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A House in the Country
The great interest of Jocelyn Playfair's book for modern readers is its complete authenticity. Set sixty years ago at the time of the fall of Tobruk in 1942, one of the low points of the war, and written only a year later when people still had no idea which way the war was going,
A House in the Country has a verisimilitude denied to modern writers. Sebastian Faulks in Charlotte Gray or Ian McEwan in Atonement do their research and evoke a particular period, but ultimately are dependent on their own and historians' interpretation of events; whereas a novel like this one is an exact, unaffected portrayal of things as they were at the time.
The TLS praised 'its evocation of the preoccupations of wartime England, and its mood of battered but sincere optimism'; and The Tablet remarked on its 'comic energy, compelling atmosphere and richly apt vocabulary.'
A House in the Country has a verisimilitude denied to modern writers. Sebastian Faulks in Charlotte Gray or Ian McEwan in Atonement do their research and evoke a particular period, but ultimately are dependent on their own and historians' interpretation of events; whereas a novel like this one is an exact, unaffected portrayal of things as they were at the time.
The TLS praised 'its evocation of the preoccupations of wartime England, and its mood of battered but sincere optimism'; and The Tablet remarked on its 'comic energy, compelling atmosphere and richly apt vocabulary.'
261 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1944
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About the author
Jocelyn Playfair
5 books1 followerPlayfair was born in Lucknow in the year that her father, Lieutenant-Colonel Noel Malan, accompanied the Younghusband expedition to Tibet. Both her parents were descended from the highly artistic French Huguenot Malan family. She lived with her husband in India in the early 1930s but returned to Britain after the birth of their two sons. Her first book (a thriller) appeared in 1939 and she wrote three other novels before publishing what is perhaps her best known novel, A House in the Country in 1944. She stopped writing in the 1950s.
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October 13, 2022
A House in the Country was written in 1944 and takes place in 1942. WWII is the backdrop as we are in the ‘country’, where war has not really inconvenienced anyone too much yet.
We meet Cressida Chance, who lives at Brede Manor. Because of the war, she has taken in paying guests and does much of what needs to be done on the estate herself. She was a woman I could not help but admire. She was kindness personified. She was able to stand on her own- a single mother. There was a stigma surrounding her husband’s tragic death that is touched on in her reflections.
This book has an interesting perspective on war that I have not read in other books of this time period. Big questions are addressed: Why do men go to war? Why do you feel like you are not part of the war effort if you are not being bombed?
Besides Cressida, we get to know Charles Valero, the actual owner of the house. He is stranded at sea after the boat he was on was torpedoed. This gives him much time to reflect- to reflect on why he still wants to live, about the war and how he will move forward.
My one complaint is that the philosophizing became too much at times. Yes, it gave me much to contemplate, but I could have done with some muting on the author’s part.
Lest you think it’s only about people reflecting on the war, it is not. There are 4 underlying love stories: there is Aunt Jessie, who adds humour to an otherwise deep, reflective novel.
Overall, I really enjoyed this book. I love the books that Persephone publishes.
Published: 1944
We meet Cressida Chance, who lives at Brede Manor. Because of the war, she has taken in paying guests and does much of what needs to be done on the estate herself. She was a woman I could not help but admire. She was kindness personified. She was able to stand on her own- a single mother. There was a stigma surrounding her husband’s tragic death that is touched on in her reflections.
This book has an interesting perspective on war that I have not read in other books of this time period. Big questions are addressed: Why do men go to war? Why do you feel like you are not part of the war effort if you are not being bombed?
Besides Cressida, we get to know Charles Valero, the actual owner of the house. He is stranded at sea after the boat he was on was torpedoed. This gives him much time to reflect- to reflect on why he still wants to live, about the war and how he will move forward.
My one complaint is that the philosophizing became too much at times. Yes, it gave me much to contemplate, but I could have done with some muting on the author’s part.
Lest you think it’s only about people reflecting on the war, it is not. There are 4 underlying love stories: there is Aunt Jessie, who adds humour to an otherwise deep, reflective novel.
Overall, I really enjoyed this book. I love the books that Persephone publishes.
Published: 1944
August 2, 2022
I have mixed feelings about Jocelyn Playfair’s 1944 novel set in wartime England. Early on in my reading of the book I wondered why the publisher, Persephone Books, had even decided to give it a second life.
The premise is promising enough: a woman in her thirties (with a young son) whose life was—tragically, according to some—derailed five years earlier by the death of her husband, Simon, is living in Brede, the enchanting manor house of her husband’s best friend, Charles Valery. It’s 1942 and Cressida Chance is making do by providing room and board to a somewhat motley crew of characters, people of different backgrounds and classes, most of them displaced by war. Cressida’s handsome younger brother, Rudolph “Dolphin” Standing, and their aunt, Jessica Ambleside, a slightly irascible Austenesque creation who’s come to Brede from London for a change of air, also figure in the narrative.
