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Barsetshire #15
Peace Breaks Out
Even drama settles into circumstance, as the denizens of Barsetshire have learned through the private and public worries the Second World War has delivered to the home front. When peace breaks out, it surprises and unsettles familiar wartime routines, and the residents of Angela Thirkell's fictional world of town and country seem nearly as disconcerted as they are overjoyed. Nevertheless, as the county's eligible young men return home, the social round regains its old momentum. Before long, everyone- especially Anne Fielding, now quite grown up at nineteen- is spinning in a sweet flurry of misunderstandings and engagements.
331 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1946
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247 people want to read
About the author
Angela Thirkell
61 books257 followers Angela Margaret Mackail was born on January 30, 1890 at 27 Young Street, Kensington Square, London. Her grandfather was Sir Edward Burne-Jones the pre-Raphaelite painter and partner in the design firm of Morris and Company for whom he designed many stained glass windows - seven of which are in St Margaret's Church in Rottingdean, West Sussex. Her grandmother was Georgiana Macdonald, one of a precocious family which included among others, Stanley Baldwin, the Prime Minister, and Rudyard Kipling. Angela's brother, Denis Mackail, was also a prolific and successful novelist. Angela's mother, Margaret Burne-Jones, married John Mackail - an administrator at the Ministry of Education and Professor of Poetry at Oxford University.
Angela married James Campbell McInnes in 1911. James was a professional Baritone and performed at concert halls throughout the UK. In 1912 their first son Graham was born and in 1914 a second son, Colin. A daughter was born in 1917 at the same time her marriage was breaking up. In November 1917 a divorce was granted and Angela and the children went to live with her parents in Pembroke Gardens in London. The child, Mary, died the next year.
Angela then met and married George Lancelot Thirkell in 1918 and in 1920 they traveled on a troop ship to George's hometown in Australia. Their adventures on the "Friedricksruh" are recounted in her Trooper to the Southern Cross published in 1934. In 1921, in Melbourne Australia, her youngest son Lancelot George was born. Angela left Australia in 1929 with 8 year old Lance and never returned. Although living with her parents in London she badly needed to earn a living so she set forth on the difficult road of the professional writer. Her first book, Three Houses, a memoir of her happy childhood was published in 1931 and was an immediate success. The first of her novels set in Trollope's mythical county of Barsetshire was Demon in the House, followed by 28 others, one each year.
Angela also wrote a book of children's stories entitled The Grateful Sparrow using Ludwig Richter's illustrations; a biography of Harriette Wilson, The Fortunes of Harriette; an historical novel, Coronation Summer, an account of the events in London during Queen Victoria's Coronation in 1838; and three semi-autobiographical novels, Ankle Deep and Oh, These Men, These Men and Trooper to the Southern Cross. When Angela died on the 29th of January 1961 she left unfinished the last of her books, Three Score and Ten which was completed by her friend, Caroline LeJeune. Angela is buried in Rottingdean alongside her daughter Mary and her Burne-Jones grandparents.
Angela married James Campbell McInnes in 1911. James was a professional Baritone and performed at concert halls throughout the UK. In 1912 their first son Graham was born and in 1914 a second son, Colin. A daughter was born in 1917 at the same time her marriage was breaking up. In November 1917 a divorce was granted and Angela and the children went to live with her parents in Pembroke Gardens in London. The child, Mary, died the next year.
Angela then met and married George Lancelot Thirkell in 1918 and in 1920 they traveled on a troop ship to George's hometown in Australia. Their adventures on the "Friedricksruh" are recounted in her Trooper to the Southern Cross published in 1934. In 1921, in Melbourne Australia, her youngest son Lancelot George was born. Angela left Australia in 1929 with 8 year old Lance and never returned. Although living with her parents in London she badly needed to earn a living so she set forth on the difficult road of the professional writer. Her first book, Three Houses, a memoir of her happy childhood was published in 1931 and was an immediate success. The first of her novels set in Trollope's mythical county of Barsetshire was Demon in the House, followed by 28 others, one each year.
Angela also wrote a book of children's stories entitled The Grateful Sparrow using Ludwig Richter's illustrations; a biography of Harriette Wilson, The Fortunes of Harriette; an historical novel, Coronation Summer, an account of the events in London during Queen Victoria's Coronation in 1838; and three semi-autobiographical novels, Ankle Deep and Oh, These Men, These Men and Trooper to the Southern Cross. When Angela died on the 29th of January 1961 she left unfinished the last of her books, Three Score and Ten which was completed by her friend, Caroline LeJeune. Angela is buried in Rottingdean alongside her daughter Mary and her Burne-Jones grandparents.
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January 29, 2015
I am reading Thirkell's Barsetshire books in order as much as possible (as I do most series), but in this case it is especially helpful as her ever-expanding cast of characters grow up, marry each other, grow old and die off and it helps keep everyone straight if you read chronologically. Also, and equally as important to me as a long-time fan, the tone changes and darkens from the almost farcical, rompish earlier books written in the golden era of the 20's and 30's (not golden for everyone, of course, but certainly for the county gentry and aristocracy of these books), to the rationing, endless war work, blackouts and fear for loved ones off fighting in the World War Two years.
I have enjoyed this series immensely despite what some see as the snobbishness and elitism of the author and her characters; Thirkell was a product of her time and class and as an amateur history buff I have no patience with political correctness in my historical fiction. The upper classes saw their way of life vanishing and Thirkell, writing these books as British society was facing enormous upheaval during the war and in the immediate aftermath, wrote honestly about their resentment and confusion, as she notes near the end of the book: "...as the election results came tumbling in it became clear that six years of increasing danger and discomfort, for part of which time they had stood alone against a world of deadly enemies, cautious friends and swithering neutrals, had left the peculiar English so desirous for a change of any kind, so blindly making themselves believe in promises of everything for nothing (except even higher taxes and discomfort), and Mr. Churchill's friends were swept away...and the Brave and Revolting New World came into its own."
Along with her refreshing and almost brutal honesty about the exhausted English public's skeptical view of "peace breaking out" and it's attendant inconviences, Thirkell as always works plenty of humor into her books and I found myself chuckling as she poked gently at the pretensions and foibles of her characters. David Leslie, who has driven me to distraction in earlier books with his annoying and flirtatious charm, spoilt nature and "showing off" - which as his very astute and wise-beyond-her-years niece, Clarissa, complains he is "much too old" to be doing at 37 - finally gets his comeuppance, which was satisfying. No spoilers, but he came out of things much better off than he deserved, in my opinion! The usual young people meet, fall in love (or think they have, thanks to the interfering David!), but finally end up paired off successfully and to the satisfaction of everyone, thus signaling life will somehow go on, despite the deprivations of war and the uncertainties of peace.
Along with the humor, satisfying and light touches of romance, meeting up with old friends, and lovely, nostalgic scenes of the seasonal cycles of country life, we also bid farewell to characters in Thirkell's books, which adds a sweet melancholy note to the underlying theme of life carrying on. Again, no spoilers, but the last scene was one of the most touching I've read in a long time - not maudlin, but I wiped away a tear and was once again grateful to Thirkell for these delightful little gems that bring a vanished world back to life, warts and all. Recommended.
I have enjoyed this series immensely despite what some see as the snobbishness and elitism of the author and her characters; Thirkell was a product of her time and class and as an amateur history buff I have no patience with political correctness in my historical fiction. The upper classes saw their way of life vanishing and Thirkell, writing these books as British society was facing enormous upheaval during the war and in the immediate aftermath, wrote honestly about their resentment and confusion, as she notes near the end of the book: "...as the election results came tumbling in it became clear that six years of increasing danger and discomfort, for part of which time they had stood alone against a world of deadly enemies, cautious friends and swithering neutrals, had left the peculiar English so desirous for a change of any kind, so blindly making themselves believe in promises of everything for nothing (except even higher taxes and discomfort), and Mr. Churchill's friends were swept away...and the Brave and Revolting New World came into its own."
Along with her refreshing and almost brutal honesty about the exhausted English public's skeptical view of "peace breaking out" and it's attendant inconviences, Thirkell as always works plenty of humor into her books and I found myself chuckling as she poked gently at the pretensions and foibles of her characters. David Leslie, who has driven me to distraction in earlier books with his annoying and flirtatious charm, spoilt nature and "showing off" - which as his very astute and wise-beyond-her-years niece, Clarissa, complains he is "much too old" to be doing at 37 - finally gets his comeuppance, which was satisfying. No spoilers, but he came out of things much better off than he deserved, in my opinion! The usual young people meet, fall in love (or think they have, thanks to the interfering David!), but finally end up paired off successfully and to the satisfaction of everyone, thus signaling life will somehow go on, despite the deprivations of war and the uncertainties of peace.
Along with the humor, satisfying and light touches of romance, meeting up with old friends, and lovely, nostalgic scenes of the seasonal cycles of country life, we also bid farewell to characters in Thirkell's books, which adds a sweet melancholy note to the underlying theme of life carrying on. Again, no spoilers, but the last scene was one of the most touching I've read in a long time - not maudlin, but I wiped away a tear and was once again grateful to Thirkell for these delightful little gems that bring a vanished world back to life, warts and all. Recommended.
October 29, 2022
I forgot how I love Angela Thirkell's world. I mean, I knew it, but it was so long ago when I read one of her books, that I had to read a few pages to recall the full longing and love for her charming characters.
Warm (lovely satirical) wit, wonderful characters. That is almost all there always is in Thirkell's stories (it is hard to say, there is much of the plot) - and it is perfectly beautiful.
This time there was the end of the WWII, showed in a bit odd perspective. Of course, it was a bit exaggerated, but it was a power of the author's wit and her sharp eye. I burst to laugh out loud a few times.
Thirkell-ish love stories - I adore them.
And the end... Mrs. Thirkell was a master - without a doubt. The book was less poignant than Cheerfulness Breaks In but I felt a kind of connection between them.
What could I add? If you are a fan like me you know all. If you don't know her novels - simply try (start with the first of the series).
