains the heart and pulse of the novel.

Stunning, exquisitely crafted, and reverberating with tension, Rhine Journey, then, is a layered, richly visualised tale exploring the themes of confinement and freedom, desire, memory, family, and female independence. As the boundaries between Charlotte’s dreams and memories begin to blur, she is gripped with fear that is fuelled by the tussle between her inner turmoil (she wants to see Newman but also wishes to avoid him), and the stress of keeping up a normal façade.

But more importantly, Charlotte internally rebels and undergoes a sort of awakening of herself depicted not only in how she keenly experiences the slivers of desire but also in terms of a strong yearning to break away from the shackles of the Morrisons’ restricted, sparse and stunted world.

And all the time – so oddly the mind veers – she pictured to herself those whitened cottage rooms where she might quietly extend herself, and moving from room to room, meet and recognise herself in forms unaltered by the pressures of others upon her.

In a way, Rhine Journey is a classic example of a holiday novel where the unfamiliar but confined boundaries of a holiday setting clash with a notional sense of freedom, revealing the fine fractures in familial relationships hitherto dormant but now keenly felt.

Schlee is brilliant at capturing the vivid experience of travel, the rich texture of the early days, the excitement and newness that causes the spirit to soar, but then as the days progress, the sheen wears off to be replaced by a sense of tiredness and sameness and the longing to go back home to more familiar surroundings…

So Charlotte Morrison: to her journal at an early halt in their tour, when all the freshness of the journey was still upon her and the cares and duties of her former life still sufficiently real in memory for her to be delightfully aware of their absence. She woke each morning with a sense of their weight which had settled again perhaps in dreams, only to feel it lift and vanish so that she lay afloat with very lightness above the surface of the bed, her mind unable to imagine the sights they would visit during that day. Only on that first night in Coblenz, seeing herself haunt the corner of a glass given over to charms of Ellie’s brushing out her hair, did she suddenly long for the safe confines of home, the hard edges of her old identity.

Then, in the later chapters, the solitary wanderings of Charlotte through the streets of Cologne (“Without the weight of those other personalities pressed against her she felt limitless, unreal”), lend a hallucinatory quality to the novel where danger lurks in the air and where Charlotte’s tumultuous imaginings reach its zenith in, paradoxically, a light-and-sound drenched cathedral.

Her sight was channelled down the narrow aisle through the strange grey mist of masonry. When the sun shone in the outer world it was visible in great sparkling diagonal shafts. Tremulous disks of colour cast from the windows hovered on the surfaces of the pillars. When the sun went in, all this was instantly withdrawn and she was left with a frightened sense that the aisle had narrowed. Indistinguishable fragments of sound washed to and fro over the expanse of stone flooring, threatening all the time to rise and extinguish the ordered sounds of the organ. With sound and sight so baffled it seemed that, at any minute, some alien and pernicious thought might lodge in her and she in confusion admit it. 

The novel also pulsates with vivid imagery particularly in how the beauty of natural surroundings add depth and meaning to the essence of her thoughts and feelings, whether it’s the pang of love she experienced for the first time as a young woman or the certainty she feels later to break away from the family.  

A full moon had enchanted all colour from the garden. Freed from its bright distractions she had felt intensely all around her the life of plants, which seemed a cold moist persistent thing, griping and sucking its survival, far more akin after all, to the moon than the sun. She had felt drawn in among them, had stooped to smell the peony and, feeling its cool vigorous flesh brush her cheek, had pressed lips among the petals and kissed them repeatedly. It astonished her to remember that she had done such a thing, a prey at the time to love of Desmond Fermer, but ignorant entirely of what love might be other than a succession of joys and sorrows experienced exclusively inside herself.

The other striking aspect of Rhine Journey is the masterful use of language given the story’s setting in the Victorian era. Schlee penned the novel in 1980, but her rendering of the tone and style of speech of that era is so astonishing and pitch-perfect that she might as well have written the novel in that period.

Like a delicately strung musical instrument, Rhine Journey shimmers with a restrained energy that threatens to erupt; a beautifully expressed, introspective novel where Schlee’s nuanced and carefully calibrated prose reveals multitudes and enhances the book’s narrative power. Highly recommended!

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Characters on Holiday: Ten Excellent Books

My first themed post for 2024 looks at ten wonderful books where the central characters go on a holiday. For a few these holidays are part of an annual ritual and immensely therapeutic, or a haven for forging new friendships, or a period of reflection and introspection; for others, these holidays transform into something deeply unsettling, sometimes descending into horror.

So without further ado, here are the ten books. You can read the detailed reviews on each (barring one) by clicking on the title links…

THE FEAST by Margaret Kennedy

With its combination of wit, social commentary, and mystery, The Feast by Margaret Kennedy is a terrific novel; an excellent upstairs-downstairs drama and comedy set in Cornwall post the Second World War featuring a seaside hotel in danger of being buried, an eccentric ensemble cast with hidden secrets, and the high voltage interactions and tensions between them.

