Published in 1958, this modern classic, a subtle psychological drama  which manages to be both poignant and amusing about the loss of childhood innocence in a confusing adult world, was inspired by the author’s own experiences on a family visit to France in the early 1930s.  Whereas the well-known film of 1961 has dated, the book retains the power to hook both teenagers and older readers.

With a botanist  father who spends most of his time travelling abroad, and a mother who struggles to cope, narrator Cecil Grey and her four siblings chafe against the tedium of life  in the pebble-dash suburbia of “Southstone”. Their mother’s impulsive plan to shock them out of their self-centred moaning by showing them the French battlefields, goes awry when she develops septicaemia from a horse-fly bite, and has to be hospitalised. This coincides with the eldest sibling Joss being perhaps somewhat implausibly struck down with acute PMT for several days. It is a plot device to free the other children to run wild in the French hotel where they are reluctantly accepted as second-class guests. Superficially charming and characterful it is in fact the scene of some shady goings on, as gullible foreign visitors to the nearby battlefields of the Marne are conned with a regularly maintained bloodstain on a carpet, and a human skull buried daily in the garden to be dug up by the hotel’s dogs.

Gorging themselves on the windfall greengages in the orchard so that they are too full to eat them when served up at dinner, only Cecil who knows some French (from having to write out French poetry as a punishment at school) realises that they are being used as “camouflage” for the scandalous relationship between the proprietor Madame Zizi and her charismatic English lover Eliot. A kind of unofficial guardian for the children, who adore him, he is a complex character, showing empathy for them, as when he gives Willmouse, the only boy in the family, an art book to feed his precocious interest in fashion design, but the suspicion grows that Eliot is mainly motivated by his infatuation with Joss, a beautiful sixteen-year-old who is beginning to grasp and exploit the power of her sexual attraction.

Deeply evocative and nostalgic in its descriptions of life in a historic French town on the banks of the Marne, and lightened with many humorous moments, this slow-burn study of human interaction morphs into a faster paced, tense crime story with one of those abrupt endings which leaves one reflecting on events and deciding for oneself what happens next.

Very successful in her day, Rumer Godden is one of those now forgotten authors who repays revisiting.

This is an in-depth portrayal of the evolving relationship in the four life-changing years from leaving school to starting on a career of two young people in present-day Ireland. It is perhaps inspired by George Eliot’s observation, quoted at the outset,  and no doubted garbled here into plain English, on the profound  and unexpected way in which one personality may influence another.

The bright but troubled product of a well-off yet dysfunctional family, Marianne is a loner and misfit at secondary school, continually provoking rejection and bullying by her peers. The one exception is Connell whom she can meet in a neutral setting outside school because his mother cleans for Marianne’s family. Supported by his poor but well-balanced and tolerant single mother Lorraine, the charming, athletic and academic high-flier Connell is the complete opposite of Marianne in being very popular, a situation he is afraid of sacrificing by the admission that he not only likes her but they are in a sexual relationship.  In his immaturity he behaves callously, despite the sensitivity which feeds his love of English and leads Marianne to encourage him to apply to study literature at Trinity, her university choice.

Once at somewhat exclusive middle-class Trinity, the tables are turned: with the chance of a clean slate, it is Marianne’s turn to become accepted and sought after, whereas the working-class Connell feels out of his depth, judged by his thick regional accent and cheap, unfashionable clothes. Yet through indications of her lack of self-esteem and sexual masochism in her relations with men, the degree to which Marianne has been physically and mentally abused is revealed: although details remain sketchy as to her dead father, they are painfully clear as regards her cold mother, and brutal, manipulative brother, both themselves the victims of abuse, but not portrayed with any sympathy like Marianne. Throughout, she and Connell may no longer be lovers but share some deep bond, yet not always with complete openness and self-knowledge. Though highly intelligent and perceptive, immaturity and lack of experience inevitably plunge them into frequent uncertainty and confusion, unable to express their complex, shifting emotions.

This is an insightful and often moving page turner, with the tension of knowing that matters could end in tragedy. Born in 1991, Sally Rooney has the advantage of being close enough to her school years to write with authenticity about the pressure to conform and bullying aggravated by social media. She gets inside the head of the two main characters to create a convincing stream of the changing and conflicting emotions of being on the cusp of adolescence and adulthood.

It may well be that this novel has been over-hyped, although I would not criticise the simple style which is probably  harder to write than it seems and serves to convey  the characters’ thoughts more effectively than  many a self-regarding literary turn of phrase.  I agree that apart from Marianne and Connell, the characters are mostly two-dimensional caricatures, with no indication of their inner motivations and thoughts. The main flaw for me is that periods of mental illness, which figure strongly in the book, seem to be slipped into, or recovered from rather too abruptly, with insufficient development of the situation. However, I was satisfied by the ending which seemed a well-chosen point for conclusion, leaving it open to the reader to decide what happens next in their lives. This is not a depressing read for there are moments of humour despite the emotional intensity.

