The Shooting Party

by Isabel Colegate

It is the autumn of 1913. Sir Randolph Nettleby has assembled a brilliant array of guests at his Oxfordshire estate for the biggest hunt of the season. An army of gamekeepers, beaters, and servants has rehearsed the intricate age-old ritual; the gentlemen are falling into the prescribed mode of fellowship and sporting rivalry, the ladies intrigued by the latest gossip and fashion. Everything about this splendid weekend would seem a perfect consummation of the pleasures afforded the privileged in Edwardian England. And yet it is not: the moral and social code of this group is not so secure as it appears. Competition beyond the bounds of sportsmanship, revulsion at the slaughter of the animals, anger at the inequities of class--these forces are about to rise up and engulf the assured social peace, a peace that can last only a brief while longer. In imagining Sir Randolph's shooting party, wrote The Spectator, "Miss Colegate has found a perfect metaphor for the passing of a way of life."

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Classics, British Literature, Literary Fiction, Historical, 20th Century

181 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1980

About the author

Isabel Colegate was born in 1931 in London and was educated at Runton Hill School in Norfolk. In 1952 she went into partnership with Anthony Blond, who was then starting a literary agency and would go on to found a publishing house, and in 1953 she married Michael Briggs, with whom she has a daughter and two sons.

Colegate’s first novel, The Blackmailer, was published by Blond in 1958 and was followed by two more novels focusing on English life in the years after the Second World War: A Man of Power (1960) and The Great Occasion (1962). These were later republished by Penguin in an omnibus volume, Three Novels, in 1983.

Though she has written a number of other successful novels, as well as reviews for the Spectator, Daily Telegraph and TLS, Colegate is best known for her bestseller and major critical success The Shooting Party (1980), which won the W.H. Smith Literary Award and was adapted for a now-classic 1985 film version. The book is still in print today (with Counterpoint in the US and as a Penguin Modern Classic in the UK). More recently, she has written the acclaimed novel Winter Journey (1995) and the non-fiction work Pelican in the Wilderness: Hermits and Solitaries (2002).

Isabel Colegate was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in1981. She and her husband live in Somerset.

Valancourt Books

Reviews

[Magrat Ajostiernos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Me cuesta puntuar este libro porque lo he disfrutado mucho pero tampoco creo que sea de esas lecturas que dejan poso.
De todas maneras se lo recomiendo a todos los anglófilos (¡como yo!) y amantes de las historias tipo Downton abbey o Gosford park o los libros como 'Los años ligeros'.
Ambientada a principios del siglo XX, vamos a acudir a una reunión entre aristócratas para una partida de caza. Nos introducimos en su pequeño microcosmos siendo partícipes de las pequeñas rencillas, amoríos y rivalidades, de su snobismo y el desprecio de muchos por la clase trabajadora así como la comprensión de otros muchos de encontrarse al borde de un precipicio.
Aunque tiene mucho salseo, la novela es pausada, nostálgica, otoñal y más dramática que cómica pero aún así no deja de ser una lectura muy entretenida, ligera y repleta de belleza.

[Susan's Reviews · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book many years ago, when I was quite young and still believed in "fairy tale true love". We humans love to tell stories - and believe them - for all sorts of reasons.



"SORT OF" SPOILER ALERT: The hero and heroine will never marry and form a family unit: however, the heroine's husband is silently aware of their lifelong liaison, and even approves the hero's bloodlines. This is an acceptable form of behaviour in their "set".



This book severely challenged my youthful illusions, but I came to realize, years and years later, that we get more out of life if we stop wishing for fairy tale endings, stop living a magazine lifestyle, and just stay in touch with reality and with the admittedly mundane aspects of every day life. Monogamy, as practiced by birds and other species that "mate for life", serves a purpose: the continuation of the species. Ironically, for some birds, not all of the eggs, if any, belong to the male who is helping to keep the nest intact and raise the young. (Cowbirds are famous for laying their eggs in other species' nests.) So, while I still love to read a heart warming novel with a dash of romance, it is a good practice to stay grounded in reality.

The realistically drawn, flawed characters in The Shooting Party, rightly or wrongly, make the best of the cards they were dealt: are we any happier as humans now that we have so much choice and freedom regarding who we choose as our mates? Aren't most of us still trying to conform to a cookie cutter life, doing what is expected of us?