We first learn in the prologue that the Pendizack Manor Hotel lies buried in a mound of rubble after a huge mass of cliff collapses on it. Seven guests perish, one of whom is Dick Siddal, the owner of the hotel, while the others survive. At that point, the identities of the casualties as well as the survivors are not revealed to the reader, and that in essence forms the mystery element of the plot. After the prologue, the reader is then taken back to a week earlier, from whereon the book charts the arrival of the guests at the hotel, its other inhabitants, as well as the chain of events leading up to the tragedy in question.

Displaying a sharp, astute vision, Kennedy’s writing is top-notch as she weaves in elements of a social satire and morality fable with those of a thriller. Her gimlet-eyed gaze on the foibles and failures of her finely etched characters make both the endearing as well as the horrible ones pretty memorable. 

A FORTNIGHT IN SEPTEMBER by R.C. Sherriff

The Fortnight in September is a beautiful, soothing novel about an ordinary family on holiday, an annual tradition they have adhered to over the years. The book opens with the Stevens family getting ready to leave for the seaside town of Bognor, preparations are in full swing and a sense of excitement is palpable. Mr Stevens, a thorough and meticulous man, has drawn up a “to-do” list called “Marching Orders” in the Stevens lexicon, with a precise set of instructions on the various duties to be carried out by each family member before they lock up the house and set off.

The rest of the novel then charts the entire fortnight of the family holiday – lounging in the beach hut, swimming in the sea, hours of leisure on the golden sands soaking up the sun and indulging in sports and games. That’s really the crux of the novel and it’s largely plotless and yet such a wonderful, immersive read because there are so many aspects of the Stevens’ personalities and travel mantras that are familiar and spot on. What’s truly remarkable about the novel are the character studies – the Stevens’ are ordinary people, not too financially well-off, but they have a goodness of heart that makes them so memorable.

DEATH AND THE SEASIDE by Alison Moore

Death and the Seaside is a terrific tale of failure, of being easily influenced, death, and writing that unravels in a rather unexpected way. Our protagonist is Bonnie Falls, a young woman about to turn 30. Bonnie’s life so far has been without any direction or purpose and she has not much to show for her half-hearted efforts. She is a college dropout having abandoned a degree in literature, which rather limits the job opportunities available. But she is an aspiring writer with potential and has already penned the beginning of a story that is dotted with sinister happenings.

Lost and adrift, Bonnie moves out of her parents’ home to a rented flat, where she becomes pally with her landlady, the mysterious Sylvia Slythe, an unlikely friendship that also seems eerie. Sylvia is unusually interested in Bonnie, especially in the story Bonnie has written, and arranges a seaside holiday for the two of them.

Why is Sylvia so deeply interested in an unremarkable person like Bonnie? Is there something sinister lurking behind Sylvia’s motives?  This remains a mystery to the reader until it all becomes clear as the novel progresses and reaches its dark conclusion when on their holiday.

COLD ENOUGH FOR SNOW by Jessica Au

Cold Enough for Snow is a haunting, beautifully sculpted novella of the mysteries of relationships and memories, familial bonds, finding connections, and life’s simple pleasures. The novel opens with a woman and her mother embarking on a short trip together to Japan, a journey and destination that promises the opportunity for both to bond and connect. But we get a sense from the outset that mother and daughter are not always on the same page.

What’s interesting about this novella is the nature of the relationship between the two women, which remains elusive despite the hazy impression that they get along well. The book is largely from the daughter’s point of view and so the mother’s reminisces and flashbacks are told to us from the daughter’s perspective lending it an air of unreliability or conveying the idea that the mother’s experiences are filtered through the daughter’s eyes so that it fits her narrative.

There’s an elusive, enigmatic feel to the novella, of things left unsaid that might mean more than what’s been stated, a sense that things lie outside our grasp, that full knowledge is always on the fringes, on the periphery of our vision. To me Cold Enough for Snow was like a balm – the quiet, hallucinatory prose style and range of sensory images were very soothing and I could easily lose myself in the dreamy world that Au created.

TO THE LIGHTHOUSE by Virginia Woolf

There’s a reason why To the Lighthouse is a classic, it is Woolf at her sublime best. An impressionistic portrayal of the Ramsay family and their circle of friends during a holiday on the Isle of Skye told through various perspectives – all in Woolf’s trademark stunning prose.

EVERY EYE by Isobel English

Awkward Hatty Latterly is the protagonist in Isobel English’s superb novella Every Eye. It focuses on two pivotal periods in Hatty’s life – the past when she is a young adult in a relationship with a considerably older man, and the present when she is on a honeymoon with her husband who is much younger than her. The present section is particularly memorable because the couple’s journeys on train and boat from France to Barcelona and finally to Ibiza are wonderfully depicted by the author. Eventually, both the past and the present will merge in an unexpected way.

THE ENCHANTED APRIL by Elizabeth von Arnim

The Enchanted April is a delightful, charming novel centred on four women from different walks of life who decide to spend a month in summer holidaying in Italy. These women come from completely different backgrounds, but there’s one common thread binding them: they are disillusioned with the sameness of their days and are desperately seeking an outlet that will bring some colour to their lives along with the much-needed rest and solitude.

