Tage auf dem Land

by Jane Gardam, Monika Baark (Translator)

Man kann spannender aufwachsen als Marigold Green. Das Jungeninternat in Yorkshire, dem ihr Vater vorsteht, ist alles, was sie mit siebzehn von der Welt gesehen hat, richtige Freunde hat sie keine, und die Kommunikation mit ihrem Vater beschränkt sich auf schweigsame abendliche Schachpartien. Grell sind hier nur ihre leuchtend orangeroten Locken, ihre übersteigerte Fantasie und ihr vollkommen unangepasstes Auftreten. Da kehrt aus dem Nichts ihre einzige Kindheitsfreundin Grace zurück, von der sie jahrelang nichts gehört hat, umwerfend schön, nonchalant und rätselhaft, und plötzlich ist nichts mehr, wie es war … Mit ihrem ganz besonderen Humor erzählt Jane Gardam von den Grausamkeiten der Adoleszenz und der verblüffenden Allgegenwart des Eros in der bigotten nachviktorianischen Gesellschaft.

Genres: Fiction, Young Adult, Coming Of Age, Literary Fiction, British Literature, Novels, Contemporary

273 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 14, 1976

About the author

Jane Mary Gardam was an English writer of children's and adult fiction and literary critic. She also penned reviews for The Spectator and The Telegraph, and wrote for BBC Radio. She lived in Kent, Wimbledon, and Yorkshire. She won numerous literary awards, including the Whitbread Award twice. She was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2009 New Year Honours.

Reviews

[Diane Barnes · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is my 6th or 7th Jane Gardam book, and she just never disappoints me. Engaging characters, lots of dry humor, well told, surprising plots, everything I need to settle into a great reading experience. This is only her 2nd book, written in 1976, and while some of her later work is more sophisticated and polished, this one took me back to what's it's like to be a confused, sheltered teen-ager trying to make sense of life. Of course, that's impossible without first being used by girlfriends, embarrassed to tears, feeling awkward and lost around boys, crushes, school and fear of everything that's not familiar. Especially when your father is a teacher at an all male boarding school and your mother is dead. Marigold Green is a wonderful creation as the teen, and Paula, the house matron of the boy's school who is her friend/mother substitute is one of my favorite characters in all literature.

Thank goodness I have a lot of her books still left to read.

[Chrissie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another book I would not classify as belonging to the young adult genre. Sure, teenagers can read this but so can adults. Should one classify all books about young adults as YA books? My answer is no. Furthermore, in this book the focus is not merely on the young ones but the adults too.

Three central components of all novels are:
1. The language, the dialog, the words used.
2. The story told, i.e. the plot.
3. How all the different parts are drawn together, the novel’s construction.
In this book it is the language that drew me in most, which made every minute spent reading truly enjoyable. I was either smiling or chuckling or thinking. Just great lines! Then at the end I had my ear strained toward the loudspeaker intensely curious to see if what was happening really could be true! Now it was the plot that drew me. Sitting back, digesting what had happened, I marveled at how the author had forewarned me, but I had not taken note. Why? Because I had been so involved in the telling. I marveled at how perfectly the threads had been pulled together. Fiction of this quality is remarkable.

Great humor. Subtle humor about the pains of growing up, of becoming an adult, of figuring out what kind of life you choose to live. And boys and sex and acceptance of one’s own body. I believe very few adolescents think they live up to even the norm. Total failure is what most feel.

Some really good characters. Personally I loved Paula. I understood Marigold, or let’s just call her Bilgewater as everyone does here. She is seventeen. Her mom died at her birth. Her father is a housemaster at a boys boarding school near Middlesbrough, England. Her father and his cronies will make you smile. Jeez, you have to meet each one. Each one is special and none are flawless.

The audiobook narration was almost perfect. I was about to give it five stars but I felt the ending when everything was happening at a lickety-split I had to backtrack and re-listen several times. I absolutely adored Bentinck’s intonations for the old men, for Paula, for Grace. Wait till you meet Grace! You knew exactly who was speaking without being told. Really, I whole-heartedly emphasize that this is a book to be listened to rather than read, but you must choose the narration by Anna Bentinck! It is truly marvelous.

