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A Weekend With Claude
While spending the weekend in the country with friends, Lily tries to convince her new boyfriend that he is the father of her unborn child
152 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1967
6 people are currently reading
105 people want to read
About the author
Beryl Bainbridge
57 books182 followersDame 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".
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
July 28, 2016
A brilliant comic evocation of the mundane life of a group of people who spend the weekend together.
Of friendship , failures which is told with wit and humour.
Of friendship , failures which is told with wit and humour.
July 3, 2016
A Weekend with Claude was Beryl Bainbridge’s first published novel, the novel was heavily revised by the author in 1981. It is a darkly comic story of friendship and failure in 1960.
“Claude looked across the stone courtyard to the open door of the house and saw Julia pass quickly in red slippers, going into the kitchen to prepare lunch. Against the wall, pressed close to the dried stem of the wisteria, was his youngest son’s pram. It was a big pram, an expensive pram, with the edge of a white pillow showing at the hood. He remembered that his other sons had slept out their milky days in a second hand pram bought for seven-and-six in Camden Town. A thrifty woman, Sarah, in many ways. Bending her golden head, heavy under its weight of hair, she had laid their children one by one in the cheap carriage on the soiled pillow and gone, melon-hipped and honey-mouthed, away from him into their house. Always away from him.”
The novel opens with the framing story of a couple coming to Claude’s antique shop, the shop in the barn of the house Claude bought originally for his wife and children. In the drawer of a desk they are interested in buying the woman finds a letter dated 1960 and a photograph. The photograph taken a few years earlier, depicts a group of people in the gardens of Claude’s house. The couple become strangely interested in the photograph, and with Claude inviting them into the house for coffee, bit by bit they learn about the people in the photograph, and the weekend they spent with Claude and his partner Julia. The people in the photograph are: Lily, Norman, Shebah and Edward.
Full review: https://heavenali.wordpress.com/2016/...
“Claude looked across the stone courtyard to the open door of the house and saw Julia pass quickly in red slippers, going into the kitchen to prepare lunch. Against the wall, pressed close to the dried stem of the wisteria, was his youngest son’s pram. It was a big pram, an expensive pram, with the edge of a white pillow showing at the hood. He remembered that his other sons had slept out their milky days in a second hand pram bought for seven-and-six in Camden Town. A thrifty woman, Sarah, in many ways. Bending her golden head, heavy under its weight of hair, she had laid their children one by one in the cheap carriage on the soiled pillow and gone, melon-hipped and honey-mouthed, away from him into their house. Always away from him.”
The novel opens with the framing story of a couple coming to Claude’s antique shop, the shop in the barn of the house Claude bought originally for his wife and children. In the drawer of a desk they are interested in buying the woman finds a letter dated 1960 and a photograph. The photograph taken a few years earlier, depicts a group of people in the gardens of Claude’s house. The couple become strangely interested in the photograph, and with Claude inviting them into the house for coffee, bit by bit they learn about the people in the photograph, and the weekend they spent with Claude and his partner Julia. The people in the photograph are: Lily, Norman, Shebah and Edward.
Full review: https://heavenali.wordpress.com/2016/...
April 16, 2016
Beryl Bainbridge's first novel and the first I have read which is shameful given what a pillar of the British literary fraternity she is. This is very much of its time - 1967 - so is reflective of the increased cultural and social liberalism of the age. In that, it strongly foreshadows The Buddha of Suburbia and even Abigail's Party - indeed, it's hard to imagine that Mike Leigh hasn't been heavily influenced by Bainbridge.
The writing and especially the author's use of metaphor sizzles while it is very witty and sardonic as well as subtly feminist. As with many novels and films that depict social gatherings (think also the execrable Peter's Friends , none of the characters (and especially the three narrators) are likeable - does that matter? Probably - just a bit - and such self-absorption on the part of the protagonists seems slightly over painted. These days at parties (thankfully there are fewer these days and more pub gatherings), I'm mainly concerned with what's on the iPod and the quality of the snacks. If 3 and a half stars were available, that would be my mark.