Only a couple of Playfair’s characters emerge with any clarity. Two of the males appear to be mouthpieces for the author’s opinions about war, which are inelegantly forced into a novel mainly concerned with romantic relationships. Playfair seems to have been a strong-minded, unconventional woman who could not help but air her views. The insertion of those views into the book turns what might otherwise be dismissed as women’s fiction into a not-entirely-successful novel of ideas and literary seriousness. While not exactly “types”, many of Playfair’s characters are caricatures, none more so than the monkey-faced little European count, Tori. He’s somehow made his way from an unidentified country (possibly Poland) to England. The reader is asked to believe he’s been smuggled out of a concentration camp and that he’s recuperating at Brede before heroically returning to his homeland on a “dangerous mission”, the details of which Playfair can’t be bothered to provide. Not surprisingly, Tori idolizes Cressida, who (the reader is regularly reminded) happens to be a woman of extraordinary beauty and kindness, attractive to men, yet arousing not a single iota of jealousy in women. Tori showers Cressida with affection, praise, and . . . lengthy spiritually instructive lectures intended to illuminate his beloved on the real roots of war. According to him, war is the externalization of the conflict between kindness and cruelty that rages within every human heart. With bated breath, Cressida hangs onto every one of the aristocratic windbag’s impassioned words. For the reader, who is much less virtuous than dear Cressida, the monologues are a trial to be endured.
The conflict in the novel arises from Playfair’s idiosyncratic reworking of “the marriage plot”—the presentation of a youngish woman who must choose between suitors. (It’s the backbone of several Victorian novels, including several by Thomas Hardy). Playfair does something rather different with it. While Cressida’s conflict of the heart eventually includes Tori, the romantic tension initially arises from her love for Brede’s owner, Charles Valery, who disappeared after Simon’s death. Playfair drops crumbs throughout the novel about how Cressida came to live at Brede and what really happened to Simon, including Charles’s role in the death.
Playfair provides occasional shifts in point of view—from Cressida’s to that of the man she loves. We learn early on that Charles’s ship, part of a trans-Atlantic convoy, has been torpedoed, that he is the sole survivor of the wreck, and that he’s managed to get himself into the most well-equipped lifeboat you could possibly imagine. Sure there’s the dead body of an acquaintance that has to be disposed of, and there are a few inches of water that must be bailed out of the boat’s bottom, but—not to worry—our hero isn’t too diminished to do the heavy lifting and there’s a dipper handy to remove the excess water. There are also canisters of food and water . . . and even superior navigational charts! Under such circumstances, with the sea “spread around him like a sheet of winking sapphires,” what better use of unplanned downtime for a shipwreck survivor—a “tiny ugly blot, left by carelessness on an otherwise superb arrangement of colour”—than to nobly and philosophically contemplate his existence, and, like Tori, consider the aims and significance of war. Forget such lowly pursuits as actually struggling to survive or get oneself noticed and rescued by a boat or plane. Those challenges don’t come into play until day 14, well after Charles has ironed out his philosophy that war is due to men’s failing to think for themselves, their desire to protect what they see as rightly theirs (regardless of how that impacts the rest of world), and their failure to regard humanity as one.
There are some surprises in how Playfair’s novel ends. Ultimately, the author entirely—but not fully convincingly—subverts the marriage plot. Her two main male characters become warriors, but not in the conventional sense. Both are invested in the idea of taking personal action that will begin to change humanity’s course so that war no longer occurs. As for Cressida: she carries on at Brede, free of some of the traditional constraints on women, contributing in her own way to the making of a new world.
Rating: a solid enough 3.5, which I unfortunately cannot bring myself to round up.
The premise is promising enough: a woman in her thirties (with a young son) whose life was—tragically, according to some—derailed five years earlier by the death of her husband, Simon, is living in Brede, the enchanting manor house of her husband’s best friend, Charles Valery. It’s 1942 and Cressida Chance is making do by providing room and board to a somewhat motley crew of characters, people of different backgrounds and classes, most of them displaced by war. Cressida’s handsome younger brother, Rudolph “Dolphin” Standing, and their aunt, Jessica Ambleside, a slightly irascible Austenesque creation who’s come to Brede from London for a change of air, also figure in the narrative.
