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Lilla's eeuw
Het levensverhaal van Lilla, de overgrootmoeder van de Engelse Frances Osborne, die met dit boek haar debuut maakt. Lilla wordt in 1882 als jongste van een tweeling in de Noord-Chinese havenplaats Tsjefoe geboren. Haar ouders zijn hier bij toeval terechtgekomen. Als haar tweelingzusje Ada gaat trouwen, en uit China zal vertrekken, besluit Lilla ook - overhaast - te trouwen. Ze vertrekt met haar echtgenoot Ernie naar Calcutta. Het verhaal volgt het verdere, bewogen leven van Lilla, onder meer in het koloniale India, in Engeland, in een Japans interneringskamp in China, en weer in Engeland waar ze met Ada nog enkele jaren op Hampton Court woont. Een mooi en goedgeschreven portret van een vrouw die in haar lange leven twee wereldoorlogen en diverse burgeroorlogen meemaakte, drie maal trouwde, kinderen kreeg, en zich ontwikkelde van huisvrouw tot zakenvrouw.
Met zwartwitfoto's, een kaart van China, en recepten uit een kookschrift dat Lilla als herinnering aan betere tijden maakte toen ze in het interneringskamp vastzat. Het schrift bevindt zich heden in het Imperial War Museum in Londen
Met zwartwitfoto's, een kaart van China, en recepten uit een kookschrift dat Lilla als herinnering aan betere tijden maakte toen ze in het interneringskamp vastzat. Het schrift bevindt zich heden in het Imperial War Museum in Londen
358 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2004
31 people are currently reading
280 people want to read
About the author
Frances Osborne
15 books26 followersFrances Osborne was born in London and studied philosophy and modern languages at Oxford University. She is the author of two biographies; Lilla's Feast and The Bolter: Idina Sackville. Her first historical novel, Park Lane, will be published Summer 2012. Her articles have appeared in The Daily Telegraph, The Times, The Independent, the Daily Mail, and Vogue. She lives in London with her husband, George Osborne, and their two children.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 76 reviews
March 30, 2014
It took me a while to work out what I wanted to say here about this book, which was discussed by my book group a couple of weeks ago.
We all enjoyed it - a fascinating set of stories about life for foreigners in China's Treaty ports in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; attitudes and customs of the English rulers of India during the British raj and their connections back in the home country. Lilla herself proved herself to be remarkably resilient through the various disasters that beset her, including her awful first marriage and internment in a Japanese concentration camp in China during World War II.
We all admired the way she had been able to reinvent herself over and again to overcome the many obstacles she confronted during her very long life.
And then someone commented on the tone of the authorial voice and the absence of any of the colonised peoples from this narrative, only the colonisers, both at home and abroad. In fact the book is imbued with the spirit of the Empire and attitudes from the colonial eras and reveals the closed world views that permeated the expatriate enclaves in China in particular.
The author has done a great deal of hypothesising and interpreting what Lilla must have thought and what she would have felt and so on. In fact, while the book is presented as biography, it crosses the line with fiction. As a group, we are mostly Australian born but several are from the UK and two of us have forebears who lived and worked in India during the Imperial years. We had a very lively discussion about the nature of the English class system, racial intolerance and bigotry, the ruthlessness of colonial enterprises and the vast difference there now is between Australia and England as cultures. And how much we love our climate!
We all enjoyed it - a fascinating set of stories about life for foreigners in China's Treaty ports in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; attitudes and customs of the English rulers of India during the British raj and their connections back in the home country. Lilla herself proved herself to be remarkably resilient through the various disasters that beset her, including her awful first marriage and internment in a Japanese concentration camp in China during World War II.
We all admired the way she had been able to reinvent herself over and again to overcome the many obstacles she confronted during her very long life.
And then someone commented on the tone of the authorial voice and the absence of any of the colonised peoples from this narrative, only the colonisers, both at home and abroad. In fact the book is imbued with the spirit of the Empire and attitudes from the colonial eras and reveals the closed world views that permeated the expatriate enclaves in China in particular.
The author has done a great deal of hypothesising and interpreting what Lilla must have thought and what she would have felt and so on. In fact, while the book is presented as biography, it crosses the line with fiction. As a group, we are mostly Australian born but several are from the UK and two of us have forebears who lived and worked in India during the Imperial years. We had a very lively discussion about the nature of the English class system, racial intolerance and bigotry, the ruthlessness of colonial enterprises and the vast difference there now is between Australia and England as cultures. And how much we love our climate!
August 19, 2014
I read this because Lilla was married to my great uncle Ernie Howell. A bit of a shit really as he married her for her money and then discovered she didn't have any! Consequently he was not very nice to her for quite a while. Anyway they lived in India for a while and then after he died she travelled the world ending up in China (where she was born) in the 1930s. She was imprisoned by the Japanese during the war and had a pretty awful time. So her story is interesting but Frances Osborne's style leaves a lot to be desired - a bit gushing. The book is full of 'I can see her now....', ' I can just imagine her.....', 'she must have felt....' - very irritating. I shan't read another one by her.