Once ensconced in the Italian castle, the four women begin to interact with each other and it is these exchanges that make The Enchanted April so delightful – the awkward dinner conversations, the various machinations to claim the best rooms and views for themselves, and their opinions of each other. The Enchanted April then is a gem of a novel with much wit and humour to commend it. Arnim’s writing is lovely and evocative and all four women in the novel are brilliantly etched, they come across as fully realized characters. This was a perfect book to read in April with a particularly feel-good vibe in these trying times.

THE GREENGAGE SUMMER by Rumer Godden  

The Greengage Summer is a gorgeous coming-of-age tale of love, deceit, and new experiences, a beguiling mix of light and darkness set in the luxurious champagne region of France.

Our narrator is the charming Cecil Grey, aged thirteen and at the cusp of womanhood. Cecil has an elder sister, the beautiful Joss aged sixteen, while the younger siblings are Hester and the Littles (Will and Vicky). Fed up with their continuous grumbling, the mother whisks them off to France to see the battlefields hoping that some kind of exposure and knowledge about other people’s sacrifices will open their eyes to how self-absorbed they are.

But all their best-laid plans go awry when the mother falls ill. Thus, once at the hotel, the children are largely left to their own devices and latch on to the mysterious Elliott who takes them under his wing much to the chagrin of his lover and the owner of the hotel, Mademoiselle Zizi.

This is a beautiful book with evocative descriptions of a languid French summer. Despite the joys of new experiences, there are darker currents with hints of violence, death, and sinister happenings. Cecil, accustomed to the straightforward world of children, is often confused by the behaviour of the adults around her, the ease with which they lie and extricate themselves from a challenging situation. And she and Joss are faced with the possibility that Eliot may not be what he seems, he has his own secrets to hide.

A WREATH OF ROSES by Elizabeth Taylor

This is a beautiful, dark tale of dangerous deception, lies, friendship, and mortality where in the opening pages, Camilla is on her way to the countryside to spend the summer with her two best friends – Liz and Liz’s former governess Frances – just like they always did in the previous summers. A Wreath of Roses is one of Elizabeth Taylor’s darker novels looking as it does at the pain of life, its random cruelty, and the agonies of isolation. Throughout its pages, an air of violence and peril lurks, all kinds of fear grips its characters, and the reader is overcome by a feeling of dread and an impending sense of doom. Just as the book opens on an ominous note, so does it end with darkness at its heart.

FEVER DREAM by Samanta Schweblin (Translated from Spanish by Megan McDowell)

Fever Dream is a short, terrifying, and suspenseful tale set in set in bleak, rural Argentina. The novel opens with a scene in a hospital where our protagonist Amanda is lying on a bed, unable to see. By her side is David, a precocious child, but we soon learn that he is not Amanda’s. Whose son is he then? And why is he in the room with Amanda? David, meanwhile, is urgently pushing Amanda to recollect events that led to her hospitalization. He implies that Amanda is on the verge of dying.

As Amanda tries to make sense of what has happened to her, more of her story is fleshed out. We are told that Amanda and her daughter Nina leave Buenos Aires to travel to a holiday home in the countryside. Amanda’s husband does not join them. At the holiday home, Amanda meets Carla, and they get friendly. One day Carla tells Amanda a scary, supernatural story about her eight‑year-old son David, whose soul, Carla believes, has “transmigrated” into another body: “So this one is my new David. This monster.” Amanda finds the story incredulous and thinks Carla has lost her mind.

Meanwhile, early in the book, Amanda talks about what she calls “the rescue distance”, the variable safe distance between Amanda and Nina at any given point in time. As the perceived level of threat increases, the more taut the line grows and the closer together they must be. In this bleak, disconcerting narrative as events get more terrifying and incomprehensible, Amanda starts increasingly obsessing about this ‘rescue distance.’

While the tone and mood of this novella are deeply unsettling, Fever Dream also pulsates with a sense of place where the vast and menacing rural Argentinian landscape is as much a character in its own right. One facet of the book sees Schweblin balance supernatural elements with the more grounded realities of Argentina’s lack of agricultural development. The other angle chooses to explore the mother-child relationship. Can we ever be too protective of our children and in the process unwittingly become the cause of disaster? Schweblin’s prose is taut, compelling, and addictive as the story hurtles to its tense conclusion. All credit also to Megan McDowell for a smooth, effortless translation.

And that’s it! Enjoyed compiling this post, and plan to write more such themed pieces in the future. Happy reading!

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The Feast – Margaret Kennedy

Margaret Kennedy’s The Feast is the first novel of hers I’ve read, and also a novel I was tempted to buy because of its sumptuous cover. I read it during my holiday in Prague and Cesky Krumlov which was kind of fitting since the novel is set in a seaside hotel which brings together a motlew crew of characters who are on vacation. Luckily, the content inside was wonderful too and I’m eager to explore more of her work particularly The Constant Nymph and Troy Chimneys both of which I have.