PS I see my GR friends didn't find it as great as I, perhaps it was a matter of a long time between Bersetshire novels, or that there is a permanent part of my heart that always tunes to such sad-sweet stories (what the end of the war meant for the characters, and David's story, which wasn't "only of the roses").
he finished lamely, and then fell into Stygian depths of gloom, realising that by his grossly culpable ignorance of David Leslie’s rank, he had forfeited Lady Graham’s esteem for ever; which drove him to the nearest equivalent of suicide he could think of at the moment, namely to grovel on the floor collecting the hats and umbrella
Warm (lovely satirical) wit, wonderful characters. That is almost all there always is in Thirkell's stories (it is hard to say, there is much of the plot) - and it is perfectly beautiful.
as long as the war’s on you know where you are
This time there was the end of the WWII, showed in a bit odd perspective. Of course, it was a bit exaggerated, but it was a power of the author's wit and her sharp eye. I burst to laugh out loud a few times.
Thirkell-ish love stories - I adore them.
And the end... Mrs. Thirkell was a master - without a doubt. The book was less poignant than Cheerfulness Breaks In but I felt a kind of connection between them.
What could I add? If you are a fan like me you know all. If you don't know her novels - simply try (start with the first of the series).
PS I see my GR friends didn't find it as great as I, perhaps it was a matter of a long time between Bersetshire novels, or that there is a permanent part of my heart that always tunes to such sad-sweet stories (what the end of the war meant for the characters, and David's story, which wasn't "only of the roses").
July 14, 2015
Angela Thirkell wrote novels set in Anthony Trollope’s fictional Barsetshire, but set ~100 years on, i.e. in her own time, and populated with descendants of Trollope’s characters. The obvious question is “why?”.
It is set just as WW2 is about to end. After six years of war, people are anxious about the upheaval and uncertainty peace will bring, exacerbated by their awareness that social norms are already beginning to change, so that they are no longer quite confident as to how to behave or address each other – interesting concepts that are repeated, but never really explored. It may capture the period and a particular set of people very well, but it is a very tedious read.
The book (I hesitate to say “story”) revolves around 19 year old Anne Fielding, who is being introduced to society, and finds it a little confusing as to who is related to whom – as did I.
The characters are like adult versions of those in Enid Blyton’s Famous Five, but without the adventure. There is some witty and even quite bitchy banter, but overall NOTHING happens, and in a dull way. It is disjointed, plodding and stilted (“quite the nicest mother one could have” – eugh). There are large chunks where people discuss, at length, who will travel in which car, what the train schedule is or exactly who will play tennis with whom. The minor aristocrats and upper middle class characters also have an odd obsession with viewing each other’s homes, especially the servants’ quarters and their private rooms.
Thirkell also follows Trollope’s annoying habit of giving peripheral characters utterly ludicrous names: e.g. Mr Manhole; Mr Cornstalk who lives in Barley Street; Lord Tadpole, and a village called Little Misfit.
There were a few good snippets buried in the tedium: “the country man’s eternal job of looking at other people working”; Miss S “refused to visit the dentist owing to some religious confusion about graven images”; someone who “takes a perverse pleasure in refusing comfort”; a conversation that was “highly profitable” because it was “was based on complete ignorance or fine crusted prejudice”; “Mrs B was more or less acquainted with everyone in a vague county way” and the importance of being an “old” family, but being in the village since Waterloo was relatively recent.
However, there are also some glaring irritations: “People weren’t usually like what you thought they were like” (commentary, not direct speech of a character); Rose saying “meagre” half a dozen times in a couple of pages, but never thereafter; some missing commas; randomly mentioning irrelevant characters just because they have a Trollopian surname, and “it’s me and George”.
I think this book will only appeal to those who can personally identify with it (my mother loves Thirkell, and I now understand why), or perhaps to historians wanting a slightly different angle on the period via a contemporary fiction.
It is set just as WW2 is about to end. After six years of war, people are anxious about the upheaval and uncertainty peace will bring, exacerbated by their awareness that social norms are already beginning to change, so that they are no longer quite confident as to how to behave or address each other – interesting concepts that are repeated, but never really explored. It may capture the period and a particular set of people very well, but it is a very tedious read.
The book (I hesitate to say “story”) revolves around 19 year old Anne Fielding, who is being introduced to society, and finds it a little confusing as to who is related to whom – as did I.
The characters are like adult versions of those in Enid Blyton’s Famous Five, but without the adventure. There is some witty and even quite bitchy banter, but overall NOTHING happens, and in a dull way. It is disjointed, plodding and stilted (“quite the nicest mother one could have” – eugh). There are large chunks where people discuss, at length, who will travel in which car, what the train schedule is or exactly who will play tennis with whom. The minor aristocrats and upper middle class characters also have an odd obsession with viewing each other’s homes, especially the servants’ quarters and their private rooms.
Thirkell also follows Trollope’s annoying habit of giving peripheral characters utterly ludicrous names: e.g. Mr Manhole; Mr Cornstalk who lives in Barley Street; Lord Tadpole, and a village called Little Misfit.
There were a few good snippets buried in the tedium: “the country man’s eternal job of looking at other people working”; Miss S “refused to visit the dentist owing to some religious confusion about graven images”; someone who “takes a perverse pleasure in refusing comfort”; a conversation that was “highly profitable” because it was “was based on complete ignorance or fine crusted prejudice”; “Mrs B was more or less acquainted with everyone in a vague county way” and the importance of being an “old” family, but being in the village since Waterloo was relatively recent.
However, there are also some glaring irritations: “People weren’t usually like what you thought they were like” (commentary, not direct speech of a character); Rose saying “meagre” half a dozen times in a couple of pages, but never thereafter; some missing commas; randomly mentioning irrelevant characters just because they have a Trollopian surname, and “it’s me and George”.
I think this book will only appeal to those who can personally identify with it (my mother loves Thirkell, and I now understand why), or perhaps to historians wanting a slightly different angle on the period via a contemporary fiction.
January 6, 2018
Catching up with the Leslies of Rushwater... David Leslie, spoiled, cynical and always charming has gotten away with a lot. Now approaching middle age and faced with nothing to do in peacetime, he's thinking of settling down at last! But who would marry him or more precisely, who could he marry? With Martin and his cousin Emmy successfully running Rushwater, David is at a loss. He loves Rushwater but there's no place for him there. Could he marry the little Anne Fielding? She's a sweet schoolgirl but maybe that's what he needs. There's also the beautiful Sylvia Halliday- a suitable county girl but she tends to bore him and his nephew seems to have feelings for Sylvia. With peace breaking out all over, the citizens of Barsetshire are apprehensive about what is to come. With a new election coming up, their lot could be overturned and the Labour party taking over! Sylvia is determined not to let this happen!
This is a quiet, almost somber sequel to Wild Strawberries. Though we have seen the Leslies appear in previous books, this is mainly about them and their friends. Lady Emily is still kicking and the same scatterbrained lady she always was. She is such a dear. You can't help but love her. Agnes takes after her mother now she's less centered on her family. I like her a little better now but she irritates me after awhile. The children are growing up fast! Emmy is a strong, sturdy, cow-obsessed young woman. She provides some comic relief. I liked her but she's a bit too much like her cousin Lucy Marling. Clarissa is now 15 and almost a grown-up. Somehow she got the brains in the family. If she really goes in for engineering draughtsmanship I am super impressed and admire her brains. I like her relationship with her uncle David. She's snarky like him. Edith is still at home in the nursery and sweet and funny while John's two boys are at Southbridge. Neither boy has a name or a distinct identity. I assume major is John, Jr. They add some spark and humor to the story. They're not precocious and not as serious as everyone thinks they are. I liked them despite their mischief. Martin has grown up a lot since he was 17. He went to war, was injured and now has inherited Rushwater. He has a lot of weight on his shoulders trying to run the estate without much money and being responsible for his cousin Emmy. He's a little too serious for me but a sympathetic character.
Returning characters also include Anne Fielding. She's a little silly in this book. She hasn't yet lived in the real world and after consuming too much romantic literature, she's apt to be romantic and silly. She does remind me a lot of myself in my younger days but I was like 12-16 and not 19! Anne is still sweet and good and tends to get forgotten about. I felt sorry for her sometimes but worried she would do something stupid. Her friend Robin Dale is also around escorting the Leslie boys to Rushwater. I really like him. He's less serious than Martin but the one who is able to bond with Martin because of their wartime experiences. Robin is kind, caring and friendly. He'll make an excellent Headmaster one day, I expect! Mr. Adams is discussed a lot though he only appears once. We get to know him for himself a lot better and I respect him. We find out what's going on with his "Little Heath" at the end.
There are only a few new characters here. George Halliday is basically a non-entity. I'm not sure why he's in the book except to represent a generation that's so used to war and has benefitted from war, they don't want peace to come too soon. He seems nice enough. His sister Sylvia seems like she could be mean at first but she turns out to be lovely, aside from a strange obsession with bulls and cows. She knows everyone in the county and knows her sense of duty towards them. I really liked her. Rose Bingham is the Leslies sophisticated cousin who lived abroad during the war. She surprised me and I ended up liking her. Finally, there's Scatcherd, the artist. Thirkell seems to be mocking art for art's sake. He's a character the others are polite to but laugh at behind his back. He's a quirky character and adds to the local color charm. His niece who keeps house for him is awful! She's always yelling at him, getting rid of his clothes and bossing him around. I didn't like her at all.
The plot largely revolves around the lives of the characters now that peace is coming. It's sad that they are so used to war, they don't want peace. I didn't really understand why peace was such a terrible thing until they had their rations cut and some of the historical background was explained. I understand people are exhausted, hungry and world weary after 6 years of war and the older adults are faced with losing the world they've always known. The social snobbery here takes the form of politics. I did not like how the main characters were staunch conservatives but was confused as to how Mr. Adams and Anne's father could feel the same way about the same things! I need to look up some of the history of post-WWII.
The ending was satisfactory but there are some more books that wrap up loose ends for some of the other characters who don't appear in this novel so I may skip ahead or stop here.
