Das Tudorschloß.

by Celia Fremlin

Arnold Walter's decision to take early retirement and become caretaker and part-time tourist guide at a Tudor mansion changes his life - his wife leaves his and his wayward daughter arrives unexpectedly. Other works by Celia Fremlin include Dangerous Thoughts and Listening in the Dark.

270 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 1993

About the author

Celia was born in Kingsbury, now part of London, England. She was the daughter of Heaver Fremlin and Margaret Addiscott. Her older brother, John H. Fremlin, later became a nuclear physicist. Celia studied at Somerville College, Oxford University. From 1942 to 2000 she lived in Hampstead, London. In 1942 she married Elia Goller, with whom she had three children; he died in 1968. In 1985, Celia married Leslie Minchin, who died in 1999. Her many crime novels and stories helped modernize the sensation novel tradition by introducing criminal and (rarely) supernatural elements into domestic settings. Her 1958 novel The Hours Before Dawn won the Edgar Award in 1960.

With Jeffrey Barnard, she was co-presenter of a BBC2 documentary “Night and Day” describing diurnal and nocturnal London, broadcast 23 January 1987.

Fremlin was an advocate of assisted suicide and euthanasia. In a newspaper interview she admitted to assisting four people to die.[1] In 1983 civil proceedings were brought against her as one of the five members of the EXIT Executive committee which had published “A Guide to Self Deliverance” , but the court refused to declare the booklet unlawful.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celia...]

Reviews

[Roman Clodia · Rating 2 out of 5]

** Spoilers below **

No, sorry, Fremlin's dry and sardonic humour works well here especially in the scenes between Mildred, Arnold and Val - but overall this is a weird misfire in the Fremlin canon for me.

There is no serious attempt to give this the eerie vibe for which Fremlin is famous - a few anonymous phone calls don't cut it - and even her usual domestic concentration becomes diluted as Mildred and Arnold separate in the first chapter. Instead, this space is taken up by Mildred's hilariously fraught stay with Val who has just discovered 'Women's Lib' and who makes up her own rules in Scrabble so that she always wins. This is countered by Arnold and Mildred's wayward daughter, Flora, taking up residence with her father at the stately home where he is the caretaker and causing chaos - even while she gets the tea shop under control.

I found most of this unconvincing and there is confusion over the time in which this is set: parts of it still feel like the 1950s/60s of Fremlin's heyday when women were confined by domesticity, went from school to marriage, and when 'women's lib' (the term used in the book) was a revelation. Uses of a public phone box are described as if they're in an old Agatha Christie novel ("press button B"). Yet other parts feel like a nod to the early 1990s when the book was published: computers exist in the workplace (though Val has a word processor).

The whole thing gets crazier but in a way that feels random and the ending just doesn't have impact: the old historian father of Joyce who works at the stately home turns out to have plagiarised Gordon's, his undergraduate student, essay and built a career on it, while Gordon himself - thirty years later - is seeking his original essay to prove it. In the meantime, Flora takes the professor off his Alzheimer's medication and he tips over the hallucinatory edge. Flora gets pregnant by her feckless boyfriend, has a miscarriage on falling down the dungeon stairs and ends up happy with her boyfriend who raises his game.

Fremlin has such a lovely flowing style and her observational humour is still spot on - but, frankly, this is a mess. I could have happily read a novel about the domestic tribulations of Arnold, Mildred and Val - but the attempt to turn this into a suspense story fell flat.