You know when I immediately choose to add another book by the author to my wish-list that I am impressed. I have to read more by the author soon. The next will be Crusoe's Daughter.

*************************

I have read and enjoyed the following by Jane Gardam:

Old Filth 4 stars
The Man in the Wooden Hat (4 stars)

I don’t think the above two were as good as this. Now way is that possible.

[Lukerik · Rating 5 out of 5]

I would have read this in one go but I had to repeatedly stop because I was laughing so hard. Right from the start, that bit about the teacher who cannot face forward, and later the bit where Bilge finds she's walked right through the house… these things will never leave me. Gardam has a way of making me know what something must look like without actually describing it.

I also loved the Cinderella set-up. I grew up watching Star Wars (my name's Luke, so you can see what my parents had just seen, back in 1978. Could have been worse. They could have been Tolkien fans), so love finding this myth reused, and reused so well here with the twisted Fairy Godmother / Merlin character in Grace and the unexpected farce of the ending.

Amazingly, I had never heard of Gardam. I'm relatively well informed about writers, but never a whisper. Who's in charge here? Why isn't her name being bellowed from rooftops? Why didn't they make me read this at school? I googled her halfway through, only to find that she's one of the most respected writers working today. This may be my fault… Recently I've been putting some of the books I've read over the last few years onto that site Library Thing. They have this thing where you can see stats about your reading habits and I noticed that most of the people I read are European men. Of the women, the vast majority I had discovered because some kind Bookcrosser had set her book free. I think I have been subconsciously choosing books by people who are like me. Thank God for Bookcrossing!

[Jack London · Rating 5 out of 5]

I swear that Jane Gardam could write the instructions for using computer software and it would be the most entertaining reading of the year. Working, instead, with the daughter of a widower who is headmaster at a backwater private school for boys, Gardam creates a painful, funny, and nuanced portrait of a girl who comes of age without a single female friend and succeeds, although in the process she lives through what would otherwise be the making a blooper reel of every dance, date, and prospective tryst that comes her way. 100 watts, period.
- See more at: http://jwlbooks.com/jack-london-revie...

[Abigail · Rating 4 out of 5]

Marigold Daisy Green, known as Bilgewater to the pupils at the all boys' school where her father is a teacher and housemaster—her nickname being a corruption of "Bill's daughter"—is the narrator of this entertaining coming-of-age story from the pen of English author Jane Gardam. Although educated at the local comprehensive school, the motherless Marigold lives very much in the world of St. Wilfrid's, and her companionship consists largely of her father, his elderly colleagues, and Paula, the matron who runs the House. The story follows events in her late adolescence, as she begins to interact more with some of her father's pupils, one of whom has been her long-time crush, and another who has seemed her nemesis and bully. She also forms a friendship, the first of its kind for her, with Grace, the headmaster's newly returned daughter. But all is not as it seems, and Marigold will have to learn to navigate these relationships, as she discovers more about the world around her and the people in it...

Published in 1976, Bilgewater is the third book I have read from the immensely talented Gardam, following upon her A Long Way from Verona and A Few Fair Days , her first two books, both published in 1971. Those earlier two titles were published as a young adult novel and children's book, respectively, whereas this was Gardam's second book for adult readers (following upon the 1975 Black Faces, White Faces ), and her fifth book overall. Having said that, it feels in some ways very similar to A Long Way from Verona , both in its setting—Gardam's native Yorkshire—and its depiction of a somewhat misfit young heroine finding her way in school and at home. While I wouldn't categorize this as young adult, it doesn't seem so different from the earlier book which was published for that audience, and could certainly be read with enjoyment by young adults, just as adult readers would enjoy A Long Way from Verona . Leaving the question of audience aside, this was another immensely enjoyable tale from this author, well-written, with a subtle sense of humor that I greatly appreciated. Gardam seems to have a talent for idiosyncratic narrators, and Marigold was certainly one. I saw some of the twists coming, but others were a surprise. The world depicted feels both intensely real and present and somewhat far gone, an England that no longer seems to exist. I will definitely be seeking out more of this author's books, for both adult and juvenile audiences, and highly recommend this one.

[Deanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

This isn’t subject matter I’m likely to gravitate to, young love and confused adolescence. But in Gardam’s hands it’s a solid read, engaging, delightful for any age. It’s true, human, authentically suspenseful, with just enough charm, not too much. Gardam is good for a read that’s as smart as it is effortless.

[Featherbooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of my failings as a writer is that I begin a book with attention to the author's descriptive details, her dialog, her scenes from beginning to end and I brush the edge of learning but then I lose my critiquing way. I started Bilgewater with much admiration for all of these writerly skills and then became involved in the story such that I never took note again. Every time I put the book down, I couldn't wait to pick it up again. All of my fondness for English life in novels resurfaced and I was right there in the Master's house with Bilgie bemoaning her motherless teen age self. Usually, I don't care for coming-of-age tales, eager to get on with adulthood, but this story beguiled me. She lives with her father, a master in a boy's school in the north of England. In first person (never easy to read), we learn of his absent-minded attention, their steady, funny housekeeper, Paula, her difficult friends and stalwart uncles and her initial reading difficulties. My attention never flagged and I lived with them all for the three days it took to read the story, eschewing tv to jump into bed at night to swim laps with Bilgie on school breaks and play chess with her dad. I shouldn't be surprised since Jane Gardam has never failed me.

[Lynn · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first Gardam I read was "Old Filth," and I said to myself, "She really gets older people." Then I read the other two books in the trilogy, which continued with many of the same characters, wonderfully.

Next, I tried "The Hollow Land," which has children as main characters, and I said to myself, "She doesn't only get older people. She also gets kids." Likewise "Bilgewater."

This is a sensitive portrayal of a kid who's a misfit all around. She's brought herself up, largely, with no real friends, only the boys at her father's school. And her father's present, but not really. She gets things wrong, as kids do, but slowly she does find her way. She likes the wrong friends, doesn't recognize good people, and learns to read despite what sounds like dyslexia. And she's a terrific, living, breathing adolescent. Wonderful work.

I don't think, however, that the epilog was necessary. It was a bit confusing and ultimately didn't enhance the story. We know Marigold will do just fine. Still, Gardam creates such true characters in such wonderful prose. A master.

[Sally Whitehead · Rating 1 out of 5]

I am clearly missing something here because the majority of the reviews for this book are really positive.

Quaint, quirky and eccentric?

Sorry, all I got was stylistically irritating prose about an utterly alienating cast of one dimensional characters.

It all felt a bit like those times I have had the misfortune of hearing Sarah Kennedy on the radio talking about her utterly unrelatable lifestyle.

Lovely I imagine, if you like that sort of thing. Not for me.

[Eleanor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautifully observed, full of the angst of adolescence, falling in love with the wrong boy and being dazzled by the apparent glamour of a rather fickle friend.

Originally written for teenagers, but later reclassified as an adult novel, Jane Gardam's book is so funny, sad and wise that I am sure it could be enjoyed by readers of any age group from mid teens on.

[Eileen Fireman · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found first half of this book boring and things started to move and get interesting the last part. I usually gobble up Jane Gardam’s books but for me most of the beginning was a clunker. Love her other books so much that this will not deter me from others.

[Robert Lukins · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good, as are all the Gardams I've read. Much lighter and not as rich, complex as her others, but very enjoyable and easy on the heart.

[Danielle McClellan · Rating 3 out of 5]

The least interesting book of one of the best writers I know. That said, Gardam is a master, and I grudgingly found myself enjoying this madcap ugly duckling tale despite its quirks and its tut-tut-cheerio OTT characters. Feels as if she was going for Lucky Jim and ended up instead with Fawlty Towers. But cornball, meandering plot aside, I am awfully glad to see anything reissued by this talented author.