June 1, 2021
I really enjoyed this biography.
October 29, 2020
Such an interesting book. It turned up on my shelves and I don't know who gave it to me. This Lilla, the great grandmother of the author, was born in China in the British trading post. Her parents were British. She spent years in a Japanese Prison of War camp in China during ww2. What I found so amazing was that she had stayed in China up to that point and even returned there after the war, before 1949. They had various opportunities to escape after the Japanese invaded but they always felt that China was their home and somehow convinced themselves that the Japanese would not treat them the same way that they saw them treating the Chinese. Well, it was their home and they were blind to the bigger picture of how the Chinese saw their presence. When they did go to England they were looked down on because they were 'Chinese' and after the war they struggled to get British citizenship! It is so difficult to look back, knowing what we know now, and imagine how they couldn't see what was coming. It makes me think about our own generations and the climate catastrophe which is on our door step. So many people, me included, cannot imagine what is coming. We make choices about our lives that do not take it into account. Part of why they didn't leave was economic. Lilla had known relative poverty but before the war she was well off. That was not a condition she took for granted and she couldn't give up their material wealth. When you read how they starved in the prison camp, you wonder about the price they paid. While she was in the camp she wrote a recipe book of all the food she imagined eating! This book has ended up in the Imperial War museum, which is the starting point for Frances Osborne's research into her great grandmother. A wonderful read.
February 22, 2012
For a first book, Lilla's Feast is a pretty exceptional achievement.
Osborne said that she originally intended the story of her great-grandmother to be the basis for a novel, but that it was so exceptional that she felt it couldn't be written any other way.
The result is a chatty, readable story of a woman's life, with all the accoutrement of tragedy, family, photographs and secrets that one would expect in a hundred-year life, played out heart-wrenchingly against the backdrop of the tumultuous first half of the twentieth century.
Osborne does not hide her own partiality, frequently writing of how she felt as a girl going to see Lilla and how the events described affected her emotionally. This can occasionally grate on the reader, who doesn't particularly want to know how the author is feeling when they are following Lilla's journey themselves. In this way the book sometimes reads a little too like a genealogy story written by family, for family. But mostly the asides add to the chatty style of storytelling: it is as though we are sitting across the table from Osborne, listening to her tell the story of her great-grandmother's fascinating life. One of the best things about the story is that many of us probably have similar stories in our own family trees. This is a biography and a history written out of interest and love, not because the author was related to an important figure in history (although her next book The Bolter is something a little more like this). Possibly the most interesting way of telling history is to show the reader how it affected those who were there at the time.
I occasionally got tired of the flowery food descriptions inserted into Lilla's story at strategic moments. Osborne certainly uses her imagination to full effect to give Lilla a voice where she has none anymore, winding her own impressions of Lilla's feelings with descriptions of the way Lilla used cooking and homemaking to solve problems and sort out her life. This got tiresome at times, to the point where it was obvious padding of the story. The same goes for using her cookbook as a focus point for the story - a book begun just before her internment in the Japanese concentration camp in China and written throughout her three years there. Osborne uses it as a device to guess Lilla's feelings and to reason out her actions. Ultimately, she is revealing the problem of every biographer in that, how can we possibly know what was going through Lilla's mind as she wrote it, as she hid it in a suitcase, as she donated it to a museum? On reflection, the device is a little obvious, but it still works fairly well.
Lilla's story is well developed, her life outlined and filled in but not nicely resolved, as Lilla's life was not resolved. She reached one hundred years old amidst the question of whether or not she was a British subject at all. Unable to return to China, the country of her birth and the place she considered her home, she ended her life in England, surrounded by family but still feeling like a foreigner. Lilla's life, like that of much of her family and so many other ex-Empire citizens, petered out in a place that no longer had any room for them, in a pale finality without any of the glory of the Empire of her youth. In the final pages of Lilla's life, Osborne brings home the painful feelings of being adrift in a world that was totally unlike the one into which Lilla had been born.
Overall, a flawed but extremely enjoyable book that draws the reader into the old world of Lilla's youth and plucks at their heart when that world crumbles away.
Osborne said that she originally intended the story of her great-grandmother to be the basis for a novel, but that it was so exceptional that she felt it couldn't be written any other way.
The result is a chatty, readable story of a woman's life, with all the accoutrement of tragedy, family, photographs and secrets that one would expect in a hundred-year life, played out heart-wrenchingly against the backdrop of the tumultuous first half of the twentieth century.
Osborne does not hide her own partiality, frequently writing of how she felt as a girl going to see Lilla and how the events described affected her emotionally. This can occasionally grate on the reader, who doesn't particularly want to know how the author is feeling when they are following Lilla's journey themselves. In this way the book sometimes reads a little too like a genealogy story written by family, for family. But mostly the asides add to the chatty style of storytelling: it is as though we are sitting across the table from Osborne, listening to her tell the story of her great-grandmother's fascinating life. One of the best things about the story is that many of us probably have similar stories in our own family trees. This is a biography and a history written out of interest and love, not because the author was related to an important figure in history (although her next book The Bolter is something a little more like this). Possibly the most interesting way of telling history is to show the reader how it affected those who were there at the time.