A very good read, and one that will stay with you for so many different reasons.
(The 1985 movie adaptation, starring James Mason, was EXCELLENT!)

[Jan-Maat]

I saw the film of this book, many years ago. Well, when I say I saw the film, I did not see the beginning or the middle and probably not the end of it either, but I definitely saw a chunk between the middle and the end.

Naturally then it struck me that the book is very cinematic, the omniscient narrator moves like a camera operator, editing as she goes, from character to character - the grandees and the servants at the Oxfordshire home of Sir Randolph Nettlesby for a shooting weekend, in the autumn of 1913.

We are warned at the very beginning that "It caused a mild scandal at the time, but in most people's memories it was quite outshone by what succeeded it" (p.1).

Autumn 1913 is followed by Summer 1914. The ritualised slaughter of gamebirds (and a few other creatures who find themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time) throughout the book is a not very subtle foreshadowing of the slaughter on the western front during WWI, but then again that was not exactly a subtle event itself. Birds bred and reared in order to be driven out of the copses and woods towards a line of waiting guns - each sportsman supported by two servants to load his guns to maintain his maximum rate of fire suggest the generation of men bred and reared to be driven out of homes and workplaces towards organised and mechanised slaughter - though their chances of survival were better than those of the pheasants and woodcocks in this story.

The story is not just about shooting birds though, it is something of a portrait of a section of society, glamorous women, who are mostly having affairs, not so much because their marriages don't satisfy their needs, but because it is the socially acceptable thing for them to do, sporting (and no less adulterous) husbands who may be taking their sports a little too seriously, their servants. The storm clouds they see gathering are Lloyd George and civil war in Ireland, though one at least looks forward to a potential European war with longing viewing it only as a means to demonstrate his virility and passion, these are people leading impressively self indulgent lives which unsurprisingly leave them rather unsatisfied.

It is a impressively elegant and evocative little tale, just 181 pages in this edition, the final twenty or so pages tell us what happens to most of the characters after the events of this weekend.

On the downside, Colgate is in a hurry and can be a tell don't show writer, a brisk example of this deals with Lord Hartlip's servant Albert Jarvis: "A good shot himself, Albert's respect for Lord Hartlip's skill was unbounded; he looked on him more or less as his personal champion. A bachelor, living in lodgings and seldom visiting his family, working long hours for low wages, his sense of identification with his employer - with whom his function as loader put him at certain times of the year and unlike other under-keepers - was in many ways his essence, it was as if Lord Hartlip did his living for him " (pp96-97). If you like these dense info-dumps, and the pre-WWI setting, then I can strongly recommend the Children's Book to you. Personally I think Byatt's book is too much, while Colgate is Goldilocks - she can be unsubtle but in a short book, I can accept that she wanted to stuff in the detail. Though I feel too it shows a lack of confidence in the reader - my sense was that the servants as a whole and not just Jarvis, were living vicariously through their respective Masters and Mistresses - and come to that, not only the servants but also most of the villagers and perhaps you might go wider than that and start to think of phrases like 'false consciousness' too, and not just about Britain in 1913 either, the only villager who is not instinctively and automatically a supporter of the landed gentry and their privileges is inevitably the local poacher - he seems to me to be channelling E.P Thompson's Whigs and Hunters, perhaps a reminder that this book might be as much about late 1970s Britain, or at least the currants and ideas of the late 70s as it is about 1913.

But I fear I might be leading you to suspect this is a serious, solemn book when it is often funny - a particular figure of fun is the irrepressible champion of any and all worthy causes Cornelius Cardew, a socialist eager to impress upon the shooting party universal kinship of humans and animals, a man who is deeply pleased by the performance of his Jaegar rational underwear. For all his big ideas we see him shout at a dirty little servant girl - universal kinship is to be preached but not practised when a man wants to shave!

I am slightly surprised that this book was written as recently as the 1980s, and perhaps it would be as well to keep the politics and political trends of the 1970s in mind when reading this, I don't think it looks at the landed gentry and the big country house society with the rose tinted glasses that was a feature of Downton Abbey. A lively brief book to read.