With its combination of wit, social commentary and mystery, The Feast by Margaret Kennedy is a terrific novel; an excellent upstairs-downstairs drama and comedy set in Cornwall post the Second World War featuring a seaside hotel in danger of being buried, an eccentric ensemble cast with hidden secrets, and the high voltage interactions and tensions between them.

The book begins with a prologue where Reverend Seddon pays his regular annual visit to Reverend Samuel Bott of St Sody, North Cornwall. It is a time of relaxation for both the priests, enjoying the fruits of their friendship and indulging in their hobbies. But this particular holiday turns out to be different because Seddon much to his chagrin realises that Bott has to write a sermon for a funeral. It’s not something that Bott can get out of either given the strangeness of events leading up to the tragedy, the details of which he proceeds to narrate to Seddon.

The facts are thus – The Pendizack Manor Hotel lies buried in a mound of rubble after a huge mass of cliff collapses on it. Seven guests perish, one of whom is Dick Siddal, the owner of the hotel, while the others survive. At that point, the identities of the casualties as well as the survivors are not revealed to the reader, and that in essence forms the mystery element of the plot. We are told that some months ago before this tragedy, a mine had exploded, and cracks had developed in the mass of cliff over the hotel, although the hotel at that point was unaffected. A survey man, subsequently, examines those cracks, is convinced that it is unsafe, and conveys his findings in a letter to Dick Siddal who doesn’t bother to respond.

Thus, Reverend Bott is now busy scribbling a sermon for the funeral; he describes these developments as an Act of God, but it could very well have been called an Act of Man, given the owner’s irresponsibility in not taking action when required.

After the prologue, the reader is then taken back to a week earlier, from whereon the book charts the arrival of the guests at the Pendizack Manor Hotel, its other inhabitants, as well as the chain of events leading up to the tragedy in question.

We now come to the principal characters of this tale. First and foremost are the Siddals who own the Pendizack Manor Hotel and reside there with their children Gerry, Duff, and Robin. Mrs Siddal is an overworked woman who does most of the heavy lifting concerning the management of the hotel, the guests, as well as preparation of daily meals. Her husband Dick Siddal for the most part loiters around in his boot-hole refusing any form of work and responsibility, and when he does make an appearance in front of his guests, it is to deliver his off-kilter opinions on a variety of topics. Dick Siddal displays a keen perceptive mind and is a man of strange, singular worldviews but he could not be bothered about the daily working of the hotel, a fact that plays a crucial role in his downfall.

But he enjoyed the sound of his own voice, and nobody was likely to interrupt him. ‘I daresay,’ he said, ‘that mankind is protected and sustained by undeserved suffering; by all those millions of helpless people who pay for the evil we do and who shield us simply by being there, as Lot was in the doomed city. If any community of people were to be purely evil, were to have no element of innocence among them at all, the earth would probably open and swallow them up. Such a community would split the moral atom.’ 

As far as the children are concerned, Mrs Siddal is partial towards Duff and Robin, the apples of her eyes, and she has ambitions of getting them into top-notch colleges. Of Gerry with his stocky build and propensity to bore her, she remains a tad contemptuous (“Of her three sons he was the most loving and least loved”), and yet she heavily depends upon Gerry to help around the hotel and bring in the moolah that will fund Robin and Duff’s education.

We are also introduced to the domestic help – the housekeeper Miss Ellis is a spiteful woman prone to poking her nose into other people’s affairs and gossiping about them, with a remarkable flair to shirk her duties. Then there’s the conscientious and straight-talking Nancibel who stays with her extended family nearby and drops into the hotel every day to do the bulk of the work given Miss Ellis’s inclination to avoid it.  Very soon, tensions begin to simmer and erupt between the two women given their contrasting personalities and general attitude towards work.

We then come to the guests. There’s Lady Gifford, her husband Sir Henry Gifford, and their children Hebe, Caroline, and twin boys Luke and Michael. Lady Gifford grapples with poor health, confined to the bed for most of their stay, while her children run wild. The wildest of the lot is Hebe, an adopted child, and who is aware of her adopted status that grieves her greatly. Hebe’s actions often shock Henry Gifford who struggles to bring her under control, a task made difficult by the fact that his wife does not see things his way. Cracks in the relationship between husband and wife are also evident – Henry Gifford believes himself to be a man of principles and cannot fathom his wife’s shallow personality and her craving for the finer things in life.  

Next up is Mrs Cove, the most disturbing character in the book, and her three daughters Blanche, Beatrix, and Maud. Mrs Cove is a cheerless, strict woman who rules her meek daughters with an iron fist. She’s deeply stingy with an ascetic worldview, flaunts the family’s poor circumstances which she believes gives her the right to be acquisitive, and often denies her daughters the simplest of pleasures. There’s something about Mrs Cove’s actions that is quite sinister, particularly when it comes to the bizarre treatment of her daughters, her ulterior motive is gradually revealed to the reader later on. Blanche, Beatrix, and Maud don’t love their mother, but they fear her. However, while they remain deprived of material comforts and bear the brunt of their mother’s cruelty, what sustains them is their imagination – rich, vital, and vivid. The three girls strike up a friendship with the Gifford children and are enamoured by them, their wealth, and their general appearance of well-being. One of their greatest wishes is the desire to do something good for the residents of Pendizack Manor, something like hosting a feast – the central event that lends the novel its name, and is held on the very same day that the landslide strikes.