I occasionally got tired of the flowery food descriptions inserted into Lilla's story at strategic moments. Osborne certainly uses her imagination to full effect to give Lilla a voice where she has none anymore, winding her own impressions of Lilla's feelings with descriptions of the way Lilla used cooking and homemaking to solve problems and sort out her life. This got tiresome at times, to the point where it was obvious padding of the story. The same goes for using her cookbook as a focus point for the story - a book begun just before her internment in the Japanese concentration camp in China and written throughout her three years there. Osborne uses it as a device to guess Lilla's feelings and to reason out her actions. Ultimately, she is revealing the problem of every biographer in that, how can we possibly know what was going through Lilla's mind as she wrote it, as she hid it in a suitcase, as she donated it to a museum? On reflection, the device is a little obvious, but it still works fairly well.
Lilla's story is well developed, her life outlined and filled in but not nicely resolved, as Lilla's life was not resolved. She reached one hundred years old amidst the question of whether or not she was a British subject at all. Unable to return to China, the country of her birth and the place she considered her home, she ended her life in England, surrounded by family but still feeling like a foreigner. Lilla's life, like that of much of her family and so many other ex-Empire citizens, petered out in a place that no longer had any room for them, in a pale finality without any of the glory of the Empire of her youth. In the final pages of Lilla's life, Osborne brings home the painful feelings of being adrift in a world that was totally unlike the one into which Lilla had been born.
Overall, a flawed but extremely enjoyable book that draws the reader into the old world of Lilla's youth and plucks at their heart when that world crumbles away.
June 13, 2008
This is a fascinating recounting of the life of an ordinary British woman who lived through life in the China treaty ports, both World Wars, and many other important historical events across the globe. It is a story "of what large-scale history does to the small-scale people caught up in its events." Lilla became a strong and determined woman who wanted the best for her family. We get to see what her life was like as a British colonial, who ultimately felt more at home in China than in Britain.
My biggest issue with the book is how the author (the title subject's great-granddaughter) supposes to know how Lilla acted and felt in certain moments. So many sentences mention when Lilla "would have" been thinking/feeling. Osborne seems to take this type of dramatic license many times in the book, when it would have been enough to stick to the facts.
My biggest issue with the book is how the author (the title subject's great-granddaughter) supposes to know how Lilla acted and felt in certain moments. So many sentences mention when Lilla "would have" been thinking/feeling. Osborne seems to take this type of dramatic license many times in the book, when it would have been enough to stick to the facts.
August 29, 2020
One woman’s (non fiction) tale of resilience in the face of a bad marriage, internment under the Japanese in WWII, loss of wealth and status and sibling rivalry. It unwittingly depicts the ugly display of individual entitlement and privilege by the empire builders of the 19th and 20th centuries. The authorial voice is gushy and full of romanticized imaginings of what Lila would have/must have thought and experienced gluing together sparse facts. Disappointing from an Oxford educated, modern woman who could be expected to at least gently critically evaluate and contextualise the events depicted against the lives of the locals and the impact of empire in its historical and geopolitical setting.
July 17, 2011
เพราะเธอ(ผู้เขียน)ไม่ได้เล่าเรื่องของเธอ เธอเล่าเรื่องของย่า
เรื่องของย่าในอดีตถูกปะติดปะต่อด้วยหลักฐานบางอย่าง
ที่ผสมมุมมองของเธอ ณ ปัจจุบัน
เธอรู้ไปเสียทุกเรื่องแบบพระเจ้า
และยิ่งชัดเจนว่าเธอตีความเหมือนทนาย แต่เธอก็เป็นทนายที่มีหัวใจ
การนำประวัติศาสตร์เข้ามาในบางช่วงแหว่งวิ่น ไม่ได้ให้ตรรกะกับเรื่องที่จะเล่าต่อไป
เธอทำให้เห็นประเด็นที่อยู่ในความสนใจของตะวันตกสมัยที่เธอเขียนไม่ใช่สมัยย่าเท่าไรนัก
แต่นับว่าเธอทำงานได้ดีและเธอทำงานมากทีเดียวกับการทำความเข้าใจชีวิตของย่า
W.
เรื่องของย่าในอดีตถูกปะติดปะต่อด้วยหลักฐานบางอย่าง
ที่ผสมมุมมองของเธอ ณ ปัจจุบัน
เธอรู้ไปเสียทุกเรื่องแบบพระเจ้า
และยิ่งชัดเจนว่าเธอตีความเหมือนทนาย แต่เธอก็เป็นทนายที่มีหัวใจ
การนำประวัติศาสตร์เข้ามาในบางช่วงแหว่งวิ่น ไม่ได้ให้ตรรกะกับเรื่องที่จะเล่าต่อไป
เธอทำให้เห็นประเด็นที่อยู่ในความสนใจของตะวันตกสมัยที่เธอเขียนไม่ใช่สมัยย่าเท่าไรนัก
แต่นับว่าเธอทำงานได้ดีและเธอทำงานมากทีเดียวกับการทำความเข้าใจชีวิตของย่า
W.