It is 1549, with the boy-king Edward VI on the throne and his ambitious uncle Edward Duke of Somerset the virtual ruler in his role of Lord Protector. People are already beginning to voice regret over the passing of Henry VIII and England is ripe for rebellion with the grim imposition of fanatical Protestantism and acute poverty aggravated by the cost of on-going wars and the debased currency, but in particular by the accelerating pace of enclosure by wealthier landowners of the common land  vital for the survival of their poorer neighbours.

In the seventh novel in this series, courageous, persistent, incorruptible, liberal-minded lawyer Matthew Shardlake is asked to investigate discreetly a murder charge against John Boleyn, a relative of the king’s sister, the young Princess Elizabeth. Since the Boleyns are out of favour, he may have been framed.

This plot-line is side-lined by the eruption of Kent’s Rebellion on the fringes of  Norwich. Workers who have been subservient all their lives gain confidence and determination in the new-found freedom of the camp on the sandy heath above the city, where they are trained to fight in the event of the Protector failing to accept their demands for reform.  Tension builds with the news of the approaching the army sent to quell their resistance. As the prospect of failure and reprisals grows, some begin to question the decisions of their charismatic leader Robert Kett.

Although sometimes bearing too close a resemblance to a schools’ history documentary, this theme is quite gripping with a range of well-developed characters and certainly raised my interest in a significant happening of which I was unaware, despite having studied A Level History. The lengthy essay at the end shows the book to be remarkably faithful to known events, as well as indicating what some have criticised as the author’s obsession with the theme. One caveat: would the shrewd and cautious Shardlake really have agreed to act as Kett’s legal advisor with so little apparent internal doubt and fear?

I found the details and handling of the Boleyn murder mystery less satisfactory, with an over-reliance on coincidence and a somewhat implausible denouement. Too many of the characters seem to be caricatures, or two-dimensional, the villains ludicrously villainous. The two threads of murder mystery and rebellion are welded too crudely together.  The novel is hard going by reason of its unnecessary length, padded out with repetition or superfluity of detail, or simply verbosity. However, it seems that famous, successful authors are no longer required to spend time editing, and no one else bothers if it is a “guaranteed” best seller.

This is my review of “A Glass of Blessings” by Barbara Pym.

With her coolly  ironic appraisal of well-heeled middle-class life in 1950s London, Wilmet Forsyth could be a reincarnation of Jane Austen.  Married to Rodney, a conventional civil servant slipping prematurely into a dull rut of middle age, who feels that it reflects badly on a man if his wife works,  Wilmet has no children, plenty of domestic help,  and so has too much time on her hands.  A situation which was commonplace amongst young middle-class women fifty years ago sounds dated and odd now, indicating how much life has changed.

Wilmet is made to seem more appealing by her humorous self-deprecation: imagining the two local clergymen in need of home help attempting to boil eggs she concludes, “I wondered if they would know what to do if they cracked. I never did myself”. Wilmet is a mass of contradictions. Her religious piety seems like a social habit acquired alongside her elegant dress-sense, her liking for good food and wine, and her disapproval of men in duffel coats and women wearing nail varnish. She seems untroubled over having a husband and mother-in-law who are “non-believers”, and shows a broad-minded tolerance to acquaintances who turn out to be kleptomaniac, or living in a gay relationship at a time when this was still illegal. Her religion does not prevent her from basking in the admiration of her best friend Rowena’s  husband,  and playing potentially dangerous games  with  the intriguing Piers Longridge, Rowena’s  possibly disreputable brother with a hint of the ne’er-do-well.

On the surface, this is an entertaining read if one can avoid feeling irritated or in the case of younger readers even offended by the total lack of political correctness: the snobbish class-consciousness with its sense of entitlement and privilege; the stereotyping of working class characters; sexism and intimations of racism- although no one belongs to an ethnic minority to put this to the test. I am fascinated by this type of novel which recreates the sense of a past way of life, to some extent parodying it, but with the writer herself a product of the period, unconsciously voicing accepted prejudices of her society.

Barbara Pym was an Oxford graduate, who never married, despite many close relationships with men, and who earned her own living apart from writing novels. Although she is too subtle to make it explicit, she portrays Wilmet as an intelligent woman who does not fulfil her potential because of the attitudes of the society in which she has been raised. Publishers were apparently reluctant to print Pym’s novels which even at the time were considered old-fashioned.  Yet in her lifetime, she was considered underestimated as an author, who remains worth reading not merely for her clear, pithy style and wit, but also for the poignancy and depth of observation of human nature which lie beneath the surface.