Then there’s the morally dubious writer Anne Lechane and her chauffeur-secretary Bruce who is kind of a reluctant toy boy. Anne has some kind of hold over Bruce forcing him to remain indebted to her. But the other reason that compels him to work for Anne is his aspiration to become a writer himself, although these state of affairs greatly complicate his budding romance with Nancibel. We are also introduced to the belligerent and controlling Canon Wraxton, notorious for picking up verbal fights at the drop of a hat and making scenes much to the embarrassment and terror of his daughter Evangeline.

Rounding off this oddball lot are the bereaved couple Mr and Mrs Paley, who are initially reserved and largely keep to themselves. The Paleys lost their daughter several years ago, but it’s a grief that runs deep and the two haven’t entirely gotten over it. What’s more, theirs is a shaky marriage, with not much scope for communicating and navigating their personal tragedy. Indeed, at one point Mrs Paley driven to the brink of suicide, has an epiphany, and thereby resolves to take charge of her life beginning with helping the residents of the hotel in any way that she can. And so her role transforms to that of an agony aunt; certain members confess to her their hopes, secrets, and desires whether she offers any advice or not. She particularly makes a big difference in the way Evangeline’s life takes a turn for the better.

Each guest had retired, as an animal retires with a bone to the back of its cage, to chew over some single obsession.

Thus, as the novel progresses various developments occur along the way – a series of petty squabbles between the guests, the blossoming of two romances, a police visit, a near-drowning incident, a stolen artifact, and some other elements that spice up the story as it reaches its inevitable finale.

The Feast excels in that through a rather engaging tale it explores a slew of themes such as greed, evil, sloth, class wars, neglect, bereavement, unexpected friendships, and even romance. The introduction to the novel talks about how the various characters epitomize the Seven Deadly Sins, an interpretation that did not occur to me, although a couple of them are obvious (greed and sloth).

Greed drives the actions of the frightening Mrs Cove, a sin that is also central to Lady Gifford’s wish to relocate to a place where she can avoid paying taxes. On the pedestal of sloth sits Dick Siddal whose actions, or should we say non-action leads to the landslide that buries seven of the hotel guests. Anne Lechene is the embodiment of lechery given her unhealthy designs on Bruce as well as one of the Siddal men, Colonel Wraxton with his bombastic temperament stands for wrath, and so on. The class differences and the characters’ widely differing views on this topic are revealed through myriad heated exchanges between them as they argue about inequality, the rights of the working class, and the entitlement of the upper class among other things. Neglect is also another theme that comes to the fore exemplified by the wild behaviour of the Gifford children, the shabby appearance of the Cove girls, as well as Dick Siddal’s laziness when it comes to the safety of the hotel. It’s a novel of darkness and light, alternately showcasing the darker side of human nature with its generous side, as well as moments of subtle comedy with pure evil.  

Displaying a sharp, astute vision, Kennedy’s writing is top-notch as she weaves in elements of a social satire and morality fable with those of a thriller. Her gimlet-eyed gaze on the foibles and failures of her finely etched characters make both the endearing as well as the horrible ones pretty memorable.  In a nutshell, this is a wonderful novel with an array of rich themes and interpretations; I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. Highly recommended!

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The Fortnight in September – R C Sherriff

I love Persephone Books and some of their titles that I’ve read are just wonderful – Gwethalyn Graham’s Earth and High Heaven, Julia Strachey’s Cheerful Weather for the Wedding, and Marghanita Laski’s The Victorian Chaise-longue are a few examples that come to mind. It is hardly surprisingly therefore when I state that The Fortnight in September by RC Sherriff was also absolutely terrific. This is a book I should I have read in September instead of October but I happened to read it just before my own beach holiday and so it was perfect in that sense.

The man on his holidays becomes the man he might have been, the man he could have been, had things worked out a little differently. All men are equal on their holidays: all are free to dream their castles without thought of expense, or skill of architect.

There’s a scene on the first day of the Stevens’ holiday when the father Mr Stevens goes for a walk all by himself. It’s an essential part of the family’s travel philosophy (and one that I identify with) that the members occasionally break up to do things on their own, and for Mr Stevens this walk is therapeutic in the way it clears his mind and allows him to reflect on the past, more specifically the twin setbacks in his professional life that continue to cause him a bit of heartache. It is amazing how the abundance of greenery, lush landscapes and natural beauty can fuel a shift in perspective that is restorative and uplifting, and for Mr Stevens this solitary walk offers exactly that…

It had been the little chance things that made him aware of his yearning to understand far more than had come his way: little chance things that seemed to raise a curtain and reveal almost frightening depths beyond. He was glad that he had always had the instinct to step forward and not shrink back – to go groping on – exploring and probing for another beyond.