The writing and especially the author's use of metaphor sizzles while it is very witty and sardonic as well as subtly feminist. As with many novels and films that depict social gatherings (think also the execrable Peter's Friends , none of the characters (and especially the three narrators) are likeable - does that matter? Probably - just a bit - and such self-absorption on the part of the protagonists seems slightly over painted. These days at parties (thankfully there are fewer these days and more pub gatherings), I'm mainly concerned with what's on the iPod and the quality of the snacks. If 3 and a half stars were available, that would be my mark.
March 11, 2022
When I was about 17 or 18, a friend of mine organised a sleep-over party in a house her family owned in a village around 30km from my hometown. A bus would only go there twice a week, so my father agreed to drive us there and we will get back to town with the bus. One of the girls brought her new boyfriend, a pretty irritating guy from the capital. By the end of the trip we all hated the guy - his sly remarks, narcissism and feeling of superiority. A couple of hours into the party and we all wanted him gone. Even his girlfriend broke up with him not long after we went back home.
I didn't remember this while I was reading the book, it never crossed my mind, but it did resurface when I was thinking of a way to start putting down my thoughts about A Weekend With Claude, Beryl Bainbridge's first published novel. The reason this memory came to mind is pretty obvious now - a group of friends comes together for a party in the countryside. One of them brings her new boyfriend with her. Each of them becomes irritated to various extents with various people until it all escalates and there's a gunshot. No one dies, no one is seriously injured. But still, a gun shot always causes shock and distress and some sort of crash.
What I loved about this book is how each chapter is told from the perspective of a different character, and in that character's head everything they say makes perfect sense. Even if we feel we're missing a bit of information or clarity, a link between things, it all adds up for them. A story in our minds is never linear, it never gives full explanations, it's not a complete story with all the details because we already know all the supporting facts and don't need to explain them to ourselves again. In this way, it all makes sense to whoever is telling their story while we try to figure it out. And while this sounds quite confusing, I felt it was the opposite - I felt it made total sense, even if I was not a 100% clear what it is. It felt natural, and believable and true. And all the little facts you miss in one character's story, you get from another.
Bainbridge is also a master of character development. Each of he characters has a unique voice and it's a voice that is exactly as you would expect it to be based on what the other characters in the book say about them. You develop an idea of Lily while reading what Shebah and Victorian Norman have to say about her, and when in her own chapter she's sounds exactly like that.
I wouldn't go as far as to say A Weekend With Claude is brilliant or a masterpiece, but it is a fantastic book that I enjoyed very much and that is cementing my admiration and obsession with Bainbridge for sure.
I didn't remember this while I was reading the book, it never crossed my mind, but it did resurface when I was thinking of a way to start putting down my thoughts about A Weekend With Claude, Beryl Bainbridge's first published novel. The reason this memory came to mind is pretty obvious now - a group of friends comes together for a party in the countryside. One of them brings her new boyfriend with her. Each of them becomes irritated to various extents with various people until it all escalates and there's a gunshot. No one dies, no one is seriously injured. But still, a gun shot always causes shock and distress and some sort of crash.
What I loved about this book is how each chapter is told from the perspective of a different character, and in that character's head everything they say makes perfect sense. Even if we feel we're missing a bit of information or clarity, a link between things, it all adds up for them. A story in our minds is never linear, it never gives full explanations, it's not a complete story with all the details because we already know all the supporting facts and don't need to explain them to ourselves again. In this way, it all makes sense to whoever is telling their story while we try to figure it out. And while this sounds quite confusing, I felt it was the opposite - I felt it made total sense, even if I was not a 100% clear what it is. It felt natural, and believable and true. And all the little facts you miss in one character's story, you get from another.
Bainbridge is also a master of character development. Each of he characters has a unique voice and it's a voice that is exactly as you would expect it to be based on what the other characters in the book say about them. You develop an idea of Lily while reading what Shebah and Victorian Norman have to say about her, and when in her own chapter she's sounds exactly like that.
I wouldn't go as far as to say A Weekend With Claude is brilliant or a masterpiece, but it is a fantastic book that I enjoyed very much and that is cementing my admiration and obsession with Bainbridge for sure.
September 17, 2016
I did not enjoy this one at all. Having loved my previous two reads by Bainbridge, this was a big let down. Perhaps I enjoyed the other two for the historical background. This one tells the story of a group of friends who gather for the weekend at Claude's house. All have an agenda of some sort but they are collectively rallying round Lily as she tries to get her latest beau to marry her as she is pregnant with a former boyfriend's child. My main issue with the book is that not one of the characters is likeable and most are pretentious or overwrought. For such a short book, I felt like it dragged. I will continue to read Bainbridge's books but might stick to the ones with an historical backdrop
May 21, 2013
I like Bainbridge mainly because she normally creates novels about Britain which have a dark unsettling undercurrent; her voice dispassionately views the strange events in her stories. However this one is just plain weird, a stream of consciousness experiment that lacks any of the subtlety of her third person stories, and doesn't really have much point. Her first published novel apparently, which she revised in the 1980s, and I wonder what the original was like.
August 29, 2018
About 25 years ago I met Beryl Bainbridge when she came to do a reading at work. I remember standing at the door as the last of the audience were arriving, while she had a sneaky cigarette with another of the evening's authors, almost up to the moment she was being introduced. I have now finally got around to reading one of her books, and can honestly say that I am looking forward to the rest of them. Better late than never.
September 11, 2014
A weekend meeting of friends, narrated by 4 of them from their points of view. A short story but is mainly a character study. Although an early work of B.B.'s, it's like her other books I've read: very intense, real, dark, even sort of funny. Her writings usually leave me upset after finishing but I'm always coming back for more (a bit like Cormac Mccarthy).
December 2, 2015
Just didn't work for me, a group of friends meet at a house in the country for a weekend trying to get the boyfriend of one to marry her. Told from the point of view of four of the friends it just doesn't seem to gel together. Couldn't even find a character to like.
September 21, 2011
Very, very strange book.....
August 14, 2015
I enjoyed it. Very Beryl.
June 29, 2017
A dysfunctional group of friends get together for the weekend. Does anyone write dark comedy better than Beryl Bainbridge?
February 12, 2023
An odd experience reading this book. The fractured, subjective narration feels modern and in many ways the book feels fresh, so that it's quite possible to forget for a while that it was written half a century ago. But I kept being jolted back to the realisation that it is describing a vanished country. Even the youngest of the characters, were they still alive today, would be older than my parents. The oldest, Shebah, was born in 1899.
Bainbridge deliberately set the main action (the "weekend with Claude") in 1960, seven years before the book was published. Much of it is told in flashback, memories awakened by an old photo discovered in a desk. This adds to the sense of a weekend frozen in time - "marooned in a summer garden". But the characters are marooned in other ways too: constantly trying to make connections, but each locked within his or her impenetrable self. Their closeness, even intimacy only emphasises this failure to fully connect.
In one key scene, Norman tried to seduce Julia on a green sofa, removing all his clothes (even his socks) before he looks up at the window and sees Julia's husband Claude looking in. He rapidly goes into reverse, putting his clothes back on, and everyone continues as if nothing has happened. We only learn towards the end of the book that it is impossible to see through the dim glass of the window. It's a characteristic moment, comical, but also pathetic, and encapsulates the way in which the characters keep failing to connect or truly see each other.
The reader is invited to piece together a portrait of each of the characters from what they reveal about themselves and what others reveal about them. But there is no single truth, rather a mass of shifting fragments that never coalesce into anything as static and two-dimensional as a photograph.
Funny and melancholy, this is a novel of great artistry posing as a rambunctious slice of life. I found the mode of narration took a bit of getting used to: Bainbridge chooses to give all three first-person accounts - Lily's, Norman's and Shebah's - a peculiar diction which combines the idioms and rhythms of everyday speech with literary devices that can seem incongruous; but in the end I accepted it as a stylised rendering of their internal monologues. The advantage of this approach is to add poetry and pathos to these eccentric characters, who rise above their surroundings if only in their heroic self-dramatisation.
Bainbridge deliberately set the main action (the "weekend with Claude") in 1960, seven years before the book was published. Much of it is told in flashback, memories awakened by an old photo discovered in a desk. This adds to the sense of a weekend frozen in time - "marooned in a summer garden". But the characters are marooned in other ways too: constantly trying to make connections, but each locked within his or her impenetrable self. Their closeness, even intimacy only emphasises this failure to fully connect.