[Rosamund Taylor · Rating 3 out of 5]

Marigold Green is known as Bilgewater, because she is Bill's Daughter. She lives at the boarding school where her father teaches, and is mostly brought up by the school's matron, Paula. She considers herself to be very ugly and unlikable, and spends much of her time alone. However, as the story unfolds, she begins to realise that she had more connections and possibilities than she realised. Set in the lead-up to Marigold's Cambridge entrance exams, this novel is mainly sustained by Gardam's compelling and frank narrative voice. This is Gardam's second novel, and, like her first, A Long Way From Verona, it was initially considered a children's novel and was then republished for adults. It doesn't have the atmosphere, tension, or insight of her first novel, unfortunately, but it is an engaging narrative, much concerned with class, loneliness and education. There's something very self-satisfied about the story: Marigold is better than other people because she's sensitive and doesn't care about material things, and because she's intelligent. I found it hard to really like the story because of this: I didn't agree with the initial premise. On the other hand, I flew threw this, and I was engaged throughout.

[Rosemary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lovely story of an awkward girl growing up in a boy's boarding school.

I wish I'd read this as a teenager. I'm not sure how I missed it - I read some of her others and loved them. This one would definitely have been a favourite.

[Bettie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dedication: for WP + V(A) x 47 1918-1965

Opening: My mother died when I was born which makes me sound princess-like and rather quaint.

An unexpected present, and very welcome it is too. Thank you.

Even though I have countless books on the go this one was beckoning. I thought I'd just read the first page or so to get a feel for the writing and the characters, and well, you know...

A lovely ugly duckling story of young love and against-the-odds academic success. Thank you once again Overbylass for giving me the opportunity to read one of your fav reads.

[Brooke · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was likely unable to fully appreciate this book due to my confusion about much of the British slang and references. I am also the kind of person who gets distracted by typos/errors in texts - and this one had tons. In addition, I could not quite believe the arc of many of the characters' temperaments and choices. I feel like the book could have been significantly longer to fill in missing details that would have helped me truly understand Gardam's intention with some of the characters. All of that aside, I did enjoy the book and read it in nearly one sitting.

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved this engaging ugly duckling story set in a British boarding school - and yet my
hackles rose a bit at the class consciousness that underlies the whole thing. Being Oxbridge
material: fine. Being a gent: ditto. Being a dotty professor: charming. Being a Dorsetshire nanny:
quite all right. But being the son of two alcoholic dentists? Gah.

[Elsbeth Kwant]

A wonderful and haunting book - an adolescent girl growing up with a donnish Father, who is head of a boy's school. I loved the changing perspectives, which reflect some of the major changes you go through in adolescence. There is a bit of Gormenghast combined with the observational powers of Austen. I very much enjoyed this book.

[Kirsty · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked up Jane Gardam's Bilgewater in a charity shop, keen to get started with her work.  The unusual title and blurb both really appealed to me, and I was further intrigued by the reviews spattered over the cover, which call it variously 'funny', 'deeply moving', and 'lively'.

Our protagonist is the wonderfully named Marigold Green, a young girl growing up in the boys' school where her father is housemaster.  Marigold calls herself 'hideous, quaint and barmy', and is 'convinced of her own plainness and peculiarity'.  Others call her 'Bilgewater'.  Marigold explains: 'My father... is known to the boys as Bill.  My name is Marigold, but to one and all because my father is very memorable and eccentric and had been around at the school for a very long time before I was born - I was only Bill's Daughter.  Hence Bilgewater.  Oh, hilarity, hilarity!  Bilgewater Green.'