This is a quiet, almost somber sequel to Wild Strawberries. Though we have seen the Leslies appear in previous books, this is mainly about them and their friends. Lady Emily is still kicking and the same scatterbrained lady she always was. She is such a dear. You can't help but love her. Agnes takes after her mother now she's less centered on her family. I like her a little better now but she irritates me after awhile. The children are growing up fast! Emmy is a strong, sturdy, cow-obsessed young woman. She provides some comic relief. I liked her but she's a bit too much like her cousin Lucy Marling. Clarissa is now 15 and almost a grown-up. Somehow she got the brains in the family. If she really goes in for engineering draughtsmanship I am super impressed and admire her brains. I like her relationship with her uncle David. She's snarky like him. Edith is still at home in the nursery and sweet and funny while John's two boys are at Southbridge. Neither boy has a name or a distinct identity. I assume major is John, Jr. They add some spark and humor to the story. They're not precocious and not as serious as everyone thinks they are. I liked them despite their mischief. Martin has grown up a lot since he was 17. He went to war, was injured and now has inherited Rushwater. He has a lot of weight on his shoulders trying to run the estate without much money and being responsible for his cousin Emmy. He's a little too serious for me but a sympathetic character.
Returning characters also include Anne Fielding. She's a little silly in this book. She hasn't yet lived in the real world and after consuming too much romantic literature, she's apt to be romantic and silly. She does remind me a lot of myself in my younger days but I was like 12-16 and not 19! Anne is still sweet and good and tends to get forgotten about. I felt sorry for her sometimes but worried she would do something stupid. Her friend Robin Dale is also around escorting the Leslie boys to Rushwater. I really like him. He's less serious than Martin but the one who is able to bond with Martin because of their wartime experiences. Robin is kind, caring and friendly. He'll make an excellent Headmaster one day, I expect! Mr. Adams is discussed a lot though he only appears once. We get to know him for himself a lot better and I respect him. We find out what's going on with his "Little Heath" at the end.
There are only a few new characters here. George Halliday is basically a non-entity. I'm not sure why he's in the book except to represent a generation that's so used to war and has benefitted from war, they don't want peace to come too soon. He seems nice enough. His sister Sylvia seems like she could be mean at first but she turns out to be lovely, aside from a strange obsession with bulls and cows. She knows everyone in the county and knows her sense of duty towards them. I really liked her. Rose Bingham is the Leslies sophisticated cousin who lived abroad during the war. She surprised me and I ended up liking her. Finally, there's Scatcherd, the artist. Thirkell seems to be mocking art for art's sake. He's a character the others are polite to but laugh at behind his back. He's a quirky character and adds to the local color charm. His niece who keeps house for him is awful! She's always yelling at him, getting rid of his clothes and bossing him around. I didn't like her at all.
The plot largely revolves around the lives of the characters now that peace is coming. It's sad that they are so used to war, they don't want peace. I didn't really understand why peace was such a terrible thing until they had their rations cut and some of the historical background was explained. I understand people are exhausted, hungry and world weary after 6 years of war and the older adults are faced with losing the world they've always known. The social snobbery here takes the form of politics. I did not like how the main characters were staunch conservatives but was confused as to how Mr. Adams and Anne's father could feel the same way about the same things! I need to look up some of the history of post-WWII.
The ending was satisfactory but there are some more books that wrap up loose ends for some of the other characters who don't appear in this novel so I may skip ahead or stop here.
May 13, 2017
David Leslie earned no one's respect in WILD STRAWBERRIES, and now he has pulled another pair of attractive young girls into his orbit. The Leslies have as guests Anne Fielding and Silvia Halliday. David thinks both of them would be quite worth cultivating, careless of the resulting heartburning. He doesn't get his just deserts, but he does get his come-uppance.
When WWII came to an end in England, the population didn't settle back with a sigh of relief. They had been not only losing their young men to the war, they had been under an intense siege. Supplies they normally imported had been sunk by German subs or sent to supply the army, and in PEACE BREAKS OUT we see gentry cutting up their clothes to patch other clothes, pubs running out of beer before supply day, and parties held by thin people whose main topic of conversation was food rationing. Thirkell lived through this, and she expresses her strong opinion that all of it, even the weather, was the result of government stupidity. It presents an authentic contemporary view to us in today's Western world.
When WWII came to an end in England, the population didn't settle back with a sigh of relief. They had been not only losing their young men to the war, they had been under an intense siege. Supplies they normally imported had been sunk by German subs or sent to supply the army, and in PEACE BREAKS OUT we see gentry cutting up their clothes to patch other clothes, pubs running out of beer before supply day, and parties held by thin people whose main topic of conversation was food rationing. Thirkell lived through this, and she expresses her strong opinion that all of it, even the weather, was the result of government stupidity. It presents an authentic contemporary view to us in today's Western world.
November 16, 2021
The war is over but good times have not yet come. Years ago when reading 84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff – about an American corresponding with a bookshop in London – I was surprised at the privations people were still suffering in the UK. Ms Hanff first wrote to them in 1949, four years after the end of the war and yet there was still rationing.
"Old people conscientiously doing their duty in a world they didn’t understand, a world which did not want them; middle-aged people losing their charm under the endless strain of sons and daughters in danger, public duties, aged and failing parents, and growing discomfort and privation at home, or if they did keep their charm doing so with a plodding determination which ruined everything; young people mostly being so good and doing what they had to do, emerging for leaves in which there was so little fun to be got that they had almost stopped trying to get it." 22%
"...rations had been cut again. Barchester, nay indeed all England, was at once divided into two camps; the one rejoicing that all our food was going to feed the gallant Mixo-Lydians and other depressing minorities who were busy disliking us for liberating them, the other, perfectly furious that our already skimpy rations were to be cut in favour of Foreigners, who lived in Abroad." 45%
So everyone is exhausted by the war, but few expect any good to come out of the peace. At least not anytime soon. At least during the war people were all pulling together. Now Mr Churchill has resigned and the general elections favour a Labour government.
"Other millions saw the dawn of an even Braver and Newer World, as if the present brave new one were not unpleasant enough..." 45%
This is, of course, a horror to nearly all of Ms Thirkell's characters who are of a class which always votes Conservative – as do their servants, who do as they're told. "There was no need for her to add that her father was standing as a Conservative, for that was the only thing the people one knew did stand for, unless it was a few queer ones like Lord Bond who was a Liberal and anyway being a peer merely sat..." 24%
Anne follows her friend Sylvia campaigning in the local village, Sylvia is one of those terribly energetic Thirkell heroines, attempting to browbeat the local villagers into voting as they should: "Anne, a town child, was deeply interested by this aspect of rural life and began to realise the feeling of responsibility that the landed people still kept for those who lived in their villages and worked on their estates; dimly apprehending a society more deeply rooted than the urban life of the Close..." 61%
Fortunately very little time is wasted on politics as there are house parties to attend, new friends to learn to know and love to fall into.
"Mr. Birkett began to discuss the chances of the war coming to an end. And as no one could possibly know, and all arguments were based on complete ignorance or fine crusted prejudice, the conversation was highly profitable." 17%
As in Miss Bunting our heroine here is Anne Fielding. Her father is a sort of church accountant, as I understand it, living in Barchester near the cathedral, in the Close. Apparently he is knighted as he is addressed as Sir Robert, though I have no idea why. His wife, Lady Fielding, is a character that I love to hate. A humourless snob, a busy-body who keeps her nose poked into any lives that swim into her ken, always ready to pull rank or peer down her nose, even a hypocrite. Let her speak for herself.
"Had Lady Fielding not been such a busy woman, shouldering the affairs of half the women’s organisations in Barchester with patience and efficiency, she might have been surprised by the change in her daughter’s voice as she telephoned to Holdings. But the accounts of the Barchester Branch of the Anti-Non-Interference Society were in a fine muddle owing to the treasurer having borrowed from the purse she kept her mother’s housekeeping money..." 44%
Being buzzed by low-flying airplane, while sitting, doing nothing:
"Lady Fielding controlled herself very well. She picked up an empty tea-cup and threw it as hard as she could at the fattest cushion on the sofa, where it lay placidly for a moment, then deliberately rolled to the ground and shed its handle. This hideous example of the diabolical tendencies of inanimate objects broke the spell." 46%
And: "...thank goodness Anne has seen no more of his lumping girl..." 44%
This refers to Heather Adams, daughter of Sam Adams, industrialist and Labour candidate for Parliament, as her husband Sir Robert is the conservative candidate.
And then a bit later, talking to a "female" teacher at Southbridge school: "'Luckily,' said Lady Fielding, skilfully skirting the question, 'Mr. Adams, the Labour candidate, is an unusually capable man and I may say an old friend of ours, so there will be no bitterness as far as he and my husband are concerned'..." 57%
The "female" Infant School Teacher, has no nice manners: "My vote is in Luton. But I do the best I can to make the toddlers politically minded. There is such a nice little song—‘We’ll all go down the Big Red Road, And meet Joey Staylin there.’ The toddlers march to it every day at the physical recreation hour and it is going to be such a help to them when they go on to the upper school..." 62%
Robin, the sympathetic son of old Dr Dale has become a teacher at Southbridge School. "'And now,' said Lady Fielding kindly, 'tell me about your work.' 'I like it,' said Robin. 'I like the boys with a few exceptions whom I think anyone would dislike anywhere. I like the Birketts and I am very fond of the Carters. And we are gradually getting rid of our female teachers, thank God...'" 50%
Robin is otherwise our hero, but unfortunately not in touch with modern thought; as for example the vanity of reading Latin classics.
When peace comes things do begin to return to some semblance of order. "the whole of the Hosiers’ Boys’ Foundation School had been evacuated, a loathsome expression but common usage now, to Southbridge..." 54%
Mr Birkett, the headmaster of Southbridge (public) School is relieved when the Hosiers' begin planning on returning to London, admitting to having learned nothing from them: "there was a short silence while each member of the party reflected according to his or her light that East and West, day and night, salt and sugar were immutably different and so were the accidents or traditions, however one liked to put it, of birth and class; and that however earnestly well-intentioned gumphs might believe in mixing or levelling all ranks, it would never do." 19%
David Leslie, the charmer, has a larger presence in this book, as usual he wastes his life trying to escape boredom, this time by causing mischief in young hearts. He is witty and intelligent and in a rare moment of insight considers: "...at the same moment he told himself he was being a hypocrite and making himself a motley to the view, simply from his great desire to be liked..." 28%
"Edith, a true woman who adored the hand that held her in check, snuggled up to her Uncle David who against his better judgment and in courageous or some may say foolhardy defiance of Nannie’s basilisk glance, put his arm round her and recomposed himself." 27%
"When he got as far as the river he leaned his arms on the stone parapet and contemplated suicide. But the Rising was shallow under the bridge, with a gravelly bottom, and the prospects were not good." 23%
There is, as usual in Ms. Thirkell's books a few brief, mostly comic, visits below stairs: "“I should peek my needle in his eye,” said Conque, Lady Emily’s French maid, whom a six years’ totalitarian war had driven to tea with the lower orders, “and speet him to his face.
