Winter Garden

by Beryl Bainbridge

Middle-class, middle-aged, and middle-of-the-road lawyer Douglas Ashburner has never been much of a womanizer. So when he tells his wife he’s going on a fishing holiday, she takes his word for it. But instead of leaving London for Scotland, he departs from Heathrow to Moscow. Douglas is tagging along with his mistress, a sculptor named Nina St. Clair, on a tour of Russia arranged by the Soviet Artists’ Union. Accompanying them on the trip are two other artists: the impudent Bernard Douglas and the irritable Enid Dwyer.

Once in Moscow, Ashburner starts to wish he really had gone fishing. He promptly loses his luggage, the food is terrible, the art is horrific, and their tour guide is downright militant. But when Nina slips out to a last-minute lunch appointment and never returns, things go from bad to disastrous. Motives are unclear. Identities are mistaken. And as the group travels from the capital to Lenigrad to Tblisi, confusion, contradictions, and even hallucinations abound.

Ripe with the scathing wit, eccentric characters, and richly morbid atmosphere that have earned award-winning author Beryl Bainbridge both a cult following and mainstream praise, Winter Garden is a psychological thriller that turns an ironic lens on the social mores of modern life.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Russia, 20th Century, British Literature, Contemporary, Literary Fiction

184 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1980

About the author

Dame Beryl Margaret Bainbridge DBE was an English writer from Liverpool. She was primarily known for her works of psychological fiction, often set among the English working classes. Bainbridge won the Whitbread Award twice and was nominated for the Booker Prize five times. In 2008, The Times newspaper named Bainbridge among their list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945".

Reviews

[hawk · Rating 4 out of 5]

this short novel is hard to place and/or describe in some ways, operating on several layers i think.

the story very much had the feel of a 'romp', with mistaken identity, lost luggage, divergent agendas, disobedient tourists, petty tho comfortably mundane grumbles...

from quite early in there was their missing companion - a mystery that isn't resolved, tho equally plausible explanations are given at either end of the spectrum of possibilities. this thread is ever present, as is the missing character in our main characters thoughts, tho the missing character herself isn't given alot of significance. and while it's a concern often at the forefront of our main characters mind, the story goes along quite comfortably/happily without her. she's both important and insignificant (as are perhaps any of them, and any of us...).

the ending brings another more sinister still layer. it was a surprise, tho also fitted perfectly with all the details we'd been given that didn't seem important at the time 🙂 and it's also still ambivalent, especially as to exactly whose domain the main character has entered and how he will be received/treated from there.


🎣🎨🎭🏛❄


so abit of a Brits abroad farce, a (murder?) mystery, and a political satire and thriller! all rolled into one small volume. pretty clever overall i think 🙂


🎣🎨🎭🏛❄


tho i can see how this novel gets some less than thrilled reviews. it's not straightforward and is perhaps operating on less obvious layers than others the author has written, and perhaps has a less satisfactory ending 🤔
tho I've not read alot by Beryl Bainbridge to compare with,
i have generally enjoyed what i have read 🙂


🎣🎨🎭🏛❄


and before i end, a note on our main character, who has a sense of haplessness to him throughout which i enjoyed 🙂 he is never completely sure why he's there or what he's doing, having come along as the companion (lover) of the one who goes missing. and alot of things seem to just happen to him. at the same time, he is perhaps the novels driving character, and around whom alot of the action happens. the other two key characters in the group, who seemed alot more solid in many ways, comment towards the end of the novel about the main character having had/experienced something they hadn't, and while in the instance they were talking about love, it could be applied more broadly to his role and experiences during the groups time in Russia 🤔



🌟 🌟 🌟 . 5 rounded up



accessed as an RNIB talking book, well read by Peter Barker.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

A furtive trip to Moscow leads to a madcap adventure and confusion ensues! Beryl Bainbridge is such a dramatic, daring, exciting, unpredictable and shocking writer. I hang on her every, carefully placed, word.

Her prose is clipped, dark, funny and restrained. She puts trust in her reader to understand. I know that she is a very divisive author, but to me, she is an inspiration.

