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We That Are Left
It is 1910. Jessica and Phyllis Melville have grown up at Ellinghurst, their family estate. A headstrong beauty, Jessica longs for London - the glitter and glamor of debutante life - while bookish Phyllis dreams in vain of attending the university. Neither girl questions that it is Theo, their adored brother, whom their mother loves best. Theo eclipses everyone around him, including the diffident Oskar Grunewald, who is a frequent visitor to Ellinghurst.
Fascinated by the house but alternately tormented and ignored by the Melville children, Oskar seeks refuge in Ellinghurst's enormous library. Over the next decade, as the Great War devastates and reshapes their world, the sisters come of age in a country unrecognizable from the idylls of their youth. As they struggle to forge new paths in a world that no longer plays by the old rules, Oskar's life becomes entwined with theirs once again, in ways that will change all of their futures forever.
Fascinated by the house but alternately tormented and ignored by the Melville children, Oskar seeks refuge in Ellinghurst's enormous library. Over the next decade, as the Great War devastates and reshapes their world, the sisters come of age in a country unrecognizable from the idylls of their youth. As they struggle to forge new paths in a world that no longer plays by the old rules, Oskar's life becomes entwined with theirs once again, in ways that will change all of their futures forever.
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First published April 2, 2015
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About the author
Clare Clark
14 books140 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
Clare Clark (b.1967) is the author of The Great Stink, a Washington Post Best Book of the Year, and The Nature of Monsters.
Clark's novel Beautiful Lives (2012) was inspired by the lives of Gabriela and R.B. Cunninghame Graham.
Clare Clark (b.1967) is the author of The Great Stink, a Washington Post Best Book of the Year, and The Nature of Monsters.
Clark's novel Beautiful Lives (2012) was inspired by the lives of Gabriela and R.B. Cunninghame Graham.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 151 reviews
March 17, 2015
I initially was a bit lost when commencing We That Are Lost, as the prologue contained a lot of people and names therefore making it hard to get a grip off. However as the book progresses all of those people and names fall into place.
The novel predominately revolves around the Melville sisters and family friend Oskar Grunewald, with World War 1 as the backdrop.
Just as the title of the novel suggests, it is about how those who remain continue on in an impermanent and ever changing world. How people have different ways of coping and maturing.
We That Are Left got better as it went on, a twist towards the end that I wasn’t expecting, and attachment towards characters, even to those I didn’t really like.
Thankyou to Netgalley and the publisher for the chance to read and review.
The novel predominately revolves around the Melville sisters and family friend Oskar Grunewald, with World War 1 as the backdrop.
Just as the title of the novel suggests, it is about how those who remain continue on in an impermanent and ever changing world. How people have different ways of coping and maturing.
We That Are Left got better as it went on, a twist towards the end that I wasn’t expecting, and attachment towards characters, even to those I didn’t really like.
Thankyou to Netgalley and the publisher for the chance to read and review.
June 16, 2019
Really wonderful prose; the book is 100 pages too long. Unfortunate ending. We are given hints at the truth that is never revealed about Phyllis. Oscar’s time at Oxford is wasted pages, as is the ongoing saga of Jessica and Gerald. The writing is the strongest part of this book.
March 19, 2016
Houses can make fine story centerpieces, as seen in The Hundred-Year House, by Rebecca Makkai. In Makkai's novel, the house casts an evocative history and long shadow over the narrative, and is woven deeply into the story. In Clare Clark's ambitious but largely anodyne novel, the house is Ellinghurst, a faux Gothic tower--huge, with crenellations, ivied walls, turrets, and bastions, built in the Victorian era and made to look medieval. Here, the house is more of a set piece, and a trigger for the events that will take place. The owners are the Melville family, and the house passes down to the male heir. However, the fact of males has come to an end when the last male heir, Theo, dies in the Great War, and only women are left, sisters Jessica and Phyllis, who are polar opposites. Thrown in the mix is their childhood friend, Oskar, godson of the Melvilles, and son of a German artist, who spent much of his childhood visiting Ellinghurst. Oskar is an intellectual, drawn to physics, and also drawn to Jessica. But the self-entitled Jessica wants to live large, move to London, and get a glamorous job. Phyllis is intent on a more substantial life in archeology, and is not shallow and false, like her sister. However, as is soon obvious, all of them will evolve and get what they deserve.
Lately I've been drawn to English novels that take place around the years of the Great War. Like the genre-bending The Paying Guests, there's often an elegiac atmosphere reflecting loss and grief, and it is a time of great economic despair, and, in some cases, less of a financial chasm between classes then before the war. Moreover, women are gaining a foothold due to the suffragette movement, and their numbers in the work force are increasing. As shown in WE THAT ARE LEFT, the old vanguard is reluctant to change. Moreover, the air is ripe for social and domestic conflict, as citizens are forced to take inventory on their customs, and either retreat or move forward with the times. While Eleanor and Sir Aubrey are stubbornly rooted to the past, the children are mostly anxious to move on.
The prose is strong, as Clark has a flair for figurative images, "Death filled the house like dirty water, muffling sound," but the progress of the plot was quite predictable, with some grandstanding dialogue and overfamiliar tropes. And if I read one more early 20th century tale involving mediums and séances, I think I'll slam the book down. In this novel, the point was taken when the matriarch, Eleanor, burdened by the loss of her son, consults a clairvoyant, but it carried on too long, and too prepared, in an effort to illuminate the fads of the times. Some of the details and historical events were pleasant to encounter, but I never felt engrossed or surprised.
Houses can make fine story centerpieces, as seen in THE HUNDRED YEAR HOUSE, by Rebecca Makkai. In Makkai's novel, the house casts an evocative history and long shadow over the narrative, and is woven deeply into the story. In Clare Clark's ambitious but largely anodyne novel, the house is Ellinghurst, a faux Gothic tower--huge, with crenellations, ivied walls, turrets, and bastions, built in the Victorian era and made to look medieval. Here, the house is more of a set piece, and a trigger for the events that will take place. The owners are the Melville family, and the house passes down to the male heir. However, the fact of males has come to an end when the last male heir, Theo, dies in the Great War, and only women are left, sisters Jessica and Phyllis, who are polar opposites. Thrown in the mix is their childhood friend, Oskar, godson of the Melvilles, and son of a German artist, who spent much of his childhood visiting Ellinghurst, and was Theo's best friend. Oskar is an intellectual, drawn to physics, and also drawn to Jessica. But the self-entitled Jessica wants to live large, move to London, and get a glamorous job. Phyllis is intent on a more substantial life in archeology, and is not shallow and false, like her sister. However, as is soon obvious, all of them will evolve and get what they deserve.