“Well, Miss Conk,” said cook, “it’s not English to do that. Poor old Hitler. I dessay he wishes he were somewhere else now. They say he’s a secret drinker.” The servants’ hall then discussed the private life of the German Chancellor on very insufficient evidence..." 41%
As expected we have romance, though this is not according to the Hollywood model where someone is smitten. Here two couples find one another after first having developed both respect and friendship for one another. This is refreshing, as is most of Ms Thirkell's wit and charm.
And as usual there is a good deal of poetry and literature quoted, seldom sourced. The Angela Thirkell Society UK has a section Guide to the Novels in which these "relusions" are tracked down. This book though is absent in their list, so I had fun looking up references myself. Here are a few:
"Norna of the Fitful Head" found in Walter Scott's The Pirate. The deranged persona of a fallen woman of good family.
"...young ladies who “always smell of bread and butter..." from Beppo - A Venetian Story a rambling poem about Carnival and Venice and women by George Gordon Lord Byron. Stanza 39. "'Tis true your budding Miss is very charming but shy and awkward at first coming out... The nursery still lisps out in all they utter-- Besides they always smell of Bread and Butter".
"How happy in fact could one be with either; not if ’tother dear charmer were away, but if one could have both..." from The Beggars Opera by John Gay. - 1728. "How happy could I be with either – were t'other dear charmer away – But while you thus teaze me together – To neither a word will I say".
"Ignorance, madam, sheer ignorance..." spoken by Dr Johnson in reply to a lady who asked why, in his dictionary, he had defined pastern as the knee of a horse. Quoted in James Boswell: The Life of Samuel Johnson 1791: "ignorance, madam, pure ignorance."
"Cowper’s threnody on poplars" William Cowper The Poplar Field. "The poplars are fell'd, farewell to the shade / And the whispering sound of the cool collonade..." He does not mention their smell, which is probably why he is only a minor poet.
"the Woods of Westermain" by George Meredith A long poem in trochaic tetrameter "Enter these enchanted wood / You who dare..."
"Lines from her favourite poet, Lord Tennyson, floated into her mind. “We were two sisters of one race, She was the fairer in the face,” she said aloud to herself, if we make ourselves clear..." The Sisters by Alfred Tennyson 1843: "We were two daughters of one race / She was the fairest in the face..."
"spinning like fretful midges, as one of her favourite poets, D. G. Rossetti, had written..." from The Blessed Damozel. Gazing down from heaven: "...The void, as low as where this earth / Spins like a fretful midge..."
Near the end of the book comes a long harangue on the trials of women during the war. And, oddly, and heartwarmingly, it is classless!
"...a very large class including all the housewives of England who had been working for sixteen or seventeen hours a day ever since the war began... in a state of permanent tiredness varied by waves of complete exhaustion, yet never letting down anyone dependent on them; this great, valiant, unrecognised class, the stay of domestic England..." 91%
Ms Thirkell's foibles – as I in my ignorance call them – her defence of class and classical learning, are present here as are many of her recurring characters. But like Mrs Morland who manages to vary her stories of the nefarious goings on in Madame Kosta's Dress shop, Ms Thirkell also varies her stories enough and provides enough wit and humour, and exuberance, for this reader to look forward to the next instalment in the series.
"Old people conscientiously doing their duty in a world they didn’t understand, a world which did not want them; middle-aged people losing their charm under the endless strain of sons and daughters in danger, public duties, aged and failing parents, and growing discomfort and privation at home, or if they did keep their charm doing so with a plodding determination which ruined everything; young people mostly being so good and doing what they had to do, emerging for leaves in which there was so little fun to be got that they had almost stopped trying to get it." 22%
"...rations had been cut again. Barchester, nay indeed all England, was at once divided into two camps; the one rejoicing that all our food was going to feed the gallant Mixo-Lydians and other depressing minorities who were busy disliking us for liberating them, the other, perfectly furious that our already skimpy rations were to be cut in favour of Foreigners, who lived in Abroad." 45%
So everyone is exhausted by the war, but few expect any good to come out of the peace. At least not anytime soon. At least during the war people were all pulling together. Now Mr Churchill has resigned and the general elections favour a Labour government.
"Other millions saw the dawn of an even Braver and Newer World, as if the present brave new one were not unpleasant enough..." 45%
This is, of course, a horror to nearly all of Ms Thirkell's characters who are of a class which always votes Conservative – as do their servants, who do as they're told. "There was no need for her to add that her father was standing as a Conservative, for that was the only thing the people one knew did stand for, unless it was a few queer ones like Lord Bond who was a Liberal and anyway being a peer merely sat..." 24%
Anne follows her friend Sylvia campaigning in the local village, Sylvia is one of those terribly energetic Thirkell heroines, attempting to browbeat the local villagers into voting as they should: "Anne, a town child, was deeply interested by this aspect of rural life and began to realise the feeling of responsibility that the landed people still kept for those who lived in their villages and worked on their estates; dimly apprehending a society more deeply rooted than the urban life of the Close..." 61%
Fortunately very little time is wasted on politics as there are house parties to attend, new friends to learn to know and love to fall into.
"Mr. Birkett began to discuss the chances of the war coming to an end. And as no one could possibly know, and all arguments were based on complete ignorance or fine crusted prejudice, the conversation was highly profitable." 17%
As in Miss Bunting our heroine here is Anne Fielding. Her father is a sort of church accountant, as I understand it, living in Barchester near the cathedral, in the Close. Apparently he is knighted as he is addressed as Sir Robert, though I have no idea why. His wife, Lady Fielding, is a character that I love to hate. A humourless snob, a busy-body who keeps her nose poked into any lives that swim into her ken, always ready to pull rank or peer down her nose, even a hypocrite. Let her speak for herself.
"Had Lady Fielding not been such a busy woman, shouldering the affairs of half the women’s organisations in Barchester with patience and efficiency, she might have been surprised by the change in her daughter’s voice as she telephoned to Holdings. But the accounts of the Barchester Branch of the Anti-Non-Interference Society were in a fine muddle owing to the treasurer having borrowed from the purse she kept her mother’s housekeeping money..." 44%
Being buzzed by low-flying airplane, while sitting, doing nothing:
"Lady Fielding controlled herself very well. She picked up an empty tea-cup and threw it as hard as she could at the fattest cushion on the sofa, where it lay placidly for a moment, then deliberately rolled to the ground and shed its handle. This hideous example of the diabolical tendencies of inanimate objects broke the spell." 46%
And: "...thank goodness Anne has seen no more of his lumping girl..." 44%
This refers to Heather Adams, daughter of Sam Adams, industrialist and Labour candidate for Parliament, as her husband Sir Robert is the conservative candidate.
And then a bit later, talking to a "female" teacher at Southbridge school: "'Luckily,' said Lady Fielding, skilfully skirting the question, 'Mr. Adams, the Labour candidate, is an unusually capable man and I may say an old friend of ours, so there will be no bitterness as far as he and my husband are concerned'..." 57%
The "female" Infant School Teacher, has no nice manners: "My vote is in Luton. But I do the best I can to make the toddlers politically minded. There is such a nice little song—‘We’ll all go down the Big Red Road, And meet Joey Staylin there.’ The toddlers march to it every day at the physical recreation hour and it is going to be such a help to them when they go on to the upper school..." 62%
Robin, the sympathetic son of old Dr Dale has become a teacher at Southbridge School. "'And now,' said Lady Fielding kindly, 'tell me about your work.' 'I like it,' said Robin. 'I like the boys with a few exceptions whom I think anyone would dislike anywhere. I like the Birketts and I am very fond of the Carters. And we are gradually getting rid of our female teachers, thank God...'" 50%
Robin is otherwise our hero, but unfortunately not in touch with modern thought; as for example the vanity of reading Latin classics.
When peace comes things do begin to return to some semblance of order. "the whole of the Hosiers’ Boys’ Foundation School had been evacuated, a loathsome expression but common usage now, to Southbridge..." 54%
Mr Birkett, the headmaster of Southbridge (public) School is relieved when the Hosiers' begin planning on returning to London, admitting to having learned nothing from them: "there was a short silence while each member of the party reflected according to his or her light that East and West, day and night, salt and sugar were immutably different and so were the accidents or traditions, however one liked to put it, of birth and class; and that however earnestly well-intentioned gumphs might believe in mixing or levelling all ranks, it would never do." 19%
David Leslie, the charmer, has a larger presence in this book, as usual he wastes his life trying to escape boredom, this time by causing mischief in young hearts. He is witty and intelligent and in a rare moment of insight considers: "...at the same moment he told himself he was being a hypocrite and making himself a motley to the view, simply from his great desire to be liked..." 28%
"Edith, a true woman who adored the hand that held her in check, snuggled up to her Uncle David who against his better judgment and in courageous or some may say foolhardy defiance of Nannie’s basilisk glance, put his arm round her and recomposed himself." 27%
"When he got as far as the river he leaned his arms on the stone parapet and contemplated suicide. But the Rising was shallow under the bridge, with a gravelly bottom, and the prospects were not good." 23%
There is, as usual in Ms. Thirkell's books a few brief, mostly comic, visits below stairs: "“I should peek my needle in his eye,” said Conque, Lady Emily’s French maid, whom a six years’ totalitarian war had driven to tea with the lower orders, “and speet him to his face.
“Well, Miss Conk,” said cook, “it’s not English to do that. Poor old Hitler. I dessay he wishes he were somewhere else now. They say he’s a secret drinker.” The servants’ hall then discussed the private life of the German Chancellor on very insufficient evidence..." 41%
As expected we have romance, though this is not according to the Hollywood model where someone is smitten. Here two couples find one another after first having developed both respect and friendship for one another. This is refreshing, as is most of Ms Thirkell's wit and charm.