[Cleopatra Pullen · Rating 2 out of 5]

So far I have really appreciated the dark humour Beryl Bainbridge winds through the previous novels I’ve read; An Awfully Big Adventure, Sweet William and Harriet Said, but sadly any such flashes of brilliance in Winter Garden were overshadowed by either a weak plot or one that I simply didn’t ‘get’.

Douglas Ashburner is a lawyer, married or many years with two adult children when he is persuaded by Nina, who he is conducting a clandestine affair with, to join her on a trip to Moscow with the Soviet’s Artist Union. Douglas duly tells his wife he is off to the Highlands fishing, and arrives at Heathrow to meet his fellow travellers at the airport complete with his fishing rod.

The other members of the party are Bernard a minor celebrity in the world of art, and Enid a less well-known artist. Having to indulge in a certain amount of subterfuge regarding their true relationship Douglas finds himself sat apart from Nina during the flight, the book being set in the 1980s air travel was not the regimented affair it is today. Nina had asked Douglas to put her medication in her suitcase which doesn’t arrive in Moscow with the rest of the party. The failure to track down his case causes Douglas more than a bit of worry as he is going to have a devil of a job explaining why it got lost at an airport when it should be with him in Scotland.

If I’m honest after we reach this part of the book, I struggled to make much sense of anything further. Nina mysteriously disappears from the entourage with various excuses and explanations being given for where she is, mainly led by Olga, their translator for the trip. The weird occurrences keep happening with a particularly odd nocturnal encounter on a train trip to Leningrad, none of which are furnished with any real resolution that makes proper sense although I think I know what we are supposed to believe, the problem is I’m not sure!

What I did find interesting is the descriptions of Soviet Russia which come complete with the biting cold weather, not good news for Douglas as he misplaced his hat along the way although he does carry a pink scarf of Nina’s to keep the cold out of his ears. These descriptions of various engagements, viewing of graveyards and paintings include Beryl Bainbridge’s legendary wit, I was particularly fond of the visit to Stalin’s birthplace and the Russian characters we met. I’m really not so sure about Douglas who seemed incredibly naïve, and not just about his affair, particularly considering he’s supposed to be a lawyer. As Nina was off page she was fairly insubstantial although this aspect was nicely balanced by Enid who had some real depth. The trouble is interesting people only take you so far when these are pretty much disconnected from a plot.

[Rozanne · Rating 2 out of 5]

For some reason, I had a hard time following the plot (if there was one) of this book or seeing what point Bainbridge was trying to make.

[Ali · Rating 3 out of 5]

Douglas Ashburner is an ordinary middle-aged man, little given to intrigue one would think, yet as the novel opens he leaves his wife comfortably tucked up in their bed and sets out on a peculiar journey. Ashburner’s wife – obviously little bothered that her husband is heading off on a trip without her – thinks he is going fishing in Scotland. However, soon after closing the front door of the home he shares with his wife, Ashburner is checking in for a flight to Moscow.

He is accompanying three artists, guests of the Soviet Artists’ Union, he is the official companion to Nina St Clair – with whom he has been conducting an affair. An affair we come to suspect is all on her terms, Ashburner little more than a devoted lap dog trailing along behind her. His adoration of Nina, verges on the obsessively paranoid – especially once they land in Moscow. The other two members of the party, Bernard and Enid, are friends of Nina’s rather than Ashburner, and so he is liable to feel threatened by them.

“Bernard had never known anyone like Ashburner – not to spend time with. The man looked and spoke like a civil servant; yet he was obviously insanely romantic. It wasn’t so extraordinary after all that Nina had taken up with him, She was basically a rather bossy girl who should have married somebody inadequate and produced a crop of children. Art didn’t do anything for her. She only mucked about with it because the brain specialist was a total egotist and she was left too much on her own. Perhaps Ashburner was made for her.”

Full review: https://heavenali.wordpress.com/2018/...

