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Pennington #1-3
Pennington: A Trilogy
- Pennington's Last Term
- The Beethoven Medal
- Pennington's Heir
- The Beethoven Medal
- Pennington's Heir
- GenresYoung AdultFiction
526 pages, Hardcover
First published March 1, 1985
About the author
K.M. Peyton
109 books152 followersKathleen Wendy Herald Peyton MBE, who wrote primarily as K. M. Peyton, was a British author of fiction for children and young adults
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
December 20, 2020
I bought this primarily because of the hideous cover, dazzled as I was by this rendering of Patrick Pennington in a way I had never quite imagined him before. And for a long while it stayed unread and at the bottom of my TBR pile, occasionally beaming at me in all its awful glory without ever quite being read.
Of course, I knew the Pennington books and had read them all before in singular editions. In many senses, I was telling myself that I didn't need to read this, that I knew the books, that I knew what KM Peyton could do. And that - perhaps - this cover, this brilliant monstrosity, was all I had this edition for. I knew the books well enough. I did not need to go back to them.
And then, I did. Weeks of lockdown and a slowly diminishing TBR pile, and this - the survivor - greeting me at the bottom of it. I hadn't read anything properly for weeks; in a way, I was the pond-skimmer, an insect moving my way along the top of the water and never quite fully reaching that which lay below. I read, but I didn't. I turned the pages, but I didn't.
But it is for such moments that KM Peyton is made for. She is a writer who can find the elasticity of a moment, stretching it until everything that it could be and everything that it is has been explored. And although, perhaps of the three, Pennington's Seventeenth Summer feels its age a little, this is a remarkable, brilliant collection of stories. It is life, it is love, and it is written with such a beautiful and eloquent fluency that I reread whole chunks of it in a slow stupor of wonder. Her eye for detail! The nuance of emotion! The way she can see everybody and allow them to simply be!
Oh the glory of a writer at the peak of her powers, the glory.
(Cover's still awful though).
Of course, I knew the Pennington books and had read them all before in singular editions. In many senses, I was telling myself that I didn't need to read this, that I knew the books, that I knew what KM Peyton could do. And that - perhaps - this cover, this brilliant monstrosity, was all I had this edition for. I knew the books well enough. I did not need to go back to them.
And then, I did. Weeks of lockdown and a slowly diminishing TBR pile, and this - the survivor - greeting me at the bottom of it. I hadn't read anything properly for weeks; in a way, I was the pond-skimmer, an insect moving my way along the top of the water and never quite fully reaching that which lay below. I read, but I didn't. I turned the pages, but I didn't.
But it is for such moments that KM Peyton is made for. She is a writer who can find the elasticity of a moment, stretching it until everything that it could be and everything that it is has been explored. And although, perhaps of the three, Pennington's Seventeenth Summer feels its age a little, this is a remarkable, brilliant collection of stories. It is life, it is love, and it is written with such a beautiful and eloquent fluency that I reread whole chunks of it in a slow stupor of wonder. Her eye for detail! The nuance of emotion! The way she can see everybody and allow them to simply be!
Oh the glory of a writer at the peak of her powers, the glory.
(Cover's still awful though).
April 3, 2026
When I first discovered Pennington's Last Term (the first book of this trilogy) on a library shelf in 1984, I was thrilled. Another book by the author of Flambards!!!
But my excitement soon soured. To my teenage self, Pennington’s crimes were:
1) He’s a BOY—and not a sensitive, bookish boy. He’s rough and sneering. Pennington is Tom Sawyer at age 17, if he were long-haired, bitter, cynical, physically abused, and living in a depressed 1960s British seaside town.
2) There aren’t any horses. If this is the author of Flambards, WHERE ARE THE HORSES?
In short, Pennington's Last Term is not Flambards, and I couldn’t forgive it for that.
Flambards had entered deep into my heart and blossomed as a book can do if read at exactly the right time and age. I loved Christina Russell. But Patrick Pennington?? To use his own word, Cripes.
Fast forward more than thirty years. As the mother of two boys, I decided to try again. And this time—you guessed it—I loved the book. Pennington is hilarious, brave, loyal, and misunderstood. The writing is old-fashioned, but vivid and full of life.
I went on to read the entire trilogy. The second two books aren’t as funny or original as the first one, but I like them, too. And the second volume, The Beethoven Medal, is from the perspective of a young woman—in love with Pennington, of course. She is similar to Flambards’s Christina in many ways. The third novel, Pennington’s Heir, is told from both her and Penn’s perspective (but mostly hers).