Lately I've been drawn to English novels that take place around the years of the Great War. Like the genre-bending THE PAYING GUESTS, there's often an elegiac atmosphere reflecting loss and grief, and it is a time of great economic despair, and, in some cases, less of a financial chasm between classes then before the war. Moreover, women are gaining a foothold due to the suffragette movement, and their numbers in the work force are increasing. As shown in WE THAT ARE LEFT, the old vanguard is reluctant to change. Moreover, the air is ripe for social and domestic conflict, as citizens are forced to take inventory on their customs, and either retreat or move forward with the times. While Eleanor and Sir Aubrey are stubbornly rooted to the past, the children are mostly anxious to move on.
The prose is strong, as Clark has a flair for figurative images, "Death filled the house like dirty water, muffling sound," but the progress of the plot was quite predictable, with some grandstanding dialogue and over-familiar tropes. And if I read one more early 20th century tale involving mediums and séances, I think I'll slam the book down. In this novel, the point was taken when the matriarch, Eleanor, burdened by the loss of her son, consults a clairvoyant, but it carried on too long, and too prepared, in an effort to illuminate the fads of the times. Some of the details and historical events were pleasant to encounter, but I never felt engrossed or surprised.
If you've never read novels of this time period, or you are eager to replay the themes and set pieces of DOWNTON ABBEY, this may be a satisfying book for you. It's a nostalgic but, for me, too tidy endgame easily visible by the first third of the novel. Personally, I'd like to check out her earlier books, which were critical successes. She has a knack for prose, and her metaphors are little gems; I haven't given up on her yet.
Lately I've been drawn to English novels that take place around the years of the Great War. Like the genre-bending The Paying Guests, there's often an elegiac atmosphere reflecting loss and grief, and it is a time of great economic despair, and, in some cases, less of a financial chasm between classes then before the war. Moreover, women are gaining a foothold due to the suffragette movement, and their numbers in the work force are increasing. As shown in WE THAT ARE LEFT, the old vanguard is reluctant to change. Moreover, the air is ripe for social and domestic conflict, as citizens are forced to take inventory on their customs, and either retreat or move forward with the times. While Eleanor and Sir Aubrey are stubbornly rooted to the past, the children are mostly anxious to move on.
The prose is strong, as Clark has a flair for figurative images, "Death filled the house like dirty water, muffling sound," but the progress of the plot was quite predictable, with some grandstanding dialogue and overfamiliar tropes. And if I read one more early 20th century tale involving mediums and séances, I think I'll slam the book down. In this novel, the point was taken when the matriarch, Eleanor, burdened by the loss of her son, consults a clairvoyant, but it carried on too long, and too prepared, in an effort to illuminate the fads of the times. Some of the details and historical events were pleasant to encounter, but I never felt engrossed or surprised.
Houses can make fine story centerpieces, as seen in THE HUNDRED YEAR HOUSE, by Rebecca Makkai. In Makkai's novel, the house casts an evocative history and long shadow over the narrative, and is woven deeply into the story. In Clare Clark's ambitious but largely anodyne novel, the house is Ellinghurst, a faux Gothic tower--huge, with crenellations, ivied walls, turrets, and bastions, built in the Victorian era and made to look medieval. Here, the house is more of a set piece, and a trigger for the events that will take place. The owners are the Melville family, and the house passes down to the male heir. However, the fact of males has come to an end when the last male heir, Theo, dies in the Great War, and only women are left, sisters Jessica and Phyllis, who are polar opposites. Thrown in the mix is their childhood friend, Oskar, godson of the Melvilles, and son of a German artist, who spent much of his childhood visiting Ellinghurst, and was Theo's best friend. Oskar is an intellectual, drawn to physics, and also drawn to Jessica. But the self-entitled Jessica wants to live large, move to London, and get a glamorous job. Phyllis is intent on a more substantial life in archeology, and is not shallow and false, like her sister. However, as is soon obvious, all of them will evolve and get what they deserve.
Lately I've been drawn to English novels that take place around the years of the Great War. Like the genre-bending THE PAYING GUESTS, there's often an elegiac atmosphere reflecting loss and grief, and it is a time of great economic despair, and, in some cases, less of a financial chasm between classes then before the war. Moreover, women are gaining a foothold due to the suffragette movement, and their numbers in the work force are increasing. As shown in WE THAT ARE LEFT, the old vanguard is reluctant to change. Moreover, the air is ripe for social and domestic conflict, as citizens are forced to take inventory on their customs, and either retreat or move forward with the times. While Eleanor and Sir Aubrey are stubbornly rooted to the past, the children are mostly anxious to move on.
The prose is strong, as Clark has a flair for figurative images, "Death filled the house like dirty water, muffling sound," but the progress of the plot was quite predictable, with some grandstanding dialogue and over-familiar tropes. And if I read one more early 20th century tale involving mediums and séances, I think I'll slam the book down. In this novel, the point was taken when the matriarch, Eleanor, burdened by the loss of her son, consults a clairvoyant, but it carried on too long, and too prepared, in an effort to illuminate the fads of the times. Some of the details and historical events were pleasant to encounter, but I never felt engrossed or surprised.
If you've never read novels of this time period, or you are eager to replay the themes and set pieces of DOWNTON ABBEY, this may be a satisfying book for you. It's a nostalgic but, for me, too tidy endgame easily visible by the first third of the novel. Personally, I'd like to check out her earlier books, which were critical successes. She has a knack for prose, and her metaphors are little gems; I haven't given up on her yet.
November 21, 2015
This was highly recommended to me, but didn't turn out to be satisfying. An interesting period, WW I. A crumbling English estate. A brilliant man at Cambridge, a bright woman with a passion for archaeology. A silly younger sister with her head full of dancing and parties. Well written. And yet, it didn't engage me. The characters had no reality. I found myself reading lightly, almost skimming, bored with the physics details and the endless descriptions of the crumbling estate and its idyllic surrounds. A disappointment ultimately.
January 1, 2016
I'm still trying to figure out what I think about this book.
In many ways it felt as if this author watched all of Downton Abbey and then decided to write a much more emotional, realistic portrayal of the first World War and the aftermath in Britain. And I appreciated that. Although I enjoy Downton, it often is embarrassingly unrealistic in its portrayal of things like war veterans and war injuries.
But I think perhaps I need to relax a bit when it comes to historic fiction. I am constantly finding small details that don't add up and become distracting -- things that seem out of place emotionally or for the time period.
For instance: it was extremely hard to make out how the characters all related to each other in the beginning, because the mother of the main character is called by her first name, which seemed really out of place for anyone in the time period, AND was incredibly confusing for the first 75 pages or so. I think the author meant that to feel like realism -- we were supposed to be seeing the world from the eyes of a young child. But honestly, it was just distracting and grating, especially for someone reading it with a Kindle... you need to be able to flip back and forth quickly in order to remember: who the heck is Phyllis? Who is Eleanor? Wait? What? Who was that two pages ago? It would have been much simpler to just have her called MUMMY. Which is likely what someone living in the upper classes in the early twentieth century in Britain would have called their mother. Instead, this seemed more like the way life would be for a kid in the 1960s, with a drunk hippy mom. It almost kept me from reading past the beginning chapter. Except I'd already paid and downloaded it.