And as usual there is a good deal of poetry and literature quoted, seldom sourced. The Angela Thirkell Society UK has a section Guide to the Novels in which these "relusions" are tracked down. This book though is absent in their list, so I had fun looking up references myself. Here are a few:
"Norna of the Fitful Head" found in Walter Scott's The Pirate. The deranged persona of a fallen woman of good family.
"...young ladies who “always smell of bread and butter..." from Beppo - A Venetian Story a rambling poem about Carnival and Venice and women by George Gordon Lord Byron. Stanza 39. "'Tis true your budding Miss is very charming but shy and awkward at first coming out... The nursery still lisps out in all they utter-- Besides they always smell of Bread and Butter".
"How happy in fact could one be with either; not if ’tother dear charmer were away, but if one could have both..." from The Beggars Opera by John Gay. - 1728. "How happy could I be with either – were t'other dear charmer away – But while you thus teaze me together – To neither a word will I say".
"Ignorance, madam, sheer ignorance..." spoken by Dr Johnson in reply to a lady who asked why, in his dictionary, he had defined pastern as the knee of a horse. Quoted in James Boswell: The Life of Samuel Johnson 1791: "ignorance, madam, pure ignorance."
"Cowper’s threnody on poplars" William Cowper The Poplar Field. "The poplars are fell'd, farewell to the shade / And the whispering sound of the cool collonade..." He does not mention their smell, which is probably why he is only a minor poet.
"the Woods of Westermain" by George Meredith A long poem in trochaic tetrameter "Enter these enchanted wood / You who dare..."
"Lines from her favourite poet, Lord Tennyson, floated into her mind. “We were two sisters of one race, She was the fairer in the face,” she said aloud to herself, if we make ourselves clear..." The Sisters by Alfred Tennyson 1843: "We were two daughters of one race / She was the fairest in the face..."
"spinning like fretful midges, as one of her favourite poets, D. G. Rossetti, had written..." from The Blessed Damozel. Gazing down from heaven: "...The void, as low as where this earth / Spins like a fretful midge..."
Near the end of the book comes a long harangue on the trials of women during the war. And, oddly, and heartwarmingly, it is classless!
"...a very large class including all the housewives of England who had been working for sixteen or seventeen hours a day ever since the war began... in a state of permanent tiredness varied by waves of complete exhaustion, yet never letting down anyone dependent on them; this great, valiant, unrecognised class, the stay of domestic England..." 91%
Ms Thirkell's foibles – as I in my ignorance call them – her defence of class and classical learning, are present here as are many of her recurring characters. But like Mrs Morland who manages to vary her stories of the nefarious goings on in Madame Kosta's Dress shop, Ms Thirkell also varies her stories enough and provides enough wit and humour, and exuberance, for this reader to look forward to the next instalment in the series.
July 20, 2023
I ended my review of Miss Bunting with the note that I suspected that it was the last of Thirkell's books that I could enjoy without having to actively ignore her reprehensible views, and sadly, I was right! Before I start talking about that, though, let me mention what I did enjoy about this book, because there were pleasures or why else would I have read it? The largest one for me was seeing more of good-looking, charming, and utterly unreliable David Leslie; Thirkell really did a fantastic job in creating him, and while she never explains his deep selfishness, I think it fits perfectly with being born in 1907, having his childhood darkened by the devastation of WWI, and losing his oldest brother during the war -- I can easily imagine the emotional demands that would've been placed on this charming little boy to entertain and distract the family from what was going on around them & how that would've resulted in an adult man who is, yes, very entertaining and distracting, and wants absolutely no committments whatsoever.
But this is Goodreads, not AO3! I was glad to have another chance to be inside of his head as he behaves very badly with both Anne Fielding and his niece Clarissa, and I was even happier watching those two young women come to an understanding with each other about just what David was doing and how awful it was. Anne and Clarissa made such a lovely contrast, too, with Anne's old-fashioned non-country upbringing and Clarissa's modern, highly-educated trajectory -- I think this is the first time one of Thirkell's 'good' young women wants to go to university & is treated as though she is making an entirely reasonable choice, rather than being a figure of fun or pity. There were also some beautiful moments about the landscape with the Leslie's estate agent talking to Anne about his work, and I utterly identified with Lady Fielding's exhaustion & desire to throw things combined with her knowledge that if she throws a tantrum she'll just feel worse about herself. As always, Thirkell is *so good* at so much of what she does, so insightful about particular angles of women's lives, so sympathetic and sensitive to the ways people cope with unhappiness -- I hate that there is so much awfulness mixed in to her good work.
But turning to the awfulness... this is an elegiac novel, which is entirely fitting for a novel about the end of World War 2 -- except what Thirkell is mourning is not the 75 million dead, or the centres of culture and learning destroyed, or anything a reasonable person might mourn. She is mourning the fact that working class people now have access to things that used to be the exclusive preserve of 'ladies and gentlemen'. For instance, David Leslie looks around at a group of young people and reflects that "of all the company present he and Agnes and possibly Martin were the only remains of a society that had enjoyed the last gleams of a murdered civilization". This makes him feel terrible, as well it might, until one understands that what he is upset about is that for the younger generation, "opera and ballet would mean the great joy of standing in queues with millions of their fellow-citizens" who would include "men in pullovers with wild hair" and "women in trousers or barelegged". Yes, civilisation is over because if Anne Fielding goes to the opera, she might have to stand in a line to get in and might see women wearing pants!
I have been wondering lately if Thirkell meant for her readers to see this as satire -- I would certainly like to believe so, that Thirkell is making fun of David Leslie for having his values in the wrong place, demonstrating his bone-selfishness by wishing that the things he enjoyed in the 20s and 30s were still only available to people of his social class. Unfortunately, I really don't think so; the book is sprinkled with moments like this, moments in which various characters bemoan the fact that nobody respects gentlemen any more, that the government is still rationing food and coal, that foreigners might come to England and stay in all the hotels, that the army in India aren't allowed to murder peaceful protestors, and above all that all kinds of public places of amusement are crowded with the wrong kind of people, so there's nowhere exclusive for the Right People to go enjoy themselves any more.
Let me be clear here: I can certainly imagine how hard it must have been to have survived so many years of war on the home front and then to find all the things one imagined going back to had changed utterly. I don't think the global pandemic that's been happening for the last 10 months will change my part of the world as much as WW2 did Britain, but I can certainly *imagine* what it would be like to emerge from this pandemic only to find that many of the things I'd been waiting to do have changed or vanished. But it's not that Thirkell's characters are mourning the destruction of London by bombs or the way many artists had turned themselves to wartime propaganda, or anything like that -- they are mourning the fact that people they consider less than themselves now have access to pleasures that used to be only theirs. It's like if I was upset that post-pandemic *other people would get to go have brunch* rather than that being some sort of exclusive opportunity for me and my friends. It really is a terrible worldview, and I know it just gets worse as the books go on.
A final note -- this is where Thirkell starts 'rehabilitating' Sam Adams, who I talked a lot about when he showed up in previous books. It's clear that Thirkell has a plan to turn Mr. Adams into one of the Right People & she makes it plain here, with Emmy's line about how "Sir Robert and Mr. Adams say the same things, but Sir Robert says them in a gentleman’s voice and Mr. Adams doesn’t, so Mr. Adams will get in." Mr. Adams is no longer the outrageous self-made man barely tolerable by good society, but instead he's the Labour candidate who has the exactly same values as the Conservative candidate, but is more acceptable to the masses because (for some strange reason) the masses don't like gentlemen. From there it seems a short stretch to his inevitable realisation that he really is a Conservative after all, and if I remember right over the next few books he manages to turn himself into one of the Right People -- not, of course, exactly a gentleman, but by slow degrees close enough to fit in. It's an interesting decision, especially after the way she made it clear in (Miss Bunting that it's impossible for Heather and Anne to ever meet on equal terms -- and she doubles down on that in this book with the speech Mr. Adams gives Sir Robert about how "Men are one thing and girls are another" and thus Anne and Heather cannot be friends, because Heather needs to go far, whereas Anne is right where she needs to be. It's particularly interesting to me upon looking back over this book because Thirkell does actually make a space in the story for Heather by setting up Clarissa as wanting to do 'engineering draughtsmanship' -- couldn't she go to Cambridge and encounter Heather who is also doing maths/engineering things and strike up a friendship through their common interest in work? Maybe so, but that's not the direction it goes; Heather is going to Regardless, I'm not exactly sure what this translates to in modern thought -- is it that Anne and Heather won't have enough in common? Is it that their lives are going to be shaped by different interests, because Heather is still climbing the ladder, whereas Anne has no need to worry about that? Is it that Anne would be sullied by contact with Heather, while Heather gains nothing by contact with Anne? I can understand the feeling of it within the world of the book, but when I try to translate it to something concrete there is really nothing there; people on different life trajectories can be friends, even if Thirkell can't imagine it.
But this is Goodreads, not AO3! I was glad to have another chance to be inside of his head as he behaves very badly with both Anne Fielding and his niece Clarissa, and I was even happier watching those two young women come to an understanding with each other about just what David was doing and how awful it was. Anne and Clarissa made such a lovely contrast, too, with Anne's old-fashioned non-country upbringing and Clarissa's modern, highly-educated trajectory -- I think this is the first time one of Thirkell's 'good' young women wants to go to university & is treated as though she is making an entirely reasonable choice, rather than being a figure of fun or pity. There were also some beautiful moments about the landscape with the Leslie's estate agent talking to Anne about his work, and I utterly identified with Lady Fielding's exhaustion & desire to throw things combined with her knowledge that if she throws a tantrum she'll just feel worse about herself. As always, Thirkell is *so good* at so much of what she does, so insightful about particular angles of women's lives, so sympathetic and sensitive to the ways people cope with unhappiness -- I hate that there is so much awfulness mixed in to her good work.