Only a couple of Playfair’s characters emerge with any clarity. Two of the males appear to be mouthpieces for the author’s opinions about war, which are inelegantly forced into a novel mainly concerned with romantic relationships. Playfair seems to have been a strong-minded, unconventional woman who could not help but air her views. The insertion of those views into the book turns what might otherwise be dismissed as women’s fiction into a not-entirely-successful novel of ideas and literary seriousness. While not exactly “types”, many of Playfair’s characters are caricatures, none more so than the monkey-faced little European count, Tori. He’s somehow made his way from an unidentified country (possibly Poland) to England. The reader is asked to believe he’s been smuggled out of a concentration camp and that he’s recuperating at Brede before heroically returning to his homeland on a “dangerous mission”, the details of which Playfair can’t be bothered to provide. Not surprisingly, Tori idolizes Cressida, who (the reader is regularly reminded) happens to be a woman of extraordinary beauty and kindness, attractive to men, yet arousing not a single iota of jealousy in women. Tori showers Cressida with affection, praise, and . . . lengthy spiritually instructive lectures intended to illuminate his beloved on the real roots of war. According to him, war is the externalization of the conflict between kindness and cruelty that rages within every human heart. With bated breath, Cressida hangs onto every one of the aristocratic windbag’s impassioned words. For the reader, who is much less virtuous than dear Cressida, the monologues are a trial to be endured.
The conflict in the novel arises from Playfair’s idiosyncratic reworking of “the marriage plot”—the presentation of a youngish woman who must choose between suitors. (It’s the backbone of several Victorian novels, including several by Thomas Hardy). Playfair does something rather different with it. While Cressida’s conflict of the heart eventually includes Tori, the romantic tension initially arises from her love for Brede’s owner, Charles Valery, who disappeared after Simon’s death. Playfair drops crumbs throughout the novel about how Cressida came to live at Brede and what really happened to Simon, including Charles’s role in the death.
Playfair provides occasional shifts in point of view—from Cressida’s to that of the man she loves. We learn early on that Charles’s ship, part of a trans-Atlantic convoy, has been torpedoed, that he is the sole survivor of the wreck, and that he’s managed to get himself into the most well-equipped lifeboat you could possibly imagine. Sure there’s the dead body of an acquaintance that has to be disposed of, and there are a few inches of water that must be bailed out of the boat’s bottom, but—not to worry—our hero isn’t too diminished to do the heavy lifting and there’s a dipper handy to remove the excess water. There are also canisters of food and water . . . and even superior navigational charts! Under such circumstances, with the sea “spread around him like a sheet of winking sapphires,” what better use of unplanned downtime for a shipwreck survivor—a “tiny ugly blot, left by carelessness on an otherwise superb arrangement of colour”—than to nobly and philosophically contemplate his existence, and, like Tori, consider the aims and significance of war. Forget such lowly pursuits as actually struggling to survive or get oneself noticed and rescued by a boat or plane. Those challenges don’t come into play until day 14, well after Charles has ironed out his philosophy that war is due to men’s failing to think for themselves, their desire to protect what they see as rightly theirs (regardless of how that impacts the rest of world), and their failure to regard humanity as one.
There are some surprises in how Playfair’s novel ends. Ultimately, the author entirely—but not fully convincingly—subverts the marriage plot. Her two main male characters become warriors, but not in the conventional sense. Both are invested in the idea of taking personal action that will begin to change humanity’s course so that war no longer occurs. As for Cressida: she carries on at Brede, free of some of the traditional constraints on women, contributing in her own way to the making of a new world.
Rating: a solid enough 3.5, which I unfortunately cannot bring myself to round up.
October 19, 2015
Persephone Books is fast becoming one of my favourite publishers. It rescues from oblivion mid-20th century novels by (primarily) women writers that appear to have become unjustly neglected. I greatly enjoyed its reissue of 'Someone at a Distance' by Dorothy Whipple (see my review). 'A House in the Country' by Jocelyn Playfair may not be as good. But it's nonetheless a very enjoyable novel, and is certainly worthy of resuscitation for 21st century readers.
The story is set in the English countryside during the Second World War, specifically a large house known as Brede Manor in a village named Brede Somervel. The principal character, Cressida Chance, is looking after the house on behalf of its owner Charles Valery, with whom she is in love. Charles is alone on a lifeboat. His ship - 'Alice Corrie' - has been torpedoed while travelling from the US to England. The story moves from the English countryside occasionally to describe Charles's experiences on the lifeboat. Cressida is a widow. Her late husband Simon, who was a friend of Charles, died in tragic circumstances. Cressida takes in paying guests at Brede Manor because housing is in short supply during the war.
'A House in the Country' reminded me a little of Patrick Hamilton's novel 'The Slaves of Solitude'. It's much darker than I was expecting: it's primarily a philosophical story about the rights and wrongs of war; and about the disruptive impact of war on those who are fighting and those who are not. It's well written in a crisp, readable style. The assorted cast of characters - most of whom are guests at Brede Manor - is very interesting. I particularly liked Cressida's aunt, Jessica Ambleside, who adds some subtle humour to the story. 'A House in the Country' was written and published during the war itself, when the outcome would have been in doubt. This gives it an added air of realism and insightfulness, I think.