At the outset of the novel, the young narrator says, quite matter-of-factly, 'My mother died when I was born which makes me sound princess-like and rather quaint.'  Marigold often feels quite alone in the male-dominated world in which she lives.  She spends much of her time with her father, in complete silence: 'Except when he is teaching,' she reflects, 'he is utterly quiet...  He never rustles, coughs or hums.  He never snuffles (thank goodness) and he never, ever, calls out or demands anything.'  She has one ally, a woman named Paula, who is the closest thing she has to a mother.  The blurb suggests that Marigold is 'ripe for seduction by entirely the wrong sort of boy', and comments that she 'suffers extravagantly and comically in her pilgrimage through the turbulent, twilight world of alarming adolescence.'

Some way into Bilgewater, the mysterious Grace comes into her orbit; the two girls were best friends as small children, but time apart has made them almost complete strangers to one another.  Marigold comments: 'Grace I saw as a figure far, far above coarseness or sloppiness - a figure of real Romance, a creature of turrets, moats and lonely vigils, gauntlets and chargers, long fields of barley and of rye.'

The novel opens in Cambridge during December, where the almost eighteen-year-old Marigold has been granted an interview at the University, and has travelled down from Yorkshire to attend.  We meet her awkwardness head on at this point; she feels like a fish out of water.  I warmed to her immediately. 

Marigold's narrative voice is entirely engaging, and wholly convincing.  It resembles an almost stream-of-consciousness style.  I was pulled right in to her story, keen to learn more about her and her world.  She is a witty and amusing character.  Marigold is very conscious of her own self; she frankly reflects, at one point: 'I have a very good balance of hormones all distributed in the right places.  The only thing that ever worried [Paula] was that I started brewing them so early...'.  The novel is a coming-of-age story, in which our protagonist tries to find her feet; she repeatedly pushes herself outside of her comfort zone in various ways.  In short, I do not think that I will ever be able to forget her.

First published in 1976, Bilgewater was devoured eagerly by this reader at the end of 2019.  I found myself absolutely adoring everything about the novel, and wanted to read far more about the charming and unusual Marigold than Gardam allowed me.  

A short novel at just 200 pages, Bilgewater is quite perfect; whilst I yearned for more of Gardam's writing, and her fascinatingly flawed and realistic cast of characters, I know that I thankfully have a lot of the prolific author's stories yet to read.  Bilgewater is a real gem, and a book which I will be recommending to every reader in my life.

[Daniel Polansky]

The story of a brainy, peculiar tom-boy raised by a bookish, silent father and a beloved nurse/caretaker, and the various troubles she gets into during adolescence. This is a really, really excellent Y/A book, from a time before that was a clearly delineated idea, well-written but conceptually rather limited. I’d give it to a cousin or a niece or something and they’d love it and carry it around and dog-ear the hell out of it but I didn’t think it was as complex or exceptional as the last Gardam I read. Not at all a bad book but I’m not sure I’d hold on to it. Not that it matters cause it’s a library book, THEY’RE ALL LIBRARY BOOKS NOW, so the keep/drop rubric should probably be amended.

[Alex Ankarr · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'd give it five stars, except the last page is a maudlin tone-deaf disaster. Almost wrecks the perfection of the rest of the book. Some editor shoulda swung for that.

[Jane Routley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've had this on my shelves since 1986 So glad I finally read it. A slyly humorous coming of age story. Couldn't put it down. Really loved it.

[Barbara Ginsberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

The daughter of a headmaster, preparing, unbeknownst to her, for her whole life, eventually, for her Oxbridge interviews and essay. On Coincidence.
You can trace every event in the making of her.
The shaping of an academic and kind sensibility.
Her father, “William the Silent” - Headmaster,
who teaches her informally, the classics. He takes time, smiles and teaches her chess, She is “Bill’s daughter.”
“The Thursday Club” of her father’s friends, a club of “old Masters, who teach her empathy.mirth and regard. Paula who tells her stories, Shakespeare, Hardy, Joyce.
“The University or College conversation as Paula’s sick bay readings. “Interesting, universal and philosophic things. We talk about: sin, death, love, harmony, ethics. The nature of God, the reality of solid objects, the non-existence of Time.”
The book is “some sort of attempt at a statement of truth.”
A romance is also a memorable tracery woven throughout the story. It’s outcome lingers with the reader long after you finish the story.
Her relationship with the “glorious” Grace Gathering, and love across Time, and shopping and a “Thursday Club” of aged dons is wonderful and funny.