[Buchstabenwald · Rating 3 out of 5]

Buch 3 meiner #22for2022 hat mich leider auch nicht vollständig überzeugt, aber war mal eine erfrischende Abwechslung!
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Kurz vor der Pensionierung wirft Mildreds Ehemann das Handtuch, weil er seinem Traum nachgehen möchte: Er will seinen Lebensabend als Verwalter eines Tudorschlösschens verbringen. Dieser Sinneswandel bringt ganz schön Wirbel in die angestaubte Ehe. Als dann die chaotische neumoderne Tochter auch noch auftaucht, ist das Familienchaos komplett.
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Gut, meine Inhaltsangabe liest sich gerade wie die Beschreibung einer 90er Romkom. Tatsächlich wird die Geschichte mit all ihren merkwürdig komischen Facetten (und davon gibt es viele) mit super trockenem Humor dargestellt. Liest sich sehr fein.
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Die Charaktere und ihre Gedankenwelt sind gut aufgebaut. Celia Fremlin hat es geschafft, ihnen mit wenigen Worten eine unglaubliche Tiefe zu geben. Meinen Respekt dafür.
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Die Story ist wechselt von komisch zu tragisch und wieder zurück. Glaubhaft und dann doch wieder - wtf? Schräg zu lesen. Die Botschaft - „Wie gut kenne ich einen Menschen tatsächlich?“ - kam gut an, auf verschiedenste Weisen. Sehr amüsant zu lesen.
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Was mich nicht ganz sooo abgeholt hat, war der Kern der Geschichte. Geht auch gar nicht, denn irgendwie gab es keinen. Die Handlung plätschert dahin, man weiß nicht so wirklich, worauf sie abzielt. Erst zum Schluss hin gibt sich langsam ein Bild, das alles ein bisschen zusammenfügt - Gott sei Dank!
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Fazit: Skurrile Story mit herrlich trockenem britischen Humor - für Liebhaber bestens geeignet.

[Boris Cesnik · Rating 4 out of 5]

Slightly slower paced, darker and less witty than any Celia Fremlin's books read so far.
Which is not to say that it didn't meet her high standards - on the contrary. It's still a delicious, suspenseful, enigmatic and savoury story with too many expectations, the eternal and foolish guessing game you end up always losing 'cause you think you know the truth but still it doesn't come.

Again Celia is very good at throwing all these characters up in your face all at one with the consequence that you don't have time to make a clear decision whether to hate them, feel for them or simply empathise with them. They could be one, a million or no one.

Something must happen. There are too many hints, clues and leads you sense are taking you to....nothing, nowhere, never mind. And yet again Celia's unmatched skill in fooling you right to the end is always around the corner...always just before the last word.

[Brian E Reynolds · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this her 15th novel published in 1993, Celia Fremlin, the master of domestic suspense novels, once again moves away from her usual housewife protagonist. In this novel, she presents her protagonist 60ish Arnold Walker, who has decided to retire early from his 40 year career in the Accounts Department of the local government offices to take a “dream job” as a low-paid caretaker/curator of a historic Tudor mansion called Emmerton Hall. Arnold is charged with care of the exhibits, providing tours and operating a tourists’ Tea Room, all while living in rooms in the top floors of the Hall.

Problems arise when Arnold has to operate the Tea Room after his wife Mildred leaves him to live with her newly-abandoned-by-husband friend Val because of Mildred’s dislike of having to operate the Tea Room. Also facing Arnold is dealing with his free-spirited know-it-all daughter Flora who reengages with her father and Mildred’s budding romance with the mysterious Gordon, someone also quite interested in the operations at Emmerton Hall.

Assisting Arnold in operating Emmerton Hall are a sulky groundskeeper, two local girls serving in the Tea Room, and Joyce who checks in the tourists in a kiosk at the front gate. Joyce also has to take care of her father, the former Hall curator and scholar Sir Humphrey Penrose, who now has dementia and is subject to delusional behavior, acting out recreations of historical events he believes are actually occurring. The suspense comes when all these characters interact, including Flora befriending Sir Humphrey, to create a potentially combustible situation.