But turning to the awfulness... this is an elegiac novel, which is entirely fitting for a novel about the end of World War 2 -- except what Thirkell is mourning is not the 75 million dead, or the centres of culture and learning destroyed, or anything a reasonable person might mourn. She is mourning the fact that working class people now have access to things that used to be the exclusive preserve of 'ladies and gentlemen'. For instance, David Leslie looks around at a group of young people and reflects that "of all the company present he and Agnes and possibly Martin were the only remains of a society that had enjoyed the last gleams of a murdered civilization". This makes him feel terrible, as well it might, until one understands that what he is upset about is that for the younger generation, "opera and ballet would mean the great joy of standing in queues with millions of their fellow-citizens" who would include "men in pullovers with wild hair" and "women in trousers or barelegged". Yes, civilisation is over because if Anne Fielding goes to the opera, she might have to stand in a line to get in and might see women wearing pants!
I have been wondering lately if Thirkell meant for her readers to see this as satire -- I would certainly like to believe so, that Thirkell is making fun of David Leslie for having his values in the wrong place, demonstrating his bone-selfishness by wishing that the things he enjoyed in the 20s and 30s were still only available to people of his social class. Unfortunately, I really don't think so; the book is sprinkled with moments like this, moments in which various characters bemoan the fact that nobody respects gentlemen any more, that the government is still rationing food and coal, that foreigners might come to England and stay in all the hotels, that the army in India aren't allowed to murder peaceful protestors, and above all that all kinds of public places of amusement are crowded with the wrong kind of people, so there's nowhere exclusive for the Right People to go enjoy themselves any more.
Let me be clear here: I can certainly imagine how hard it must have been to have survived so many years of war on the home front and then to find all the things one imagined going back to had changed utterly. I don't think the global pandemic that's been happening for the last 10 months will change my part of the world as much as WW2 did Britain, but I can certainly *imagine* what it would be like to emerge from this pandemic only to find that many of the things I'd been waiting to do have changed or vanished. But it's not that Thirkell's characters are mourning the destruction of London by bombs or the way many artists had turned themselves to wartime propaganda, or anything like that -- they are mourning the fact that people they consider less than themselves now have access to pleasures that used to be only theirs. It's like if I was upset that post-pandemic *other people would get to go have brunch* rather than that being some sort of exclusive opportunity for me and my friends. It really is a terrible worldview, and I know it just gets worse as the books go on.
A final note -- this is where Thirkell starts 'rehabilitating' Sam Adams, who I talked a lot about when he showed up in previous books. It's clear that Thirkell has a plan to turn Mr. Adams into one of the Right People & she makes it plain here, with Emmy's line about how "Sir Robert and Mr. Adams say the same things, but Sir Robert says them in a gentleman’s voice and Mr. Adams doesn’t, so Mr. Adams will get in." Mr. Adams is no longer the outrageous self-made man barely tolerable by good society, but instead he's the Labour candidate who has the exactly same values as the Conservative candidate, but is more acceptable to the masses because (for some strange reason) the masses don't like gentlemen. From there it seems a short stretch to his inevitable realisation that he really is a Conservative after all, and if I remember right over the next few books he manages to turn himself into one of the Right People -- not, of course, exactly a gentleman, but by slow degrees close enough to fit in. It's an interesting decision, especially after the way she made it clear in (Miss Bunting that it's impossible for Heather and Anne to ever meet on equal terms -- and she doubles down on that in this book with the speech Mr. Adams gives Sir Robert about how "Men are one thing and girls are another" and thus Anne and Heather cannot be friends, because Heather needs to go far, whereas Anne is right where she needs to be. It's particularly interesting to me upon looking back over this book because Thirkell does actually make a space in the story for Heather by setting up Clarissa as wanting to do 'engineering draughtsmanship' -- couldn't she go to Cambridge and encounter Heather who is also doing maths/engineering things and strike up a friendship through their common interest in work? Maybe so, but that's not the direction it goes; Heather is going to Regardless, I'm not exactly sure what this translates to in modern thought -- is it that Anne and Heather won't have enough in common? Is it that their lives are going to be shaped by different interests, because Heather is still climbing the ladder, whereas Anne has no need to worry about that? Is it that Anne would be sullied by contact with Heather, while Heather gains nothing by contact with Anne? I can understand the feeling of it within the world of the book, but when I try to translate it to something concrete there is really nothing there; people on different life trajectories can be friends, even if Thirkell can't imagine it.
July 25, 2015
Set between May and August 1945, this is a novel where the end of the Second World War is a mere backdrop to the really important questions of life: when will the Jersey cow calve? What is the latest gossip in the perpetual feud between the Deanery and the Palace in Barchester? Will David Leslie ever stop flirting, and when will Anne Fielding ever feel really and truly grown up?
In one way, of course Thirkell's undercurrent of what at its best is mere stupid snobbishness about 'breeding' and at its worst turns into rants about 'foreigners' impedes enjoyment. In another it's useful to be reminded that the end of the war and the 1945 election, now seen through nostalgic rose-coloured glasses as a great national moment, felt like nothing of the sort to people at the time, who instead had all kinds of unheroic thoughts.
Meanwhile there are ways in which this is a thoroughly enjoyable read. Watching the characters in a series grow and change, and in a series like Thirkell's almost always get some deserved happiness, is pleasurable. Her handling of characters from the bold brushstrokes of a Rose Birkett to the delicate pastels of Anne and Clarissa is masterly. The evocation of what it is like to feel a thousand tiny different things in the course of an afternoon as the smallest social exchanges can somehow lead to delight or despair is brilliantly done, and done with both a satirical eye and a kindly heart.
And this novel, like all good comic novels in the English tradition, both gives us an idyllic rural England where nothing ever changes and reminds us how constantly changing that England is. There is also a more coherent theme, never explicitly drawn out, than in some other Thirkell novels. What is 'peace'? Is it the end of the war? Is it the moments of stillness in a rural summer scene so many of the characters experience? Is it finding a partner after the emotional storms of flirtation? Or is it the peace which runs like a thread through the novel from the visits to graves and memorials to the gentle and beautifully written final scene?
In one way, of course Thirkell's undercurrent of what at its best is mere stupid snobbishness about 'breeding' and at its worst turns into rants about 'foreigners' impedes enjoyment. In another it's useful to be reminded that the end of the war and the 1945 election, now seen through nostalgic rose-coloured glasses as a great national moment, felt like nothing of the sort to people at the time, who instead had all kinds of unheroic thoughts.
Meanwhile there are ways in which this is a thoroughly enjoyable read. Watching the characters in a series grow and change, and in a series like Thirkell's almost always get some deserved happiness, is pleasurable. Her handling of characters from the bold brushstrokes of a Rose Birkett to the delicate pastels of Anne and Clarissa is masterly. The evocation of what it is like to feel a thousand tiny different things in the course of an afternoon as the smallest social exchanges can somehow lead to delight or despair is brilliantly done, and done with both a satirical eye and a kindly heart.
And this novel, like all good comic novels in the English tradition, both gives us an idyllic rural England where nothing ever changes and reminds us how constantly changing that England is. There is also a more coherent theme, never explicitly drawn out, than in some other Thirkell novels. What is 'peace'? Is it the end of the war? Is it the moments of stillness in a rural summer scene so many of the characters experience? Is it finding a partner after the emotional storms of flirtation? Or is it the peace which runs like a thread through the novel from the visits to graves and memorials to the gentle and beautifully written final scene?
July 5, 2010
I read a slew of Angela Thirkell books about 15-20 years ago. As escapist literature, they are great! Thirkell is Anthony Trollope's granddaughter who continued the story of Barsetshire made famous in grandpere's books. They are set between the two World Wars.
Delightful, fluffy, endearing....
Delightful, fluffy, endearing....
May 5, 2010
Great novel about England as WWII ends. Charming author. It is at Woodland Public library - first checked out in the 40s
April 24, 2022
3½ stars.
August 6, 2024
Enjoyable and amusing just like the others in the series. After six years of war so many of these people are totally out of their depth as "peace breaks out". (They shouldn't worry, Britain lived on rations into the 50s, longer than defeated Germany!)
I approve of all the new young couples. :)
I approve of all the new young couples. :)
December 16, 2025
“Peace Breaks Out” is the 15th book of Angela Thirkell’s Barsetshire series which has many returing characters. The Leslies, the Grahams, the Fielding and the new family the Halliday where Slyvia Halliday is one of the main characters in this story as well as Anne Fielding. The war is coming to an end and one would think of Thirkell expressing happiness but it seems the “peace” brings some more domestic issues and political changes. The people seek a change now matter what kind so Churchill is out and the liberals come in power. Looking to 2025, it seems what a mistake in society changes with the mindset which started seeds long ago and even prior to WW 2, some of the English had been too fond of socialism and praise of communism. This story of Barsetshire has the usual confusion of love interest in Thirkell’s formula and characters staying true, as Lady Graham having admirers and her brother David Leslie flirting and becoming bored easily with conquests.
Story in short-Slyvia and Anne enter into the Leslie/Graham family circle and become friends and much more by the end of the story.
-Hatch End- village between Little Misfit and High Rising
- new and returning characters-
❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌spoiler alert
- Mrs. Hubback- owns The Shop that is the go to for the community.
-Hubback- maid of the Hallidays and daughter of Mrs. Hubback
-Mr. Scatcherd- artist who has a series of rural paintings, “Rising Rambler”, owns little house called “Rokeby”
-Miss Scatcherd- artist’s niece- Hettie middle aged and keeps her uncle grounded.
-Lady Agnes Graham- kids-Emmy,Clarissa, Robert, Edith, James, Henry and John. Everytime she appears in a novel, some young man falls to a kind of goddess worship, this time George Halliday is infected.
-Mr. Macpherson- old agent for the bulls at Rushwater owned by the Leslie’s grandson Martin after Mr. Leslie’s death. Hoping for Martin Lesile and David Leslie to marry before he dies.