(This may be the last time I read fiction or a long narrative of any kind on a Kindle. Things like this are just too irritating when you can't keep flipping back the pages easily...I love the idea of being able to use an e-reader, but I'm just not sure it really works all of the time they way that a book does...perhaps it is only good for magazine reading.)
But there were other things that had nothing to do with needing to flip back and forth that proved irritating, though. No one seemed to think it odd that one of the female characters decides to become a scientist, and begins studying to do so... I don't like spoilers so I won't say more about the details there, but really, it bothered me that it was so easy for that character to just pick up a career in an exotic location and be taken seriously. I just couldn't get over that -- it would have been much harder in real life for her to do so, and much harder for her to be able to make an income of any kind on her own. Women in Britain had almost no rights at that time, and she would have been ostracized for even mentioning it in most circles. Certainly, the men in that field would have treated her like absolute crap, which is never acknowledged.
That said, I loved loved loved the portrayal of bigotry and its effect on the Oscar, who is born to a German father and is suddenly reviled for it half way through his childhood. I also loved how the author portrayed his love of math and his passion for numbers. That is not an easy thing to write about effectively.
Overall, I'd give this to a friend to read, especially if they are -- like me -- fascinated with the early twentieth century and World War I.
In many ways it felt as if this author watched all of Downton Abbey and then decided to write a much more emotional, realistic portrayal of the first World War and the aftermath in Britain. And I appreciated that. Although I enjoy Downton, it often is embarrassingly unrealistic in its portrayal of things like war veterans and war injuries.
But I think perhaps I need to relax a bit when it comes to historic fiction. I am constantly finding small details that don't add up and become distracting -- things that seem out of place emotionally or for the time period.
For instance: it was extremely hard to make out how the characters all related to each other in the beginning, because the mother of the main character is called by her first name, which seemed really out of place for anyone in the time period, AND was incredibly confusing for the first 75 pages or so. I think the author meant that to feel like realism -- we were supposed to be seeing the world from the eyes of a young child. But honestly, it was just distracting and grating, especially for someone reading it with a Kindle... you need to be able to flip back and forth quickly in order to remember: who the heck is Phyllis? Who is Eleanor? Wait? What? Who was that two pages ago? It would have been much simpler to just have her called MUMMY. Which is likely what someone living in the upper classes in the early twentieth century in Britain would have called their mother. Instead, this seemed more like the way life would be for a kid in the 1960s, with a drunk hippy mom. It almost kept me from reading past the beginning chapter. Except I'd already paid and downloaded it.
(This may be the last time I read fiction or a long narrative of any kind on a Kindle. Things like this are just too irritating when you can't keep flipping back the pages easily...I love the idea of being able to use an e-reader, but I'm just not sure it really works all of the time they way that a book does...perhaps it is only good for magazine reading.)
But there were other things that had nothing to do with needing to flip back and forth that proved irritating, though. No one seemed to think it odd that one of the female characters decides to become a scientist, and begins studying to do so... I don't like spoilers so I won't say more about the details there, but really, it bothered me that it was so easy for that character to just pick up a career in an exotic location and be taken seriously. I just couldn't get over that -- it would have been much harder in real life for her to do so, and much harder for her to be able to make an income of any kind on her own. Women in Britain had almost no rights at that time, and she would have been ostracized for even mentioning it in most circles. Certainly, the men in that field would have treated her like absolute crap, which is never acknowledged.
That said, I loved loved loved the portrayal of bigotry and its effect on the Oscar, who is born to a German father and is suddenly reviled for it half way through his childhood. I also loved how the author portrayed his love of math and his passion for numbers. That is not an easy thing to write about effectively.
Overall, I'd give this to a friend to read, especially if they are -- like me -- fascinated with the early twentieth century and World War I.
July 20, 2015
I want to thank Houghton Mifflin and Harcourt for their kind allowance of my review via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
Hats off to Clare Clark for her well researched novel. The sheer amount of details and descriptions of ideas, theories, scenery, clothing, etc. was absolutely amazing. The plot was well developed and her supporting details brought the story to life. I won't lie.. some of the scientific and physic discussions were well over my head but I appreciated the research that went into it. Overall, I recommend this book for lovers of historical fiction.
What is it about: We That Are Left is really a social commentary on privileged British life during the years prior, during, and immediately after World War I. The Melville children grow up with all the luxuries life can offer them yet vie for their place in their parents' lives, hearts, and the ever changing world around them. Oskar Grunewald,son of the housekeeper, is raised along side this group of personalities. He is quiet, shy, and rather a bit of a savant as he seeks solace in the numbers of mathematics and the companionship of books. World War I steals Theo Melville from the family; leaving sisters Phyllis and Jessica to cope and pick up the pieces of the aftermath. Phyllis volunteers for the war effort and quickly begins to see the opportunities this changing world is offering to women. Jessica, lover of glitz and glamour, creates her own opportunities to see the world and has a choice of what sort of woman she wants to become. Both are left with choices that include freedom, duty to the family home and name, and who each wants to spend her future with. Oskar quietly watches from the sidelines and eventually becomes a pivotal figure in the future of the Melville family.
Hats off to Clare Clark for her well researched novel. The sheer amount of details and descriptions of ideas, theories, scenery, clothing, etc. was absolutely amazing. The plot was well developed and her supporting details brought the story to life. I won't lie.. some of the scientific and physic discussions were well over my head but I appreciated the research that went into it. Overall, I recommend this book for lovers of historical fiction.
What is it about: We That Are Left is really a social commentary on privileged British life during the years prior, during, and immediately after World War I. The Melville children grow up with all the luxuries life can offer them yet vie for their place in their parents' lives, hearts, and the ever changing world around them. Oskar Grunewald,son of the housekeeper, is raised along side this group of personalities. He is quiet, shy, and rather a bit of a savant as he seeks solace in the numbers of mathematics and the companionship of books. World War I steals Theo Melville from the family; leaving sisters Phyllis and Jessica to cope and pick up the pieces of the aftermath. Phyllis volunteers for the war effort and quickly begins to see the opportunities this changing world is offering to women. Jessica, lover of glitz and glamour, creates her own opportunities to see the world and has a choice of what sort of woman she wants to become. Both are left with choices that include freedom, duty to the family home and name, and who each wants to spend her future with. Oskar quietly watches from the sidelines and eventually becomes a pivotal figure in the future of the Melville family.
October 2, 2017
Very strong writing and highly readable, but ultimately disappointing. The prologue had too much going on, but we're then taken back in time to pre-World War I, where we meet our various characters and start feeling our way through their myriad relationships. Unfortunately, Jessica, our first viewpoint character, is a realistically unpleasant child, which made the beginning hard going... and kept it hard going throughout. Oscar, our other viewpoint character, is obsessed with science, and his digressions can occasionally be a bit much; he's also intensely naive about humans and a little remote. Jessica is just self-absorbed and not very bright. They're both very realistically drawn, but they're not really fun companions through the story of their lives. The other characters - Phyllis, Eleanor, Sir Aubrey, Oscar's mother, etc. - are only seen through Jessica's and Oscar's eyes, which is a shame, because I suspect they'd be more interesting in their own words.