August 20, 2025
A friend recommended this -- she knew I enjoyed historical-fiction-type stories, although, this is not fiction, rather a memoir of a strong, turn-of-the-century woman who grew up in China as a British alien...amazing story written by the woman's great granddaughter. Will be reading the author's 2nd book about her great aunt soon. Can't remember the title...will add when I find out.
December 6, 2018
I was introduced to this book a few years back but never got down to reading it then cos I thought it was just a book of recipes and maybe Lilla’s experiences. Anyway, finally got to this book and enjoyed the historical setting and the journey through Lilla’s life from China to India to UK and especially during her internment. I enjoyed it perhaps it talks about the India I love and imagined what she went through then. It was painful to see her loss and even though she was born of English parents was more at home in China because she was born there and how she and many others like her was left without a place that they felt at home when the war ended and they had to leave China when the communists came. I didn’t think I would cry but I did and at the most unexpected place. It is a book that rediscovers a woman’s courage to love and resilience to rise above her circumstances to live!
September 15, 2019
Having read and really enjoyed the author’s book, “The Bolter” about another of her great grandmothers, I was looking forward to reading “Lilla’s Feast.”
In one sense it met expectations, providing an interesting insight, through Lilla’s experiences, into colonial life in the treaty ports of China and the effect of war and its aftermath for the people whose lives had always been in that country.
However, the book is cluttered by conjecture as the author allowed herself the luxury of imagining what Lila “would have” done, felt or thought at any given time. In face the words “would have” have to be the most repeated phrase in the whole book and this detracted from the biographical and historical quality of the writing to such an extent that I wondered several times whether to bother completing the book.
In one sense it met expectations, providing an interesting insight, through Lilla’s experiences, into colonial life in the treaty ports of China and the effect of war and its aftermath for the people whose lives had always been in that country.
However, the book is cluttered by conjecture as the author allowed herself the luxury of imagining what Lila “would have” done, felt or thought at any given time. In face the words “would have” have to be the most repeated phrase in the whole book and this detracted from the biographical and historical quality of the writing to such an extent that I wondered several times whether to bother completing the book.
November 15, 2023
Dopo anni passati a prendere polvere sui miei scaffali ho finalmente letto questo splendido romanzo, che non e' solo la storia della bisnonna dell'autrice ma e' anche un romanzo storico, un romanzo di formazione e al contempo una grande saga familiare, ambientato tra cina, india e inghilterra. La protagonista Lalla e' stata una donna straordinaria, a suo modo emancipata ed eroica, quasi stoica nell'attraversare a testa alta i tumultuosi anni che dai fasti dell impero britannico l hanno portata a un campo di prigionia durante la seconda guerra mondiale per poi concludere la sua vita in inghilterra. consigliatissimo a chi ama personaggi femminili forti, a chi e' interessato ad approfondire il tema del colonialismo e chi ovviamente ama la storia, ma si parla anche di cucina, come suggerisce il titolo.
May 19, 2021
The author has pieced together the incredible life of her great-grandmother who lived through parts of history that so many of us know so little about. Born at the turn of the century in China, Lilla always considers China her home, despite the many trials she overcame through love, deprivation, loss, surviving internment camps and so much more.
This glimpse into history pieced together from letters, research, journals and more from the author's family provide a look not into just an amazing life but all the history that surrounds it.
This glimpse into history pieced together from letters, research, journals and more from the author's family provide a look not into just an amazing life but all the history that surrounds it.
February 9, 2018
A lovingly written, vivid description of an amazing life. Lilla, the author's grandmother, was seemingly 'cursed' to live in interesting times. This century plus life was packed with luxury and poverty, exotic locales and internment camps. The changes in society, life roles, and world powers that took place over these years are epic. Worth reading.
November 8, 2020
This was Frances Osborne's 1st book and you can tell at the beginning
I thought about giving up a few times but decided to persevere as i had enjoyed Duchess of Devonshire. I'm glad i did as the writing improved and the story wasn't fascinating.
What an incredible lady Lilla was, a real child of the empire who had to rebuild her life on numerous occaisions
I thought about giving up a few times but decided to persevere as i had enjoyed Duchess of Devonshire. I'm glad i did as the writing improved and the story wasn't fascinating.
What an incredible lady Lilla was, a real child of the empire who had to rebuild her life on numerous occaisions
January 8, 2022
This novel started off well, I really enjoyed reading Lilla's early life history and her families. I found the latter part of the book long-winded. Lilla's family was certainly well travelled and were interesting people overall. I liked her mother very much!
Overall a good book but a bit longer than necessary.