The extensive list of novels published by Persephone Books is well worth seeking out, including this very enjoyable story. 8/10.
The story is set in the English countryside during the Second World War, specifically a large house known as Brede Manor in a village named Brede Somervel. The principal character, Cressida Chance, is looking after the house on behalf of its owner Charles Valery, with whom she is in love. Charles is alone on a lifeboat. His ship - 'Alice Corrie' - has been torpedoed while travelling from the US to England. The story moves from the English countryside occasionally to describe Charles's experiences on the lifeboat. Cressida is a widow. Her late husband Simon, who was a friend of Charles, died in tragic circumstances. Cressida takes in paying guests at Brede Manor because housing is in short supply during the war.
'A House in the Country' reminded me a little of Patrick Hamilton's novel 'The Slaves of Solitude'. It's much darker than I was expecting: it's primarily a philosophical story about the rights and wrongs of war; and about the disruptive impact of war on those who are fighting and those who are not. It's well written in a crisp, readable style. The assorted cast of characters - most of whom are guests at Brede Manor - is very interesting. I particularly liked Cressida's aunt, Jessica Ambleside, who adds some subtle humour to the story. 'A House in the Country' was written and published during the war itself, when the outcome would have been in doubt. This gives it an added air of realism and insightfulness, I think.
The extensive list of novels published by Persephone Books is well worth seeking out, including this very enjoyable story. 8/10.
September 11, 2016
This novel concerns itself entirely with the home-front: specifically one house, outside one small English village. The war impinges itself on the plot in the form of 6 bombs which fall one night, but mostly the war is at a remove. It is constantly present in the minds and actions of the characters, and yet they are buffered from it. More than any 'war' novel I can remember, this novel explores what that 'buffering' feels like - and how the drama of being at the centre of the war can seem preferable to the boredom of being at the edges. It seems like a domestic comedy-drama at first, but then it deepens into something both philosophical and terribly poignant. The fascinating thing is that it not an imagined experience, or even a reconstruction, but that the author Jocelyn Playfair was herself immersed in the very experiences she was writing about. (The novel was published in 1944, before the war was even brought to its conclusion.)
Some of the characters feel cliched, and I never got certain of the house's inhabitants straight, but the interior musings of protagonist Cressida Chance - and her conversations with the character of Tori, a Eastern European refugee - really elevate the novel to something unique. Cressida is the beautiful, kind centre of Brede Manor - "the house in the country" that has so far been untouched by the ravages by World War II. More its caretaker than its mistress, Cressida seems to do the work of 5 servants (all the cooking and washing up, for one thing) - plus lend a hand and a sympathetic ear to a number of boarders who have taken sanctuary in the house entrusted to her. The house's owner, Charles Valery, has been estranged from the house (and from Cressida) by a tragedy; for most of the book, he is floating on a lifeboat in the middle of the ocean. There are three men (not counting her brother, who makes four) who are touched by Cressida, and she in turn serves as a kind of touchstone for them. Cressida and the house are the embodiment of what those men are fighting for, although the novel doesn't hesitate to complicate its point even when it is making it. This is a subtle book - and the author never deals in jingoistic, purely patriotic simplicities. I found it unexpectedly touching and it's definitely a book I would reread.
Some of the characters feel cliched, and I never got certain of the house's inhabitants straight, but the interior musings of protagonist Cressida Chance - and her conversations with the character of Tori, a Eastern European refugee - really elevate the novel to something unique. Cressida is the beautiful, kind centre of Brede Manor - "the house in the country" that has so far been untouched by the ravages by World War II. More its caretaker than its mistress, Cressida seems to do the work of 5 servants (all the cooking and washing up, for one thing) - plus lend a hand and a sympathetic ear to a number of boarders who have taken sanctuary in the house entrusted to her. The house's owner, Charles Valery, has been estranged from the house (and from Cressida) by a tragedy; for most of the book, he is floating on a lifeboat in the middle of the ocean. There are three men (not counting her brother, who makes four) who are touched by Cressida, and she in turn serves as a kind of touchstone for them. Cressida and the house are the embodiment of what those men are fighting for, although the novel doesn't hesitate to complicate its point even when it is making it. This is a subtle book - and the author never deals in jingoistic, purely patriotic simplicities. I found it unexpectedly touching and it's definitely a book I would reread.
August 18, 2018
This was pretty good for a Persephone classic, which most of the time don't make big impressions on me. This was about WWII from mostly the perspectives of civilians. I learned new things about life during the war. There were many beautiful passages - I really liked the writing style. But at times the characters became preachy and overly philosophical. I also thought the plot in itself was anti-climactic. This is definitely more of a character piece. Cressida, however, had too many men fall in love with her.
January 26, 2012
This book takes some thinking about. Most unusual characters, all different but all likable, except, of course, for Aunt Jessie, but you tolerate her because she's so clueless. The relationsips and interplay between the 3 main characters is made clear through the use of flashbacks, but enough is left to the reader's imagination to make it interesting. There was a lot of what seemed like preachiness in some of the long passages where both Tori and Charles tried to explain their motives and philosophy, but was not overlong and worked in both cases. The wandering in and out of Cressida's life of some important characters, and the inconveniences and minutia of everyday life was very realistic. I especially loved the symbolic re-occurance of the cabbages.
Like most of the Persephone books, this was a lovely read.
Like most of the Persephone books, this was a lovely read.
December 20, 2017
A bit talky in some places but loved it overall, especially Cressida Chance.
March 13, 2017
A particularly good example of the "home front" novels of the Second World War. Cressida Chance is the widowed chatelaine of a large house in the English countryside, where she takes lodgers who need to live in the area for one reason or another. However, the household is not quite what we might expect - Cressida doesn't own the house, and there's a big question mark over her husband's death. Nor does the book quite fit the usual mould, being more thoughtful and less black-and-white than many of the "plucky women left at home" genre of WW2 novels. I thought it was wonderful, and it's one I will keep to reread.
August 20, 2019
This WWII novel opens at sea, with the sinking of the Alice Corrie one of 500 Allied ships lost during the opening months of the war. The focus quickly shifts away from the blazing ship’s lone survivor Charles Valery, adrift in the Atlantic, to his beautiful country estate, Brede Hall which is being looked after by Cressida Chance, the woman he loves. Only gradually as the story shifts back and forth between the lifeboat and Brede Hall, do we discover that the two of them are not married and that she is the widow of his best friend whose death he caused.
Cressida is at the heart of this novel. She has had to take over the management of the estate in Valery’s absence, doing the work 5 servants used to do while also caring for paying guests that have moved in because they’ve been displaced by the war.
What’s noteworthy about this novel is that it serves as a vehicle for Jocelyn Playfair, in the voices of Cressida and Charles to share her own personal perspective about what’s going on around her. The fact that she wrote this during an especially perilous time for England makes it all the more intriguing to read since we know the outcome. But in 1942 the future looked grim for those who were struggling with the reality of a world at war and that’s reflected in the words Jocelyn Playfair puts into the mouths of her two main characters as they muse on the meaninglessness and futility of war as well as the selfishness of some people who “ simply don’t notice it, except as a sort of boring obstruction to their own comfort.”
If this novel seems a bit preachy at times, I feel Jocelyn Playfair is to be forgiven for that in view of what she was living through. As she says, in the voice of Charles Valery, “Perhaps for so long the kindness in human hearts has been defeated by greed, selfishness, personal desires, for comfort, power, money what you like, that can make a man forget so simple a thing as love towards his neighbor.”
Published by Persephone Press, more information about this novel can be found on their website: http://www.persephonebooks.co.uk/cont...
Cressida is at the heart of this novel. She has had to take over the management of the estate in Valery’s absence, doing the work 5 servants used to do while also caring for paying guests that have moved in because they’ve been displaced by the war.
What’s noteworthy about this novel is that it serves as a vehicle for Jocelyn Playfair, in the voices of Cressida and Charles to share her own personal perspective about what’s going on around her. The fact that she wrote this during an especially perilous time for England makes it all the more intriguing to read since we know the outcome. But in 1942 the future looked grim for those who were struggling with the reality of a world at war and that’s reflected in the words Jocelyn Playfair puts into the mouths of her two main characters as they muse on the meaninglessness and futility of war as well as the selfishness of some people who “ simply don’t notice it, except as a sort of boring obstruction to their own comfort.”
If this novel seems a bit preachy at times, I feel Jocelyn Playfair is to be forgiven for that in view of what she was living through. As she says, in the voice of Charles Valery, “Perhaps for so long the kindness in human hearts has been defeated by greed, selfishness, personal desires, for comfort, power, money what you like, that can make a man forget so simple a thing as love towards his neighbor.”
Published by Persephone Press, more information about this novel can be found on their website: http://www.persephonebooks.co.uk/cont...
November 11, 2017
It's great to know that Persephone are there to rescue the forgotten books of the twentieth century. A House in the Country, first published in 1944 and long out of print is now available for twenty-first century readers to discover. It's not one of the most significant books on their list and has its faults, but what's special about it is its immediacy. Set in 1942 at the time of the disaster of Tobruk - a time when it was far from certain that Britain would defeat the menace of Nazism - A House in the Country opens a valuable and fascinating window on one small corner of the home front. The description of what happens when a German bomber unloads some unused bombs on this quiet rural backwater is unsparingly chilling. There's too much moralising and philosophising for my taste, and the central love story is at times overworked, but as a document of its time and place, A House in the Country is a valuable work.