Furthermore I found the ending intensely obnoxious:
Furthermore I found the ending intensely obnoxious:
August 22, 2015
"We That Are Left" is a worthy addition to the fine novels commemorating the 100th anniversary of the start of WWI. Other reviewers have aptly described the plot, which will keep you involved with the characters and turning pages, but I wanted to point out a few things that set Clare Clark's book apart.
Oscar, the numbers-loving boy who is entranced by science and on the cusp of the new discoveries about electricity and string theory. Could new scientific discoveries mean that it is possible to contact the dead? England was in a state of shock and existing in trauma after the loss of so, so many young men. In a memorable scene set at the one year anniversary of the war's end, one man watching the parade comments bitterly that if the dead were marching, it would take three and a half days for them all to pass. Mediums flourished during this period and there was serious scientific work being done on how the dead could be reached. The shock of loss coupled with new science lead to desperate hope.
There's also a scene that brings the scope of death home. Jessica, who has spent the entire war trapped at home at Ellinghurst, finally has the opportunity to get to London to the parties and dances of the London season. She has lost her brother, but that seemed to happen in a vacuum. She's heard about the hospitals and met some of her brother's fellow officers, but she was too young to really grasp what was going on and almost forcibly kept from the scene. At her first dance, she sees how few men of any age are left, let along young ones, and how desperately the girls and their mothers hover around them. It is the first step for her in imagining a different life.
Well written and readable, "We That Are Left" will satisfy your itch for stories of this pivotal time in world heart and history.
Oscar, the numbers-loving boy who is entranced by science and on the cusp of the new discoveries about electricity and string theory. Could new scientific discoveries mean that it is possible to contact the dead? England was in a state of shock and existing in trauma after the loss of so, so many young men. In a memorable scene set at the one year anniversary of the war's end, one man watching the parade comments bitterly that if the dead were marching, it would take three and a half days for them all to pass. Mediums flourished during this period and there was serious scientific work being done on how the dead could be reached. The shock of loss coupled with new science lead to desperate hope.
There's also a scene that brings the scope of death home. Jessica, who has spent the entire war trapped at home at Ellinghurst, finally has the opportunity to get to London to the parties and dances of the London season. She has lost her brother, but that seemed to happen in a vacuum. She's heard about the hospitals and met some of her brother's fellow officers, but she was too young to really grasp what was going on and almost forcibly kept from the scene. At her first dance, she sees how few men of any age are left, let along young ones, and how desperately the girls and their mothers hover around them. It is the first step for her in imagining a different life.
Well written and readable, "We That Are Left" will satisfy your itch for stories of this pivotal time in world heart and history.
October 28, 2016
Gives the WW1 family saga a literary makeover
This is a surprisingly conventional book for Clark whose previous works have been more eclectic – what it shares, though, is her beautifully precise and smooth writing.
Opening in 1910, this is effectively a WW1-and-aftermath family saga – though certainly one which is superior in intelligence and literary style. Oscar Greenwood and his mother find their lives entwined with that of the Melvilles who own the Big House: as the war brings social change, it’s the younger generation – Oscar, Jessica and Phyllis – who have to make decisions about who and what they want to be.
Clark writes gorgeous prose and part of its power lies in its unobtrusiveness, its ability to say something through simple elegance: ‘his mother said that words were like chemistry because each one reacted with the one next to it to make something new’. The story flits between clever Oscar studying physics at Cambridge at a time when Einstein and quantum mechanics were fundamentally changing our view of the world; spoilt, petulant Jessica working on a mid-market woman’s magazine but really waiting for love and marriage; and bookish Phyllis who wants to be an archaeologist.
Clark has enormous sympathy for all her characters and makes the sense of grief and mourning following WW1 fresh and accessible again. Despite that, there is an unexpectedly melodramatic twist at the end which feels out of touch with the rest of the book. Overall, though, this is a lovely read which gives the WW1 saga a literary makeover.
(I received a review copy via NetGalley)
This is a surprisingly conventional book for Clark whose previous works have been more eclectic – what it shares, though, is her beautifully precise and smooth writing.
Opening in 1910, this is effectively a WW1-and-aftermath family saga – though certainly one which is superior in intelligence and literary style. Oscar Greenwood and his mother find their lives entwined with that of the Melvilles who own the Big House: as the war brings social change, it’s the younger generation – Oscar, Jessica and Phyllis – who have to make decisions about who and what they want to be.
Clark writes gorgeous prose and part of its power lies in its unobtrusiveness, its ability to say something through simple elegance: ‘his mother said that words were like chemistry because each one reacted with the one next to it to make something new’. The story flits between clever Oscar studying physics at Cambridge at a time when Einstein and quantum mechanics were fundamentally changing our view of the world; spoilt, petulant Jessica working on a mid-market woman’s magazine but really waiting for love and marriage; and bookish Phyllis who wants to be an archaeologist.
Clark has enormous sympathy for all her characters and makes the sense of grief and mourning following WW1 fresh and accessible again. Despite that, there is an unexpectedly melodramatic twist at the end which feels out of touch with the rest of the book. Overall, though, this is a lovely read which gives the WW1 saga a literary makeover.
(I received a review copy via NetGalley)
Want to read
October 4, 2015I'm putting this on my to-read shelf simply because I love the cover. Yep.
July 10, 2022
This novel has something like the feel of Downton Abbey, but with a more tragic atmosphere. The uncertain inheritance of a grand English estate drives much of the plot. After the death of Theo in World War I, the Melvilles are left with only two daughters and heavy debts. The male cousins next in line to inherit have vowed to sell off the house which means so much to Sir Aubrey Melville and he begins exploring alternative methods to find someone to carry on the business of running his estate. Meanwhile, his wife struggles with her grief over their son, turning to seances and mediums to find solance, and his daughters seek out their own paths. And then there's Oscar, an old family friend, who may be unknowingly harboring a few secrets of his own. Overall, this made for a good read, although I would have appreciated a slightly different conclusion.
November 9, 2015
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a preview copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
If you are a fan of the PBS series "Downton Abbey", you will enjoy Clare Clark's WE THAT ARE LEFT. The book takes place in England during the era of the Great War. Aubrey Melville is a baron, with a son, Theo, and two daughters, Phyllis and Jessica. He and his cold-fish wife Eleanor maintain a strained relationship. Also living at the family estate of Ellinghurst are Oscar Greenwood and his mother.