Overall a good book but a bit longer than necessary.
May 30, 2019
Focused on one ordinary woman's extraordinary life, it provides a unique perspective of world events through most of the twentieth century from the point of view of British empire builders living in China.
November 16, 2018
Another one of Frances Osborne’s fascinating relatives living an amazing life in China. Recommended as a great read.
May 15, 2020
I didnt get to finish this book as I really didnt enjoy it.
July 5, 2021
There were too many things mentioned here that I often lose track of which is which, who is who. The only thing that I loved was the bond of the twins where they silently competed with each other.
August 14, 2024
very interesting to learn about the history of india and china and war and what happened throughout her life
April 10, 2025
Review published in the New Zealand Herald, 16 October 2004
"A feast of memories"
Lilla's Feast
Frances Osborne
(Random House, $59.95)
Reviewed by Philippa Jamieson
Imagine spending three years in a prison camp in China, held by the Japanese during World War II, with freezing winters, blazing summers and torrential rainy seasons, dwindling food rations, cramped conditions and appalling hygiene.
As the starving prisoners dreamed of food, one woman in the camp typed out recipes on tissue-thin ricepaper, which were gathered into a book that is now held in London's Imperial War Museum.
That woman was Lilla Eckford, born in 1882 in Chefoo, one of the 'treaty ports' of northern China, in a community of traders and missionaries, expatriate Westerners from various countries who were free from the restraints of Chinese law.
Lilla and her twin Ada grew up in a prosperous business family in a world with servants, sumptuous banquets and balls. They went to a finishing school in Europe, and from their mother they learnt all the tips and tricks of cooking and entertaining.
When Lilla married, fate took a turn for the worse, and her cooking skills came in handy both to appease her husband and to cope on a greatly diminished budget. The story follows her to India, and back and forth between England and China, chronicling the ups and downs of her life, her marriages, childbirth and financial fortunes.
Frances Osborne has written a moving account of her spirited and determined great-grandmother. Initially I was irritated by the author's conjectures ('she must have felt' or 'she would have known'), but this feeling faded as those very speculations brought the book to life, inviting the reader to imagine the very different worlds Lilla inhabited in her 100-year life span.
It did puzzle me that, although Lilla's recipes are at the heart of this memoir, only four of them are printed here, reproduced as facsimiles of the originals.
But the author writes evocatively about food throughout: 'vermicelli that slithered down her throat like snakes', 'pastries… which dissolved into a featherweight crumbling crunch at first bite', or in the prison camp, 'SOS' – same old stew.
Osborne has a particularly good sense of place, and has done an admirable job of placing Lilla's story in the wider context of history: the Boxer Uprising, the Japanese invasion of China, and the Communist takeover. She also gives just enough of a glimpse into herself that we can see some of her journey in writing the book and discovering her family history.
"A feast of memories"
Lilla's Feast
Frances Osborne
(Random House, $59.95)
Reviewed by Philippa Jamieson
Imagine spending three years in a prison camp in China, held by the Japanese during World War II, with freezing winters, blazing summers and torrential rainy seasons, dwindling food rations, cramped conditions and appalling hygiene.
As the starving prisoners dreamed of food, one woman in the camp typed out recipes on tissue-thin ricepaper, which were gathered into a book that is now held in London's Imperial War Museum.
That woman was Lilla Eckford, born in 1882 in Chefoo, one of the 'treaty ports' of northern China, in a community of traders and missionaries, expatriate Westerners from various countries who were free from the restraints of Chinese law.
Lilla and her twin Ada grew up in a prosperous business family in a world with servants, sumptuous banquets and balls. They went to a finishing school in Europe, and from their mother they learnt all the tips and tricks of cooking and entertaining.
When Lilla married, fate took a turn for the worse, and her cooking skills came in handy both to appease her husband and to cope on a greatly diminished budget. The story follows her to India, and back and forth between England and China, chronicling the ups and downs of her life, her marriages, childbirth and financial fortunes.
Frances Osborne has written a moving account of her spirited and determined great-grandmother. Initially I was irritated by the author's conjectures ('she must have felt' or 'she would have known'), but this feeling faded as those very speculations brought the book to life, inviting the reader to imagine the very different worlds Lilla inhabited in her 100-year life span.
It did puzzle me that, although Lilla's recipes are at the heart of this memoir, only four of them are printed here, reproduced as facsimiles of the originals.
But the author writes evocatively about food throughout: 'vermicelli that slithered down her throat like snakes', 'pastries… which dissolved into a featherweight crumbling crunch at first bite', or in the prison camp, 'SOS' – same old stew.
Osborne has a particularly good sense of place, and has done an admirable job of placing Lilla's story in the wider context of history: the Boxer Uprising, the Japanese invasion of China, and the Communist takeover. She also gives just enough of a glimpse into herself that we can see some of her journey in writing the book and discovering her family history.