[BrokenTune · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5*

‘Is it really so bad?’ asked Olivia. ‘The countryside looks so beautiful and the people so happy.’
‘They’re having a hard time. We hear a lot these days about factory workers and conditions in slums. No one bothers about rural poverty – we deal with it locally of course as best we can but when there’s no money in land there’s no money for charity. No one cares about country people. All the attention goes to the towns.’
‘I should have thought that every English person’s deepest idea of England was of the country. Doesn’t England mean a village green, and smoke rising from cottage chimneys, and the rooks cawing in the elms, and the squire and the vicar and the schoolmaster and the jolly villagers and their rosy-cheeked children?’
‘It has not existed for many years now.’
‘It must exist. How could we all believe in it so if it didn’t exist?’
‘Exactly. We believe in it. That is why the idea is such a powerful one. It is a myth.’

Oh, I should have liked this book more than I did, I really should.

Isabel Colegate created a little gem of Edwardiana here. It's historical fiction, but doesn't read like it. Stylistically, The Shooting Party was fantastic.

What turned me off was that the book is very short but tries to address so many aspects of the dying days of the world of Britain before the Great War that I thought it was all a bit crammed. When it wasn't trying to convince me that a house party would cover so many topics of conversation - while also spending a lot of time changing clothes, and getting to know each other, and conducting private affairs - I was fairly bored every time we got to the actual shooting.

And apart from one character who haunts this book, I never got the feeling of ever getting to know the people who are coming together at this house party. Maybe this would have worked better if the book had been longer. Or maybe this was the author's intention - to keep the characters at a distance from the reader. But then, if Colegate had intended this, why give some of the characters interior lives and flesh them out?

I really don't know. All I know is that I felt anxious about one character for the entire read: the duck.

[Roman Clodia · Rating 4 out of 5]

... but who invents the rules of manly behaviour? Who says it's the height of heroism to kill? For every hero does there have to be a living sacrifice?

Published in 1980, this is a cool, observant dissection of the rural English aristocracy in the autumn of 1913, just a year before the outbreak of WW1. Colegate was herself a part of this coterie and it's to her credit that she maintains a distance, able to delineate both the flaws and the possible defences of a class that believed - and believes - that it is the 'natural' ruler of England, the larger UK and certainly the Empire, if not the world.

I'm no apologist for this class- and wealth-based smug hierarchy and surprised myself at how much I enjoyed and appreciated this novel. Colegate isn't an intrusive narrator: she doesn't comment on characters or their thoughts, actions and beliefs. Instead, she lays them out descriptively in front of us and, more or less, allows us to judge as we will.

The overriding symbolism of the shooting party as a foreshadowing of the massacre to come can be a little heavy-handed, especially as a military lexicon is used such as standing in the front-line etc. But the pheasant shoot is more than just a figurative vehicle: it's also a marker of such extravagant hubris, entitlement, blood-thirstiness and sheer sickening violence that it carries its own weight. A little Googling revealed that pheasants were bred in their millions in England simply to provide the targets for this kind of 'sport'. Not all the birds were killed outright: some were shot and fatally wounded, and were left to die. They weren't even especially good eating, apparently, and, in any case, they are just too numerous: in the book, two men shoot about one hundred birds between then on one day - the shooters are eight and the shoot is three days. We can all do the maths.

An especially crass 'joke' from one of the party is when a child is worried about his pet duck and is told that if it gets out of the house, it's likely to be shot along with the wild ducks the next day. Nice. But this isn't just an instance of heartless cruelty disguised as 'fun', it's also an example of how 'men' are created from children in this world: "but you can see he has such strong emotions, and he will have to be educated and taught the way of the world and made to be on the side of the guns and against the ducks. It seems such a pity." It may indeed be a pity, for all of us, but no-one thinks there is any alternative amongst this class other than to be 'on the side of the guns'.

This appears to be a hermetically-sealed world. The 'downstairs' staff and local workers are largely complicit with the status quo and have no time for 'foreigners' coming to take their jobs (the Welsh!). The sole protester is regarded as a crank of a Londoner with his educated, vegetarian, anti-violence views, though there is a subtle resistance from a local poacher who traps and kills a single rabbit to eat and who justifies it as action against social injustice.

But most of the characters are oblivious to wider currents outside their sealed bubble: they allow in a Jewish industrialist but can't help calling him 'the Israelite' amongst themselves however much they enjoy his wealth and gifts; they pursue adulterous relationships out of what seems like boredom and intermarry in a transactional way.