The heir to the title and estate, Theo, signs up for duty with the British military, while his sisters beg their parents to let them be useful. Eventually, bookish Phyllis volunteers to work in a London hospital for veterans, and party girl Jessica heads to London for a job in publishing, both challenging the roles set for young ladies of the aristocracy. Oscar, the youngest of the household, and his mother leave the estate while he finishes school and trains for the army.
But, as is the case with so many grand estates and aristocratic families during WWI, society changes. An entire generation of eligible young men are lost to the war or the flu. There are no workers left to run the estates, and many titles are lost when heirs are killed in action.
Because of his age, Oscar is not called up for enlistment, and instead lands a place at Cambridge studying Physics. He is a mathematical and science prodigy, challenged by the advancements in the fields being made by great contemporary minds like Einstein. Much of the book discusses both mathematics and science, which is a little daunting, but nonetheless interesting, even to someone who doesn't care for these fields.
I would rate the book higher, because it is well-written, interesting and full of surprises. However, so much of it is similar to "Downton Abbey", it is not an entirely original story. It does, however, reflect the changes and values of the time, which greatly affected current and future generations. Worth reading, especially if you are fond of this period in history, and the effects of the Great War on Britain and the aristocracy.
If you are a fan of the PBS series "Downton Abbey", you will enjoy Clare Clark's WE THAT ARE LEFT. The book takes place in England during the era of the Great War. Aubrey Melville is a baron, with a son, Theo, and two daughters, Phyllis and Jessica. He and his cold-fish wife Eleanor maintain a strained relationship. Also living at the family estate of Ellinghurst are Oscar Greenwood and his mother.
The heir to the title and estate, Theo, signs up for duty with the British military, while his sisters beg their parents to let them be useful. Eventually, bookish Phyllis volunteers to work in a London hospital for veterans, and party girl Jessica heads to London for a job in publishing, both challenging the roles set for young ladies of the aristocracy. Oscar, the youngest of the household, and his mother leave the estate while he finishes school and trains for the army.
But, as is the case with so many grand estates and aristocratic families during WWI, society changes. An entire generation of eligible young men are lost to the war or the flu. There are no workers left to run the estates, and many titles are lost when heirs are killed in action.
Because of his age, Oscar is not called up for enlistment, and instead lands a place at Cambridge studying Physics. He is a mathematical and science prodigy, challenged by the advancements in the fields being made by great contemporary minds like Einstein. Much of the book discusses both mathematics and science, which is a little daunting, but nonetheless interesting, even to someone who doesn't care for these fields.
I would rate the book higher, because it is well-written, interesting and full of surprises. However, so much of it is similar to "Downton Abbey", it is not an entirely original story. It does, however, reflect the changes and values of the time, which greatly affected current and future generations. Worth reading, especially if you are fond of this period in history, and the effects of the Great War on Britain and the aristocracy.
October 28, 2015
I really liked the first book I read by this author, The Nature of Monsters, so I then read two more: The Great Stink and Beautiful Lies. I didn't especially like either of them, but being a slow learner and having forgotten that Beautiful Lies just annoyed me, I gave this new one, We That are Left, a try despite the grammatically incorrect title.
As I said, I am a slow learner. And I somewhat enjoyed the majority of the book. The family members all seemed rather nasty at the beginning, and I didn't grow to love them, nor did they grow to be lovable, but I did find them and their poor and selfish decisions worth reading about. I liked the historical references, the talk of Spiritualism that was so popular those days, and the touch of a ghost story interwoven into the rest of the story. The metaphors of tadpoles for both rain and words, in different chapters, was jarring, but not overdone to the point of Maribel's smoking in Beautiful Lies.
The story fell apart for me in the last 20% or so of the book. It devolved into a rather boring but overwrought romance, more soap opera than novel.
I think it is time for me to recognize that this author is just not my kind of author, and move on.
As I said, I am a slow learner. And I somewhat enjoyed the majority of the book. The family members all seemed rather nasty at the beginning, and I didn't grow to love them, nor did they grow to be lovable, but I did find them and their poor and selfish decisions worth reading about. I liked the historical references, the talk of Spiritualism that was so popular those days, and the touch of a ghost story interwoven into the rest of the story. The metaphors of tadpoles for both rain and words, in different chapters, was jarring, but not overdone to the point of Maribel's smoking in Beautiful Lies.
The story fell apart for me in the last 20% or so of the book. It devolved into a rather boring but overwrought romance, more soap opera than novel.
I think it is time for me to recognize that this author is just not my kind of author, and move on.
August 19, 2015
For those that enjoy their historical fiction written with great respect for detail of the period Clark's new novel is right up your alley. She nails everything. Great characters and the home they live in. Perfect representation of time and social class. All filled with fantastic detail superbly written . The action takes place on an English estate shortly before the outbreak of World War I, and continues during and after the conflict. You will be drawn into the lives of one household, the Melville's and their staff. Social commentary of the times and the effect that the war had on England have been popular, and Clark's work stands high among them. Fans of Pat Barker's REGENERATION series will be pleased. This book will be published early October - look for it and welcome the trip you take; Clark tells it with superior brilliance.
November 17, 2015
DNF - Can't find a reason to pick this one back up. It was well written, but a bit dull.
April 5, 2015
Set in the early 1900s England,
We That Are Left
is a social commentary on the impact of the First World War ,the result of the women's suffrage movement,the beginning of a new age in Physics and the effect of dysfunctional home lives on children.Starting with a funeral in the prologue,this tragic story has a melancholic tone from the outset which leads to a frustrating and pitiful ending.
It is 1910 and ten year old Oskar Grunewald is awestruck by the books in the massive library housed in the equally majestic Victorian castle,called Ellinghurst,home to the Melville family in the English countryside.Fascinated by numbers but at odds with words,he is considered weird and avoided by the Melville children,comprising of Theo,the heir to the Melville baronetcy, and his younger sisters,Phyllis and Jessica.As the years pass and the Great War calls upon all the men excepting the underaged,the old and the physically disadvantaged for service,the social scene in the country takes a new turn when a great number of these men are killed in war. People of German origin who've long since made England their home and are for all purposes British,are questioned about their loyalty to the Crown and subjected to the wrath of the public.During this time when Oskar Grunewald,now Oscar Greenwood(named changed to hide his half-German parentage),visits Ellinghurst he is shocked by the stark difference that Theo's death in the war has brought down to the place.Where once it was filled with guests and laughter all the time,entertained by his Godmother Eleanor,the mistress of the house,now,it is filled with deep sighs of loss and mourning with the family matriarch shunning society and taking refuge in the occult in the hopes of connecting with her beloved son.
Both the war and Theo's death cause an upheaval in the lives of Oscar and the remaining Melville children.Oscar becomes confused with his Britishness,disenchanted by mathematics because of a prejudiced math teacher,drawn to new age physics both out of interest and because of being ostracized by his German hating 'pure' English classmates at school,and develops a crush on Jessica as he hits puberty.Meanwhile,Phyllis who was a couple of years older than Oscar and Jessica,takes her nose out of her beloved books and leaves to serve the nation as a nurse.And Jessica who was always wilful,becomes unruly and wild with no parental supervision.Add a couple more years,at the end of the Great War,they,along with all the other survivors of the war have to come to terms with the new state of affairs in the country and learn to go on with their lives.