[eLwYcKe · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bloody love Mrs Bainbridge! Every book I've read by her I find enjoyable. There always seems to be something sinister going on just behind the scenes, and her concise, dry language and humour add to the ambivalent atmosphere.
'Winter Garden' isn't one of my absolute Bainbridge favourites, but there's still plenty here to entertain. Like the great writer herself, mordantly hilarious and eccentric.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is no doubt that this a rather odd little book. I have read a couple of Bainbridge books in the past but don’t remember my impressions of them and my first takeaway from this is that I was really surprised with how funny she could be. That aside, this does have a fairly odd ‘plot’ (although I can see why many complain that it is plotless) and there is a hallucinogenic property to the action that gets more intense as the book progresses, BUT for anyone who has spent any time in the Soviet Union or 1990s Russia so much will ring true. It may read like a satire but it also fairly closely echoes how everyday life could actually be - both the ridiculousness of the bureaucracy and the often very strange way foreigners would respond to it. So, this is definitely better than its overall rating suggests although I can certainly see the issues that others have had with it, but personally, maybe just down to my personal experiences, I really quite enjoyed it.

[Zuberino · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rescued this from a damp, steaming pile of Russian books which had gotten caught out in the garage by September rains - bang in the middle of an epic house move (hopefully my last). When I started reading, every page was wet; by the time I was done every page was dry. But the book itself, the reading experience proved quite unsatisfactory. The only Beryl I've enjoyed so far is Birthday Boys. This particular mishmash of comic farce, Englishman abroad, exotic travelogue, wannabe thriller fails to deliver on most counts. I don't know what the contemporary NYT reviewer was thinking.

[Plum-crazy · Rating 1 out of 5]

I've nothing much to say about this book as for the bulk of it I wasn't really sure what was going on!

Initially I thought I was going to enjoy the style of humour but at times things were almost farcical - certainly rather absurd. I felt there was some subtext going on that I just couldn't grasp, things are hinted at but I'm not good at reading between the lines so maybe that's why this book didn't work for me.

[gorecki · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sadly quite disappointed by this one by Dame Bainbridge. Funny and full of comedy, yes. But also quite nonsensical and frivolous… it read more as a satirical work, which I sadly never learned to connect with, but also didn’t really make much sense or add up to much in the end.

1.5 stars, I think.

[Angela Leivesley · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book made me laugh frequently but I wasn't completely sure what was going on which made it frustrating and my least favourite Bainbridge so far.

[Christian Schwoerke · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve found Bainbridge’s novels consistently good, each distinctly different, but all filled with sly, insinuating bits of plangent humor wreaked on characters who are unaware of all that is happening around and to them. What I admire in her novels is her knack for creating an immediacy in the different settings for her tales—vividly rendered in succinct and telling details arising out of the whirl of events in progress—whether an outing by the workers in a bottle factory in 60s Liverpool, the sinking Titanic, a fatal expedition to the Antarctic at the beginning of the 20th century, the peculiar perspective Mrs. Thrush’s daughter, a volunteer doctor in a Crimean campaign, Adolf Hitler evading the draft by lodging with his brother in Liverpool, an intimate dinner party interrupted by armed thieves who stage a siege with the police, an English girl meeting Sirhan Sirhan in 1968, et al.

Winter Garden is no different in its acutely idiosyncratic verisimilitude, the story of a 50-ish Admiralty lawyer, Douglas Ashburner, who takes up the invitation of his artist mistress Nina to travel to Russia as guests of that country’s artists union. In doing so, Ashburner tells his wife that he’s going off to Scotland to fish, wishing all the while that she would hint he should stay home. Once in Moscow, Nina vanishes, apparently moving on a different track from the rest of the party, with word of her doings trickling back to the rest of the party, composed of Ashburner, two artists, a translator, and an artist union representative.

In trips around Moscow, Leningrad, and Tblisi, Ashburner becomes more and more flummoxed, the victim of haplessness and the misapprehensions of his hosts. His greatest frustration is his separation from the imperious Nina, and one small consolation is his burgeoning friendship with the cranky Bernard. Various clues come to Ashburner’s attention, and he is sure that Nina is being held against her wishes. His efforts to uncover her whereabouts, carried out in secret, arouse official suspicions. The final scene, Ashburner’s forlorn gaze from barred windows above the empty Red Square, suggests just how far ignorance, hope, and muddled intentions can bring a man.