These wonderful nuggets of wisdom that make up everyday life punctuate the text at regular intervals to make The Fortnight in September – a beautiful, soothing novel about an ordinary family on holiday, an annual tradition they have adhered to over the years – a pleasure to read. 

The book opens with the Stevens family getting ready to embark on their journey. They are to leave for the seaside town of Bognor the next morning, preparations are in full swing and a sense of excitement is palpable. Mr Stevens, a thorough and meticulous man, has drawn up a “to-do” list called “Marching Orders” in the Stevens lexicon, with precise set of instructions on the various duties to be carried out by each family member before they lock up the house and set off.

The last evening at home is always a momentous occasion, tedious hours of work have finally been put behind and there is the big holiday – two whole weeks of it – to look forward to. Anticipation is running high, but for Mr and Mrs Stevens it is also a bittersweet moment – their two elder children Dick and Mary have turned twenty having unleashed vague hints of wishing to spend future holidays with friends. Thus, given that the future of this annual tradition seems mired in doubt, it heightens the significance of this family holiday for Mr and Mrs Stevens even more this time around.

How splendid it all was!—The whole family going away together again, after those dark, half-thrown hints from Dick and Mary about separate holidays with their friends. Thank God they had come to nothing!

On the day of travel, the weather turns out to be gorgeous (such a crucial factor for any holiday), and Mr Stevens in a spirit of generosity, makes tea for the entire family. There are some unpleasant duties to be carried out and only once the family boards the train does the feeling of freedom finally sink in.

At Bognor, the Stevens stay at the same guest house (‘Seaview’) as in the years before, but the gradual signs of decay and deterioration of the rooms and the furniture within are imminent and noticed by each of them in their own way.

For Dick and Mary, going once more into their old, familiar little bedrooms, had wondered with sinking hearts why they had never noticed in other years how dreadfully dingy and terribly poor they were. Was it a growing desire for better things?—or had these little rooms suddenly shrunk—become darker—and almost squalid?

Mr Stevens is disconcerted by these subtle signals which only highlight the transient nature of things, the looming spectre of change that is sometimes frightening but also a precursor to new beginnings.

The rest of the novel then charts the entire fortnight of the family holiday – lounging in the beach hut, swimming in the sea, hours of leisure on the golden sands soaking up the sun, and indulging in sports and games. Evenings are spent by the promenade enjoying band music and endless people gazing. At other times, Mr Stevens enjoying taking solitary walks and spending some hours in the local pub catching up with old friends and making new ones, and mildly flirting with the barmaid Rosie; Dick and Mary go for walks together by the promenade, and Mrs Stevens enjoys an evening alone at the guesthouse with her feet finally up and a glass of port with no constant demands on her time.

That’s really the crux of the novel and as you can see it’s largely plotless and yet such a wonderful, immersive read because there are so many aspects of the Stevens’ personalities and travel mantras that are familiar and spot on. What’s truly remarkable about the novel are the character studies – the Stevens’ are ordinary people, not too financially well-off, but they have a goodness of heart that make them so memorable.

We are given glimpses into the thinking of each of the family members – their hopes, aspirations, fears, disappointments – and how the holiday becomes the perfect setting for tranquil reflections on the past and altered perceptions about the future laced with hope and energy.

Both father and son worry about their careers staring at an uncertain future, but while Dick is just launching himself into the professional world quite lost without a sense of purpose or direction, Mr Stevens could very well be staring at an end. For instance, we learn about the frustrations that mark Mr Stevens’ working life – having steadily worked his way to near the top, Mr Stevens is forced to confront the possibility of his career having reached a dead end based on his limitations in terms of ability and background. At the opposite end of the spectrum is Dick, who is just starting out, his career like a pristine piece of clay to mold as he chooses, and yet he remains increasingly fretful about his prospects. Thanks to his father’s efforts, Dick lands a position in a respectable firm, but is quite unhappy and thus guilty for feeling this way lest his father thinks him ungrateful.

Mrs Stevens is a woman whose schedule has always revolved around her husband and children, she is not as excited as her family about the holiday in general and keeps those feelings strictly to herself, but she cherishes the moments when she is alone at Seaview with time only for herself. Mary feels like there’s so much about the world she does not know, she envies the smartly dressed girls who talk so confidently with men and yearns for a personality along those lines, a leap into a world which is not marked by poverty and constrained circumstances.

Some of the core themes explored in the novel are family life, career, the importance of fresh perspectives but it is also a novel that examines wealth and class. The Stevens have come up the hard way bringing in its wake some disillusionment as is expected, yet there is something heroic about how they are grateful about the things that they do possess without harbouring deep resentment or bitterness about their fate. There is a particular set piece in the novel, when Mr Stevens unexpectedly meets a wealthy valuable customer of his firm and the whole family is invited for tea to their extravagant palatial home and yet despite the differences in wealth and class, it the Stevens that come away as the richer family.