March 17, 2020
DNF. I made it about halfway and just couldn’t go on. Holy cow, what a bunch of sermonizing dresses up as a novel. YES Cressida, I’m sure you’re the only woman in the WHOLE of your village who truly understands life. love. War. Etc. etc. If my eyes rolled anymore, they’d get stuck that way.
August 8, 2020
I have owned this for... about two years, and carried it around the world with me, and only now got around to reading it. That is a shame, because it's lovely; and also ideal, because it is PERFECT pandemic reading. I am struggling with the attention / mental effort required by Serious Fiction, but also can't get immersed in high-affect genre fiction (romance, some sci fi, etc), and this was the perfect alternative. It's... calm, and easy, but not *light* reading. It handles big serious emotions and issues, but it does so with a gentle touch. And generically, it's a very straightforward novel - it's not trying to make you work to figure out what it's doing from one page to the next. That's not a slight: as the intro notes, Playfair uses the familiar setting - big country house, smalltown England, etc deftly, so the focus is on the human elements rather than the worldbuilding.
SPOILER but I'm putting this on a mental list of 'books where the main function of men is to set a woman up for life and then vanish'. It's a lot less grim than Villette, though. Its observations on human foibles - particularly those of the portion of the population who resisted wartime strictures, or regarded them as for other people - are sharp and to the point, and very often apt for right now. One observation, that many people will not give anything up until it's taken from them... definitely rings true in the age of COVID.
On the 'wildly inaccurate' side, however, there is a whole page devoted to how the 'British character' is not given to hatred, LOL WHAT. Unlike, apparently, the German character. Extremely of its time, but also, I feel like many in its time might disagree about the whole 'British not given to hatred' thing. Unless you suppose that merely despising people is not a form of hatred, but the problems of empire are very much Not Dealt With Here.
SPOILER but I'm putting this on a mental list of 'books where the main function of men is to set a woman up for life and then vanish'. It's a lot less grim than Villette, though. Its observations on human foibles - particularly those of the portion of the population who resisted wartime strictures, or regarded them as for other people - are sharp and to the point, and very often apt for right now. One observation, that many people will not give anything up until it's taken from them... definitely rings true in the age of COVID.
On the 'wildly inaccurate' side, however, there is a whole page devoted to how the 'British character' is not given to hatred, LOL WHAT. Unlike, apparently, the German character. Extremely of its time, but also, I feel like many in its time might disagree about the whole 'British not given to hatred' thing. Unless you suppose that merely despising people is not a form of hatred, but the problems of empire are very much Not Dealt With Here.
February 25, 2024
Enjoyable and has lots of fascinating WW2 period detail but very little plot and became dull towards the end. Interesting mostly for being written in 1942 and published in 1944 and therefore containing lots of reflection on war and the contrast between the very normal English life continuing in the countryside, and the horror faced by combatants on the front line.
September 23, 2024
Another lovely read thanks to Persephone Books! Knowing the background and timing of Jocelyn made this book even more entertaining.
September 12, 2024
A great description of why individuals decide to fight in a war, or not. Not preachy and not boring.
May 21, 2020
Working my way through my unread, but always enjoyable, Persephones that I had saved for just the ‘right time’ 📖
Read
July 10, 2008Although the title makes this book sound potentially twee, it isn’t at all. The house in question is a stately home full of lodgers during World War II, and part of what was interesting about this novel is that it was written during the war; while reading I was ever aware of that vast current of fear, and how uncertain its outcome still was. Anyway, the title house is run by a pants-wearing widow named Cressida. She is one of those sensible people who manages not to be batted around by life, not because she is such a toughie but because she is so firmly rooted in kindness. (Dogs and horses trust her.) The author sometimes uses Cressida and other commendable characters as mouthpieces for her own philosophical contemplation, but I enjoyed every word of these perceptive monologues, even when they bordered on sermonizing; by contrast, some of the petty characters barely speak at all. So unlike life, such fun in a novel! The great moments in this book are the small ones. There is only so much words could do, for instance, to convey the tragedy of an elderly female character’s death in an air raid, but when her husband goes on to plant cabbages afterward, in neat rows, as he has done year after year, that act of fidelity feels like an expression of hope for humankind.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 20, 2021
A fascinating and sometimes very moving insight into what it was like to experience the Second World War at home, and more specifically in the largely untouched British countryside. Playfair is good at exploring all the different and often unspoken ways in which the war affected people, presumably speaking from first hand experience. Playfair wrote this novel during the course of the war and as a result, her frequent discussions of why war happens, and why men are motivated to fight, are very interesting. You get a real sense that as she writes about the main character, Cressida, attempting to try to come to terms with the war and square it with the relative calm of her home life, she is working out her own issues. The novel can sometimes veer into melodrama and the bolder romantic plot lines of the book are rather unfulfilling. Playfair is at her best when writing about the host of different people living in Brede manor and the village next to it, observing the quirks and details of their characters in a way that feels incredibly accurate. This is an interesting novel that includes both politics and romance but is most compelling as an account, and an exploration, of war.
May 3, 2010
During World War II, Cressida Chance is running a house in the English countryside, dealing with boarders and family and wartime duties, while the man she loves, Charles Valery, is surviving two weeks alone in a lifeboat after his ship has been torpedoed. Playfair's portrayal of war is grim, at home with Cressida as well as abroad with Charles; one of Cressida's boarders is an Eastern European refugee who's seen terrible things, and bombs drop on her small village, killing the gardener's wife.
The picture of a countryside and country torn apart by war is a striking one, but the story itself, and the characters, didn't quite resonate with me. Cressida and Charles so clearly serve as the author's mouthpiece for her views of the war that they never felt real to me (especially Cressida, who's really too noble and perfect to be real), yet Playfair's message was powerfully put enough to pull me through the story.
The picture of a countryside and country torn apart by war is a striking one, but the story itself, and the characters, didn't quite resonate with me. Cressida and Charles so clearly serve as the author's mouthpiece for her views of the war that they never felt real to me (especially Cressida, who's really too noble and perfect to be real), yet Playfair's message was powerfully put enough to pull me through the story.
September 7, 2013
Hate to give a Persephone Book 2 stars, but -- Oh well. Didn't really engage me, despite the beauty of the author's writing.
July 25, 2016
Thoroughly enjoyed this Persophone choice. Eloquent. Insightful. Sheer pleasure.
July 15, 2014
Loved this story of unrequited love.
The war changed everything where people had to make do without servants and actually found they enjoyed such tasks as cooking and looking after the home.
The war changed everything where people had to make do without servants and actually found they enjoyed such tasks as cooking and looking after the home.
April 1, 2022
Nice but on the preachy side. Like many Persephone titles, this is about WWII on the home front. The book is mostly set at Brede Manor, the property of Charles Valery, whose back story slowly emerges in short chapters alternating with longer ones describing daily life for villagers and London evacuees in the aftermath of the Fall of Tobruk (June 1942). Before the war started, Charles Valery was responsible for the death of his best friend, Simon Chance, in a car accident. Since the 2 friends had just quarreled violently in public, Charles was tried for manslaughter but found innocent. However, since he knew himself to be in love with Simon's wife Cressida, he chose to leave England and moved to America, leaving Cressida in charge of Brede Manor. A strikingly beautiful and kind woman, Cressida welcomed paying and non-paying guests to Brede much more generously than most of her neighbors. Satirical sketches of selfish people who see the war as a nuisance to themselves rather than as an existential crisis to be overcome collectively constitute some of the best scenes of the book. It is a pity that Playfair can't leave well alone and harps on this theme rather than let her vignettes stand for themselves. One of Cressida's guest is Tori, a Central European refugee of unspecified nationality who also falls in love with Cressida, but nonetheless goes back to the continent when recalled by his underground network. Eventually Charles comes back to Brede, but only to make Cressida its owner for good as he has decided that it would not be honorable to fight the Germans solely to protect his cherished ancestral seat. Playfair is none too subtle in her fulsome portrayal of Tori and Charles as models of magnanimity and virtue, and Charles's self-sacrifice sounds very false to me. What makes this book worth reading nonetheless is the wealth of details about the toll of war on civilians in a mostly untouched part of rural England.
November 7, 2025
"Was it simply that only the great orators had courage enough to give words their real meaning? But why should courage be necessary anyway? Oh, well, she thought, why speculate about it. Think about cooking instead, which is at least constructive."
You can absolutely tell that this was written in an emotional fervor at a very distinct moment in 1943 when victory seemed as likely as defeat. Fascinating as a relic of such a distinctly pivotal period in history, Playfair, through a fictive lens, documents life on the home front, the fear and inconveniences of war oscillating between overwhelm and mere backdrop to the monotony of daily musings and human nature.
All that being said, reading this is what I imagine it will be like for our grandchildren in 8o years reading about life during Covid. It's difficult to truly appreciate the daily realities of an all-encompassing historical moment that you never lived through, that has so faded in collective memory.
I did find Playfair's writing excellent, but I sadly found the characters rather lacking. Any time there's a big house full of people, I'm eager to get to know them, but preoccupied by philosophical musings and Cressida's perfection as a heroine, and given there's only about 250 pages to the whole thing, we barely get to know most of them. There's no way now that I'd be able to keep them straight.
Overall, this is still a fascinating book, for its sheer historical value if nothing else, but far from my favorite Persephone.