Now, one “problem” with the Pennington trilogy is that it’s not feminist, at least not by today’s standards. KM Peyton was born in 1929. Pennington's Last Term was published in 1970, and yes, it’s dated. Ruth is brave, stalwart and loving, but she’s eclipsed by the brilliant, talented, larger-than-life Pennington, and that’s just fine with her.
If this kind of female character is unbearable to you, look elsewhere. As for me, I like old books because they tell how the vast majority of women really lived, shaped as they were by their societies. Current novels set in the past tend to give every heroine an indomitable, independent spirit—the context may be painstakingly researched, but the female protagonist seems to have time-traveled straight from 2020. Don’t get me wrong; I like those books too, and of course there have always been women, in any age, who chafed at the limitations placed on them. Louisa May Alcott is one example, and it’s no surprise that there is a resurgence of interest in her and in her spirited heroine, Jo March.
Me, I like reading about women like Ruth and Christina sometimes. Their compromises tell us how far we’ve come, and show us where we used to be. And everyday life still contains many such compromises, after all. Even in the best of times, women are likely to be supporters and caretakers. And as I write this, the social isolation imposed by the coronavirus pandemic has once again shifted such caretaking burdens disproportionately onto women.
I urge anyone who likes 1) old-fashioned novels 2) rude, surly young men with secret, tender hearts 3) concert piano music, or 4) Flambards to give this novel a try.
But my excitement soon soured. To my teenage self, Pennington’s crimes were:
1) He’s a BOY—and not a sensitive, bookish boy. He’s rough and sneering. Pennington is Tom Sawyer at age 17, if he were long-haired, bitter, cynical, physically abused, and living in a depressed 1960s British seaside town.
2) There aren’t any horses. If this is the author of Flambards, WHERE ARE THE HORSES?
In short, Pennington's Last Term is not Flambards, and I couldn’t forgive it for that.
Flambards had entered deep into my heart and blossomed as a book can do if read at exactly the right time and age. I loved Christina Russell. But Patrick Pennington?? To use his own word, Cripes.
Fast forward more than thirty years. As the mother of two boys, I decided to try again. And this time—you guessed it—I loved the book. Pennington is hilarious, brave, loyal, and misunderstood. The writing is old-fashioned, but vivid and full of life.
I went on to read the entire trilogy. The second two books aren’t as funny or original as the first one, but I like them, too. And the second volume, The Beethoven Medal, is from the perspective of a young woman—in love with Pennington, of course. She is similar to Flambards’s Christina in many ways. The third novel, Pennington’s Heir, is told from both her and Penn’s perspective (but mostly hers).
Now, one “problem” with the Pennington trilogy is that it’s not feminist, at least not by today’s standards. KM Peyton was born in 1929. Pennington's Last Term was published in 1970, and yes, it’s dated. Ruth is brave, stalwart and loving, but she’s eclipsed by the brilliant, talented, larger-than-life Pennington, and that’s just fine with her.
If this kind of female character is unbearable to you, look elsewhere. As for me, I like old books because they tell how the vast majority of women really lived, shaped as they were by their societies. Current novels set in the past tend to give every heroine an indomitable, independent spirit—the context may be painstakingly researched, but the female protagonist seems to have time-traveled straight from 2020. Don’t get me wrong; I like those books too, and of course there have always been women, in any age, who chafed at the limitations placed on them. Louisa May Alcott is one example, and it’s no surprise that there is a resurgence of interest in her and in her spirited heroine, Jo March.
Me, I like reading about women like Ruth and Christina sometimes. Their compromises tell us how far we’ve come, and show us where we used to be. And everyday life still contains many such compromises, after all. Even in the best of times, women are likely to be supporters and caretakers. And as I write this, the social isolation imposed by the coronavirus pandemic has once again shifted such caretaking burdens disproportionately onto women.
I urge anyone who likes 1) old-fashioned novels 2) rude, surly young men with secret, tender hearts 3) concert piano music, or 4) Flambards to give this novel a try.
February 3, 2013
Favourite childhood author who read my first attempt at a book when I was 17, despite having never met me!
Inspired my first published book: 'A Note of Madness'.
Inspired my first published book: 'A Note of Madness'.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews