The Go-Between

by L.P. Hartley

"The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there."
Summering with a fellow schoolboy on a great English estate, Leo, the hero of L. P. Hartley's finest novel, encounters a world of unimagined luxury. But when his friend's beautiful older sister enlists him as the unwitting messenger in her illicit love affair, the aftershocks will be felt for years. The inspiration for the brilliant Joseph Losey/Harold Pinter film starring Julie Christie and Alan Bates, "The Go-Between" is a masterpiece--a richly layered, spellbinding story about past and present, naivete and knowledge, and the mysteries of the human heart. This volume includes, for the first time ever in North America, Hartley's own introduction to the novel.

Genres: Classics, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Coming Of Age, British Literature, Summer, Literary Fiction

344 pages, ebook

First published January 1, 1953

About the author

Leslie Poles Hartley (1895-1972) was born in Whittlesey, Cambridgeshire, and educated at Harrow and Balliol College, Oxford. For more than thirty years from 1923 he was an indefatigable fiction reviewer for periodicals including the Spectator and Saturday Review. His first book, Night Fears (1924) was a collection of short stories; but it was not until the publication of Eustace and Hilda (1947), which won the James Tait Black prize, that Hartley gained widespread recognition as an author. His other novels include The Go-Between (1953), which was adapted into an internationally-successful film starring Julie Christie and Alan Bates, and The Hireling (1957), the film version of which won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.

Reviews

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

A sublime novel, beautifully written and very evocative. It has, probably one of the most famous opening lines in literature. Do I need to quote it? Probably not, but I will because it does sum up the book; "The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there." In the early 1950s Leo Colston looks back on the long hot summer of 1900 when he turned 13, the memory of which he has blanked out. He discovers his diary and begins to piece together the events.
Hartley describes life in an English preparatory school rather well and the relationship between Leo and Marcus Maudsley is believeable throughout. Leo is invited to Brandhan Hall to spend part of the holidays (including his birthday) with Marcus and his family; a home much grander then Leo's. Here Leo accidentally falls into the role of go-between for Marian Maudsley (Marcus's sister, supposed to be engaged to Lord Trimingham) and a local farmer Ted Burgess. The tragedy is played out in the shimmering heat of the summer, set around life in the Hall, a cricket match and a general sense late Victorian/Edwardian sense of progress.
The description of a hot English summer is spot on ( I'm being reminded of that at the moment!)and there is plenty of symbolism going on beneath. Leo becomes obsessed with Mr Maudsley senior's weather station checking the rising Mercury (contrast Mercury, messenger of the gods). Leo's innocence, inquisitiveness and naivety perfectly counteract the desires, plots and plans of the adults. Hartley explores the nature of class and gender at the time; the cricket match is so exactly portrayed (Hall vs Village). there are also deeper meanings; the scene with the deadly nightshade is remarkable and Leo's interest in the signs of the zodiac all fit neatly together as part of the tapestry.
Of course, when reading and writing about it, Pinter's brilliant film starring Alan Bates and Julie Christie is in my mind and has become almost impossible to separate from the book. The remembering of repressed memories is very Freudian and the obvious defence mechanisms ring very true; as does the intrusion of adult sexuality into young innocence.
The restraint and not revealing everything adds to the power of the novel; just a beautifully written novel

[Georgia Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lolita is a disturbing book for many. To me, it is The Go-Between. Even the title teases something innocent, game-like, and for the playground. Nothing could be further from the reality.

If Nabokov gave time to the child who was used and let her speak years later, that would be on par with the pages Hartley left us. The "use" that is made of a boy in this novel is not sexual in a strict physical sense. Yet, it preys on his innocence and trust. As the messenger of two lovers in an affair, the boy is used by his first love and by a father figure. And their betrayal of his affections will impact the rest of his life.

What we learn from the boy, now the man, can be summed up as follows:

Secrets are like glue. They bond their keepers. It's hard not to admire their power. At first, secrets gleam and are dexterous as young gymnasts. The problem comes as time goes on. Their weight changes. Their shape, too. They lose their grip. There's a crash. The shards they leave are us on the ground staring up at the bar from which we fell.

[Guille · Rating 3 out of 5]

Un relato muy inglés, donde los sentimientos solo se intuyen. La prosa, elegante, de cuello duro, sí, pero eficaz. Clásica en su estructura y en su estilo, nos cuenta una historia de amor clásico, con una carga simbólica clásica (su mercurio, el mensajero de los dioses, o esa bella-dona venenosa que quiere buscar el pan y la sal más allá de su terruño) y con tragedia final clásica y romántica.

Desde el primer momento presentimos que el objetivo del narrador es explicarnos sin prisas y con cuidado detalle todo aquello que ocurrió en su adolescencia y que condicionó su vida por entero. Y digo presentimos porque en ningún momento se aborda de forma directa el relato, el de verdad, el que constituye el centro de la historia. Y el conducto indirecto es el punto de vista del niño, Leo, el mensajero (verde es su color), cuya inocencia y estrictos valores de comportamiento (aunque sean heterodoxos) contrastan con esas "alteraciones" del orden establecido perpetradas por los adultos y cuyo descubrimiento va a suponer su despertar adolescente. Y ese punto de vista de Leo, ajeno a las diferencias entre el bien y el mal (cuyos gestos y actitudes son en su mayoría nacidos de la voluntad y no de sus inclinaciones) consigue admirablemente subrayar esa inmoralidad oculta de los que se supone deben ser ejemplos para la sociedad.

Visto desde nuestro tiempo, el suceso que centra el desarrollo del libro, y la moral que lleva aparejada, nos parece más que superado, pero es lo que tienen los clásicos y no por ello dejamos de leerlos. Este es uno que merece ser leído... por lectores más agradecidos que yo.

La frase inicial es de las de coleccionar:

El pasado es un país extranjero: allí las cosas se hacen de otra manera.

[Orsodimondo · Rating 4 out of 5]

L’INVENZIONE DELLA NOSTALGIA





Il romanzo ha un incipit memorabile:
Il passato è una terra straniera; fanno le cose in modo diverso laggiù.
Oltre che straniera, è una terra lontana visto che è passato mezzo secolo adesso che l’adulto Leo ripensa al se stesso in procinto di festeggiare il suo tredicesimo compleanno.
Leo – che si pronuncia Lio e fa pensare a Leonard accorciato, ma in realtà è l’abbreviazione di Lionel – ha ormai superato i sessant’anni. Ritrova il suo diario di quando ne aveva dodici/tredici, tra cui le pagine della vacanza nella villa di campagna del compagno di scuola Marcus.


Leo sfoggia il vestito nuovo, più adatto all’estate, scelto e regalato da Marian.

Vacanza breve, qualche settimana: ma vacanza epica, settimane di formazione sotto tutti i punti di vista, eventi indimenticabili.
Marcus è dell’upper class, la sua famiglia ha titoli nobiliari e le pareti della villa sono arredate di ritratti dipinti da pittori celebri e celebrati. Leo, invece, è della middle class: il romanzo è anche un acuto e sensibile ritratto delle due classi e dei loro rapporti, i momenti di maggior imbarazzo per Leo sono quelli legati alla sua condizione sociale, a cominciare dal guardaroba non all’altezza della situazione con solo abiti troppo pesanti per quella calda estate. E più avanti vedremo anche perché la temperatura era alta.
Le regole del gioco sono diverse tra le due classi - e Leo lo apprenderà sulla sua pelle: usato e manipolato dall’incantevole creatura che è Marian, la sorella maggiore di Marcus, per la quale proverà immediata infatuazione amorosa:
Lei non era fatta della stessa materia di cui eravamo fatti noi: lei era una dea, e non dovevamo pensare che adorandola avremmo potuto farla scendere al nostro livello.
Leo imparerà che a vincere sono sempre i più forti, e i più forti sono i ricchi: chi non fa parte della loro tribù finisce schiacciato, quando non stritolato.



Romanzo di formazione, romanzo con accurata analisi sociale, romanzo d’amore. Più che a quello di Leo per Marian – che, come già detto, è soprattutto un’infatuazione, anche se sorda e cieca – è l’amore tra Marian e Ted Burgess, il contadino affittuario, che salta agli occhi: per l’impeto e la passione, nonostante la differenza di classe – lei ricca e nobile, lui poco istruito, rozzo e selvaggio – nonostante le difficoltà. Perché quando Leo le chiede perché non sposi Ted, Marian risponde un semplice e lapidario “I can’t”, e subito dopo quando Leo, disperato di fronte a una logica che non comprende – chiaro che per il bambino si sposa chi si ama – le chiede come mai allora sposi Hugh, il nobile dal volto sfregiato in guerra, Marian è altrettanto sintetica: “I must”.
Nonostante sia travolta dal sentimento per Ted, Marian ha chiaro qual è il suo destino, lo accetta, e la sua ribellione consiste nel godersi quei giorni di amore libero e selvaggio, ma nascosto.



È il 1900, siamo nella campagna del Norfolk. Si parla di guerra, ed è quella tra inglesi e boeri in Sudafrica, nella quale il visconte Hugh ha combattuto uscendone col volto sfregiato brutalmente.
Il piccolo Leo vuole compiacere gli adulti, conquistarli alla sua causa – sintetizzabile in un semplice essere accettato e non irriso per la goffaggine, la povertà, l’ineleganza, i modi non raffinati, in sintesi, il sangue rosso invece che blu – ma sono gli adulti che lo usano, lo manipolano, lo sfruttano, ne fanno la vera vittima della situazione, quello che esce più malconcio dall’esperienza. Ancora più di Ted che non regge la vergogna, e soprattutto non è supportato da censo e status.

Leo/Hartley scrive come un adulto: per fortuna non prova neppure a mettersi all’altezza di sguardo del sé ragazzino. E così facendo ci evita le goffaggini perlopiù connesse a quel genere d’approccio narrativo.
E ci regala un ritratto del tradimento della cosiddetta età incerta, l’adolescenza, che rimane nella storia, l’unica vera gemma che Hartley ci abbia regalato.



Certo parte della gloria credo si debba al magnifico film dall’impeccabile regia di Joseph Losey e l’altrettanto impeccabile sceneggiatura di Harol Pinter, con il commento sonoro di Michel Legrand che piacevolmente spinge il pedale del romantico. Il film è apparso quasi vent’anni dopo il libro (1971 la pellicola, 1953 il romanzo).
Alla creatura di Losey, ora che l’ho rivisto, potrei fare un solo appunto: la splendida Julie Christie, bella e divina come il ruolo richiede, e il suo partner Alan Bates sono ultra trentenni, mentre avrebbero dovuto essere giovani ventenni. Una differenza d’età che si nota.
Un applauso all’impeccabile Hugh di Edward Fox.

[Agnieszka · Rating 5 out of 5]

The go-between by L.P.Hartley, one of my favourite novels, is in my mind inseparably connected with the movie directed by Joseph Losey. Every time I’m thinking of it I hear great music motif performed by Michel Legrand. Having watched lately the recent adaptation of that classic I felt strong need to read it again to know how I would feel about it today.

In the summer of 1900 just under 13 years old Leo Colston, imaginative and sensitive boy receives an invitation to spend part of holidays with his schoolmate Marcus Maudsley in his family country estate, impressive Brandham Hall. Previous year was a bad one to him, first had been seriously ill, then orphaned by the father Leo has right to think of this year and the new century with high hopes and expectations as a beginning of something exceptional, onset of mythical Golden Age from his dreams. And entering Brandham Hall seems to create a real opportunity on that way. On the spot Leo meets other members and friends of Maudsley’s family including Marian, beautiful Marcus’ sister, wooing her Lord Hugh nothing is ever a lady’s fault Trimingham and Ted Burgess, tenant of nearby farm.

Hartley brilliantly captured dreams and dilemmas of a twelve-year -old caught, against own will, partly due to own naivety and vanity though mainly because of egoism and callousness of adults, in a network of interrelated though conflicting aspirations. Enchanted by all participants of the drama boy is trying to please everyone. Leo feels almost reverent worship for this world and its inhabitants, these ethereal virgins and young men in white, weren’t they embodiment of his personal Zodiac ?, for this hot summer, for that social order that is already crumbling although no one yet can see it. His admiration for Marian’s beauty, almost animal vitality of Ted and the gallantry of Hugh, at last his loneliness makes that having received some interest from them can not deny small favor in return.

Run, Leo, run. Lovers are waiting for the letters. You can’t let them down. Do I see little wings at your feet ? Nah, it’s likely chiaroscuro, only sun plays tricks when you run out of the shadow. But you were called Mercury as well, the messenger of the gods and you believed at that and, lost in adult’s world and also in own half awaken sexuality, convinced of own greatness and magic abilities , elated by glorious summer, you tried to change course of events. Oh, poor little Mercury, even your divine namesake wouldn’t have done that so carelessly.

That novel is so brilliantly multilayered, psychologically nuanced, rich and evocative, dealing on so many levels, speaking of rigid class rules and social inferiority, naivety and calculation, deception and recognition, illicit love and hypocrisy, Victorian morality and conventions shackling people like stiff corset, finally eclipse of some epoch and loss of grace and innocence.

If the past is a foreign country what then is a human heart ? Poor Leo, half a century later tries to bring back all events that merciful memory had hidden from him. Stranger in the world of feelings, cindery creature, disillusioned with life and dream golden age but also own role in the bygone tragedy like a guest from another world, exile from zodiacal Eden returns to the ancient past. Go, Leo and from the bottom of your dried heart, from your reluctant memory, for the sake of this memorable summer and all these bigger than life people, go and find proper words. After all you believe yet that there's no spell or curse except an unloving heart.

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

The cruelty of grown-ups manipulating children is endless!

What a strange, strange story this is, told in a double voice by a single narrator, partly reflecting as an old man on the younger self's experience, partly slipping into the voice of that younger self to make sense of a highly traumatising experience for which the boy had no explanation, but which nevertheless explains later choices in the old man's lifestyle to such an extent that the summer of his 13th birthday in 1900 can be called life-defining.

Unconscious of the grown-up world of mixed messages and desires, young Leo gets drawn into an intrigue full of passion and sexuality and of ambition and class prejudice. Outside his usual social environment as a visitor to Brandham Hall, a fashionable mansion in Norfolk, and sexually innocent and oblivious, he judges what happens to himself from the school boy's logic. Bringing "business letters" to a local farmer from the young, beautiful and spoiled daughter of the "Hall", he becomes a tool, a go-between who is successfully manipulated to play an involuntary role in a disastrously lopsided affair. With his lack of knowledge and experience, he manages to put the blame for the following tragedy all on himself, and it leaves him scarred for half a century.

A social and psychological study and a coming-of-age story, this novel reads like a mystery as well, as explored inside the head of a boy who got shocked for life by being exposed to ruthless sexual desire and its social implications in class-ruled England of 1900. What a bitter disappointment to see fifty years later that he had always shunned emotional life because of such trivial selfishness as his Lady Marian displayed. To the boy, it looked like a dangerous curse!

One is tempted to throw in some "what ifs".

What if the affair had been allowed to run its course? Wouldn't Marian have tired of her lover and moved on to something else to occupy her mind? Wouldn't Ted have had a chance to start a more genuine relationship (or to die in one of the wars on offer, as his son and Marian's brothers did!)?

What if Leo had remained at the Hall to see the dénouement? Wouldn't he have calmed down and been able to let it go?

But that is the thing with brilliant novels. They leave you wondering for days, knowing full well that the plot played out the way it did because it had to.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Look, just give me a book by a Brit with two initials whose observance is all the more sensual for being somehow repressed, and set him aloose on the pre-war countryside, okay? I'm easy.

The climactic action of this book is when a kid rips up a shrub, yet, I liked it.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

‘The Go-Between,’ is a novel which I have meant to read for a long time. It has, of course, one of the most famous opening lines in literature - "The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there." Published in 1953, it is narrated by Leo Colston, who is sixty-odd when we first meet him, but is looking back on events in the hot summer of 1900, when he visited a school-friend, Marcus Maudsley, and his family, at Brandham Hall.

This is a very evocative novel, which really encapsulates the past well. We begin with Leo’s story at school, where he is bullied and his life made a misery, before somehow a chance event causes him to become something of a hero. This experience gives him a certain confidence, so he is thrilled to visit Marcus in the holidays. There is even a titled guest; a Viscount, who allows him to call him by his first name, as well as the lovely Marian, Marcus’s sister.

Leo’s family life, alone with his widowed mother, is much less grand that that of Marcus, and he is impressed and eager to please. It gradually becomes apparent that Marian is destined to become engaged to the Viscount, whose family seat is Brandon Hall. However, she is attracted to the tenant farmer, Ted Burgess, and, when Leo is asked to take notes between Marian and Ted, it leads to a tragedy which Leo tries to understand as an adult.

Everything about this novel is sublimely beautiful. It seems almost odd now that a boy like Leo, about to reach his thirteenth birthday, is really so unaware of the reasons for his message taking; but, as the author tells us in the beginning – it was a more innocent time and very different. The setting is evocative of those rare, beautiful, English summers. It involves class, cricket, croquet on the lawn and picnics. The small victories, and crushing embarrassments, of childhood and the awareness of adult life on the periphery of Leo’s senses. A wonderful novel and one which encapsulates so much about a certain time so well.

[Trish · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hartley has taken my breath away with the sweep of his story and the majesty of his writing. This book was published when he was fifty-eight, in 1953, and evokes England before the wars "quickly, simply, effortlessly" (Tóibín, Intro p. x). Hartley, in an interview, wrote:

I wanted to evoke the feeling of that summer [in 1900], the long stretch of fine weather, and also the confidence in life, the belief that all's well with the world, which everyone seemed to enjoy before the First World War...The Boer War was a local affair, and so I was able to set my little private tragedy against a general background of security and happiness."

Ostensibly this is a story about a thirteen-year-old private-school boy, Leo, at the turn of the twentieth century spending a month in the summer at the house of a wealthier school chum, Marcus. It is told from the perspective of that same boy, years later and remembering back. He hints at some dark and irremediable end that casts a shadow through the warm and carefree beginnings of that seminal summer.

This is a slow slide, told through innumerable details, into the deep end of the pool, but we hardly even struggle as the dim end comes. We are watching the process, the progress of our descent. Our boy Leo got a new set of clothes, fell helplessly in love with distant Marian, the older sister of Marcus, and had days of discovery on his own when Marcus came down sick and had to stay in bed. Leo never does get to wear his new swim suit, though I waited for that moment almost as anxiously as I did the larger dénouement that loomed on the horizon that steamy summer. Somehow I thought that nakedness and bathing and water and the thrill of danger would be intertwined with the finish, but that was just another beautifully executed feint where ordinary things take on the weight of portent.

The gentle, teasing story of that languid summer is that moment in a life when mysteries are revealed, truths are uncovered, futures are altered, and no one is ever the same again. The miracle is that Hartley captured it so completely, the sensual detail caught with the enthusiasm and wonder of a boy's eye: the rippling muscle of the farmer, the shock of cold steel and weight of the gun stock, the smell of Marian's perfume and the rustle of her satins as her white arms stretched over recalcitrant piano keys...

But the best, the very best, is the way Hartley brings his story to a close. We hold on through the summer with stomach clenched: when the crisis comes, we are ready, but Hartley teases us on with another suspense, and then another, until we are slowly sated, satisfied, and feel older, wiser, wistful. I adored character Marian at the end, while I hated her throughout much of the story. It was the older man's eyes and her own words that make this transformation, but it made her life and his a celebration, rather than a tragedy. Only time and distance bestows that grace, and Hartley was wise enough to tweek our emotions that one last time. This is the cusp of manhood story that school children should read, but aspiring authors could do worse than study how Hartley did this.

A final word: Hartley was a book reviewer foremost, and "often read as many as five novels a week and reckoned that in all he must have read well over six thousand books."(Tóibín, Intro p. vi). Would that our man were alive and writing today, we would be ever the richer.

[Algernon · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Was there a telephone here in your day?"
"No," I replied. "It might have made a great difference if there had been."

Leo Colston, a man in his sixties, returns in 1952 to the place where his life began ... and ended ... all of it during a brief interlude of glorious summer days, such as England, and Master Leo, has never seen since. With the help of the intimate journal he kept during his 1900 journey to Brandham Hall in Norwich County, Leo Colston re-examines the events that had such a traumatic ('arrested development', anyone?) effect on his innocent mind. As the introduction notes, Hartley wrote the book as a memoir, as an act of atonement, and as a manifesto against the decay brought by two world wars and a social order turned upside down.

It allowed him to evoke a past, a time half a century earlier, a golden age, as he saw it, of Victorian morals and manners, an age of innocence in the short time before its shattering.

What the introduction is less clear about, and what the reader can only discover by jumping right into the text, like the young boy dipping into the blue waters of a pond in summertime, is how full of beauty and sadness, how exquisitely written this trip down memory lane is.

The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.

One of the most memorable first lines I have come across in my long years of reading, and a moving evocation of a fraught coming of age at the tail end of a pious, rigid yet prosperous Victorian society. Invited down for the summer to the opulent Brandham Hall by Marcus (a friend from his public school), Leo feels both enthralled by the prospect of mingling with the rich Maudsley family and anxious about his own social status.

I was between twelve and thirteen, and I wanted to think of myself as a man.

also,
I was acutely aware of social inferiority. I felt utterly out of place among these smart rich people, and a misfit everywhere.

Leo has managed to find his place among his peers at school, escaping the obligatory bullying and even gaining a reputation as an amateur spell caster. Yet this new world of immaculate green lawns, formal dinners, white suits and dresses, tennis and cricket and evening dances has him flustered, out of his depth, enchanted. Most of all he is attracted by the older sister of Marcus, the beautiful Miss Marian Maudsley, who herself seems to be taking an interest in the young boy.

What did we talk about that has left me with an impression of wings and flashes, as of air displaced by the flight of a bird? Of swooping and soaring, of a faint iridescence subdued to the enfolding brightness of the day? [...] My spiritual transformation took place in Norwich: it was there that, like an emerging butterfly, I was first conscious of my wings.

With help from Marian, Leo is out of his chrysalis (his inappropriate cold weather clothes and heavy boots), Leo is now decked in a highly fashionable summer suit in bright green colour, and can take his place among the revelers. On a trip to an improvised swimming pool he meets another adult that would have a major impact on his summer days: Ted Burgess is not a member of the Brandham Hall social circle, he is just a farmer out for a quick dip in the water, yet his physical presence is arresting.

Without going into one too many plot details, Leo ends up visiting Ted at his farm and becomes a bearer of secret messages between him and Miss Marian. His innocence fails to spot the obvious reason for the illicit dialogue and Leo revels instead in the attention he is paid by the two people he admires the most. Like many a young boy at that age, what he doesn't know is replaced by flights of fancy.

Without knowing it, I was crossing the rainbow bridge from reality to dream. I now felt that I belonged to the Zodiac, not to Southdown Hill School; and that my emotions and my behaviour must illustrate this change. My dream had become my reality; my old life was a discarded husk.

Yet how long can this pretending game continue while real life happens all around Leo? For a moment he is on top of the world – when he saves the day at the annual cricket match between the Hall and the village teams, or when he sings a Psalm at the game's afterparty accompanied on piano by Miss Marian. But the higher you fly, the most painful is the coming back down.

What an Eden Brandham Hall had been before this serpent entered it!

Master Colston begins to suspect that Ted and Marian are using him and that they care little about his own feelings, either praising or threatening him in order to get what they want from him. The Biblical references are intentional, with knowledge of the real world being blamed for Leo's expulsion from Paradise and with the connotations of sexual awakening in Leo as puberty hits. As older Leo inserts himself into the memoir, he even holds an imaginary conversation with his 12 y.o. self:

"Well, it was you who let me down, and I will tell you how. You flew too near to the sun, and you were scorched. This cindery creature is what you made me."

Again, I don't want to go into specific plot points about what went down at the end of that atypical spell of sunny days in East England, but it must have been the defining moment for the author of this book, an admirer of the old class system and a misfit among the trenches of the twentieth century.

I was a conformist: it never occurred to me that because I suffered, there was something wrong with the system, or with the human heart.
Leo the conformist to the Victorian values is mostly in evidence on the day of the annual meeting between the Lords and the Peasants with the occasion of the game.

Cricket is more than a game, they say, or used to say: it is an attitude of the mind, a point of view. I don't know about that. You can think of it as a set of ritual movements, or as a ballet, a ballet in a green field, a ballet of summer, which you can enjoy without knowing what it's about or what it means.

Cricket is also a stand-in for class warfare, with Lord Trimigham the refined war hero on one side and Ted Burgess the animal on the other, while Miss Marian standing on the sidelines to reward the winner.

Dimly I felt that the contrast represented something more than the conflict between Hall and village. It was that, but it was also a struggle between order and lawlessness, between obedience to tradition and defiance of it, between social stability and revolution, between one attitude to life and another.

Older Leo feels betrayed by the selfishness and the brutality of the new age, a brutality he feels he is partly responsible for after poisoning the Eden he remembers Brandham Hall to have been. In a book rich in metaphor and foreshadowing, Leo is obsessed by a wild weed growing in a shady corner of the Brandham stables. Belladona comes to signify for him both passion in its wild, secret growing, and poison in its effects on other people. He is wiser now, but he mourns for the enthusiasm and the hope that he lost along the way.

Knowledge may be power, but it is not resilience, or resourcefulness, or adaptability to life, still less is it instinctive sympathy with human nature; and those were qualities I possessed in 1900 in far greater measure than I possess them in 1952.

Indeed, before he was exiled from Paradise, the young boy was putting down in his diary some very thoughtful lines about ethics and religion and politics (the Boer War in that period).

Why should we call ourselves sinners? Life was life, and people acted in a certain way, which sometimes caused one pain.

or,
Wrong was not a word I had much use for; the idea of Right and Wrong as two gigantic eavesdroppers spying on my movements was most distasteful to me. But surely something which might end in murder must be wrong.

This dilemma between his intentions and the results of his go-between actions in the summer of 1900 will haunt Leo Colston for the rest of his life, until he is ready to revisit the place in 1952.

In my eyes the actors in my drama had been immortals, inheritors of the summer and of the coming glory of the twentieth century.
So whichever way I looked, towards the world of experience or the world of the imagination, my gaze returned empty. I could make no contact with either, and lacking the nourishment that these umbilical cords convey, I shrank into myself.

The tragic vibe of the account of the summer of 1900 is balanced somewhat by the returning visit of 1952. This reader feels that the author was not satisfied with the bitterness of his own failed life, of his trampled sensibility, and he wanted another voice to give an account of that summer:

Do you remember what that summer was like? how much more beautiful than any since? Well, what was the most beautiful thing in it? Wasn't it us, and our feelings for each other? [...] We did have sorrows, bitter sorrows, but they weren't our fault – they were the fault of this hideous century we live in, which has denaturated humanity and planted death and hate where love and living were. [...] Tell him there's no spell or curse except an unloving heart.

This epilogue raised the book from a simple five star rating to a place among my favorites. Now I'm ready for a re-watch of the movie version.

—«»—«»—«»—

I left out a long passage describing the relationship between young Leo and powerful Ted, something that has been used in some accounts to justify a homosexual interpretation. I don't see it, given the stated initial innocence of Leo and the obvious interest they both have in the beautiful Marian, but then I may have my own baggage of emotions and experience I am bringing to the lecture. To each his own. To me the quote serves to paint Ted Burgess as a role model and not as a crush.

I liked Ted Burgess in a reluctant, half-admiring, half-hating way. When I was away from him I could think of him objectively as a working farmer whom no one at the Hall thought much of. But when I was with him his mere physical presence cast a spell on me; it established an ascendancy that I could not break. He was, I felt, what a man ought to be, what I should like to be when I grew up. At the same time I was jealous of his power over Marian, little as I understood its nature, jealous of whatever it was he had that I had not. He came between me and my image of her. In my thoughts I wanted to humiliate him, and sometimes did. But I also identified myself with him, so that I could not think of his discomfiture without pain; I could not hurt him without hurting myself. He fitted into my imaginative life, he was my companion of the greenwood, a rival, an enemy, a friend – I couldn't be sure which.

[Nigeyb · Rating 5 out of 5]

L.P. Hartley's The Go-Between takes place in the long hot Summer of 1900, and tells of how young Leo, staying with Marcus, a school friend, at the aristocratic Brandham Hall, begins to act as a messenger between Ted, the farmer, and Marian, Marcus's beautiful sister. Leo narrates the events in 1952, as a mature adult looking back.

The Go-Between was an immediate success when it was published in 1953. My only awareness of it, was from the 1970 film adaptation which I watched after reading this. It's good, but not a patch on this, the original book.

My sense is that The Go-Between has fallen out of favour since the film, and may well be destined to languish in relative obscurity in a few decades time. This would be a great shame. It's a masterpiece.

There is so much to enjoy here: the glorious writing; the evocation of the seemingly perfect Summer; the realistic insights into the mind of a 13 year old boy struggling to make sense of the adult world; the boundaries of Edwardian society; the Norfolk landscape; and the dangerous, illicit love affair at the book's core.

However, beyond the surface pleasures, lurk darker themes and The Go-Between also describes a world of conflict: Edwardian class tensions; the Boer War (and the wars that were to follow and which claim other victims); the supernatural vs the material; young, vibrant, magical Leo vs his older, haunted self; Leo's non-aristocratic background which is at odds with the gilded world of his hosts; Leo's conflicted feelings for Ted; arranged marriage vs passion; etc. There is so much to ponder in this book.

The Go-Between is a tense, rich, evocative, multi-layered novel, and quite brilliant.

5/5

[emma]

a strong breeze could get me to read any book in this edition

[Emily May · Rating 4 out of 5]

“The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.”

There can be no other quote to open my review with but the famous first line of The Go-Between.

This is a very beautiful little book in which a man reminisces about his youth and one summer in particular when he went to stay at his schoolmate’s manor house, Brandham Hall. It's filled with a bittersweet nostalgia and Hartley really captures youthful enthusiasm, innocence and naivete through Leo. There's a sense of both longing and misery in him. He wants so very much to be a part of this group of dazzling upper class people, but he is never quite part of their world, no matter how much they humour him.

Leo is a wide-eyed boy who believes in spells and curses and that adults are always right. He gets caught up in this world-- one that seems somehow separate from the rest of reality. I love books that capture those intense little bubbles of people, time and place, where it feels like a separate universe has been created with its own set of rules. In this universe, Leo becomes, as the title suggests, a go-between for forbidden lovers Marian and Ted.

The Go-Between also explores the relationship between class and sexuality. Marian is a wealthy upper-class woman and Ted is a tenant farmer. Having a relationship with a woman above his social class has disastrous consequences for Ted. And middle-class Leo with his regional accent becomes collateral damage also.

When I started reading this book, it immediately brought Ian McEwan to mind. So it came as no surprise to hear McEwan list Hartley among his influences. There's very much an Atonement vibe about this book-- the adolescent protagonist witnessing an affair between adult lovers, the naivete of the young mind, one intense summer that changes everything... it's all there. I really enjoyed it.

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[°°°·.°·..·°¯°·._.· ʜᴇʟᴇɴ Ροζουλί Εωσφόρος ·._.·°¯°·.·° .·°°° ★·.·´¯`·.·★ Ⓥⓔⓡⓝⓤⓢ Ⓟⓞⓡⓣⓘⓣⓞⓡ Ⓐⓡⓒⓐⓝⓤⓢ Ταμετούρο Αμ · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Όμως παιδί της σκόνης, τα άνθη τα αρωματικά
Ο λαμπρός γαλάζιος ουρανός κι η βελουδένια χλόη
Πόσο παράξενοι ήταν καθοδηγητές
Των θαρρετών βημάτων σου προς τα σκοτάδια!…”

Ο μεσάζων, της περίπλοκης φυσικής νομοτέλειας και των γενετήσιων ενστίκτων.
Ο συγγραφέας, Λ. Π. ΧΑΡΤΛΕΪ εμπλέκεται μέσω ενός νεαρού αγοριού σε ένα κυνηγητό χρονικών θηραμάτων μνήμης ( και με κοινό παρονομαστή τις απίστευτες κοινοτοπίες ενός υπέρλαμπρου έργου ζωής, όπως αυτό που μας χάρισε με ανακτημένο τον χαμένο χρόνο και τις επιτηδευμένες ή ανεπιτήδευτες μα επινοημένες μνήμες, ο Μαρσέλ Προυστ ) και καταφέρνει με απλό και εύκολο τροπο να γράψει μέσα απο τα συναισθηματικά και υπαρξιακά ακατανόητα ζητήματα -για την ευαίσθητη ηλικία ενός αγοριού στην προεφηβεία- την έλξη και το φόβο του για την ανθρώπινη ανάγκη κάθε είδους και ξέχωρα απο τις επιταγές των ηθικών κανόνων και της ταξικής διαφοράς, κυριαρχεί πάντα κοντά μας το παρελθόν.