[Ape · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an entertaining and curious little read. It was very well written, as with the other two books by her I have read, and the characters are always so full-bodied and slightly eccentric. I really like that aspect. There were a lot of incidents and comments during this book that make you try and work out what's really going on. Although it's never really clearly explained at the end; mostly just hinted at. And that was frustrating for me as I wanted everything explained in this particular book. So in some ways it was a little disappointing compared to what I was expecting/hoping for when I bought this book.

It was written in 1980, so the Russia of then was a different place to the one of now. And in some ways maybe it's not changed. And to be fair I've never been to Russia myself ever. Anyway, this is about a group of four people who go on a trip to Russia organised by some Soviet artists' union. Three of the travellers are artists, the fourth, Ashburner, is just a businessman having an affair with one of the women, who has told his wife he's off fishing in Scotland so he can come on this trip. So they travel around and meet artists etc. Except odd things keep happening - Ashburner's suitcase doesn't arrive at the airport and when he eventually gets it, it's obvious someone's had a good rifle through; they're not allowed to leave the interpreter's side, there's random mention of "an infection", Nina - the woman he's having an affair with, takes to her sick bed and no one is allowed to see her, although Ashburner starts having visions of her... and so on and so on... I just wish I knew what it was all about!

[Rick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another darkly entertaining novel by Beryl Bainbridge. This is the sixth Bainbridge novel I have read since the Covid epidemic began. i figure that i have read 12 Bainbridge novels in total. My favorite books by Bainbridge are her later historical novels including Every Man for Himself and the Birthday Boys (read well before the advent of Goodreads).
With Winter Garden the author seems to be transitioning from her early novels which, including Young Adolf are all set in Great Britain. Winter Garden takes place primarily in Russia during the last years of Leonid Brezhnev. The primary character is Douglas Ashburner a middle aged admiralty lawyer who sneaks off on his disinterested wife to visit Russia with his artist mistress Nina and two other fellow artists Bernard and Enid.
The trip immediately turns into a holiday from hell. Various irritating, bizarre and creepy things happen to the travelers these range from lost luggage, disappearance(in Nina's case) and encounters with a wide swath of Russians from interpreters, to metal workers to rabid dogs.
The Brits especially Ashburner, who seems to be hallucinating half the time, to their Russian hosts all behave oddly or badly sometimes at the same time.
Black humor prevails as does Bainbridge's ability to show off the frailty of character of all her characters.
If you have never read Beryl Bainbridge please do so she never disappoints.

[Jean-Luke · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Are you able to hear me in the front, Mr Burns?’ demanded Olga Fiodorovna, apparently speaking to Bernard.

He ground his teeth; having done his homework before he arrived he was irritated by the history lesson. ‘What does that say?’ he asked, pointing at a row of black letters, six feet high, erected on the roof of a nearby building.

‘Labour is glorious,’ translated Olga Fiodorovna.

‘Oh, a hospital,’ said Bernard, and wondered if he was brave enough to light a cigarette.
Olga Fiodorovna told him that in this instance, labour meant work. In her country such slogans were an incentive to the workers. It spurred them on.

‘In my country,’ said Bernard thoughtfully, ‘a slogan like that would be an incentive to violence.”

Like others, I just didn't understand it, and I wouldn't recommended it, but there were quite a few laughs nonetheless.

[Rob · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book features a visit to the USSR in the early 1980s and having myself undertaken such an expedition around that time, much of it resonated. Bainbridge also introduces the clever plot device in which one of the expected main characters actually spends almost no time at all directly involved in the action - thus garnering the status of a semi-mythical being. That said, overall, the book could perhaps have done with greater psychological depth and more pages would be needed for that. I'm all for short novels but not when the action is so sketchily explored. This took a day to read and a day to forget.

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

Douglas Ashburner's wife thinks he is going on a fishing trip to Scotland alone. In fact, he is travelling to Moscow with Nina (his mistress) and a couple of mutual artistic friends, to see various Russian artistic works. But his suitcase going missing at the airport is just the start of the strange events on the trip. A fun, often witty book, although the twist at the end just seemed confusing.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can't understand why Beryl Bainbridge isn't more popular - she's a great writer. (And the fact that she gets pissed at the Booker Prize presentations - which she still hasn't won - and goes home on the tube - only makes her more human)

[Bachyboy · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not sure why I persisted with this really. It had strange unlikeable characters and crazy, unbelievable things happen to Ashburner who ends up in Russia when his wife believed he was fishing in Scotland.

[Marcus T. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Surreal comedy, along the lines of Young Adolf and The Bottle Factory Outing. Detestable and vain characters visiting a weird and unfriendly country with rules the visitors can't or won't understand. Absurdity ensues.

[Hilary · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found this to be a rather weird read.
There were some moments of wry humour but I didn't take to any of the characters, the narrative jumped about confusingly, the plot was...er, no idea really and the ending very strange.
Thankfully it was a short book otherwise I might have given up on it.

[Kathy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Was ok, but I just didn't get really into it. It didn't seem to make sense to me. I did, however, enjoy hearing about Russia.

[Richard Mann · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sorry Beryl this was bollocks. Little in the way of a discernable story. Couldnt care less about the characters. Ending poor

[Ivy Pavlova · Rating 2 out of 5]

She's one of our greatest writers, so it was perplexing to get to the end of this and realise I hadn't really 'got' it. Who knows? Looking at the other reviews, I'm clearly not alone in that.

[Joan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not one of my favorite Beryl Bainbridge novels. The first part of the book is intriguing. Douglas Ashburner a quiet reliable type of man is having an affair with Nina and telling his wife he is going to Scotland he goes to Russia with Nina. He is constantly perplexed with what is happening to him, especially when Nina seems to go missing, but no-one seems concerned but him. The small group of artists is visiting Russia on a cultural exchange but are highly supervised and the schedule seems very odd to Douglas. They go from Moscow to Lennigrad and onto Tbilisi with Douglas becoming more and more disorientated. As a reader I too was becoming more and more disorientated as it was difficult to make head or tail of what was actually happening. The ending left me non the wiser as what had/was going to happen. There was a sly humour about the book but the subject and style of confusion didn't suit me.

[Jan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Winter Garden was well written, with amusing descriptions of characters and events that spiral out of control. But perhaps it's too similiar to an anxiety dream. I couldn't engage with the characters. I found the plot unsatisfying and insubstantial. What was going on? Ashburner seemed too naive (why Ashburner and not Douglas by the way, when all the other characters are referred to by their first name), Nina too self-absorbed and none of them made me care about them - except perhaps Douglas's wife left behind in England. I kept wondering what she was up to while her dull lawyer husband was in Russia. I confess I gave up half way through and skipped to the end. Judging by the other reviews, even if I had carefully read the book all the way through I would probably not have been left any the wiser.

[Peter Burton · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’ve been a fan of Beryl Bainbridge for years. This is an early example of her work,very old fashioned now as the small group of English travellers journey through Soviet Russia.It began very well being very funny indeed but petered out becoming more and more bizarre with an ending that I didn’t get.

[Andrea Irvin · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the first book by Beryl Bainbridge I've ever read. I found it never truly, fully engaged me. The premise of the story is fantastic and could have made for hilarious reading I thought, but instead I found it rather plodding and tedious and I think I missed the point of the ending too boot! For me, it was just meh.

[Tommy Maker · Rating 1 out of 5]

What have I just read? Confusion from page 1 to page 184. The plot was very jumbled, and very difficult to follow. Not one character stood out for me. I was hoping as went on, it would get better, but was disappointed, it got more confusing. Only thing I could comprehend was that it was set in Russia.

[kp · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read Beryl Bainbridge as a kind of sorbet between courses, and sometimes her works are as memorable as the courses. This is a funny, acerbic story that refuses to provide the denouement that would make it a conventional comedy.