But more than the central plot of the story,it is the personal journeys of the main characters,Oscar,Phyllis and Jessica,that make the novel most engaging.Phyllis and Jessica have only the Melville name in common but radically different personalities.While Phyllis belongs to the progressive era of women,preferring to read as a child and later endeavours to lead an independent and find an identity of her own,Jessica is a romantic,somewhat vain,an attention seeker who relies on others,particularly the male species to provide her a better life.It is interesting to study the contrasting nature of the two sisters;where one depended on her intellectual faculties,the other relied on her beauty;particularly,how Jessica still didn't want to let go the comfortable existence and norms of the past,whereas Phyllis welcomed the change in women's status and role in society brought on by the suffrage movement and the war.
The sisters loved one another very much but could never comprehend each other's outlook on life.
Then there is Oscar,the quiet boy with a head for numbers,who'd gaze with wonder at the encyclopedias in the Melville's library when he was ten and who grew up to be a scholar of Physics at Cambridge.Born to a German musician father and an English women's rights activist mother,the days of the Great War led to a serious identity crisis for the poor boy.With no recollection of his father who'd died when he was little, and no connection to his German roots except for a few German phrases taught to him by his mother,he was confused and ashamed when both the boys at his boarding school and his math teacher tortured him for being German.
As we follow him through the years,witness him experiencing his first kiss,understand the difference between infatuation and true love,see him lose a part of himself when his mother dies,one cannot but empathize with this intelligent,sensitive soul left vulnerable and ignorant to the ways of the world,and despair at the ultimate tragedy befalls him because of his association with the Melvilles.
For the most part,Clare Clark has created an almost hypnotic and tragic family saga which is very compelling and depicts the period it is set in,in elaborate detail.This could easily have been one of the better written if not the best historical fiction of this year had it not been for some serious factual errors found in the book.First and foremost what really irked me was calling Moseley's Law (in X-ray spectra) Melville's Law for the sake of the story.Here,Sir Aubrey Melville's younger brother,Henry Melville,Jessica's uncle,is a renowned physicist who'd discovered the Melville's Law,a very important discovery which opens the path for further research in atomic physics. From his early death in the Battle of Gallipoli in 1915 to the law being passed on his premature death to exempt persons of scientific importance from joining the war,and his alma mater University of Manchester, it is evident that the character of Henry Melville is based on the English Physicist,Henry Melville.I can appreciate the depiction of a fictional character inspired by a real life person and know that there are fictional stories on historical figure which fall in the alternate history sub-genre.But what I don't appreciate is the deliberate misrepresentation of scientific history.It is nothing but a kind of plagiarism,when all of Moseley's contemporaries such as Rutherford and Bohrs are mentioned correctly but his theory is credited to someone else.To my knowledge,I have never come across such extreme misrepresentation of scientific facts in any historical fiction so far,but as a student of science I cannot in good heart condone such action.Especially when there was little need of Henry Melville's scientific expertise in the story.
And there is also the funny case of Madame Curie being referred to as Pierre Curie's sister in the story.With all the care taken in correctly in incorporating the other historical details to the plot line,this folly in getting well known scientific facts wrong seems sacrilegious in a historical novel.
Nevertheless,this is a story well told which I believe will be enjoyed more by someone who does not much care about the accuracy of scientific details in fiction.If for nothing else,this novel is indeed worth reading to get to know Oscar Greenwood.
An ARC was generously provided by Random House UK in exchange for an honest review
Review first appeared on my blog: Musings of a Bibliophile
It is 1910 and ten year old Oskar Grunewald is awestruck by the books in the massive library housed in the equally majestic Victorian castle,called Ellinghurst,home to the Melville family in the English countryside.Fascinated by numbers but at odds with words,he is considered weird and avoided by the Melville children,comprising of Theo,the heir to the Melville baronetcy, and his younger sisters,Phyllis and Jessica.As the years pass and the Great War calls upon all the men excepting the underaged,the old and the physically disadvantaged for service,the social scene in the country takes a new turn when a great number of these men are killed in war. People of German origin who've long since made England their home and are for all purposes British,are questioned about their loyalty to the Crown and subjected to the wrath of the public.During this time when Oskar Grunewald,now Oscar Greenwood(named changed to hide his half-German parentage),visits Ellinghurst he is shocked by the stark difference that Theo's death in the war has brought down to the place.Where once it was filled with guests and laughter all the time,entertained by his Godmother Eleanor,the mistress of the house,now,it is filled with deep sighs of loss and mourning with the family matriarch shunning society and taking refuge in the occult in the hopes of connecting with her beloved son.
Both the war and Theo's death cause an upheaval in the lives of Oscar and the remaining Melville children.Oscar becomes confused with his Britishness,disenchanted by mathematics because of a prejudiced math teacher,drawn to new age physics both out of interest and because of being ostracized by his German hating 'pure' English classmates at school,and develops a crush on Jessica as he hits puberty.Meanwhile,Phyllis who was a couple of years older than Oscar and Jessica,takes her nose out of her beloved books and leaves to serve the nation as a nurse.And Jessica who was always wilful,becomes unruly and wild with no parental supervision.Add a couple more years,at the end of the Great War,they,along with all the other survivors of the war have to come to terms with the new state of affairs in the country and learn to go on with their lives.
But more than the central plot of the story,it is the personal journeys of the main characters,Oscar,Phyllis and Jessica,that make the novel most engaging.Phyllis and Jessica have only the Melville name in common but radically different personalities.While Phyllis belongs to the progressive era of women,preferring to read as a child and later endeavours to lead an independent and find an identity of her own,Jessica is a romantic,somewhat vain,an attention seeker who relies on others,particularly the male species to provide her a better life.It is interesting to study the contrasting nature of the two sisters;where one depended on her intellectual faculties,the other relied on her beauty;particularly,how Jessica still didn't want to let go the comfortable existence and norms of the past,whereas Phyllis welcomed the change in women's status and role in society brought on by the suffrage movement and the war.
The sisters loved one another very much but could never comprehend each other's outlook on life.
'Of all the infuriating things about Phyllis perhaps the most infuriating was the way she always behaved as though books were real and real life just a story somebody had made up without thinking.' - Jessica on Phyllis
"Then do something.Make your own life,instead of waiting like Rapunzel for the last of the knights-errant to ride up on his white charger and offer you his." -Phyllis to Jessica when she complained about life being unfair after the war and worried about her future.