But there are also indications of the change to come: a granddaughter of the house exchanges gossip and giggles with her maid to her mother's disapproval; a local young man is offered the money by Sir Randolph to get an education and go to university allowing for some limited social mobility, however patronising. And the real enemy, according to Randolph, is the Liberals under Asquith, not the newly-formed Labour Party which doesn't even seem to be on anyone's radar.

Some of the privilege and insouciance is breath-taking: 'peasants' being shot are negligible; 'peasant' girls placed in the beds of guests for their 'entertainment' are hardly worth a mention. Colegate shows us all this via what her characters say and do - we can judge... and, reader, I did!

[Troy Alexander · Rating 5 out of 5]

An outstanding novel that traces the events over the course of a three-day shooting party at an English country estate in 1913. Although it was written in 1980, you feel as if you are reading a novel that could well have been written in the late 1920s or early 1930s. It has the pathos of Ford Madox Ford’s The Good Soldier and the playfulness of Vita Sackville-West’s The Edwardians. Quite brilliant.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

With a light, deft touch, Isabel Colgate explores the autumn of Edwardian England as encapsulated in a country shooting party. It's the fall of 1913, and Sir Randolph Nettleby is hosting an assortment of well-heeled guests at his country estate for a weekend of shooting, gossip, and mild intrigue. There’s class conflict, subtle love stories, a missing pet duck, unforgivable egos, and a wandering animal rights activist who, oddly enough, immediately hits it off with Sir Randolph. The temptation for slapstick is as great as the temptation for one-dimensional stereotypes; fortunately for us, Colgate has too much restraint and skill. Imagine the wit and satire of Gosford Park enriched with the poignancy of a passing way of life — made more poignant by the shadow of the larger shooting party that was to start across Europe the next year. Colgate’s prose is wonderful — clear, clean, and subtle, like the particular glow of twilight that suffuses the landscape in warmth while at the same time illuminating things from angles you’d rather not see.

Best of all, it’s short and made me laugh out loud even though it's more serious than humorous.

[Elizabeth (Alaska) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I learned about this book from Second Reading: Notable and Neglected Books Revisited by Jonathan Yardley, a Pulitzer winning reviewer. I added a dozen of those books to my shelves, but have so far read only two. I am somewhat amused at myself as those books are similar in that they have little plot but a lot of characterization. Of these, I can see why they were included for second (or third!) readings.

In The Shooting Party, the characterization is not just of the people in the novel, but of the time period itself - 1913, the very eve of The Great War. To look at it through the lens of what comes next, it was such an innocent time. This is a story of the landed aristocracy, but those of the servant class also people this book and they, too, are well drawn. There are a lot of characters in this short book, but it isn't hard to keep them straight.

It seems to have taken me many days longer to finish than it should have. I kept getting interrupted, asked to do things not on my usual schedule. And then I didn't sleep as well at night, so that my daytime reading kept getting interrupted with a nap. But this is a book filled with increasing tension, building to one dramatic event. Even without much plot, one cannot help but know something awful is about to happen. I did not know how and to whom. After I finished reading, I learned this was made into a film in 1985, starring James Mason. I suspect it was a good one.

[George · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars. An interesting, intelligent, well written character based historical fiction novel. Set over a three day shooting party in 1913, on an 8,000 acre county estate owned by Sir Randolph Nettleby. A number of affluent guests have been invited, with Minnie, Sir Randolph’s wife supervising the entertainment and catering.

There are a number of interesting characters. Two excellent shooters in Gilbert Hartlip and Lionel Stephens, a couple of discreet love stories, a child’s missing pet mallard duck, an animal rights activist, a well organised game keeper and the dilemma over his son’s future, and a game poacher who is employed for the shoot as a beater.

The author introduces a number of characters at the start of the novel that I initially found hard to keep track of. The author portrays the way of life of the English upper class with no judgment on her part.

Highly recommended.

This book was first published in 1980.

[Connie · Rating 1 out of 5]

I struggled to get through this book - and it is less than 200 pages. To me, reading it is like standing (in pointed toe shoes) in a long reception line of people you barely meet but feel you must remember their name as they will pop-up again.

I neither could relate nor befriend any of these characters. Really, shouldn't there be at least one likeable character per novel??? I realize it was suppose to paint a picture of the time period but wasn't it plotless, dry, darn near constipating? My biggest regret: SPOILER:
is that only one of these people got shot, at long, long, last.

[Beth Bonini · Rating 4 out of 5]

As Nancy Mitford would say: DO read this novel if you are interested in the British aristocracy, particularly during that apotheosis described as the ‘Edwardian era’. This isn’t the sort of book that engenders a deep emotional response, but I got a lot of pleasure from reading such a well-constructed story. I suppose you could describe it as an elegant and precise dissection of a particular culture; it takes its subject quite seriously, though. Manners and form are of paramount importance, but it’s certainly no comedy of manners. A ‘tragedy’ of manners, perhaps, but without a hint of melodrama. Astonishingly, because it so convincingly ‘pitch perfect’, the book was actually written in 1980.

It caused a mild scandal at the time, but in most people’s memories it was quite outshone by what succeeded it.

Set during October 1913, a few years after King Edward VII ‘Bertie’ had died and just before the onset of the First World War, the story takes place on the Oxfordshire estate of Sir Randolph and his wife Minnie. The occasion is the first shooting party of the season. Sir Randolph is the prototype of the more traditional sort of country gentleman and landowner, but Minnie is devoted to social life and had been a close friend of the King. Along with members of their family, including several grandchildren who will play a role in the story, Sir Randolph and his wife have assembled a house party which seems to contain most of the Edwardian ‘types’ - definitely recognisable if you are aware of the real-life personage of the era, or if you have read Vita Sackville-West’s The Edwardians. There are various stuffed shirts devoted to the manners, dress and customs of their set, a Society beauty with a rackety personal life, a Hungarian aristocrat, an urbane Jewish financier (Minnie’s favoured bridge partner), a couple of bores, and a few characters whose intellectual and emotional depth reminds me of ‘the Souls’. There are also a few notable characters among the ‘serving’ class; most importantly, Ellen, the personal maid and confidante of Sir Randolph’s granddaughter Cicely; the head keeper Glass, and his son Dan; and one of the estate men Tom Harker (beater for the hunt and part-time poacher).

Although the aristocratic characters are all of the same set, the plot reveals the differences in their morality and mettle. Author Isabel Colegate is particularly good at revealing ‘character’ in a few telling details or in dialogue. She is also adept at showing this self-enclosed world from the top down, and it is especially through the lives of those characters whose service supports the estate that she can hint at the great societal changes which are about to take place.

Something takes place, something a bit shocking, something that causes a violent ripple in this serene little pond. But what one really feels is the idea that this aristocratic way of life has reached its last stage of decadence, and that it is about go through irrevocable change.

3.75 stars rounded up


.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

From BBC Radio 4 - 15 Minute Drama:
by Isabel Colegate, dramatised by DJ Britton, narrated by Olivia Colman

Autumn 1913. A shooting party on an Oxfordshire country estate. A whole society under the microscope, a society soon to be destroyed in the trenches of the Western Front.

The eve of the shoot.

Cast

Narrator ..... Olivia Colman
Cicely Nettleby ..... Ellie Kendrick
Sir Randolph Nettleby ..... Sam Dale
Olivia Lilburn ..... Jaimi Barbakoff
Lionel Stephens ..... Michael Shelford
Minnie Nettleby ..... Christine Kavanagh
Osbert Nettleby ..... Joshua Swinney
Lord Gilbert Hartlip ..... Sean Baker
Aline Hartlip ..... Sally Orrock

Directed by Jessica Dromgoole

It was an error of judgement that resulted in a death. It took place in the autumn before the outbreak of what used to be known as the Great War.

Autumn 1913 and Sir Randolph Nettleby has invited guests to the biggest shoot of the season on his Oxfordshire country estate. We follow the action from one evening to the next, a dinner, a morning's shoot, a lunch, the fatal afternoon, and the fallout. An army of servants and gamekeepers has rehearsed the intricate age-old ritual of the hunt. Everything about it would seem a perfect affirmation of the certainties of Edwardian country life. Yet, their social and moral code is under siege from within and without. Competition beyond the bounds of sportsmanship, revulsion at the slaughter of animals, anger at the inequities of class - these and other forces are about to rise up and challenge the social order, an order that can last only a while longer. Funny, compassionate, sobering and dispassionate, the last throes of feudal England are recorded in perfect detail, together with the germ of its destruction. The book is an exquisitely written hymn to the passing of an age.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00t...