-Miss Merriman- Mrs. Leslie’s helper and admirer of Mrs. Morland
-Mrs. Fothergill-cook
-Mr. Geo Panter- cousin of Panter- sells alcohol
—Caxton- the carpenter - his father was the gamekeeper of Lord Pomfret
-Jimmy Panter - extremely bad boy- grandson Mrs. Hubback
-Panter - Mr. Halliday’s carter
-Mrs. Panter- does the laundry and washing- live Clarence Cottage with her husband
-Mr. Middleton of Laverings- mentioned but not active in story
-Julian Rivers- in the army, artist of National Importance but a character
-Geoffrey Harvey-he works in the London
-Hallidays- Ellie and Leonard -daughter Slyvia in service as well as her brother George
-Captain George Halliday- son-24 - worships Lady Agnes Graham
-Sylvia Halliday- modest kind beauty who David flirts with but her love for Martin Leslie, they get engaged
-David Leslie -David is always flirting and easily bored. Flirts with Slyvia Halliday and Anne Fielding. Clarissa who is a teenager puts her 38 year old uncle in place but apologizes after her cousin Rose Bingham, in her mid twenties talks to her and finally Rose sees that David is causing Martin to be upset because Martin loves Slyvia and David is just being David holding hands with Slyvia. Rose tells David they are to be married since he proposed to her years ago and he goes along happily for Rose can make him happy.
-Anne Fielding- thought she loved David but when she finally sees what his relatives kindlybsay about his being selfish and self centered, she sees it and becomes friends with Rose Bingham and Clarissa Graham when David trued to pit girl against girl. Anne sees that Robin Dale is her love and after he tells of his new position at the school, she mentions his need for a wife and he proposes which she accepted. They tell his father Pastor Dale who is happy but very old and dies from old age.
-Mrs. Crawley - her daughter Octavia Needham -Octavia is pregnant again.
-Mrs. Noel Merton- Lydia Leslie is pregnant again.
-Madame Tomkins- dressmaker
-Pollett- parlourmaid
-The Carters - children Bobbie, Angela and Philip
-Robin Dale - teaching classics at Southbridge- friends with Anne Fielding. They end up engaged for real this book and he is to be a head master in his school for boys.
-The Birketts- both at Southbridge and Mr. Birkett the headmaster of whole school. Rose and her husband come visit.
-Pomfrets- Sally and Gillie, Gillie seems in ill health but Sally manages him and their children.
-Martin Leslie- wounded at Italy breeds bulls at Rushwater after grandfather died. His cousin Emmy Graham loves bulls and works with him at the ranch. Martin loves Slyvia but thinks hus uncle David won her heart but ends up engaged to her.
-Lettice Marling married to Barclay, sister Lucy
-Mary (Preston) and John Leslie- have two boys at Southbridge, Leslie major and minor are supposedly boring boys but it seems not always the case.
-Siddon- housekeeper to Siddon
-Bishop Joram - bought “Aunt Sally” at rummage sale
-Adams - runing for Barchester political seat against Fiedling and wins
-Lord and Lady Fielding- Anne is their daughter and she ends up engaged to Robin Dale. The last book Lord Fielding did not especially care for Adams but in this book they ate friendly at the club and respect each other. When Adams wins the Fielding are not really uoset but seem happy.
-Ted Pilwar— fiance of Heather Adams who is in college now. Father does business with Heather’s father.
-Tommy Needham and Octavia
-Jane and Captain Francis Gresham - plan to make home at Hallbury living with Admiral Palliser, Jane’s father. Francis came back after long four year absence abroad while serving.
-Simnet-Birkett’s butler
-Miss Banks- teaching at Southbridge and too outspoken.
-Rose Bingham- was in book 2, she has been living in Paris and a cousin of the Leslies, David and Rose are engaged.
Story in short-Slyvia and Anne enter into the Leslie/Graham family circle and become friends and much more by the end of the story.
-Hatch End- village between Little Misfit and High Rising
- new and returning characters-
❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌spoiler alert
- Mrs. Hubback- owns The Shop that is the go to for the community.
-Hubback- maid of the Hallidays and daughter of Mrs. Hubback
-Mr. Scatcherd- artist who has a series of rural paintings, “Rising Rambler”, owns little house called “Rokeby”
-Miss Scatcherd- artist’s niece- Hettie middle aged and keeps her uncle grounded.
-Lady Agnes Graham- kids-Emmy,Clarissa, Robert, Edith, James, Henry and John. Everytime she appears in a novel, some young man falls to a kind of goddess worship, this time George Halliday is infected.
-Mr. Macpherson- old agent for the bulls at Rushwater owned by the Leslie’s grandson Martin after Mr. Leslie’s death. Hoping for Martin Lesile and David Leslie to marry before he dies.
-Miss Merriman- Mrs. Leslie’s helper and admirer of Mrs. Morland
-Mrs. Fothergill-cook
-Mr. Geo Panter- cousin of Panter- sells alcohol
—Caxton- the carpenter - his father was the gamekeeper of Lord Pomfret
-Jimmy Panter - extremely bad boy- grandson Mrs. Hubback
-Panter - Mr. Halliday’s carter
-Mrs. Panter- does the laundry and washing- live Clarence Cottage with her husband
-Mr. Middleton of Laverings- mentioned but not active in story
-Julian Rivers- in the army, artist of National Importance but a character
-Geoffrey Harvey-he works in the London
-Hallidays- Ellie and Leonard -daughter Slyvia in service as well as her brother George
-Captain George Halliday- son-24 - worships Lady Agnes Graham
-Sylvia Halliday- modest kind beauty who David flirts with but her love for Martin Leslie, they get engaged
-David Leslie -David is always flirting and easily bored. Flirts with Slyvia Halliday and Anne Fielding. Clarissa who is a teenager puts her 38 year old uncle in place but apologizes after her cousin Rose Bingham, in her mid twenties talks to her and finally Rose sees that David is causing Martin to be upset because Martin loves Slyvia and David is just being David holding hands with Slyvia. Rose tells David they are to be married since he proposed to her years ago and he goes along happily for Rose can make him happy.
-Anne Fielding- thought she loved David but when she finally sees what his relatives kindlybsay about his being selfish and self centered, she sees it and becomes friends with Rose Bingham and Clarissa Graham when David trued to pit girl against girl. Anne sees that Robin Dale is her love and after he tells of his new position at the school, she mentions his need for a wife and he proposes which she accepted. They tell his father Pastor Dale who is happy but very old and dies from old age.
-Mrs. Crawley - her daughter Octavia Needham -Octavia is pregnant again.
-Mrs. Noel Merton- Lydia Leslie is pregnant again.
-Madame Tomkins- dressmaker
-Pollett- parlourmaid
-The Carters - children Bobbie, Angela and Philip
-Robin Dale - teaching classics at Southbridge- friends with Anne Fielding. They end up engaged for real this book and he is to be a head master in his school for boys.
-The Birketts- both at Southbridge and Mr. Birkett the headmaster of whole school. Rose and her husband come visit.
-Pomfrets- Sally and Gillie, Gillie seems in ill health but Sally manages him and their children.
-Martin Leslie- wounded at Italy breeds bulls at Rushwater after grandfather died. His cousin Emmy Graham loves bulls and works with him at the ranch. Martin loves Slyvia but thinks hus uncle David won her heart but ends up engaged to her.
-Lettice Marling married to Barclay, sister Lucy
-Mary (Preston) and John Leslie- have two boys at Southbridge, Leslie major and minor are supposedly boring boys but it seems not always the case.
-Siddon- housekeeper to Siddon
-Bishop Joram - bought “Aunt Sally” at rummage sale
-Adams - runing for Barchester political seat against Fiedling and wins
-Lord and Lady Fielding- Anne is their daughter and she ends up engaged to Robin Dale. The last book Lord Fielding did not especially care for Adams but in this book they ate friendly at the club and respect each other. When Adams wins the Fielding are not really uoset but seem happy.
-Ted Pilwar— fiance of Heather Adams who is in college now. Father does business with Heather’s father.
-Tommy Needham and Octavia
-Jane and Captain Francis Gresham - plan to make home at Hallbury living with Admiral Palliser, Jane’s father. Francis came back after long four year absence abroad while serving.
-Simnet-Birkett’s butler
-Miss Banks- teaching at Southbridge and too outspoken.
-Rose Bingham- was in book 2, she has been living in Paris and a cousin of the Leslies, David and Rose are engaged.
November 12, 2023
Easily the worst of Thirkell's books so far in the Barsetshire series. She probably should have taken a year off from writing because everything is dreary, everything is cause for complaint. Instead of celebrating peace, her characters now complain that the refugees and foreigners are getting all the food, fuel, and clothing while British citizens are forced to go without. Thirkell's class consciousness and xenophobia are unrestrained so that everyone who is not "like us" is dirty and stupid. She also seems to have tired of her characters. David Leslie, introduced in Wild Strawberries as a very handsome and desirable bachelor has now become middle-aged and something of a joke to the young girls he still flirts with. It's a sad ending for such a romantic character.
February 18, 2021
One of her milder stories, with romance between Martin and Sylvia (lovely but dull as they are) and Robin and Anne (sweet and pure), both almost derailed by the easily bored David, who spices things up a bit and gets his own happy ending. Read it for her rant about the results of peace, which is too long to quote here but captures the exhaustion and general exasperation of the populace at the prospect of finally being done with the war.
Well, I've happily read it again (June 2012). Thirkell is very comforting.
And again in 2021. Her annoyance at the return of peace after everyone had adjusted to wartime rationing, etc., is quite bracing.
Well, I've happily read it again (June 2012). Thirkell is very comforting.
And again in 2021. Her annoyance at the return of peace after everyone had adjusted to wartime rationing, etc., is quite bracing.
June 24, 2022
Apparently Angela Thirkell was one of those Brits who liked peace even less than war. More inconvenience, more shortages, and a less competent government (in her opinion). Still, Barsetshire society manages to find enough single young men and women at loose ends and ready to get engaged at the end of the book. This time there are seven of them: four young men and three young women. Will the right people wind up with each other? We certainly hope so.
Peace Breaks Out was published in 1947, the year before my father's parents left England with their two teenage children. Lucky for me that peace was worse than war, or my parents would never have met.
Peace Breaks Out was published in 1947, the year before my father's parents left England with their two teenage children. Lucky for me that peace was worse than war, or my parents would never have met.
July 26, 2017
Oh. Dear. Thirkell is a witty writer and many of her characters are delightful, but she is such a snob. She despises the indiscriminate way that the lower orders enjoy themselves, and is convinced that said lower orders cannot take care of themselves and only survive through the tireless work of the gentry, to whom they are happy to tug their forelocks. As a descendent of the lower orders myself I think we're managing quite well now that we have access to the education previously kept by the upper classes for themselves. Thirkell's attitude would be quite ordinary in the 19th century, but is appalling post-WW2. And yet I'll probably continue to read her for her wit and romance.