Then there is Oscar,the quiet boy with a head for numbers,who'd gaze with wonder at the encyclopedias in the Melville's library when he was ten and who grew up to be a scholar of Physics at Cambridge.Born to a German musician father and an English women's rights activist mother,the days of the Great War led to a serious identity crisis for the poor boy.With no recollection of his father who'd died when he was little, and no connection to his German roots except for a few German phrases taught to him by his mother,he was confused and ashamed when both the boys at his boarding school and his math teacher tortured him for being German.
Every time he looked at something and the German word for it came into his head first he felt cold inside,as if the boys at school were right and he was the enemy after all.It frightened him that he might do something German in his sleep.
As we follow him through the years,witness him experiencing his first kiss,understand the difference between infatuation and true love,see him lose a part of himself when his mother dies,one cannot but empathize with this intelligent,sensitive soul left vulnerable and ignorant to the ways of the world,and despair at the ultimate tragedy befalls him because of his association with the Melvilles.
For the most part,Clare Clark has created an almost hypnotic and tragic family saga which is very compelling and depicts the period it is set in,in elaborate detail.This could easily have been one of the better written if not the best historical fiction of this year had it not been for some serious factual errors found in the book.First and foremost what really irked me was calling Moseley's Law (in X-ray spectra) Melville's Law for the sake of the story.Here,Sir Aubrey Melville's younger brother,Henry Melville,Jessica's uncle,is a renowned physicist who'd discovered the Melville's Law,a very important discovery which opens the path for further research in atomic physics. From his early death in the Battle of Gallipoli in 1915 to the law being passed on his premature death to exempt persons of scientific importance from joining the war,and his alma mater University of Manchester, it is evident that the character of Henry Melville is based on the English Physicist,Henry Melville.I can appreciate the depiction of a fictional character inspired by a real life person and know that there are fictional stories on historical figure which fall in the alternate history sub-genre.But what I don't appreciate is the deliberate misrepresentation of scientific history.It is nothing but a kind of plagiarism,when all of Moseley's contemporaries such as Rutherford and Bohrs are mentioned correctly but his theory is credited to someone else.To my knowledge,I have never come across such extreme misrepresentation of scientific facts in any historical fiction so far,but as a student of science I cannot in good heart condone such action.Especially when there was little need of Henry Melville's scientific expertise in the story.
And there is also the funny case of Madame Curie being referred to as Pierre Curie's sister in the story.With all the care taken in correctly in incorporating the other historical details to the plot line,this folly in getting well known scientific facts wrong seems sacrilegious in a historical novel.
Nevertheless,this is a story well told which I believe will be enjoyed more by someone who does not much care about the accuracy of scientific details in fiction.If for nothing else,this novel is indeed worth reading to get to know Oscar Greenwood.
They shall not grow old,as we that are left grow old: Age shall not weary them,nor the years condemn.At the going down of the sun and in the morning We will remember them. -LAURENCE BINYON,September 1914
An ARC was generously provided by Random House UK in exchange for an honest review
Review first appeared on my blog: Musings of a Bibliophile
January 30, 2024
I loved this book....until about the last 2 chapters. Set in WWI, it gives context and perspective of those left in England dealing with the affects of war. However, I was just not a fan of the ending.
January 20, 2021
Dnf at 20%. I couldn't get into the writing style or the characters. It all seemed forced and it just wasn't grabbing me at all. I may try again later.
May 4, 2016
Every Man You Might Have Married is Already Dead
"Every man you might have married is already dead." So laments Jessica Melville, looking into her mirror in 1919. She has finally got her wish, broken free of her family's battlemented estate in Hampshire, and come up to London as a bachelor girl, only to find herself attending balls where all the men seem to have either training wheels or retreads. Phyllis, her bookish elder sister, has no interest in the marriage market. She left home at the first opportunity to volunteer in a hospital for the war-wounded, and is now off in Egypt working on Howard Carter's search for the tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamen. The changes that the Great War brought to the lives of women is one of the chief themes of Clare Clark's absorbing period romance.
But it is not the only one. Another character, Oscar Greenwood (who bears much the same relationship to Phyllis and Jessica as Robbie Turner does to the two sisters in Ian McEwan's Atonement ), goes up to Cambridge to read Physics. It is a heady time, dominated by Rutherford's experiments with the atom, the dawn of quantum mechanics, and the impact of Einstein's theories of Relativity. I found these chapters among the most interesting in the book, as Clark's picture of Cambridge is so accurate, and happens to focus on my own college, Trinity. My father, also a scientist, would have been Oscar's exact contemporary in 1919. Clark is also good with other topics of the period—spiritualism, the suffrage movement, jazz, drugs, and the club scene—though my interest in these was less personal.
I wasn't sure that I would enjoy the book at first. The prologue, set at a funeral in 1920, was downright confusing, with eight proper names on the first page alone, three more on the next page, and a further eight at the start of the next chapter. It is quite impossible to work out who they all were, or how they related to one another. I now realize that this was deliberate; the questions of who dies and who will end up with whom will reverberate throughout the book, and will not be resolved until the very end. Once past the first two chapters, though, I found the pace rapidly accelerating, so that even 450 pages came to seem short. Reading the book as a historical romance from a specialist in the genre (each of Clark's novels explores a different period), I succumbed without resistance, and was coming close to a five-star rating.
In the end, though, I am settling for four stars, but a solid four. Part of the reason is that the resolution of the romance involves a last-minute surprise revelation that I think is inadequately prepared, and gives rise to some morally uncomfortable moments that may shock many readers. Another, when it comes down to it, is that for all Clare Clark's brilliance at recreating the period, the development and outcome of the plot are not as closely tied in with the time as they might be. But it is still an interesting couple of years looked at in some depth, and an absorbing story, no matter what the period.
"Every man you might have married is already dead." So laments Jessica Melville, looking into her mirror in 1919. She has finally got her wish, broken free of her family's battlemented estate in Hampshire, and come up to London as a bachelor girl, only to find herself attending balls where all the men seem to have either training wheels or retreads. Phyllis, her bookish elder sister, has no interest in the marriage market. She left home at the first opportunity to volunteer in a hospital for the war-wounded, and is now off in Egypt working on Howard Carter's search for the tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamen. The changes that the Great War brought to the lives of women is one of the chief themes of Clare Clark's absorbing period romance.
But it is not the only one. Another character, Oscar Greenwood (who bears much the same relationship to Phyllis and Jessica as Robbie Turner does to the two sisters in Ian McEwan's Atonement ), goes up to Cambridge to read Physics. It is a heady time, dominated by Rutherford's experiments with the atom, the dawn of quantum mechanics, and the impact of Einstein's theories of Relativity. I found these chapters among the most interesting in the book, as Clark's picture of Cambridge is so accurate, and happens to focus on my own college, Trinity. My father, also a scientist, would have been Oscar's exact contemporary in 1919. Clark is also good with other topics of the period—spiritualism, the suffrage movement, jazz, drugs, and the club scene—though my interest in these was less personal.