«Το παρελθόν είναι μια ξένη χώρα: κάνουν πράγματα διαφορετικά εκεί»

.. το βιβλίο αποδεικνύεται ότι δεν είναι ένα δράμα για τις ταξικές διαφορές ή για την Αγγλία μιας κοινωνικής διαστρωμάτωσης που επιλέγει θύτες και θύματα, καλοκαίρια στην καθημερινή ζωή με θεό τον έρωτα, τον παράνομο και παθιασμένο έρωτα αλλά και χειμώνες που σερνονται παγωμένοι στην στέρηση της επιθυμίας, στην άρνηση της ερωτικής εκπλήρωσης ανάμεσα σε άτομα που δεν ανήκουν στο ίδιο αριστοκρατικό είδος των προνομιούχων ή ένας χαμένος κόσμος που θρηνείται από τον Χάρτλεϋ.
Αντίθετα είναι ένα δράμα για τ�� βαθιά αισθησιακή φύση του Λίο που κινείται τυφλά, σε έναν κόσμο με πλούσιες λεπτομέρειες και όμορφες προτάσεις, με πλατωνικούς έρωτες και ολόθερμα καλοκαίρια, απο αυτά που θέλουν την γυμνή σου σάρκα, θέλουν να ακουμπούν την αίσθηση τους πάνω σε καλοκαιρινά ραντεβού ανάμεσα σε γυμνά κορμιά που λιώνουν όχι μόνο απο την κάψα του βασιλιά ήλιου αλλά και απο την πραγμάτωση των ονείρων και των ηδονών της σεξουαλικοτητας και της μνημης. Μια συναισθηματική ακαμψία του βιωματικού σε σύγκριση με την μυθιστοριογραφία ωθείται προς μια καταστροφή που οδηγείται από τη δική του ένταση του συναισθήματος και, τη δική του αθωότητα.

Στα μέσα του αιώνα και μετά το 1900 του καυτού καλοκαιρινού θέρους καρπών και ψυχών , πολλά άλλαξαν πραγματικά: δύο παγκόσμιοι πόλεμοι, το πέρασμα της Χρυσής Εποχής, η διάβρωση του ταξικού συστήματος, η γέννηση του κράτους πρόνοιας.

Ο Λέων Κόλστον, πυροδοτήθηκε σαν τον Προυστ ( με το ζουμερό, σιροπιαστό, μαλακό και πασίγλυκο γλυκάκι) μπροστά από ένα ασήμαντο αντικείμενο.
Έτσι, αρχίζει να σκέφτεται πίσω τα καλοκαίρια της ζωής του, σταματώντας λίγο πριν από τα 13α γενέθλιά του. Ήταν όταν πέρασε τρεις εβδομάδες με την οικογένεια ενός σχολικού φίλου στο Brandham Hall στο Norfolk.

Τον Ιούλιο του 1900 στην Αγγλία του ασταμάτητου ζεστού
καιρού, θα περνούσε τις διακοπές του με προνομιούχους και όμορφους ανθρώπους, γόνους αριστοκρατικών οικογενειών. Τα γεγονότα μεγαλουργούν στην φαντασία του και σε ο,τι του επιτρέπει η μνήμη του, αποκορύφωμα σε αναμνήσεις αποτελούν διαφορα σπασμένα αναμνηστικά καρδιάς,
όπως ένας αγώνας κρίκετ μια συναυλία και μια μπάλα, ένα πράσινο ποδήλατο για τον ταχυδρόμο των ανίερων επιστολών.
Ο Λιο καλωσορίζεται από την οικογένεια Maudsley, με νέα ρούχα, πολυτελή ζωή και πλούσιες απολαβές. Κάπου ανάμεσα
σε φιλία, έρωτα καη φιλοξενία βαπτίζεται κρυφά ως φορέας μηνυμάτων μεταξύ της Μάριαν και του Τεντ, ενός νεαρού τοπικού αγρότη, που η φτώχια του μονομαχεί με την μοναξιά και την σκληρή δουλειά.
Όχι ότι ο Λιο καταλαβαίνει τι συμβαίνει. προσπαθεί να είναι αφηγητής συνείδησης και ενσυναίσθησης, αλλά αναπόφευκτα καταντάει αφελής και ανώριμος.

Η άγνοιά του Λιο για τα θέματα των ενηλίκων και η ενδυνάμωση όλων των ταμπού της λαϊκής τάξης και της βικτωριανής ηθικοπλαστικής δύναμης αποτελούν χαρισματικές αποχρώσεις στην γραπτή δημιουργία του Χάρτλεϊ. Είναι λογοτεχνικές επιδεξιότητες όπου εκτιμώνται απο ενήλικες αναγνώστες αφού αποτελεί μία κορύφωση από τις πολλές κορυφαίες απολαύσεις του βιβλίου.




Καλή ανάγνωση.
Πολλούς και σεμνούς ασπασμούς.

[Tony · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is, of course, the great opening line: The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there. And there is the magnificent cover, with just the perfect adolescent male face; even the green color is important, it turns out. There is also the very useful, if unfortunately positioned 'Author's Introduction'. Hartley quickly and explicitly expresses his debt to Proust and posits that an author, though wedded to the present, writes better when reflecting on the past, where impressions formed are 'most fertile for literary creation.' He tells us also that The Go-Between 'is pregnant with symbols,' naming a few, and then somewhat incongruously saying, 'But I have never deliberately introduced a symbol into any of my books.' Let me say here that I don't disbelieve him. Symbols: they grow as weeds, they bubble in the stew; the wind and the stillness bring them in turn. The artist can't escape them. And the reader can tell when he's trying too hard.

But it is the Epilogue which made this book for me. Until then, the narrator's voice was that adolescent, seeing things with open eyes but not yet understanding. No one will tell him what 'spooning' is and conversations splinter when one says 'Hugh' and the other hears 'you'. Such is the confusion when a boy turns thirteen. What to make of lessons of 'right' and 'wrong' and what is proper and what is not when Life's joys and tragedies yet remain unexplained. But, Proustians, the Epilogue begins with this line: When I put down my pen, I meant to put away my memories with it.

And then this:

I was like a train going through a series of tunnels; sometimes in the daylight; sometimes in the dark, sometimes knowing who and where I was, sometimes not knowing. Little by little the periods of daylight grew more continuous and at last I was running in the open; by the middle of September I was considered fit to go back to school.

It was not the denouement but the old man's voice that pulled the curtain away for me. I had struggled with the Britishness of the story; the notions of class seem silly to me. There is a vignette - a cricket match - which was defining. It was the day (not a day) when the servants got to play and party with the viscounts and landed gentry. Our young narrator observes: I remember how class distinctions melted away and how the butler, the footman, the coachman, the gardener, and the pantry boy seemed completely on an equality with us, and I remember having a sixth sense that enabled me to foretell, with some accuracy, how each of them would shape. And yet the boy did not believe you could succeed at a game unless you were dressed properly for it. It was like trained soldiers fighting natives.

It was the time of The Boer War. Much would happen in the fifty years from the time our narrator 'put down' his pen and when, in the Epilogue, he took it up again. Whose fault was it? All the sorrows -- the bitter sorrows? All the deaths? What we do to each other?

The woman at the center of this story says: But they weren't our fault -- they were the fault of this hideous century we live in, which has denatured humanity and planted death and hate where love and living were. Tell him this, Leo, make him see it and feel it; it will be the best day's work you ever did.

And so it was.

[Sara · Rating 5 out of 5]

The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.
(This is on my list of the greatest first lines ever!)

Leo Colston is a twelve year old schoolboy who has been invited by his fellow student, Marcus Maudsley, to spend a summer vacation at Brandham Hall, an estate belonging to Lord Trimingham but occupied by the Maudsleys. Among those present for the summer are the current Lord Trimingham and the Maudsley’s daughter, Marian. There is an immediate sense for the reader that Marian is expected to marry Trimingham.

Leo succumbs to a schoolboy infatuation with Marian and she responds with a kindness and concern for his welfare that makes him her slave. He also meets a local farmer, Ted Burgess, who tends a wound Leo receives while sliding down a hay rick. What develops rather quickly is Marian and Ted using Leo, because of his affections for them, as a messenger to carry forbidden notes from one to the other.

The book is written as a first person retrospective…the older Leo remembering the events of that fateful summer. Even he reminds us, from the beginning, that the memory is distant and unsure. The danger for the reader is that Leo Colston is an unreliable narrator; the danger for the adults at Brandham Hall is that he is an adolescent operating with only a half-knowledge of what he is doing and what is meant by what they are doing. He begins, over time, to misinterpret almost every action the adults take toward both him and one another.

To my mind’s eye, my buried memories of Brandham Hall are like the effects of chiaroscuro, patches of light and dark: it is only with an effort that I can see them in terms of colour. There are things I know, though I don’t know how I know them, and things that I can remember. Certain things are established in my mind as facts, but no picture attaches to them; on the other hand there are pictures unverified by any fact which recur obsessively, like the landscape of a dream.

I thought of two other favorite books while reading this one: Brideshead Revisited, because like Charles, Leo is a fish out of water, observing a life he has little reference for; and Atonement, because, like Briony, he misunderstands so much of what he is actively involved in. He is not of the class the Maudsleys belong to, and he is a class above the farmer, Ted Burgess. This class distinction sets up an internal conflict for him. His life, particularly as a schoolboy with both a twisted idea of the authority of grown-ups and a twisted code of conduct that belongs to his own peer group, has left him unequipped to decipher or properly maneuver through this very adult affair into which he has been drawn.

I did not know it by the name of passion. I did not understand the nature of the bond that drew the two together; but I understood its workings very well. I knew what they would give for it and give up for it; I knew how far they would go–I knew there were no lengths they would not go to.

As readers, we do see that this is both a personal and a societal dilemma: a class struggle, an issue beyond the scope of the two lovers. And, in some ways, Leo sees this larger picture as well.

Dimly I felt that the contrast represented something more than the conflict between Hall and village. It was that, but it was also the struggle between order and lawlessness, between obedience to tradition and defiance of it, between social stability and revolution, between one attitude to life and another. I knew which side I was on, yet the traitor in my gates felt the issue differently, he backed the individual against the side, even my own side, and wanted to see Ted Burgess pull it off.

Leo is at a very vulnerable age, and the impact of the decisions he is faced with, feelings of loyalty and betrayal, trust and reliance, innocence and the less clear complexities of adulthood, resonate through his life and alter who he becomes. He has no experience upon which to draw and the imagination of a sheltered boy, without a father, who is sorting out what it is to be a man.

This is a superb book; a coming-of-age tale that is rooted in reality. Changes are afoot, but 1900 is still a time entrenched in tradition and only sitting on the precipice of transition. Leo says, “The year 1900 had an almost mystical appeal for me; I could hardly wait for it.”, but life does not change with the calendar, and, as we and Leo find, the 1800s are still in possession of the field.

[Φώτης Καραμπεσίνης · Rating 4 out of 5]

1η δημοσίευση, Book Press:
https://bookpress.gr/kritikes/xeni-pe...