[William · Rating 4 out of 5]

Certainly not Gardam's best, but then again, it was written almost forty years ago. Much of the brilliance of her later works can be seen here. She has an eye for social nuances and the various types of folk who live in England. Her wit is certainly already well-formed.

The coming of age aspect of the story has real charm, and the book is a fun read. But the plot is silly, almost a Feydeau farce, with characters intersecting in odd and unlikely ways. Many of Bilgie's choices make no sense, and while I have never been an female teenager, she seems awfully immature for an 18-year-old. I taught 15-year-olds many years ago who had more social sense even if they were awkward and even outcasts. I also have the sense that English boys' boarding schools are far less benign than the one in this book.

So, it's not great literature, but still somehow delightful, and it's interesting to see "early Gardam" en route to greater power in later works.

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely loved this book - so funny, so clever, so moving. I even cried in the end - in public haha. I loved the main character Marigold aka Bilgewater, all the wonderful old chaps around her father, and her greatest advocate, Paula who loved and supported Bilgie just like her mother would have, had she lived.

This is the third Gardam novel I've read and I will definitely seek out more of her works. Apparently she started writing quite late in life, but has been quite prolific since - thank goodness.

Here are a couple of my favourite bits: ''I put my specs back on and gooped in the mirror. I looked like a bilious owl, in a violent sunset after the explosion of the final bomb.'' And: ''She is rather like a harvest festival - an immense storehouse of a woman with a large though indeterminate face. She's like someone you've vaguely heard about in a rather bad book.''

[Fiona · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 really. It would have been a 5 if it hadn't turned into a farce towards the end.

Jane Gardam is marvellous at evoking memories of the discomfort and confusion of growing up. It's not for those who were prom queen or voted most popular or who were captain of the hockey team or head girl. It's for those of us who identify with Janis Ian's song 'Seventeen'. Marigold Green is completely uncomfortable with her own self when we first meet her. Through time, she comes to realise that she maybe does have something to offer but it's an arduous journey. At times, I ached at her discomfort but was always swept along by Gardam's humour, insight and the sheer eccentricity of the plot line. Great stuff!

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a wonderful book that shows the truth of adolescence - gawky, uncertain, and full of rapid emotional hairpin turns, even as it takes place in slightly surreal circumstances.
Marigold Green (nicknamed Bilgewater) is the daughter of a widowed headmaster at an English boarding school in the 60s. She's surrounded by barely functional academics, whose other-worldliness leaves her woefully unprepared to be an teenaged girl. And yet, she finds her way through, finds herself and eventually triumphs. Although the plot has occasional 'roll-your-eyes-at-the-coincidence" contrivances, the complete credibility of Marigold Green's character makes this a thoroughly enjoyable read.

[Leendert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gardam superior fare. A little unrequited love, a lot of quirkiness, and the usual intriguing plot and exquisite language. Gal gets the right guy; or did she?

Note to the eds/publishers if this edition :: you know those beds the fakirs sleep on? The ones with the nails? I prescribe for you 40 nights on one of those; it will do you good. The amount of spelling errors - typos, fine - was super annoying. You didn't even run this thing through spellcheck. If I were Jane's agent I'd get my client's royalties doubled.

[Troy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Top shelf YA this. A romp, a farce, lots of people popping up in unexpected places. Very dryly funny as well.

The story centres on Marigold Green (Bill's Daughter - Bilgewater) who's in her final year at school, but lives with her House Master father at a boys school in mid northern England.

She's endearing. There's a whole range of public school characters that add to the overall feel of the book.

If I had any criticism, the ending could have been tighter, but I may just have not wanted it to end.

Charming, 5 stars.