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Touted as the book that inspired Downton Abbey (in an ugly and annoying sticker that I can't peel off of my book without a mess) I'm surprised I'm not seeing more people reading this book. It really does read like a BBC drama for anyone looking to get a dose of a British country house in Edwardian England. The story revolves around one weekend when a shooting party is held on the Oxfordshire estate of Sir Randolph Nettleby. There are affairs to be considered when doing the seating plans and rivalries to deal with on the shoot. Colgate's world reveals what was wonderful and ridiculous in society in this era. Here is a conversation that I particularly enjoyed:

Once she said to him, "Supposing there are some other people somewhere, people we don't know."
He had looked at her seriously. "What sort of people?"
"Perfectly charming people. Really delightful, intelligent, amusing civilized...and we don't know them and nobody we know knows then. And they don't know us and they don't know anyone we know.
Bob had thought for a moment and then he had said, "It's simply impossible. But if it were not impossible, then I don't think I should want to know such people. I don't think I should have anything in common with them."

Definitely a book to add to your Edwardian TBR list.

[Yukino · Rating 4 out of 5]

Questo romanzo mi ha spiazzato.
Mi aspettavo qualcosa di diverso, un pò più "frivolo" se si può usare questo aggettivo per un libro. E invece è stato intenso. Dalla descrizione del paesaggio, dei personaggi e ai loro dialoghi, tutto è così profondo e decadente. Come i nobili con le sue convenzioni e la servitù, che ormai non trovano più posto in questa società che sta cambiando. Lo si nota benissimo attraverso il divario tra genitori e figli.
Devvero bello non me lo aspettavo così. Ritrae perfettamente uno spaccato di vita, i pensieri, le paure della socieà londinese, alle porte della prima guerra mondiale.
Anche se mi è piaciuto molto, ho dato quattro stelline perchè all'inizio è stato un pò confusionario, almeno per me. Non c'è stata una vera presentazione dei personaggi (la si legge successivamente), ma si "entra" già a storia in corso, come se sapessimo dove siamo e conoscessimo le persone di cui si parla.
Per il resto, assolutamente impeccabile.
Ah mi raccomando la prefazione leggetela dopo, se non volte spoilerarvi quel minimo di trama che c'è. Leggetela però, perchè spiega molte cose.

[Leslie · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book starts like this: "It caused a mild scandal at the time, but in most people's memories it was quite outshone by what succeeded it....It was an error of judgment which resulted in a death. It took place in the autumn before the outbreak of what used to be known as the Great War." And so everything these people do, no matter how frivolous or trivial, becomes weighted with significance because this doom--the particular doom of this one death, and the larger doom of the coming war that is going to destroy their whole world--is hanging over them. We know about both of them--we don't know exactly who is going to die, though we do know something unthinkably terrible is coming-- but they don't, of course. It's a wonderful example of how to use narrative gaps to great effect.

[sheereen · Rating 5 out of 5]

oh to be an old money aristocrat gossiping over pheasant in the dying days of the empire

[Brian E Reynolds · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Shooting Party is a 1980 novel by Isabel Colegate set in 1913 pre-WWI England. The action takes place over an autumn weekend shooting party at the Northamptonshire estate of Sir Randolph Nettleby, a well-respected country squire in his sixties, a traditionalist who believes in old fashioned sporting values and the responsibility of the landowning class to protect the current rural life. Other family members include:
Minnie - Sir Randolph’s loyal and good-natured wife who serves as a wonderful hostess
Ina – daughter-in-law whose husband is a diplomat and overseas
Cicely – the romantic yet wise 19-year-old granddaughter
Marcus – the solid, future heir 15-year-old grandson
Osbert – the inquisitive and animal-loving 10-year-old grandson

Invited to the estate for the weekend shoot are various members of the gentry including:
Lord Gilbert Hartlip - England’s most renowned and best shot
Lady Aline - his witty and indiscrete wife
Lionel Stephens - a handsome, intelligent and fit young barrister and the possible new best shot
Lady Olivia Lilburn - a beautiful woman whose charms attract Lionel
Bob Lilburn (Lord) – her dull husband who is Sir Randolph’s good friend; nice but ‘a bit of an ass’
Charles Farquar- handsome and stupid, Aline’s sometime lover, and a moderately good shooter
Count Rakassyi – Hungarian noble who is a suitor of Cicely’s
Sir Reuben - older Jewish noble and Minnie’s bridge partner

We learn about these guests’ lives and attitudes in scenes involving “polite dinner table discussions and scandalous gossiping over bridge tables.” The most vital scenes involve the preparations for and the conducting of the shoots. Key dramatic tension is provided by the rivalry between Hartlip and Stephens over who can shoot the most game, a tension that rises to a very dramatic climax. There is also romantic tension between Lionel and Lady Olivia, Lady Aline and Charles, and Count Rakassyi with Cicely.