Ο "Μεσάζων" δεν διατείνεται ότι η αναγνωστική του προσέγγιση πρέπει να είναι εκείνη ενός σύγχρονου μυθιστορήματος – ούτε καν στην εποχή του δεν επέσυρε ετούτη η "μομφή". Το 1953, οπότε και εκδόθηκε, οι προβληματισμοί του θεωρήθηκαν μάλλον παρωχημένοι: Τα βικτωριανά ήθη, οι άκαμπτες ταξικές σχέσεις, ο δυισμός σώματος-πνεύματος, δεν αποτελούσαν ζητήματα τα οποία η μεταπολεμική εκείνη δεκαετία βίωνε ως φλέγοντα.
Το βιβλίο αυτό, ευτυχώς για όλους μας, δεν φαίνεται να έχει γραφτεί για το συγκαιρινό κοινό του συγγραφέα, για μια εποχή, ανθρώπους και καταστάσεις που φαίνεται ότι απέφευγε και απεχθανόταν. Ο Χάρτλει, αντ' αυτού, επέλεξε να γράψει για τον εαυτό του, για όλα εκείνα που κινούσαν τις εσωτερικές του τεκτονικές πλάκες, μετουσιώνοντας το προσωπικό του όραμα σε τέχνη. Όπως κι ο υπέροχος "Γατόπαρδος" του Ντι Λαμπεντούζα, ο "Μεσάζων" είναι ένα κείμενο που αρνήθηκε τη σύντομη λάμψη του "μοντέρνου", αναζωπυρώνοντας την άσβεστη φλόγα του κλασικού.

Ο πρωταγωνιστής του βιβλίου αυτού είναι ένα ον σε μετάβαση, κάτι που γίνεται προφανές σταδιακά, καθώς βυθιζόμαστε αργά στις σελίδες, εξοικειωνόμαστε με τα πρόσωπα του έργου και τις μεταξύ τους σχέσεις. Ο ηλικιωμένος, πλέον, Λίο Κόλστον αφηγείται τις περιπέτειες του δωδεκάχρονου εαυτού του το ζεστό καλοκαίρι του 1900 (μία από τις πολλές μεταβάσεις αυτή, στον 20ο αιώνα), ο οποίος περνάει τις διακοπές του στο σπίτι του αριστοκρατικής καταγωγής παιδικού του φίλου. Στο νέο αυτό περιβάλλον θα έρθει σε στενή επαφή με την οικογένεια και θα βρεθεί στη θέση του αγγελιαφόρου, μεταφέροντας κρυφά μηνύματα μεταξύ της γαλαζοαίματης Μάριαν (η κόρη σε ηλικία γάμου) και ενός αγρότη ονόματι Τεντ, οι οποίοι διατηρούν ερωτικό δεσμό. Κι αυτό που ξεκινά ως ανώδυνο παιχνίδι, θα καταλήξει σε τραγωδία.

"Πέρα από τον σχολικό κώδικα τιμής, δεν κατείχα κανένα άλλο ηθικό σύστημα", ξεκαθαρίζει εξαρχής ο Λίο, μέσω του μελλοντικού αφηγητή-εαυτού του, δίνοντας το εναρκτήριο λάκτισμα της αισθηματικής αγωγής ενός παιδιού που αντικρίζει κατάματα τον κόσμο της ενήλικης ζωής με περιορισμένα όπλα και λειψή κοσμοθεωρία. Ο Χάρτλει περιφέρει το αγόρι στην αγγλική επαρχία, εν μέσω των ενηλίκων και των δικών τους παιχνιδιών, με αντίστοιχο αφηγηματικό, κλασικότροπο ύφος: Νωχελικά, όπως εκείνα τα ατέλειωτα παιδικά καλοκαίρια που διαρκούσαν για πάντα. Και ο ιστός αρχίζει να υφαίνεται σταδιακά γύρω από το αγόρι, καθώς το μόνο που επιθυμεί είναι η αποδοχή του από εκείνους τους πλούσιους και κυρίως κοινωνικά διακεκριμένους ανθρώπους. Η αποδοχή θα προκύψει, αλλά όχι όπως η παιδική φαντασία το ονειρεύτηκε, όχι δίχως τίμημα, όπως συμβαίνει από καταβολής: Αναζήτησέ τη και θα τη βρεις τελικά την αλήθεια, αλλά αυτή θα σε τσακίσει!

Κομβικό σημείο στην εξέλιξη, περίπου στο μέσο του βιβλίου, ο αγώνας κρίκετ μεταξύ της των αριστοκρατών της έπαυλης και του χωριού. Οι ομάδες στέκονται απέναντι, το παιχνίδι ξεκινά, αλλά ο καλλιτέχνης συγγραφέας (μέσω του ήρωά του), έχει ταυτόχρονα στραμμένη αλλού την προσοχή του: Το βλέμμα του Λίο μαγνητίζει η καμπύλη του ουρανού και εκείνη των δέντρων πέρα από την πίστα. Παρεμβάλλεται το αιχμηρό κωδωνοστάσιο που καταστρέφει τη συμμετρία. Το αγόρι αναρωτιέται, γιατί άραγε να μην μπορεί η εκκλησία να προσαρμοστεί στην αρχιτεκτονική της φύσης; Το κείμενο βρίθει τέτοιων συμβολισμών που προσφέρουν κλειδιά ερμηνείας.
Κατά τη διάρκεια του αγώνα, ο ήρωας βιώνει ξεκάθαρα μια έντονη συναισθηματική μετατόπιση. Η ξαφνική του σύμπνοια με τον αγρότη Τεντ, η συνεπακόλουθη προδοσία της τάξης του, η ενσυναίσθηση με τον αντίπαλο, ο οποίος βέβαια συνδέεται ερωτικά με τη Μάριαν (αντικείμενο και της δικής του επιθυμίας), δημιουργούν σύγχυση, η οποία ιντριγκάρει τον αναγνώστη εξίσου. Ο εσωτερικός αγώνας του αγοριού, ταυτόχρονα με εκείνον που διεξάγεται στο γήπεδο του κρίκετ, μας ρουφάει στη δίνη του, ανατρέποντας τις βεβαιότητές μας μέσα από τη δίχως έρμα οπτική του Λίο, ο οποίος αναζητώντας βεβαιότητες στο εξωτερικό του περιβάλλον, κατορθώνει να σπείρει αναπάντητα ερωτήματα εντός του.

Αν και ο πρωταγωνιστής, συμμετέχοντας μόνο προς το τέλος του αγώνα, επιτυγχάνει να προσφέρει τη νίκη στην ομάδα του, το πράττει με μισή καρδιά και η σύγχυσή του απλά μεγεθύνεται. Θα κερδίσει μία ακόμα νίκη έναντι στον Τεντ, επευφημούμενος αργότερα για τις ικανότητές του στο τραγούδι και μια υπόκλιση από την αγαπημένη Μάριαν. Και οι νίκες του, θα παραμείνουν αυτές ως το τέλος.

Ο αισχυντηλός Λίο θα συνεχίσει να μπαινοβγαίνει στη σκηνή του ενήλικου κόσμου, ακροπατώντας, ψηλαφώντας συχνά στα τυφλά το πέρασμά του. Καλείται ακούσια να προσφέρει τις υπηρεσίες του, αναλαμβάνοντας ευθύνες που δεν του αναλογούν, που δεν μπορεί να τις σταθμίσει, αδυνατεί να τις κρίνει. Μοναδική του πυξίδα τα αισθήματά του, η πρωτόλεια ηθική του, ελλιπώς ανεπτυγμένη, η οποία των καθοδηγεί. "Για δεύτερη φορά με προσκαλούσαν να ανταλλάξω την προστασία της παιδικής μου ηλικίας με τις ευθύνες του ενήλικου κόσμου. Ήταν κάτι σαν θάνατος, αλλά με την προοπτική της Ανάστασης: την τρίτη φορά που έγινε το ίδιο, η προοπτική δεν υπήρχε".

Ο αναγνώστης ανακαλύπτει σταδιακά ότι νεαρός Λίο δεν είναι αποκλειστικά μεσάζοντας μεταξύ των εραστών. Κινείται εξίσου εν τω μέσω της παιδικής και της ενήλικης ζωής: του κόσμου της φαντασίας κι εκείνου της πραγματικότητας. Ένας ενδιάμεσος χώρος και χρόνος, μια συνεχής κίνηση εμπρός-πίσω, όπου το καταφύγιο της νεαρής ηλικίας μετατρέπεται συχνά σε φυλακή. Μα και η ελευθερία που συνεπάγεται η ενήλικη ζωή αποτελεί άχθος, καθώς συνοδεύεται από ευθύνες, επιλογές και αναμετρήσεις.

Το παιδί Λίο επιχειρεί, όποτε προκύπτουν θέματα δυσεπίλυτα, να απαντήσει στο ερώτημα: Τις πταίει; Όπως του εξήγησε ο Υποκόμης Χιου (ο μέλλων αρραβωνιαστικός της Μάριαν), μια κυρία δεν δύναται να φταίει. Το ίδιο όμως ισχύει και για τον ταξικά ανώτερό του υποκόμη. Μένει ο πληβείος Τεντ ως βασικός υπεύθυνος που ξελόγιασε την Μάριαν. Ποια η θέση του ιδίου του Λίο, ο οποίος μετέχει πλέον ενεργά στο τρίγωνο που δημιουργήθηκε άθελα του; Θα ξεκινήσει ως παρατηρητής, θα συνεχίσει ως εμπλεκόμενος. Ο ρόλος του αλλάζει αργά μεν αδήριτα δε. Η μεσολάβηση θα σταματήσει κάποια στιγμή και θα μετατραπεί σε πράξη, επιλογή, ενεργητική στάση. Στον κήπο του Παραδείσου ο Λίο θα μετατραπεί σε όφι που σπέρνει τη διχόνοια μεταξύ των πρωτόπλαστών.

Δεν δύναται να κατανοήσει την έκταση και την ένταση του ερωτικού πάθους, παρά μόνο να αντιληφθεί τις επιπτώσεις του όσον αφορά το άτομό του. Ο επίγειος παράδεισος του Μπράνταμ Χολ διαταράσσεται από τη μιαρή σχέση του κοινού θνητού Τεντ με τη γαλαζοαίματη Μάριαν, χωρίς μάλιστα να τον περικλείει. Συχνότερα τον κρατά απέξω και τον εκμεταλλεύεται ως παραγγελιοδόχο. Ο νεαρός λαμβάνει απλά ψήγματα εκτίμησης, τρυφερότητας και αισθησιασμού: θα δώσει στη Μάριαν το μαγιό του για να στεγνώσει τα μαλλιά της μετά το μπάνιο. Αυτή θα είναι και η μόνη έμμεση επαφή του με την κοπέλα, σε μια άκρως συμβολική σκηνή σεξουαλικής αφύπνισης, κατά την οποία η υγρασία των μαλλιών της θα βρέξει το μαγιό που έχει ακουμπήσει στο γυμνό της σώμα.
Μα το ίδιο, ακόμα πιο έμμεσα, θα συμβεί και με τον Τεντ, ο οποίος διεγείρει τη φαντασία και τον λανθάνοντα ερωτισμό του αγοριού κατά την επαφή μαζί του. Όσο πιο κοντά επιχειρεί να έρθει στα αντικείμενα του πάθους του τόσο πιο πολύ θα απομακρύνεται από την παιδική του ηλικία και θα εισέρχεται σε εκείνη της εφηβείας και των προβληματισμών της. Οι επακόλουθες εκρήξεις των δύο συνενόχων εραστών, οι οποίοι βέβαια βιώνουν απόλυτα εγωκεντρικά τον δεσμό τους, όταν το αγόρι αρνείται ή ζητά κάτι από αυτούς, θα τον αποξενώσουν, θα του δώσουν την πραγματική διάσταση του τριγώνου στο οποίο παραμένει ο αναλώσιμος τρίτος.