I enjoyed this one because of factors such as:
- Insightful creation and examination of a married couple’s disengaging relationship. The main character and narrator Arnold is a well-drawn depiction of an aging man seeking happiness in his remaining years. He is an intelligent man with simple needs and desire to avoid confrontations or bringing unhappiness to others. However, his lack of emotions in certain areas allow the reader to understand Mildred’s failure to “stand by her man” and to respond to the moderate charms of the mysterious Gordon. The Mildred-Arnold relationship is an interesting one and Fremlin artfully presents their qualities and motivations so that you root for both of these fairly average people despite their flaws.
- Insightful creation and examination of parent/child relationships. Both Mildred and Arnold are saddened by their estrangement from their daughter Flora, who seems to disdain whatever words come out of their mouth or behaviors they choose to perform. They can’t seem to win with Flora, which also has the reader rooting for them. There is also a good portrayal of Joyce’s relationship with her aging senile father.
- Insightful creation and examination of an adult female friendship between Mildred and Val as Mildred learns how to effectively deal with her more dominant ‘friend.’
- Fremlin’s creation of a vivid and intriguing setting in Emmerton Hall, one different that I’ve encountered in any Fremlin novel or other novel of my acquaintance.
- It is another Fremlin novel peppered with Fremlin’s sharp and clever social and human insights in sufficient amounts to keep the brief lulls in plot action from being any lull in my interest level.
- The climactic events were not as melodramatically suspenseful as I feared, which was a welcome relief as only a modicum of suspense was the appropriate level for these characters’ story.
- While the climactic events weren’t really unexpected, the denouement was cleverer than anticipated and resulted in a very appropriate and satisfying ending.
- It is peppered with a decent amount of Fremlin’s sharp and clever social and human insights.

All the above result in a story which, while not top-tier Fremlin, was an enjoyable and solid second tier Fremlin. I couldn’t ask for more from a 79 year old author. I will rate this as 4 stars.

MY RATINGS FOR FREMLINS
(Instead of rating 4.5 or 3.5 stars I rate at 4.3, 3.7 and 3.3 stars for better rounding).

4.3 - The Long Shadow
4.3 - Dangerous Thoughts
4.3 – The Spider Orchid
4.3 – The Hours Before Dawn
4.3 – The Jealous One
4.0 - Prisoner’s Base
4.0 – The Trouble Makers
4.0 – The Echoing Stones
3.7 - Uncle Paul
3.7 – The Parasite Person
3.7 – With No Crying
3.7 – Ghostly Stories
3.3 – Seven Lean Years
3.3 – Listening in the Dusk
3.3 – Appointment With Yesterday

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Published in 1993 this was Celia Fremlin's penultimate novel, written when she was in her late Seventies, so perhaps it is understandable that this both feels both dated and not up to her usual standard.

Arnold is married to Mildred. He is 61 and suddenly announces that he wishes to leave his job in the local government accounts department and work as caretaker and part-time tourist guide at Emmerton Hall, a Tudor mansion. The job wants a couple and Mildred finds herself, unhappily running a tea room, before leaving Arnold and staying with a friend. The only unifying aspect of the couple's marriage is their daughter, Flora, a continual source of concern and worry - currently living in a squat (very Sixties or Seventies) before turning up to 'help' Arnold.

This is an odd plot, revolving around Mildred and a man she meets who is also interested in Emmerton Hall, a sub-plot involving Flora and an elderly academic and the hapless Arnold. I can forgive Celia Fremlin this being below-par as so many of her novels have been brilliant, but I don't think this is one that a new reader should start with.

[William · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a lot of fun! I'm not surprised that it does not seem to have been widely read. It was not easy for me to track it down. But it was worth the effort.

In a sense this is more a novel than a mystery. Fremlin writes really well, and the characters are effective and believable. I found the relationships between Walter and Mildred Walters and their daughter, Flora, to be a good story. Flora is an impossible twenty-something, and overdrawn to the point of being amusing. The same can be said of Mildred's friend Val, a one-note feminist. Sir Humphrey Penrose is the most memorable character and a central figure in the story.

This is an odd approach to a mystery. Bad things frequently seem to be impending, and the final scenes are both clever and convincing. The story adds up pretty well, and while this not quite a great book, it is a worthy and diverting read.

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a surprising find, an entertaining story, very well written. Not a crime story, but some suspense.