The Fortnight in September, then, beautifully captures the simple pleasures that make such a difference to the ordinariness of everyday life, how holidays offer that much needed shot in the arm for rejuvenation, how a change of surroundings can refresh the mind, vitalize the body and provide some clarity of vision.

So much of the travel details as highlighted by Sheriff strike a chord – anxiety mixed with euphoria on the day of travel (the holiday to look forward to but also not missing any train connections), the sense of disorientation on reaching the holiday destination when it’s all new and one has to still blend in (“they had reached the strange, disturbing little moment that comes in every holiday: the moment when suddenly the tense excitement of the journey collapses and fizzles out, and you are left, vaguely wondering what you are going to do, and how you are going to start”), how time plays tricks on the mind (it flies so much faster on holidays than it does otherwise)…

But he knew that time only moved evenly upon the hands of clocks: to men it can linger and almost stop dead, race on, leap chasms and linger again. He knew, with a little sadness, that it always made up its distance in the end. To-day it had travelled gropingly, like an engine in a fog, but now, with each passing hour of the holiday it would gather speed, and the days would flash by like little wayside stations. In a fortnight he would be sitting in this room on the last evening, thinking how the first night of the holiday seemed like yesterday—full of regrets at wasted time…

In a nutshell, The Fortnight in September is just superb, a novel fraught with poignancy and the fleeting nature of things, tints of nostalgia and slices of bittersweet moments woven into a fabric that otherwise throbs with the humble delights of a family enjoying a good time together. It is a timeless story, joyous and laden with quiet courage, but sometimes achingly sad when it dwells on its characters’ yearnings, missed opportunities and a growing sense of loss. As the blurb aptly states it is an extraordinary story of an ordinary family and one I highly recommend.  

Posted on by Radz Pandit · 6 Comments

The Greengage Summer – Rumer Godden

Rumer Godden was a discovery for me last year, her novel Black Narcissus found a place on my Best Books of 2021 list. Naturally, I wanted to read more and settled on The Greengage Summer.

The Greengage Summer is a gorgeous coming-of-age tale of love, deceit and new experiences, a beguiling mix of light and darkness set in the luxurious champagne region of France.

Our narrator is the charming Cecil Grey, aged thirteen and at the cusp of womanhood. Cecil has an elder sister, the beautiful Joss aged sixteen, while the younger siblings are Hester and the Littles (Will and Vicky).

Cecil’s father is a botanist, often away from home for long stretches of time. Relying on her brother (called Uncle William by the children) for financial and emotional support, Cecil’s mother and the children reside in lodgings in the dreary, seaside town of Southstone.

Southstone lacks character and Joss and Cecil absolutely loathe it. The pair also bemoans the family’s strained monetary circumstances.

I think now that the discontent was because we were never quite comfortable in Southstone and the rudeness came from the discontent; it was as-if a pattern-mould were being pressed down on us into which we could not fit.

Fed up with their continuous grumbling, the mother whisks them off to France to see the battlefields hoping that some kind of an exposure and knowledge about other people’s sacrifices will open their eyes to how self-absorbed they are.

Excited by the idea of a short stint in Paris on the way for shopping and visiting museums, Joss, Cecil and the gang are in a state of great anticipation but the trip is doomed right from the start. The mother gets bitten by a horse-fly, her feet swell and she begins to develop a fever. Beset by fear, anxiety and a sense of being lost in a strange, unfamiliar country, the family somehow makes it to Vieux-Moutiers region to finally land at the enchanting Les Oeillets hotel.

However, things do not get easier when they reach the hotel – the mother’s condition deteriorates, language being a barrier the children struggle to communicate, and the hotel manager, Madame Courbet, is not particularly welcoming. Madame Courbet refuses to have a sick patient under her roof, and is not keen on the idea of assuming responsibility for the children. Angered by the terrible treatment meted out to them, Joss is all set to storm out of the hotel with the rest of the gang in tow, when Mademoiselle Zizi and Eliot make an entry.

An Englishman, Eliot quickly gauges the predicament of the family, the mother is settled in a room, and subsequently transferred to the hospital. Meanwhile, he offers to be a guardian to the children.

In the initial days, Joss is also struck by illness and is confined to her room. Thus, Cecil, Hester, Will and Vicky are pretty much left to their own devices and given free rein. Cecil is overcome by the newness and strangeness of not just the hotel, but also its people and their unique mannerisms.   

The staircase was paneled in pale green, riddled with curious holes, but the holes did not take away from its elegance. The hall was elegant too. It was odd that we, who had never seen elegance before – though it was our favourite word – immediately recognized it.

Reveling in their newfound freedom, the kids begin to explore the hotel, the gardens and the orchards around it gorging on greengages that give the novel its name.

Stepping in dew, my head in the sun, I walked into the orchard and, before I knew what I had done, reached up to touch a greengage. It came off, warm and smooth, into my hand I looked quickly round, but no one came, no voice scolded and, after a moment, I bit into the ripe golden flesh. Then I ate another, and another, until replete with fruit and ecstasy, I went back to my post.