Ό,τι για τους ερωτευμένους βιώνεται ως εκτυφλωτικός ήλιος στο κατακαλόκαιρο, για τον έφηβο είναι απλά μαύρη τρύπα που απορροφά τα πάντα εντός της: Μια σχέση αυτοναφορική, εγωκεντρική και αυτοτελής – ένα μικρό λυσιτελές σύμπαν. Οποιοσδήποτε τρίτος απλά είναι περιττός και ξένος. Τελικά, στο μυαλό του Λίο, τα πάντα θα συγκλίνουν στο εξής: η σχέση της Μάριαν και του Τεντ οφείλει να λήξει κι όλα να επανέλθουν στην προτέρα κατάσταση. Τούτο, φυσικά, είναι αδύνατον, όπως και η επιστροφή στην ανεμελιά και την αθωότητα της παιδικής ηλικίας. Ο όφις άπαξ και βρήκε τον δρόμο του στον κήπο θα παραμείνει εντός.

Το παιδικό μυαλό του Λίο θα επιχειρήσει να επιλύσει τον γόρδιο δεσμό με παιδικό τρόπο, οργανώνοντας μια νυχτερινή έξοδο που περιλαμβάνει επίσκεψη σε ένα παρακείμενο παράσπιτο, φυλασσόμενο από το δηλητηριώδες φυτό μπελαντόνα. Εκεί θα δοθεί μια ονειρική μάχη με το άνθος, μια συμβολική τελετή ενηλικίωσης. Η ηλικία της αθωότητας δεν έχει, όπως πολύ συχνά διαβάζουμε, σχέση με την εποχή πριν τη σεξουαλική αφύπνιση, αλλά με εκείνη πριν τη συνειδητοποίηση της θνητότητάς μας. Η νύχτα αυτή θα αποτελέσει το όριο της παιδικής φαντασίας, η οποία προσμένει ως αρωγό της τη μαγεία.
Την επομένη, ημέρα των γενεθλίων του, ένας νεαρός άντρας θα ξυπνήσει στη θέση του "πράσινου" (υποτιμητικός χαρακτηρισμός που του απέδωσε η Μάριαν), άγουρου αγοριού. Ο Λίο θα κάνει πλέον τις επιλογές του που θα έχουν συγκεκριμένα αποτελέσματα και θα οδηγήσουν στην κορύφωση.

Το καταληκτικό κεφάλαιο θα βρει τον ήρωα, ηλικιωμένο πλέον, να επιστρέφει στον τόπο του εγκλήματος και, στο παρασκήνιο, τον συγγραφέα στον χρόνο της μνήμης. Ο χρόνος θα είναι κι ο μόνος Μεσάζων, κινώντας αναπρόδραστα ανθρώπους, τύχες, ζωές. Ο κυνισμός και η ψυχρότητα κατοικούν εκεί που παλιά κυριαρχούσε η θέρμη. Την τελευταία ο Λίο τη δανείζεται για ύστατη φορά από τη γερασμένη Μάριαν, η οποία συνεχίζει να συντηρεί και συνδαυλίζει τις αυταπάτες της. Και οι αυταπάτες αυτές (τι άλλο στηρίζει τη ζωή μας;) θα τον συγκινήσουν.
Ο Λίο, στη δύση της ζωής του, θα κληθεί να γίνει για τελευταία φορά ο Μεσάζων, φέρνοντας πλέον τη συμφιλίωση, την ειρήνη στα ανθρώπινα πάθη, το έλεος και τη συγχώρηση.

Κλείνοντας το βιβλίο, το παρελθόν δεν είναι πλέον "μια ξένη χώρα, όπου όλα γίνονται διαφορετικά εκεί" (όπως έξοχα περιγράφει η περίφημη εναρκτήρια παράγραφος). Έχει γίνει κάτι οικείο και προσιτό: μια φιλόξενη χώρα με γοητευτικούς κατοίκους που μας δέχτηκε και μας επέτρεψε να την εξερευνή��ουμε, και στην οποία -όποτε μας δοθεί ξανά η ευκαιρία- είμαστε πανέτοιμοι να επιστρέψουμε.

Υ.Γ.
Χρωστάμε πολλά στη μεταφράστρια Τόνια Κοβαλένκο μέσα από το βλέμμα της οποίας αντικρίζουμε, εφηβικά κι εμείς, τον όμορφα πλασμένο κόσμο του συγγραφέα.

https://fotiskblog.home.blog/2020/11/...

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Do you remember what that summer was like? – how much more beautiful than any since?” This made for perfect heatwave reading over the past couple of weeks: very English and very much of the historical period that it evokes, it is a nostalgic work remembering one summer when everything changed.

Summer 1900, Norfolk. Twelve-year-old Leo Colston is invited to spend the several July weeks leading up to his birthday at his school friend Marcus Maudsley’s home, Brandham Hall. Although the fatherless boy is keenly aware of the class difference between their families, in a year of learning to evade bullies he’s developed some confidence in his skills and pluck, fancying himself an amateur magician and gifted singer. Being useful makes him feel less like a charity case, so he eagerly agrees to act as “postman” for Marcus’s older sister, Marian, who exchanges frequent letters with their tenant farmer, Ted Burgess. Marian, engaged to Hugh, a viscount and injured Boer War veteran, insists the correspondence is purely business-related, but Leo suspects he’s abetting trysts the family would disapprove of.

Leo is right on the cusp of adolescence, a moment of transition that mirrors the crossing into a new century. As he glories in the summer’s mounting heat, “a liberating power with its own laws,” and mentally goads the weather into hitting ever greater extremes, he pushes against the limits of his innocence, begging Ted to tell him about “spooning” (that is, the facts of life). The heat becomes a character in its own right, gloweringly presiding over the emotional tension caused by secrets, spells and betrayals. And yet this is also a very funny novel: I loved Leo’s Franglais conversations with Marcus, and the confusion over mispronouncing “Hugh” as “you.” In places the tone even reminded me of Cold Comfort Farm.

Like A Month in the Country, this autobiographical story is an old man’s reminiscences, going back half a century in memory – but here Leo gets the chance to go back in person as well, seeing what has become of Brandham Hall and meeting one of the major players from that summer drama that branded him for life. I thought this masterfully done in every way: the class divide, the picture of childhood tipping over into the teenage years, the oppressive atmosphere, the comical touches. You know from the famous first line onwards (“The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there”) that this will juxtapose past and present – which, of course, has now become past and further past – in a powerful way, similar to Moon Tiger, my favorite fiction read of last year. I’ll be exploring more of Hartley’s work.

(Note: Although I am a firm advocate of DNFing if a book is not working for you, I would also like to put in a good word for trying a book again another time. Ironically, this had been a DNF for me last summer: I found the prologue, with all its talk of the zodiac, utterly dull. I had the same problem with Cold Comfort Farm, literally trying about three times to get through the prologue and failing. So, for both, I eventually let myself skip the prologue, read the whole novel, and then go back to the prologue. Worked a treat.)

Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is among the best and loveliest novels I have read. It begins with one of the most striking sentences in modern literature:

The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.

And they certainly do. That line has become famous, but it's not just a powerful statement in itself; its sentiment informs Hartley's entire book. There is a prologue - in which an older man is drawn to a memory. There is an epilogue - in which he attempts reconciliation. And, in between, there is a fully realized account of what the man experienced as he was about to turn 13. Something unanticipated - which would change and mark him forever.

Our narrator, Leo, recalls the year 1900 vividly - capturing with precise detail the country manners of both the upper and lower British class. Leo himself is not well-to-do but he is friends with a boy who is; he has been invited to spend a few days with his friend (and family). Soon after his arrival, Leo draws the particular attention of his friend's sister. Since Marian is somewhat angelic in appearance and nature, Leo becomes smitten in the way a young boy can. But eventually Marian makes a request of Leo - an innocent one ...which gradually becomes less innocent - even to someone as naive as Leo.

But all of that is only set in motion after 1/3 of the story has passed. Prior to that, there is a great deal that Leo tells us about himself - almost all of which is absent from Joseph Losey's wonderful 1971 film version. As good as that film is (and it's quite good; it streamlines in a way that allows for much more than 'spirit'), it still robs us of the richness of Leo's sensitive and curious inner life. ~a lot which comes out in the way Leo absorbs or 'translates' everyday conversation, and the way he describes his surroundings:

I would rather we had stayed outside; for in the badly lit, sparsely furnished kitchen, with its bare, hard, worn surfaces, its utter lack of the femininity that children of both sexes feel at home with, I instinctively felt that he was too much on his own ground.

Leo is, of course, in a world of propriety - where, if you are of lower class and hot from the sun, you can mop your brow with a handkerchief ...but, if you are of higher birth, you must dab. This is a world of surface. A bit tense from that already, Leo will discover a deeper tension - brought on by what that surface must mask.

The writing here has its own unique style - it almost has the feel of Henry James, I suppose, but it's much more accessible. (A friend once told me of his 'pain' when he had to read James as an English major - saying he would be reading what seemed to him a 3-page description of curtains and finding himself almost crying from boredom. ...Hartley does deal in description, too, particularly of nature, but it's much more to a central purpose.)

I didn't feel the urge to rush through this one - but, even so, as it moves on, it gains a sense of urgency, becoming more of a page-turner in spite of itself. In all, a very moving experience.

(I read the 2002 edition, which has a nice, brief intro by Colm Toibin, as well as an 'in retrospect' by L.P. Hartley himself.)

[Antoinette · Rating 5 out of 5]

From its first amazing line, “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there”, to its closing, this book was pure genius.

Leo Colston is in his sixties when we meet him. He is looking back at an event that took place in July 1900, that shaped his life irrevocably. He is going through his memory box that his mother kept for him.

“The relics were not exactly dirty nor were they quite cleans, they had there patina of age; and as I handled them, for the first time for over fifty years, a recollection of what each had meant to me came back, faint as the magnet’s power to draw, but as perceptible.”

For 50 years, he has tried to block those memories. The time has come to confront them.

As an almost 13 year old, he is invited to stay with a school chum, Marcus, at Brandham Hall- a wealthy estate owned by Lord Trimingham, in which the Maudsley’s are staying. Leo is not used to such grandeur and to say he is awed is an understatement. Leo develops a crush on Marian, Marcus’ sister.

Marian uses this “crush” to enlist Leo’s help in delivering secret note to Ted Burgess, a tenant farmer. Leo is naive- he loves how important helping Marian makes him feel.
This book is exceptionally plotted- a slow build up to what will be the turning point in Leo’s life.

This is 1900- a great divide between the classes is very evident. Poor Leo feels like an outsider much of the time- Imagine being singled out by the beautiful Marian.

“How difficult it is to keep out of one’s mind a painful thought that attaches itself, leech-like, to a thought one welcomes.”

This book left me sighing with contentment at its conclusion. A book that will definitely stay with me! Highly recommended!

Published: 1953

[Annetius · Rating 5 out of 5]

4,5*

Στο γύρισμα του αιώνα, το έτος 1900, ο Χάρτλεϊ σκαρώνει μια ιστορία ενηλικίωσης, και την αφηγείται πανέμορφα νωχελικά. Φαίνεται σχεδόν από την αρχή πως έχει όλα τα στοιχεία για να φτιάξει κάτι καλό, αληθοφανές και πειστικό, γνωρίζει όλες τις εσωτερικές διεργασίες και αρθρώνει τα ανείπωτα που δύσκολα βρίσκουν διέξοδο στον λόγο. Ο έρωτας και η εφηβεία είναι οι θεμέλιοι λίθοι αυτού του βιβλίου. Πάνω σε αυτούς, προστίθεται η πατίνα του χρόνου, η δύναμη ή η αδυναμία της μνήμης, η ενοχή, η τελική λάμψη της αλήθειας, που μπορεί να είναι διττή και αυτή.

Ο Λίο, ο 13χρονος πρωταγωνιστής, μπαίνει ως γρανάζι σε έναν μυστικό μηχανισμό, και δημιουργείται έτσι ένα τρίγωνο που μόνο αυτός νιώθει πως έχει τη δύναμη να χαλάσει ή να συντηρήσει. Η εμπλοκή του στο τρίγωνο είναι καταλύτης. Η μεταφορά μηνυμάτων που του έχει ανατεθεί είναι σαν υδατογράφημα που αρχίζει να αχνοφαίνεται σταδιακά όσο προχωρούν οι σελίδες και ο αναγνώστης σιγά σιγά το αντιλαμβάνεται μαζί με τους κανόνες του παιχνιδιού.
Τα όρια του εαυτού ξαμολιούνται, μπαίνει στον τάκο η αυτοεκτίμηση, μετριούνται οι δυνάμεις, ζυγίζονται και εκτοξεύονται τα συναισθήματα. Όλα αυτά μπολιάζονται μέσα σε ένα ασυνήθιστα ζεστό καλοκαίρι• όσο η θερμοκρασία αυξάνει, ανεβαίνει και το εσωτερικό θερμόμετρο της ιστορίας, αναζωπυρώνεται και η αγωνία του αναγνώστη, σαν ένα σύμπλεγμα συγκοινωνούντων δοχείων.

Μέσα από την έξυπνη γλωσσοπλασία του κουταλιάσματος (spooning) που εμφανίζεται σταθερά σε όλο το βιβλίο, ξεπηδάει η έννοια του έρωτα, του αγνού πρώτου έρωτα, αυτού που κάνει το ξαπλωμένο σώμα να γουβιάσει για να υποδεχτεί την κούρμπα της πλάτης του αγαπημένου μέσα του. Δε θα το ξεχάσω αυτό.

Σκέφτηκα πως παντού και πάντα υπήρχαν κοινωνικές επιταγές που εμπόδιζαν τους έρωτες ανάμεσα σε ανθρώπους διαφορετικής κοινωνικής τάξης. Μου ήρθε στο μυαλό το παραδοσιακό θρακιώτικο τραγούδι (πάντα με συγκινεί!) όπου το Μαργούδι λέει στη μάνα του πως μπορεί αν θέλει να τη δείρει, αλλά αυτή πάλι θα βγαίνει στην αυλή για να βλέπει τον Αλεξανδρή. Ο έρωτας βρίσκει πάντα διέξοδο οποίο κι αν είναι το τίμημα.
Ο Λίο χώνεται ανάμεσα σε δυο τέτοιους ανθρώπους και γίνεται ο συνδετικός τους κρίκος.

Το βιβλίο με συνέδεσε με μια προσωπική μου εμπειρία. Ήταν καλοκαίρι στο κάμπινγκ. Μετά το μεσημεριανό φαγητό, αποσυρόμουν στην παραλία, όπου ξάπλωνα σε μια σκιά ενός εφήμερου σκιάστρου, στρώνοντας την πετσέτα απευθείας πάνω στην άμμο, ακριβώς μπροστά στη θάλασσα. Αποκοιμιόμουν αλλά με τη μετακίνηση του ήλιου, η σκιά μεταφερόταν, με αποτέλεσμα να καίγομαι σημειακά. Μεταφερόμουν τότε μηχανικά πιο δίπλα χωρίς να ανοίγω μάτια, και μετά πιο δίπλα κ.ο.κ. Μέσα στο μισοΰπνι μου, είδα ένα απίθανο όνειρο: ένιωσα ότι πετάω πά��ω από τη θάλασσα βλέποντας πως στον πάτο του βυθού υπήρχαν ζωγραφιές, τις έβλεπα ολοκάθαρα. Ήταν από τα πιο όμορφα πράγματα που μου έχουν συμβεί.
Ήταν μια εμπειρία μεταξύ ύπνου και ξύπνου, ονείρου και πραγματικότητας. Αυτό που συνέβη, κάτι ανάμεσα σε βίωμα και σε ονειροφαντασία, κάτι in between, μου θύμισε πολύ το βιβλίο του Χάρτλεϊ. Μια περιδίνηση μέσα σε κάτι που έχεις ζήσει, αλλά και δεν έζησες όπως νομίζεις.

Και θα καταλήξω με την κορυφαία εναρκτήρια πρόταση του βιβλίου:
"Το παρελθόν είναι μια ξένη χώρα: τα κάνουν όλα διαφορετικά εκεί."
Η μνήμη είναι ένας τόπος περίεργος, ένας τόπος πλάνης και μισής αλήθειας. Μας αρέσει δε μας αρέσει, οφείλουμε να συμφιλιωθούμε με αυτό.

Ένα μεγάλο ναι σε αυτή τη λογοτεχνία.

[Άξια η μετάφραση της Τόνιας Κοβαλένκο, όπως και το σύνολο της σκληρόδετης έκδοσης του Καστανιώτη.]

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer · Rating 5 out of 5]

The past is a different country: they do things differently there

A deservedly classic novel, published in the early 1950s and set largely in the long, hot summer of 1900 (albeit effectively narrated 50 years later with the first half of the 20th Century and how it played out crucial to the novel), in and around a large country house (Brandham Hall) in Norfolk –perhaps most notable of all for the fact that its famous first line is much better known than the novel itself.

The plot of the novel is summarised in detail here

https://www.litcharts.com/lit/the-go-...

And the themes analysed brilliantly by Ali Smith here

https://www.theguardian.com/books/201...

The novel was also made into a 1971 film with screenplay by Harold Pinter and with Julie Christie, Alan Bates (with a rather dubious Norfolk accent), Michael Redgrave and Edward Fox playing main parts. The film was shot on location in Norfolk with the now (rather suitable 50 years later) rather run-down Melton Constable Hall standing in for Brandham Hall but with lengthy scenes shot in and around the village of Heydon – which in the 1970s still looked liked a village from the turn of the century and which 50 years on has barely changed – and where I am fortunate enough to spend large parts of my year.

[H (trying to keep up with GR friends) Balikov · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a novel written in the 1950s about the English Victorian world of the turn of the 20th century. It is told by a much older Leo Colston from his “box of memories” and concerns the summer of 1900 when, as a youth of thirteen, he spends much of the summer at the residence of his classmate, Martin Maudsley. Martin is of the upper class. Leo is not (but few in the story are aware of his family background). The Maudsleys live at Brandham Hall in Norfolk, England.

Through Leo’s memories, we are introduced to this society and the complex relationships in the world of a country squire. Leo is aware of his status as a guest and a “lower class one” at that. It is something that he does not want others to know but he is limited in his vision and his wardrobe. Circumstances, including the generosity of the Maudsleys offer both solutions and complications. Leo, anxious to fit in and be liked, finds Martin’s older and beautiful sister, Marion, a delightful and awe-inspiring companion. When, later, she persuades him to take messages to Ted, the nearby young farmer, he becomes complicit without understanding the grown-ups' relationship. This is the central element of the story and its title.

The book opens with a lovely line: “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there." There is a lot to recommend Hartley’s choice of perspective. The passage of many decades allows the older Leo to offer some perspective on what the young Leo was enthralled by. The world is a different place at the middle of the 20th century and particularly so for most Brits. Britannia no longer rules the waves; the former Empire is in a steep erosion; the class system has broken down; manners and morals have changed; and, squires no longer dominate the countryside.
Hartley handles the various threads of plot with great competence. But, where he shines is in the descriptions. Leo and Martin at play ring absolutely true. The pastoral setting is rendered in all its subtle hues from the oppressive heat of the summer to the swimming in the river. We are treated to rural life complete with a cricket match, concert and formal ball. Hartley takes time to sketch the people who serve at and frequent Brandham Hall. This helps to fill out the portrait of the life that holds so much attraction for the young Leo.

We, along with Leo, ineffectually shuttle between the world of children and the world of adults. We think we understand more than we actually do. When the older Leo actually returns to Norfolk to seek out the Maudsleys, we come to understand more of the context, but not all.

This is a clever, well-written, novel that didn’t quite “click” for me. In giving it a few more days to “settle,” I am still no wiser about why that is so. Many believe this novel deserves a “4” or more. It probably merits more than a “3” from me, but it doesn’t quite reach the next level.

[Chrissie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I bought this book because I was intrigued by its first line: "The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.” It certainly is an intriguing line, but so much more could have been done with the message than is done here.

The story is told by a sixty-two year old man, Leo Colston. He writes of his experiences in the summer of 1900 when he was almost thirteen. That summer he was invited to stay with his upper-class friend Marcus Maudsley in their Norfolk estate, Brandham Hall, in England. The story revolves around what happened in those few weeks and how what happened changed Colston's life forever. The story does not feel told, but vividly experienced as the elderly man relives the events of that summer. You never forget that it is the elderly English man speaking. You hear this in his manner of speaking.

The themes are interesting: a child's incomprehension of adult behavior and ambiguous speech, love, death and deception. It is about the simultaneous process of losing the naivety of a child and the abrupt awakening to the deceptions of adulthood. It draws a rather negative view of British upper crust values and mode of life. I find the consequences of the events as they are drawn in the story to be exaggerated.

I felt nothing for any of the characters. The events left me totally unmoved. There is a coldness, a steeliness in the manner in which the story is related. This coldness reflects who Leo Colston came to be, but I find it questionable that such a man would have any interest in telling us his story!

The audiobook narration by Sean Barrett is easy to follow and properly displayed the cold manner of the central protagonist.

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's been a long time since I've been so flummoxed by a book that it leaves me (almost) without words.

One part of my mind says this: I like the writing well enough, and Hartley seems to spin a well-constructed story; and for the most part, it isn't objectionable.

The other part says this: I hated it with undefinable passion.

I wondered, what did I really dislike? I didn't like the pretentious little prig who was nothing but a little blusterer with an inflated sense of self. In his defence, one could argue that self interest is the raison d'être of every 12-year old boy -- and leave it at that. But this particular 12-year-old-boy added a special type of annoyance, for some reason.

I objected to his affected naivety which, at times, co-mingled with a worldly arrogance of class-conscious superiority. I objected to his condescensions. He was sometimes-insolent; smug; cocky, without having any right to be, by virtue of his age, and his class.

Class mattered to him a great deal, and in the end, was the sin that unravelled the lives of so many. It mattered to him that boundaries should not be crossed, even though he was the first transgressor of those boundaries. By natural extension, then, he had no right to enjoy the patronage of his social superiors when he could not return the courtesy to his social inferiors. And that's the great fault in the novel: while enjoying the hospitality and benefaction of his friend's family, he turns his own narrow-mindedness against someone who had not done him any harm; to compound the sin, he somehow manages to put the blame on others.

He takes cover under the notion that he was young; he ascribes blame to the adults who "used" him. He turns the emotional tables to say he was "put upon" by those who were older and wiser. If he had simply played his role as it was defined for him, that of a simple go-between, and nothing more, then perhaps he could have used that argument in his defence. But, he took charge, and manipulated the circumstances to suit his own selfish nature. No one forced him to lie. He interfered, where he had no right to interfere, because he was a class-conscious and jealous little snob.

While naivety, and innocence and youth could all be mitigating factors in that horrible, unconscionable decision that he made, it strikes me that Hartley doesn't paint him well enough; it seems that Hartley paints him more as a "simpleton adult" rather than as a child in the in-between years of childhood and adulthood. And that is the other great fault: Hartley hasn't captured what it is to be a child; he's merely super-imposed adult sensibilities onto a shorter, younger body and pretended that it's a child's point of view.

There are irritating little interjections and insertions throughout the novel that are quite beside the point and provide nothing but an unwelcome distraction.

As a complete aside, one of the greatest annoyances was the repeated trope of mispronouncing the name Hugh. A constant play on Hugh/you, which first time was charming; by the fifth or sixth time I wanted to step into the story and slap him silly, or into oblivion.

"Hugh asked me to tell you"- I began.
"I asked you to tell me?"
"No, not you, Hugh."
"Not you, you," she repeated. "I can't understand a word you say. Is it a game?"
"No," I said wretchedly, for it seemed I was fated to mispronounce Hugh's name. "Hugh, you know, Hugh."
"Yes, of course I know myself," she said, apparently more mystified than ever. ...
... "Oh, HUGH, " she said, almost like an owl hooting. "How stupid of me. But you do pronounce his name in a funny way."

Really? This is barely funny the first time, let alone at least a dozen more. Who's On First only worked for Abbott & Costello.


The boy (Leo is his name) is also playing out a CinderFella fantasy, it strikes me. (With apologies to Jerry Lewis!)

Leo ends up being the star of the cricket match... of course! (They would have been lost without him, apparently.) Leo ends up being the star of the after dinner concert, singing "like no one has sung before" ... of course! Some might call his interpretations charming. I call them delusional.

I don't see the Grand Romance/Grand Tragedy that people tell me it is. I see an annoying little-man-in-the-making inserting a stick into the spokes of the wheel and upsetting the balance of lives, just out of a moment of spite. I don't see the Coming-of-Age trope as a successful argument either: he barely grows an inch, spiritually or psychologically; in fact, you could say he is in stasis, since his own actions bring on a mental collapse.

Too many problems here to satisfy my enquiring mind.

What gnaws at me further is the Introduction, written by Douglas-Brook-Davies in my edition, who points out that many of the elements of this story are autobiographical. It's a disturbing thought that L.P. Hartley was such a boy as Leo Colston.

So, why 3 stars? I did read it to the end. It was certainly "better than OK", but definitely not what I would term "very good". Would I read more by Hartley? Hmmm .... I doubt it. But never say never ... ?

[Daisy · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book about nostalgia and the power of self-deception. About being caught in the hinterland. Set in 1900 it is the end of a century and the start of a new one, Queen Victoria in her eighties would not be around for much longer and with her death would be the death of the Victorian age and the beginning of another and we have Leo who celebrates his thirteenth birthday as the events recounted draw to a close. Thirteen the end of childhood the start of puberty and of adulthood (it is worth noting he alone is on this threshold as his friend Marcus is a year younger so Leo must straddle this dual existence alone). All of these things promise an exciting future, a new world but also the end of the old yet like the mid-point of things the lines of demarcation are not sharp and they bleed into each other.

Leo for example still enjoys the play of boys – he first meets Ted sliding down his haystack – but is also experiencing his sexual awakening – his infatuation with the beautiful Marian which causes him to repeat his mantra that he would do anything for her. By the end of his stay with the Maudsleys he no longer wants to play on haystacks.

We have Lord Trimingham who falls between stalls. Titled and with an illustrious line of ancestors whose portraits Leo studies on his weekly church visit, he no longer lives in the family home. His wealth has been superseded by the new moneyed class of bankers and industrialists and so the only way he can get back into Brandham Hall is to marry the daughter of the family he rents it to – namely Marian Maudsley. They reflect, albeit on a larger scale, Leo’s position as not being fully a member of any class. Perhaps it is this lack of complete belonging that allows all the characters to engage in the levels of self-deception that they do. They must fill in the missing piece with artifice. Trimingham still behaves as Lord of the Manor though he is now only a visitor, Mrs Maudsley carries herself and expects the family to behave as nobility despite them being of the shopkeeping class.

Arguably Leo is the only one who does not self-deceive. He is only too aware of his precise social standing, of his weaknesses and his wishes and ironically he is the one who suffers the most from the events. The Maudsleys (excepting the matriarch) are all able to live with the false reality they have constructed and fifty years later Marian is still peddling her constructed narrative.

Finally, and it only struck me a few weeks after finishing it, there is the exploration of the damage done to a child exposed to the adult world when too young to deal with it, and the characters know they are manipulating his innocence as there are repeated references to Leo being green and being gifted a green suit. Leo’s trauma results in an immediate effect but it also shapes – or more accurately constricts – his entire adult life. It made me think of today’s children watching and engaging in things of the adult world and the deleterious effect it must have on them.

A wonderful, wonderful book that captures beautifully the long summers of childhood, the longing to belong, to be grown while still longing for protection and rescue from adults, the selfishness of passion and the power of secrets not just to destroy the person with the secret but also those who are privy to it.

[Tanja Berg · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was in Vienna on holiday last week, browsing for German reads or translations from languages other than English. Out of nowhere one of the employees slipped this book onto my pile. “This publisher only releases books that have moved the owner”. I saw it was a translation from English, but shrugged and bought it nonetheless.

I’m finished now and I want to lie down in bed, bawl my eyes out and never read a book again because nothing will ever make me feel this way again.

“The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there.”

Leo finds his old diary from when he spent a summer at a friend’s estate. It brings back memories that he cannot push away, so instead we joking him in reliving them.

I cannot begin to describe how magical this is. How real the setting of a summer in England year 1900. A new century, yearning optimism. The anxiety of fitting in, combined with carefree summer days and adult things you don’t really understand. I felt like I was 12 again myself.

I am a cynical bitch. I don’t read this romantic genre often - but wait - it isn’t really “romantic” in the sense of unbridled break from reality. No, this is powerful emotion grounded in harsh reality. This book moved me deeply. It’s got all the feels and it is extraordinarily beautifully written. If you want a bit of nostalgia for lost innocence and days gone by, this is spot on.

I am eternally grateful for having received this recommendation and I wish I could have returned to the bookstore to say “thank you”.

[Malacorda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Questo è davvero quello che cerco da un bel romanzo. Scrittura elegante, ambientazione coinvolgente, trama semplice, apparentemente banale ma ben sviluppata nei suoi dettagli anche - anzi soprattutto - psicologici. C'è la formazione di un giovane protagonista ma c'è anche la ricostruzione di tutto un mondo e poi ci sono anche le riflessioni di lui adulto. L'aspetto della perdita dell'innocenza che viene sottolineato nelle sinossi e nella quarta di copertina, in realtà non viene sviscerato più di tanto, l'autore qui si limita a liquidare la cosa con una grossa amnesia e un grosso trauma psicologico, e forse in questo l'ha risolta giocando una carta un po' troppo facile. Però la ricostruzione del mondo dell'adolescente, con le sue volubilità, i suoi alti e bassi da montagne russe, il suo creare tempeste in un bicchier d'acqua, il voler credere in un qualcosa di soprannaturale, e ancora il suo desiderio di far parte di un gruppo - di un "noi" - tutti i tratti psicologici sono perfettamente ricostruiti e riconoscibili, e questo vale non soltanto per il tredicenne ingenuo e sognatore e fantasticatore ma vale anche per i giovani adulti con il loro modo di farsi giuoco e di approfittarsi del ragazzino. Ammetto che nella parte centrale del racconto la tensione va un poco calando, ed è anche per questo che non arrivo a 5/5, però arrivo sicuramente a quattro e mezza. Notevole anche il modo in cui l'autore riesce a lasciare aperto il finale: aperto non per quel che riguarda strettamente la trama - i fatti, alla fine, verranno ricostruiti nella loro interezza - bensì per quel che riguarda il giudizio da dare ai fatti stessi: la storia d'amore al centro degli eventi, e con essa i due amanti, è da considerarsi ignobile o sublime? Entrambi i punti di vista hanno argomentazioni a favore. Dunque: per chi cerca un racconto dell'"ultima estate", si deve leggere prima questo che Agostino. Per chi cerca le ambientazioni delle grandi tenute dei Lord inglesi a inizio novecento: prima di Fellowes e prima di Margaret Powell e forse anche prima di Elizabeth Jane Howard, è questo il libro.

[Beverly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great quote from this book:"The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there."

[Parthiban Sekar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Evocative, poignant, and beautiful!

“The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.” It is only fair to begin with this sentence which ruefully announces that things have now changed, however not without a sigh of relief. Nostalgia can sometimes be like an unopened letter which allures us to open it, but when we open and finish reading it, a pang of guilt makes us regret our decision. Now, Leo Colston is met with one such situation in his sixties and his source of guilt lies unopened and sealed in front of him and the memories of his repressed past slowly come to life from his ‘teenage’ box of secrets.

The story is about his visit to one of his friend’s house “Brandham Hall” where the little Leo is made “acutely aware of social inferiority” which exists (existed, if that may satisfy you) between upper and lower classes. The chance-displays of a grown-up masculine body made him “confronted by maturity” and the angelic aura of his feminine company made him aware of unexplored emotions. Innocence and Infatuation lead him as a “go-between” between his lady of affection and his effigy of masculinity not knowing the actual purpose of the messages he carries. But, the insinuations can be hardly mistaken.

What I loved most about the book is the way it relates the predicaments of its characters with that of Paradise Lost. When Leo discovers “the matter” of his “go-between” ventures, he says
“Not Adam and Eve, after eating the apple, could have been more upset than I was.”

Disturbed by the rising conflicts in this affair in which he is now empathetically entangled, he questions his own position in this amorous pursuit:
“What an Eden Brandham Hall had been before this serpent entered it!”

As Adam and Eve tried to cover themselves when they become aware of their nakedness after committing the ‘forbidden’ act, Leo too feels the shame of the affair he is caught up in and tries to “to cover her shame”.

I’ve read that Hartley had put all he knew in this book, I can’t help but agreeing to it even if it may sound like an exaggeration. The writing is sublime with paradisiacal analogies, and at the same time, does not stray from the juvenile perspective of a teenage boy. Without revealing further interesting aspects of this rather-disturbing story, I am ending this gibberish of a writing here with a hope that you might like this book as much as I do.