In addition to the guests and family members, there are storylines involving the estate workers including gamekeeper Glass, his intelligent son Dan, who Sir Randolph wants to to send to college, the beater/poacher Tom Harker and others involved in preparations for and the proper execution of the shoots. There are also house staff characters, including a romantic story involving Osbert’s nanny Ellen and footman John Siddons. There is also the presence of an intruder, Cornelius Cardew, a travelling anti-hunting protester, whose attempts to stop the shooting ends up in an odd but entertaining relationship with Sir Randolph.

The variety of characters and storylines is a bit overwhelming at first. The narrative perspective changes between characters and their storylines every few pages. I felt it all made for a bit muddled storytelling and regarded the book as a fairly meh 3-star novel for about the first third of the book. But eventually I grew to really enjoy the number of characters, their stories and the ever-changing narrative point-of-view. It all kept the story very interesting and much faster paced than the activity seemed to warrant.

But the changing storylines also resulted in less time spent with each character and less depth to certain characterizations. For instance, I would have liked a bit more insight into Lionel as it would have helped me appreciate his end-story more. But while Colegate didn’t have the time to provide much depth to some characterizations, she still was able to create some quite intriguing and atypical characters, especially Sir Randolph, Cornelius Cardew and young Osbert.

Another positive aspect of the novel is that Colegate used a fairly neutral perspective on the story themes, such as the continued existence of the landed gentry and their shooting parties in the face of changing society. Colegate presents a story about these themes that neither degrades nor supports any particular perspective and did so with wit and insight. I enjoyed the themes of the novel and appreciated Colegate’s perspective.

I did greatly enjoy the book and its storytelling and even considered giving it 5 stars when I finished. For now, I will rate it as 4+ stars.

EDIT: It's my end of the year review and , as I have rated less than 8% of my read books at 5 stars, I'm feeling generous. this was a very good book that, as I said at the time of my review "I did greatly enjoy." That makes it a 5 star book

[Daniel Myatt · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautifully written account of an Edwardian shooting party held just before the First World War.

The detailed writing meant I was transported back to the drawing room or the keepers cottage or the vast parkland. The characters seemed based on real people they were so cleverly written also.

I just wish (like other readers) that the story gave us a conclusion for everyone, although I guess the First World War ended many lives so it's safe to assume that many of the characters died.

[Blaine · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the novel, but I preferred the contemporaneous depictions of that era and society as done, for example, by Henry James and Edith Wharton, and slightly later by Woolf. Colegate has certainly done her research, but despite all the shooting, I felt there was something bloodless about the weekend's events and in the characters, whose personalities and dilemmas were little more than skin deep. The only two who really came alive for me were Ellen, the servant, because of her passion for helping Osbert save his duck and her thinking through why the letter she received from her lover felt false, and Tom, the poacher, who killed to eat and held fast to his Methodism.

The details that stayed with me most were the amount of work it took on the part of the servants to maintain the house, the estate, the shooting event and even dressing Sir Randolph and his guests, and the few details Colegate provides on the hovels the servants lived in. I suppose they should be thankful they had work and even that they were taught how to read.

[Kusaimamekirai · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just before the outbreak of WW1, a group of English aristocrats gather on the countryside estate of Sir Randolph to take part in his annual hunting party. What follows are urban vs. rural, young vs. old, rich vs. poor, tradition vs. modernity, dichotomies that hang over the story like an approaching storm that threatens to destroy everyone involved.
There is a singular physical tragedy here but it seems Colegate was more interested in examining how social position is no bulwark against personal tragedy. Being wealthy doesn’t guarantee you can find love. Being wealthy doesn’t insulate you from petty jealousies and rivalries. Being wealthy doesn’t guarantee you won’t be miserable in your own skin.
There are in fact only a handful of characters here, two from outside the circle of the shooting party and the others too young to be burdened down by it, that even seem remotely happy. The simplicity and surety of their beliefs affording them a level of satisfaction the aristocrats seemingly lack. This book leaves you with quite a but to think about. Be it animal rights, basic human rights, or basic civility and traditions, you won’t soon stop thinking about what you read here.