Vicky latches on to Monsieur Armand, the hotel cook. Wills finds a spot under the cherry tree to be alone and pore over French fashion books. Cecil and Hester befriend Paul, the cook’s helper, who regales them with hotel gossip. It gradually emerges that Eliot and Zizi are lovers; Zizi especially is besotted with him. Madame Courbet, devoted to Zizi, despises Eliot but is powerless.

Eliot, meanwhile, develops a soft spot for the Grey family much to Zizi’s chagrin. When Joss, having recovered from her illness, finally emerges out of confinement, things begin to hot up. Eliot is mesmerized by her beauty and can’t take his eyes off her, Zizi is insanely jealous, and Cecil becomes a reluctant spectator watching Joss become embroiled in a messy drama…What’s more, thrown into this mix is the renowned French painter, Monsieur Joubert…

Eliot is an interesting, mysterious character, by turns warm and inscrutable whose motives remain hazy to the children. He is generally fond of them, but Cecil also glimpses the occasional changes in mood, the coldness and curt responses which are a sign to her to keep her distance. There is a part of him that remains inaccessible and bewilders Cecil, but his suave, charming personality endears him to the gang and they find themselves loyal to him despite his faults.

He had a carnation in his buttonhole, a dark-red one, and it seemed to symbolize Eliot for us. Why are flowers bought by men so much more notable than those bought by women? I do not know, but they are. Father brought flowers into the house but they were dried, pressed brown, the life gone out of them; with Eliot the flower was alive.

Blessed with striking good looks, Joss has awakened to her sexuality and is aware of the effect it has on men including Eliot. But it is Cecil who, in many ways, is the show stealer with her flair for storytelling and for being in the thick of things. She has reached that point in her life where she wants to be treated like an adult, but still remains innocent in many aspects. The torment that she suffers because of this conflict has been astutely conveyed by Godden. Compared to Joss, Cecil considers herself plain with unremarkable features, a fact that she resents. But she is a wonderful narrator, displaying the naiveté of her age, while occasional moments of astuteness shine through.

The Greengage Summer, then, is a heady cocktail of themes – the loneliness of entering into adulthood, loss of innocence, the intensity of love, and lies and deceit that pepper the world of adults. Under the veneer of languid summers and the joys of new experiences, run currents of darkness with hints of violence, death, sinister happenings. Cecil, accustomed to the straightforward world of children, is often confused by the behaviour of the adults around her, the ease with they lie and extricate themselves from a challenging situation. And she and Joss are faced with the possibility that Eliot may not be what he seems, he has his own secrets to hide.

We were told not to come back until four o’clock and the boundary we were set was the box hedge. On one side lay the house and its happenings, a shifting and changing pattern of Eliot, Mademoiselle Zizi, Madame Corbet, Paul, Monsieur Armand, Mauricette, the carloads and chars-a-bancs of visitors; when we were away from it, it was as unreal as the cocktails they all drank…

On the wilderness and orchard side was an older, more truthful world; every day as we passed into it, I caught its older, simpler scents.

The novel sizzles with the sensuousness of French summer – the light filtering in through the canopy of lush green trees, the shimmering surroundings burnished into gold by the rays of the sun, the languor of the heat, the liquid, dreamy atmosphere inducing feelings of exhilaration and being alive. The exotic food, delectable pastries, sparkling champagne and various others sights, sounds and smells dazzle Cecil and Joss, it is such a stark contrast to the dullness of their English existence. Breathing in the air of elegance and sophistication, they are intoxicated by the ease and glamour of the French way of living. Godden’s storytelling is wonderfully absorbing and she is great at describing things.

At that time of day the sun sinking behind the trees struck through the landing window and turned the staircase into a funnel of light; even the treads of the stairs seemed barred with gold, and through the round window came the sound of trills and flutings, the birds singing their evening song in the garden, before it dropped to silence. The staircase might have been Jacob’s ladder, stairs to heaven.

And here she is describing the ambience in a restaurant…

…As the patron cooked our steaks in front of us and dusk came down, shutting the little glass-sided restaurant into a world of its own, the disappointment went. Eliot gave us vin rosé, and the rose-coloured wine, the réchaud flame, the lights were reflected in the windows over and over again, shutting us into a warm lit world.

The prose is simple and unadorned and perfectly captures the voice of its naïve yet perceptive teenaged narrator.

What is also astonishing about The Greengage Summer is that much of it is autobiographical, based on true events. My edition of this novel has a preface by Rumer Godden and an introduction by Jane Asher. In her preface, Godden reveals to us the actual events that took place during their French holiday in 1923, the richness of material giving birth to this novel (Cecil is Rumer), while Jane Asher gives a flavor of her experiences of filming the book and of being cast in the role of Cecil. Both make for fascinating reading, but I would suggest reading them after the novel.

In a nutshell, The Greengage Summer is a glorious read with its evocative portrayal of summer, a meaty storyline and a cast of memorable characters. Highly recommended!