January 22, 2016
VJ Day occurs in this book, and peace is even more annoying than the war. But three couples get engaged or married. The old rector Dr. Dale, dies at the very end.
August 18, 2019
Not my favorite Thirkell but still a pleasure.
August 1, 2022
I’ve been looking forward to reading Thirkell’s entire Barsetshire series, so I hope the more enervating aspects here are not signs of things to come. The book is filled with complaining — no more enjoyable in a review than in life, so I’ll start with the positives!
The Good (all assuming one has read the earlier books):
- We see a lot of Anne Fielding, as well as Robin Dale, and assorted Leslies, all of whom I like
- For the Tennyson fans: Anne quotes with abandon and delight
- Thirkell’s descriptions of life at Rushwater (the Leslie family home and lands) ring true from what little I know of trying to hold on to an ancestral family property in England in the present day. While old Mr. Leslie could be a gentleman farmer and breeder of prize-winning bulls, his heir’s struggles involve lots of “farm” with the “gentlemen” aspect mostly a memory.
- The self-made and socially rough Mr Adams also returns, decent and a bit more complicated than one might imagine. I think this generally positive portrayal was a big step for Thirkell, although at one point a character speculated that Adams was such a good sort that surely he will eventually leave Labour and join the Conservative party. So AT is not entirely willing to embrace the new classes, but baby steps.
The Less Good: I don’t know what it’s like to have one’s entire social structure essentially collapse, which must be beyond disorienting and upsetting. And yet. The end of the book includes multi-page rants that just aren’t engaging. Maybe it’s too much to ask an author to retain her cleverness and good prose when the barbarians are at the gates, but in these sections it really stops being a novel and devolves into just venting.
The book includes mostly happy endings, as always. And I enjoyed seeing characters grow up — e.g., David Leslie, the careless heartbreaker who was charming as a young man, is now 39 and both he and those around him realize something must give before he ceases to charm at all.
Ultimately it’s because I enjoy Angela Thirkell so much that I was a bit disappointed in the book. Fingers crossed moving forward, as I am now so invested in the many (many) denizens of Barsetshire!
The Good (all assuming one has read the earlier books):
- We see a lot of Anne Fielding, as well as Robin Dale, and assorted Leslies, all of whom I like
- For the Tennyson fans: Anne quotes with abandon and delight
- Thirkell’s descriptions of life at Rushwater (the Leslie family home and lands) ring true from what little I know of trying to hold on to an ancestral family property in England in the present day. While old Mr. Leslie could be a gentleman farmer and breeder of prize-winning bulls, his heir’s struggles involve lots of “farm” with the “gentlemen” aspect mostly a memory.
- The self-made and socially rough Mr Adams also returns, decent and a bit more complicated than one might imagine. I think this generally positive portrayal was a big step for Thirkell, although at one point a character speculated that Adams was such a good sort that surely he will eventually leave Labour and join the Conservative party. So AT is not entirely willing to embrace the new classes, but baby steps.
The Less Good: I don’t know what it’s like to have one’s entire social structure essentially collapse, which must be beyond disorienting and upsetting. And yet. The end of the book includes multi-page rants that just aren’t engaging. Maybe it’s too much to ask an author to retain her cleverness and good prose when the barbarians are at the gates, but in these sections it really stops being a novel and devolves into just venting.
The book includes mostly happy endings, as always. And I enjoyed seeing characters grow up — e.g., David Leslie, the careless heartbreaker who was charming as a young man, is now 39 and both he and those around him realize something must give before he ceases to charm at all.
Ultimately it’s because I enjoy Angela Thirkell so much that I was a bit disappointed in the book. Fingers crossed moving forward, as I am now so invested in the many (many) denizens of Barsetshire!
June 4, 2021
I have a love hate relationship with Thirkell. Most of the time I love her Barsetshire books and can ignore the racism, etc that she occasionally expresses. These were written in a different time with different values. But occasionally I just can’t. This book was one of those times. It’s definitely not my favorite novel from this series. Granted the US isn’t Great Britain, but my mother, who was 26 when the war ended, always told me how ecstatic she and her family were, especially on VJ Day. Not in this novel! VE Day is bad and VJ Day is worse, all because people weren’t told in the right way or time? And those huge crowds celebrating outside of Buckingham Palace? Nope, not “real” British people. The “real” British people were unable to celebrate because they couldn’t get bread or milk because all the shops were closed and they weren’t warned and on and on. Unbelievable.
My guess is her bitterness at Labour’s landslide victory in June 1945 infected the entire book. That victory just ruined EVERYTHING and they were all doomed. So, her xenophobia, classism, racism, etc are out in full force. And the whining about refugees getting all the best food and clothes! Refugees who were driven out of their homes by murderous Nazis! And the complaining about “their” food being sent to those ungrateful liberated Europeans, you know, the ones who were STARVING.! Yes rationing sucked, yes it was hard but no one freaking starved to death in Great Britain, unlike, say Holland or France. Recent research has concluded that the British during WWII with rationing were actually healthier than their modern day counterparts who enjoy unlimited food, both healthy and unhealthy.
Post-war Britain was tough and rationing did go on too long. But why it went on so long is more nuanced than Thirkell presents. It wasn’t just bad Labour, good Conservatives.
My guess is her bitterness at Labour’s landslide victory in June 1945 infected the entire book. That victory just ruined EVERYTHING and they were all doomed. So, her xenophobia, classism, racism, etc are out in full force. And the whining about refugees getting all the best food and clothes! Refugees who were driven out of their homes by murderous Nazis! And the complaining about “their” food being sent to those ungrateful liberated Europeans, you know, the ones who were STARVING.! Yes rationing sucked, yes it was hard but no one freaking starved to death in Great Britain, unlike, say Holland or France. Recent research has concluded that the British during WWII with rationing were actually healthier than their modern day counterparts who enjoy unlimited food, both healthy and unhealthy.
Post-war Britain was tough and rationing did go on too long. But why it went on so long is more nuanced than Thirkell presents. It wasn’t just bad Labour, good Conservatives.
August 23, 2018
The ending was perfectly splendid. A sucker punch to the feels (not my phrase but it works perfectly). I finished it sitting on the deck and looked up at the dusky night sky and felt peace.
I loved getting an inside glimpse of how the English reacted to the end of the war and how it almost created more chaos than the war routines they were used to. Anne Fielding has become one of my favorite characters. I enjoy reading Thirkell’s brash, bold, fun-loving female characters. Anne is completely different from that, and I loved it. She’s quiet, intelligent, introspective, quotes her favorite poets at just the right moment, and blossoms beautifully into a steady and clear-sighted sense of self.
I didn’t care for the parts about the artist, Mr. Scatcherd, but they were few and far between. What a surprise to see arrogant, spoiled David Leslie meet his match in two characters! So very satisfying, especially with all his ennui. He might be one of my least favorite characters in the series. I much prefer reading about young men like Robin Dale and Colin Keith and Martin Leslie.
I loved getting an inside glimpse of how the English reacted to the end of the war and how it almost created more chaos than the war routines they were used to. Anne Fielding has become one of my favorite characters. I enjoy reading Thirkell’s brash, bold, fun-loving female characters. Anne is completely different from that, and I loved it. She’s quiet, intelligent, introspective, quotes her favorite poets at just the right moment, and blossoms beautifully into a steady and clear-sighted sense of self.
I didn’t care for the parts about the artist, Mr. Scatcherd, but they were few and far between. What a surprise to see arrogant, spoiled David Leslie meet his match in two characters! So very satisfying, especially with all his ennui. He might be one of my least favorite characters in the series. I much prefer reading about young men like Robin Dale and Colin Keith and Martin Leslie.
March 17, 2020
Another re-read that I didn't post about before. Sad in that peace doesn't bring normalcy for these upper-class English folk; it's entertaining to see Thirkell's sidebars about the undeserving poor and undeserving foreigners. However, this one is fun as it wraps up a few longtime characters--David Leslie meets his match! Good reading for these uncertain days in "Coronacation 2020". Lots of stiff upper lips here, and that's what we need, too.
Read
June 3, 2019Dnf p. 40. The author is a fine writer, & tells this type of story well enough. The problem for me, is I'm not feeling this type of story right now. It's a comedy of personalities, & a sort of cheeky satire re: people of a certain place & time. It's not the type of world I want to be immersed in right now, though. I'll leave this one to other types of readers.
April 29, 2025
The politics were a heavy lift in this one. I understand her melancholy as the insulated world she wrote about was worn down and passing away with the war and it's aftermath. The pandemic and it's aftermath has beaten down and swept away a lot that I had taken for granted. It seems a rotten new world order has taken over.
At least we have settled David who was a very annoying character.
At least we have settled David who was a very annoying character.
September 30, 2018
This fifteenth in Thirkell's Baresetshire Chronicles is just as good as the previous volumes. In this one, WWII comes to an end, and the characters have to adjust to the lack of war, and find peace time most difficult. It's witty and snarky, lightly romantic, and fully satisfying to read.
May 13, 2023
Amusing, snobbish, and of its time. The very idea of one of the "gentry" going round telling the "peasantry" to vote Conservative in the post-war election which saw Churchill lose office, raised my Australian egalitarian hackles more than somewhat!
February 11, 2024
Cheer yourself up and read this immediately. She is so funny, so clever - I have to re-read sentences because I realise she has smuggled yet another zinger in under cover of a straight-faced phrase. Just wonderful.
September 16, 2024
Not my cup of tea. This is a novel of a type that just doesn't appeal to me: lots of "characters" and little feuds and minor issues in a small English village, in this novel, just prior to the end of WWII. Couldn't finish.
January 9, 2025
Thirkell portrays Britain in the late 40s
Many of Thirkell’s recurring characters get a mention here. There’s an overlying message about people being against the peace, and I didn’t know whether it was satirical or genuine. The whole book had a slightly bitter tone.
Many of Thirkell’s recurring characters get a mention here. There’s an overlying message about people being against the peace, and I didn’t know whether it was satirical or genuine. The whole book had a slightly bitter tone.
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