30/153
May 8, 2023
This is a difficult book. I very much enjoyed the first half and especially the kitchen conversations, followed by the individual thoughts of those taking part in the conversations or just listening. But then the long conversation between Tori and Cressida in Chapter Thirteen struck a different note and this was swiftly followed by Charles's soliloquy, as one might call it, in Chapter Sixteen. I wasn't sure that I understood quite what they were getting at; it seems that these passages, and the final conversation between Charles and Cressida at the end of the book (Chapter Twenty-Five), are the important statements that Playfair wants to get across but they are fairly impenetrable. Cressida has found freedom by dispensing with servants and doing the cooking and cleaning herself; Charles finds freedom by renouncing his inherited wealth and property - so far so good, though the first is more convincing than the second. But what else is Playfair trying to say? What is Tori's message? That to give is better than to receive? That the greatest enemy we face is within ourselves? In the final passage of the book Cressida knows what Tori means - not entirely sure that I do. But it is a 'good read' for all that.
November 11, 2018
Jocelyn Playfair's novel, "A House in the Country," is set in 1942 when the outcome of WWII was not at all clear. Singapore had fallen to the Japanese in February. Rommel had captured Tobruk in June. Allied forces were overrun and 25,000 British and Commonwealth troops taken prisoner by the Germans. In the first six months of the year, 500 Allied ships had been sunk in the Atlantic.
The outlook was grim then and still unsure when "A House in the Country" was published two years later in 1944. Those two facts are what give this novel a rare immediacy that few novels that are set during WWII but published years later can achieve. The outcome of the characters' lives are tied to the outcome of the war raging in the pages of the book and outside in the real world. An excellent novel any way you look at it, but one that is deeper and more moving because of the time it was written. Another noteworthy title from Persephone Books which has more information about the story on their website.
The outlook was grim then and still unsure when "A House in the Country" was published two years later in 1944. Those two facts are what give this novel a rare immediacy that few novels that are set during WWII but published years later can achieve. The outcome of the characters' lives are tied to the outcome of the war raging in the pages of the book and outside in the real world. An excellent novel any way you look at it, but one that is deeper and more moving because of the time it was written. Another noteworthy title from Persephone Books which has more information about the story on their website.
August 2, 2019
This is one part comfort-read, one part thought-provoking commentary about war. Set in an English country house during World War II and narrated by its temporary owner (it's complicated), this is a very British look at the world. The narrator is a widow in her 30s, although she seems much older in stability and wisdom, who has a small son and many boarders, in accordance with a government request that larger homes be opened to accommodate the flood of refugees and displaced Brits. We see Cressida go about her daily tasks, making rationing work, figuring out how to get people from the train station 13 miles away when the one "taxi" only goes 10 miles, serving as air warden, and running a large household without servants -- a first in its long history. We see her fall in love, wonder at the reason for war and the probable outcome, meditate on love and loyalty and class. I thoroughly, thoroughly enjoyed this novel and only knocked off a star because in the end, despite some serious sadnesses, it seemed a bit too neat. Highly recommended.
April 8, 2022
Written and set in England during WW2 this novel revolves around Cressida who lives in a large country estate. She rents out rooms to families fleeing the city and to an assortment of individuals.
I enjoyed reading about the daily lives of the characters, how the war had affected them personally and society in general. Issues such as the difficulties in finding servants, the awful impact of a stray bomb, over crowding on trains all gave me an insight. Also the way that the author barely mentioned Cressida's son or other children staying at the house confirmed the saying of 'children should be seen but not heard'!
The author also wrote alot of conversation about the character's introspection which for me detracted greatly from the story; hence only 3 stars.
I enjoyed reading about the daily lives of the characters, how the war had affected them personally and society in general. Issues such as the difficulties in finding servants, the awful impact of a stray bomb, over crowding on trains all gave me an insight. Also the way that the author barely mentioned Cressida's son or other children staying at the house confirmed the saying of 'children should be seen but not heard'!
The author also wrote alot of conversation about the character's introspection which for me detracted greatly from the story; hence only 3 stars.
December 16, 2022
A book that started out seeming like a somewhat dull description of country life during wartime but really took off into a fascinating character study with some profound things to say about love, lust, war, the meaning of life and human motivation. A couple of attitudes came across as dated and there was a bit of smug britishness, but otherwise many of the characters discussions and revelations were universal things, as relevant today as ever. A highly enjoyable gem of early 20th century fiction and I can't wait to read more Persephone books.
October 3, 2023
I fell in love with this book almost instantly and then began to regret my passion. The writing is excellent, the story intriguing, the characters varied. However, the main protagonist, Cressida, is just too damn good to be true. I initially fell for her ( as apparently do all men who encounter her) but then I got very, VERY weary of her and her endless patience and musings and philosophizing and it all got to be too much for me.
The whole ending felt very drawn-out and I was glad when I finished it.
The whole ending felt very drawn-out and I was glad when I finished it.
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