[Teresa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this very much. I had to keep putting it down and picking it up later, (life intervened), but feel it would be better to read it in one or two sittings. It had a vast number of characters and you had to concentrate to keep track of them.
The story ambles along, like a river in Summer, meandering on it's way to the sea not caring or even aware of what's going on around it. Self importance is the order of the day.
It is a character driven story, the end of an era that was not yet realised or known.
The complacency and smugness of these people is incredible.
There's a great Introduction by Julian Fellowes at the beginning. I suggest you read the book first and then the introduction as I did because it does give away secrets.

[Lewerentz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Malgré les premières pages qui m'ont fait très peur dans le sens où j'ai cru que je n'accrocherais pas du tout, ensuite, j'ai vraiment beaucoup aimé. Un de ces romans anglais sur le déclin d'un monde, d'une époque à l'aube de la première guerre mondiale. Quelques longueurs mais sinon, c'est top !

[Tabuyo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Aunque en líneas generales me ha gustado, hubiera preferido que se centrara un poquito más en los trabajadores y algo menos en los roces entre aristócratas. Llegan a cansar.

Reseña: http://contandoteunlibro.blogspot.com...

[Bettie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bettie's Books

[George Purdy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Set in the twilight years of the aristocracy on the eve of WW1, Isabel Colgate’s 'The Shooting Party' is a damning account of class privilege and prejudice, and a fascinating exploration of the remnants of the Edwardian upper classes in a rapidly changing world. Crafting a microcosm of wider society, Colegate bases her narrative on the experiences of a large number of characters from across the class spectrum, all of whom have gathered for a pheasant shoot on an estate in Oxfordshire. Despite its large number of characters and loose structure (Colegate doesn’t divide her novel up by chapters), 'The Shooting Party' made for a satisfying and intriguing read which exceeded my expectations.

[H.J. Moat · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is supposedly Julian Fellowes's initial inspiration for Downton Abbey (or more accurately, his inspiration for Gosford Park which in turn led to Downton Abbey) and I LOVE Downton, for all of it's later season flaws. It basically tells the story of a group of aristocrats and their servants over the course of one weekend in 1913 (I think - it's just before WWI), during which a shoot takes place.
It's quite a lot chillier than Downton, with none of the soapy storylines, and written in a very dignified and detached manner. For that reason I thought it was written back in the Edwardian times its set in but I've since found out it was published in 1980. I think this is a sign of good writing - it feels really authentic.
Personally I didn't care for the in-depth descriptions of the shoot, the positions and the beaters and the pheasants etc and I didn't think we got nearly enough time with most of the characters (a common problem in an ensemble piece), but as a snapshot of life in that era it was super interesting, and I must admit I teared up at the dramatic climax. And one thing it did which I appreciate greatly, is give all the major players a conclusion. I really like my stories wrapped up in a nice bow.

[Lara Kristin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a good example of third-person omniscient point-of-view :) and a really good book. It tells the story of a group of characters who converge in a particular place; a tragic event that takes place there; and what happens after.

Unlike a lot of these Grand-Hotel type multi-character narratives, it's not sprawling or epic. It's just that the author wants to show one particular thing and what it means to many different people. It's skillfully done and very enjoyable.

[Katharine · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book should have been everything I like: accurate historical depiction, insightful character portraits, subtle, good prose, etc etc. And it was just SO uninteresting. I slogged my way into it, hoping that eventually I'd care about anything that was happening or anyone it was happening to, and about 3/4 of the way to the end I gave up, overwhelmed by my sheer lack of caring. Just skimmed the rest, and I don't regret it.

[Mary Durrant · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book.
So of it's time which wasn't to be the same after WW1.
A time of shoots and house parties of the aristocracy.
It also touched on the lower classes.
Hard to believe that this book was only written in 1980.
I really felt Iwas there and was so glad that the duck escaped!

[emma · Rating 4 out of 5]

this is my second colegate and again, the writing is impressively clean and tightly focused, almost claustrophobic at times, but very sharp in its pacing. the transitions between perspectives heighten the tension (the level of character intertwinement is not for the weak) and as the whole shooting party progressed, i could sense tragedy was inevitable, not to mention the tangible threat of war. colgate deserves more recognition than she gets!!!