I wasn't sure that I would enjoy the book at first. The prologue, set at a funeral in 1920, was downright confusing, with eight proper names on the first page alone, three more on the next page, and a further eight at the start of the next chapter. It is quite impossible to work out who they all were, or how they related to one another. I now realize that this was deliberate; the questions of who dies and who will end up with whom will reverberate throughout the book, and will not be resolved until the very end. Once past the first two chapters, though, I found the pace rapidly accelerating, so that even 450 pages came to seem short. Reading the book as a historical romance from a specialist in the genre (each of Clark's novels explores a different period), I succumbed without resistance, and was coming close to a five-star rating.
In the end, though, I am settling for four stars, but a solid four. Part of the reason is that the resolution of the romance involves a last-minute surprise revelation that I think is inadequately prepared, and gives rise to some morally uncomfortable moments that may shock many readers. Another, when it comes down to it, is that for all Clare Clark's brilliance at recreating the period, the development and outcome of the plot are not as closely tied in with the time as they might be. But it is still an interesting couple of years looked at in some depth, and an absorbing story, no matter what the period.
September 19, 2016
Book Review
We That are Left by Clare Clark
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2015
If you are a huge fan of all those 17th and 18th century novels that were written by woman about the woman's condition at their time, and you've been wishing desperately for something new to read, then Clark has answered your dreams.
This novel is so very much like those written a hundred years ago that it's uncanny. Clark has a flare for replicating a prosaic voice that is mannered and very much like those narrators unseen yet so sweeping in their scope in novels of yore. (Yes, I just said, "novels of yore," and yes, I really meant exactly that.)
So hang on, because this one will take you to the modern (ish) wartime, yet keep you imbedded in the same sort of class dramas. The synopsis for the book says it all in that regard, so I won't replicate it here. Let's just say that this is well worth the time, and yes, it's also worth paying attention throughout the first 70 pages or so to grasp each of the characters that are quickly introduced.
You'll swoop quickly through the relevant points of their childhood. It could have been better done by starting with adults and integrating those younger years components when they became relevant but it seems like a lot of publishers are pushing authors to write from the youthful perspective these days, so I'll let that slide by without anything negative on the scoring.
Otherwise, a great read you'll want to catch! Grab it now and you'll plunge into the delightful antiquated flavor with a new, updated story.
4 stars!
For another contemporary story that has the nuances of times past, try Reparation: A Novel of Love, Devotion and Danger, in which a Lakota Sioux man must honor his traditions while trying to save his sister and his lover from a sinister and charismatic church leader.
The publisher provided a copy so that I could write this review.
We That are Left by Clare Clark
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2015
If you are a huge fan of all those 17th and 18th century novels that were written by woman about the woman's condition at their time, and you've been wishing desperately for something new to read, then Clark has answered your dreams.
This novel is so very much like those written a hundred years ago that it's uncanny. Clark has a flare for replicating a prosaic voice that is mannered and very much like those narrators unseen yet so sweeping in their scope in novels of yore. (Yes, I just said, "novels of yore," and yes, I really meant exactly that.)
So hang on, because this one will take you to the modern (ish) wartime, yet keep you imbedded in the same sort of class dramas. The synopsis for the book says it all in that regard, so I won't replicate it here. Let's just say that this is well worth the time, and yes, it's also worth paying attention throughout the first 70 pages or so to grasp each of the characters that are quickly introduced.
You'll swoop quickly through the relevant points of their childhood. It could have been better done by starting with adults and integrating those younger years components when they became relevant but it seems like a lot of publishers are pushing authors to write from the youthful perspective these days, so I'll let that slide by without anything negative on the scoring.
Otherwise, a great read you'll want to catch! Grab it now and you'll plunge into the delightful antiquated flavor with a new, updated story.
4 stars!
For another contemporary story that has the nuances of times past, try Reparation: A Novel of Love, Devotion and Danger, in which a Lakota Sioux man must honor his traditions while trying to save his sister and his lover from a sinister and charismatic church leader.
The publisher provided a copy so that I could write this review.
April 4, 2017
Spoiler Alert: A really long walk for just the hint of a drink of water. 450+ pages and the big reveal is that he fucked his sister. I don't really feel like the spoiler alert is warranted because unless you are as dull as a spoon, you should be able to pick that up by chapter 3. Also, it was only his half-sister and in the arena of literary WTF moments, this one falls a little flat. BFD, you accidentally banged your half sister in WWII era England -- a country where the elite and royals are all related anyway. maybe I am jaded, but if you are going to have me read 450+ pages, there better be more dirt than that at the end. I am giving the book 2 stars and not one only because the character development was so damn good. I felt like I KNEW the main players.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 7, 2017
As usual, I will not summarize this book, as others have already done so. Suffice to say that I would have given it 5 stars had it not been for the ending - which I hated - and a rather disturbing development near the end which I did not feel was well handled. I must also confess to skipping over the mathematics/quantum physics/scientific theorems parts which I found utterly boring and which really didn't add much to the story. In spite of the fact that I didn't like any of the characters except Oscar & Aubrey, I found the story fascinating and hard to put down. Overall, it is a well-written portrayal of the years during and after WWI and the accompanying dramatic social, scientific, and spiritualist developments. I just wish the story had ended differently.
April 7, 2017
Although I love novels set in WWII, I’m not much of a fan of WWI novels, which this was. Still it was quite a good novel despite the usual gloom over the futility of war and wasted young lives. This novel was reminiscent of Downton Abbey, set in England on a grand estate. The baron’s title and estate could only pass to a son. Otherwise they were inherited by another male relative who typically didn’t care a fig for preserving the family history: a sad predicament much lamented by Jane Austen, too.
Quirky characters, feminism, life at Cambridge, love stories, and even discussions of physics made this story come to life.
Quirky characters, feminism, life at Cambridge, love stories, and even discussions of physics made this story come to life.
July 13, 2017
took me a while to get to this book for which I apologize. It is a good recommendation for those who like Downtom Abbey as the time period and location overlap. It is, however, a rather gloomy book with the spectre of WWI almost a character in the book. Like many period books, it is a bit plodding and not a quick or easy read. Unfortunately, this is a problem for me, but may be another person's cup of tea.
February 25, 2018
Got this book through a first reads giveaway. Clark tells a fictional family story with real historical characters and events. Very well researched period piece set in post WWI England where a young boy is overawed by the daughters of the wealthy family who own Ellinghurst. Overall, I enjoyed the book but wouldn't re-read for a second time.
February 23, 2018
Oskar, the poor relation, he feels, to Jessica and Phyllis, is taken into and brought up in the crumbling family manor. Then comes WW1, after which they try to piece together their lives. The story embraces science, archaeology, raffish London, that impossible house and (credit to the writing) real people. A fine read.
April 13, 2018
We That Are Left by Clare Clark - good I'd try another by same author.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 24, 2015
Stopped about half way through. Just was not interested enough in the characters to continue.
November 9, 2015
This book got off to a very slow start and had some very slow parts to it. Overall, the story was fine.
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