August 5, 2011
The author was 13 when her great grandmother, Lilla, died in 1982 at the age of 100. Anyone who lives to this age has a story or two to tell, and Lilla had many. Born in China at the height of the might of the British Empire, Lilla's life mirrors the upheavals that change the fortunes of Britain forever. Her life experiences would not necessarily be unique for a woman of her class and background, but regardless, they still make a great story and deserve to be recorded. The thing about Lilla, is that in many ways she was typical of her time and class and upbringing. But she also had incredible spirit, enormous personal dignity and a steely determination to survive no matter what.
Lilla's eventful life was shaped entirely both by being born in China and being of British extraction. And like many of the thousands whose families worked for the colonial governments and business enterprises, such British people were never really considered fully British. Aside from a short period of time in England and India, virtually all her life was spent in China. She married twice, had children, and devoted herself to the art of homemaking, thus ensuring the happiness and comfort of the men in her life, as she had been taught to by her mother. Not at all unusual for the times. The crises and tragedies were many, culminating in Lilla aged 60 and her husband in his mid-70s being incarcerated during WWII in a Japanese internment camp for three years where they almost starved to death. There, she finished compiling, amidst great deprivation, her cookbook which for a period of time was displayed prominently in the Imperial War Museum in London. This cook book was not, as one would expect, a wartime cook book, but one that was full of recipes from a time of plenty. And all put down entirely from memory. It is said that the memory becomes more acute in times of suffering, and I guess it is understandable that when starving, thoughts turn to food and one's memories of that food.
Lilla was undoubtedly a survivor. Wouldn't we all love to have a great grandma of such courage and determination. And what a legacy to leave your descendants. A really good life story, of a time not so far in the distant past, told with admiration, love and plenty of spirit
Lilla's eventful life was shaped entirely both by being born in China and being of British extraction. And like many of the thousands whose families worked for the colonial governments and business enterprises, such British people were never really considered fully British. Aside from a short period of time in England and India, virtually all her life was spent in China. She married twice, had children, and devoted herself to the art of homemaking, thus ensuring the happiness and comfort of the men in her life, as she had been taught to by her mother. Not at all unusual for the times. The crises and tragedies were many, culminating in Lilla aged 60 and her husband in his mid-70s being incarcerated during WWII in a Japanese internment camp for three years where they almost starved to death. There, she finished compiling, amidst great deprivation, her cookbook which for a period of time was displayed prominently in the Imperial War Museum in London. This cook book was not, as one would expect, a wartime cook book, but one that was full of recipes from a time of plenty. And all put down entirely from memory. It is said that the memory becomes more acute in times of suffering, and I guess it is understandable that when starving, thoughts turn to food and one's memories of that food.
Lilla was undoubtedly a survivor. Wouldn't we all love to have a great grandma of such courage and determination. And what a legacy to leave your descendants. A really good life story, of a time not so far in the distant past, told with admiration, love and plenty of spirit
July 13, 2012
Frances Osborne relates the story of her great-grandmother's life as a British citizen raised in China caught my interest for all of its similarities to my own mother's story. Both of them grew up in China during the European imperialist era and were in Japanese internment camps during WW II. Lilla Jennings grew up in Chefoo, the town my aunt's boarding school was in so I was also interested to see her description of it.
I enjoyed the book and found it an interesting read, well written and engaging. It gave an insight into some of the challenges and problems associated with colonial life both from the British and Chinese points-of-view. Osborne's portrayal of her various relatives made it easy to make a personal connection to them and her description of life in China, India and England at the time helped me to get a better sense of those places.
There were a few minor points that bothered me. In some places in the book it was a little too obvious that she was filling in what Lilla was probably thinking and feeling based on her own idea about life and how she would react in a particular circumstance. I found some of those instances jarring and they tended to pull me out of the story for a bit.
I wish that she had included more of the recipe book that inspired her to write this book (written by Lilla during the Japanese occupation of China and her internment in camp). A few of the recipes are included and a few of the illustrations which is nice but there are too few recipes and all of them are included as typeset text. I would have liked to see more of them and to see a facsimile of the actual pages as they originally appeared, some typed on pages from a receipt book and some on thin rice paper. I know that more were probably not included for lack of space but finding room for even 4 or 5 more pages of them would have been nice. I wonder if there is anywhere online that I can see scans of them.
I attribute most of the shortcomings to the fact that this was her first book and really they are not too egregious. All-in-all I think it was a good book and worth reading for anyone with an interest in British life in China in the 19th and 20th centuries.
I enjoyed the book and found it an interesting read, well written and engaging. It gave an insight into some of the challenges and problems associated with colonial life both from the British and Chinese points-of-view. Osborne's portrayal of her various relatives made it easy to make a personal connection to them and her description of life in China, India and England at the time helped me to get a better sense of those places.
There were a few minor points that bothered me. In some places in the book it was a little too obvious that she was filling in what Lilla was probably thinking and feeling based on her own idea about life and how she would react in a particular circumstance. I found some of those instances jarring and they tended to pull me out of the story for a bit.
I wish that she had included more of the recipe book that inspired her to write this book (written by Lilla during the Japanese occupation of China and her internment in camp). A few of the recipes are included and a few of the illustrations which is nice but there are too few recipes and all of them are included as typeset text. I would have liked to see more of them and to see a facsimile of the actual pages as they originally appeared, some typed on pages from a receipt book and some on thin rice paper. I know that more were probably not included for lack of space but finding room for even 4 or 5 more pages of them would have been nice. I wonder if there is anywhere online that I can see scans of them.
I attribute most of the shortcomings to the fact that this was her first book and really they are not too egregious. All-in-all I think it was a good book and worth reading for anyone with an interest in British life in China in the 19th and 20th centuries.
September 21, 2013
In the Imperial War Museum in London there is an item that is described as "The house wife's dictionary and suggestions". It is a recipe book that was typed up on any scrap of paper that the author could get hold of and works through a variety of different chapters from soups to curries to roasts, tips for entertaining, desserts and cakes and so much more. Really what makes this item fascinating though is where it was written and who it was written by.
The where it was written is from within a Japanese internment camp during World War II. As a consequence, the sheets of paper may be a carefully preserved piece of rice paper that has a recipe for ice cream on it or it could be paper provided by the Red Cross. Regardless of the type of paper, the contents of the book do not reflect the daily privations being experienced by the author: the loss of property and freedom; the lack of privacy; the lack of food; the lack of information about the fate of friends and family as a war raged in both Europe and the Pacific and in so many other ways.
The who it was written by is a little more complicated to tell. The cookbook was written by Frances Osborne's great grandmother and in telling Lilla's story, Osborne bring to life not only a life filled with what might seem to us now great adventure and more than a little heartache but also a picture of a very different type of life that is now very much of the past - that of British colonial life in countries like China and India.
To read more of my thoughts on this book head to
http://www.theintrepidreader.com/2013...
The where it was written is from within a Japanese internment camp during World War II. As a consequence, the sheets of paper may be a carefully preserved piece of rice paper that has a recipe for ice cream on it or it could be paper provided by the Red Cross. Regardless of the type of paper, the contents of the book do not reflect the daily privations being experienced by the author: the loss of property and freedom; the lack of privacy; the lack of food; the lack of information about the fate of friends and family as a war raged in both Europe and the Pacific and in so many other ways.
The who it was written by is a little more complicated to tell. The cookbook was written by Frances Osborne's great grandmother and in telling Lilla's story, Osborne bring to life not only a life filled with what might seem to us now great adventure and more than a little heartache but also a picture of a very different type of life that is now very much of the past - that of British colonial life in countries like China and India.
To read more of my thoughts on this book head to
http://www.theintrepidreader.com/2013...
April 20, 2009
This is the story of an ordinary woman who lived through some extraordinary times--100 years of them! Written by her great-granddaughter, her life encompasses three countries, two world wars, three husbands (or maybe it was just two and a fiancee) and an internment camp.
There are things I liked about this book and things I didn't. First the bad news: I found the author overdrawing her conclusions about how her great-grandmother might have felt at times. She was also over dramatic about it. I found myself wondering "How would she know how she felt?" The foreshadowing I felt was also overdone.
A semi-negative is the view of imperialism--the actual culture of the countries Britain, America, Germany, and others occupied and the people who lived there are a back drop to the lives of the imperialists themselves. They are a footnote of little import. However, in reading Ms. Osborne's epilogue, she gave more of a nod to this and made me feel better. Perhaps she wrote the book this way to coincide with the general thinking (of the imperialist countries) of the time. Including, most probably, Lilla's.
On the positive side, I did enjoy the book overall in spite of the shortcomings mentioned above. Ms. Osborne does not always paint Lilla with a favorable brush--she really is just an ordinary woman who doesn't always make the wisest decisions. But she did have an interesting life and survived some very hard times. And since I read a great deal about China, this was a very different viewpoint than I am used to.
There are things I liked about this book and things I didn't. First the bad news: I found the author overdrawing her conclusions about how her great-grandmother might have felt at times. She was also over dramatic about it. I found myself wondering "How would she know how she felt?" The foreshadowing I felt was also overdone.
A semi-negative is the view of imperialism--the actual culture of the countries Britain, America, Germany, and others occupied and the people who lived there are a back drop to the lives of the imperialists themselves. They are a footnote of little import. However, in reading Ms. Osborne's epilogue, she gave more of a nod to this and made me feel better. Perhaps she wrote the book this way to coincide with the general thinking (of the imperialist countries) of the time. Including, most probably, Lilla's.
On the positive side, I did enjoy the book overall in spite of the shortcomings mentioned above. Ms. Osborne does not always paint Lilla with a favorable brush--she really is just an ordinary woman who doesn't always make the wisest decisions. But she did have an interesting life and survived some very hard times. And since I read a great deal about China, this was a very different viewpoint than I am used to.
May 8, 2016
I found this story of a woman's life in China and India from the turn of the century through to the middle of the 1980's absolutely fascinating.
Some have criticised the title as the recipe book only really features in the second half of Lilla's life, but this was the hook which made me pick the book up in the first place. I admit that I read the second half of the book first, with the privation of her internment in the prisoner of war camp which caused her to write down recipes that comforted her. By then I was so fascinated that I had to know more about this intriguing woman and her background.
I wasn't disappointed. Born the second twin whose good fortune was, according to her Chinese amah "stolen" by her older sister, Lilla's trials and tribulations are fascinating. There are tales of love lost and regained, stories of living sometimes in near poverty and then in riches, fighting to equal or better her twin, keep husbands, win over in-laws and maintain social position in colonial China and India.
There have also been criticisms of the author's voice in imagining Lilla's feelings throughout the book, but I didn't want to read just a history book. The rendering of Lilla's emotions is perhaps subjective but is so necessary in colouring the picture of her richly experienced life, and I think the author did an amazing job, not only in researching and documenting Lilla's story but in bringing it to life.
Some have criticised the title as the recipe book only really features in the second half of Lilla's life, but this was the hook which made me pick the book up in the first place. I admit that I read the second half of the book first, with the privation of her internment in the prisoner of war camp which caused her to write down recipes that comforted her. By then I was so fascinated that I had to know more about this intriguing woman and her background.
I wasn't disappointed. Born the second twin whose good fortune was, according to her Chinese amah "stolen" by her older sister, Lilla's trials and tribulations are fascinating. There are tales of love lost and regained, stories of living sometimes in near poverty and then in riches, fighting to equal or better her twin, keep husbands, win over in-laws and maintain social position in colonial China and India.
There have also been criticisms of the author's voice in imagining Lilla's feelings throughout the book, but I didn't want to read just a history book. The rendering of Lilla's emotions is perhaps subjective but is so necessary in colouring the picture of her richly experienced life, and I think the author did an amazing job, not only in researching and documenting Lilla's story but in bringing it to life.
June 27, 2011
Written by a great niece,this book attempts to reconstruct the story of Lilla, an identical twin girl, who was born to British treaty port residents in China in the late 1800s. It tells of her marriage to a military man and her time in Calcutta and in northern India, her times in England and her return to the port in China that felt like home to her. It takes her through times of plenty and times of poverty and the occupation of China by Japan during world War II. She and her elderly second husband along with most non-Chinese residents of their town are imprisoned for around three years by the Japanese. During this time she writes a cookbook/hostess book recalling her times of plenty. Interesting perspective on an conflictual time in history -two world wars from perspective of ex-pats in China at a time the British empire was shrinking and changing. At times Frances Osborne's flowery musings about what Lilla was thinking or doing were a bit over the top and annoying. But interesting.
February 7, 2012
A dear friend and I were discussing paraphrasing a few days ago, and the fact that to write well and persuasively, you need to be able to paraphrase the research you have learned so that you are in control of the story or essay.
This is a lesson that Frances Osbourne needed to learn. She has a very interesting topic in her great-grandmother, who was born and raised as a British Expat in China, and lived in India for several years during her young adulthood. During World War II, she was imprisoned by the Japanese and during this time of starvation and want, wrote a cookbook - her way to find the beauty in her life.
Sadly the story is hampered by a lot of "Lilla would have felt" and "she must have thought" - the author's timidity hampers the story and ultimately made it an unsatisfying tale.
This is a lesson that Frances Osbourne needed to learn. She has a very interesting topic in her great-grandmother, who was born and raised as a British Expat in China, and lived in India for several years during her young adulthood. During World War II, she was imprisoned by the Japanese and during this time of starvation and want, wrote a cookbook - her way to find the beauty in her life.
Sadly the story is hampered by a lot of "Lilla would have felt" and "she must have thought" - the author's timidity hampers the story and ultimately made it an unsatisfying tale.
September 17, 2012
Lilla’s feast is indeed a feast - a feast of words. This rich biography of Frances Osborne’s great-grandmother, is full of stories, of an amazing woman, born in China, who married two men and buried another and spent two years in a prisoner of war camp. She kept her faith by writing recipes for sumptuous meals, reminding people of a world long gone, and sustaining herself through the long hard years, when food was scarce. Lilla lived to be over 100.
‘yearning for a single gulp of Chefoo air that would clear her head, the salty smell of the sea, a bowl of wet noodles, anything that would take her home...’ (p68-9)
Osborne writes of her life beautifully. She tells us a tale that captivates - turns history into stories, into poetry at times. The book starts slow, but soon begins to build, so you can’t help wanting to know what will happen. An excellent read.
‘yearning for a single gulp of Chefoo air that would clear her head, the salty smell of the sea, a bowl of wet noodles, anything that would take her home...’ (p68-9)
Osborne writes of her life beautifully. She tells us a tale that captivates - turns history into stories, into poetry at times. The book starts slow, but soon begins to build, so you can’t help wanting to know what will happen. An excellent read.
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