In one key scene, Norman tried to seduce Julia on a green sofa, removing all his clothes (even his socks) before he looks up at the window and sees Julia's husband Claude looking in. He rapidly goes into reverse, putting his clothes back on, and everyone continues as if nothing has happened. We only learn towards the end of the book that it is impossible to see through the dim glass of the window. It's a characteristic moment, comical, but also pathetic, and encapsulates the way in which the characters keep failing to connect or truly see each other.
The reader is invited to piece together a portrait of each of the characters from what they reveal about themselves and what others reveal about them. But there is no single truth, rather a mass of shifting fragments that never coalesce into anything as static and two-dimensional as a photograph.
Funny and melancholy, this is a novel of great artistry posing as a rambunctious slice of life. I found the mode of narration took a bit of getting used to: Bainbridge chooses to give all three first-person accounts - Lily's, Norman's and Shebah's - a peculiar diction which combines the idioms and rhythms of everyday speech with literary devices that can seem incongruous; but in the end I accepted it as a stylised rendering of their internal monologues. The advantage of this approach is to add poetry and pathos to these eccentric characters, who rise above their surroundings if only in their heroic self-dramatisation.
March 27, 2022
For a short book, it took me a long while to finish, mainly because I found Sheba’s narrative a bit difficult - she came across so pathetically disliked in the narratives from Claude, Edward and Lily that her own loyalty to Lily was hard to get through.
This is only the second Bainbridge novel I’ve read, and like the Bottle Factory I liked it for its snapshot of the life of single women in the 1960s when freedoms we take for granted today were seen as immoral and ruinous.
An excellent series of pen portraits of some unhappy people making the most of a weekend away.
Three Word Review: intense, lacking happenings.
This is only the second Bainbridge novel I’ve read, and like the Bottle Factory I liked it for its snapshot of the life of single women in the 1960s when freedoms we take for granted today were seen as immoral and ruinous.
An excellent series of pen portraits of some unhappy people making the most of a weekend away.
Three Word Review: intense, lacking happenings.
April 3, 2024
The book is structured around sa couple coming to purchase an old desk and finding a photograph. The chapters then follow the characters in the photo on the weekend it was taken. I admired this structure. The prose is great, with sentences that are a pleasure to read and re-read.
It does read as an early novel but as an excellent one.
There is some ambiguity and different perspectives on the same thing without a clear answer. This is all great, but I am not at all sure about the analysis of Sheba's jewishness.
It does read as an early novel but as an excellent one.
There is some ambiguity and different perspectives on the same thing without a clear answer. This is all great, but I am not at all sure about the analysis of Sheba's jewishness.
June 2, 2019
If only but
Useful hindsight
An uncomplicated story: about consistent characters; all different in their own ways; with a story of their own to tell , and how they are able to sustain each individual friendship that they have with each other.
Useful hindsight
An uncomplicated story: about consistent characters; all different in their own ways; with a story of their own to tell , and how they are able to sustain each individual friendship that they have with each other.
February 15, 2020
There is always a dark and biting side to Beryl’s comedies. This one considers a weekend in the country seen through the eyes of four oddball folk.
February 22, 2020
About 3.6. Loved the feel of the 60s, and the kooky, disparate characters.
March 30, 2023
I loved the first chapter, but I couldn't connect with the rest of the book.
February 26, 2024
A bunch of unpleasant people behave in very unlikely ways.
January 28, 2017
I think I'm putting B. Bainbridge in the same category as Muriel Spark (I actually thought Beryl was called Muriel) in that they're both authors other authors and people who know/talk about literature profess to love... that I don't get.
I didn't see the point of that novel. I didn't manage to find it funny, possibly because we're not meant to sympathise with any of the characters... But even though the story was short, I don't like being at an arm's length from who I'm reading about.
To literary & cold for me.
I didn't see the point of that novel. I didn't manage to find it funny, possibly because we're not meant to sympathise with any of the characters... But even though the story was short, I don't like being at an arm's length from who I'm reading about.
To literary & cold for me.
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews