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1926. Illustrated with scenes from the Photoplay, a United Artists Picture featuring H.B. Warner. Set in England the story is about a man who devotes his life to making his son's a success. In the course of the story many themes are explored including life, love, career and familial and marital relationships. See other titles by this author available from Kessinger Publishing.
Unknown Binding
First published January 1, 1928
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About the author
Warwick Deeping
185 books21 followersGeorge Warwick Deeping was a prolific novelist and short story writer, who is best known for his 1925 novel "Sorrell and Son."
Deeping was educated at Merchant Taylors' School, then Trinity College, Cambridge to study medicine and science, and then to Middlesex Hospital to finish his medical training. During the First World War, he served in the Royal Army Medical Corps. He later gave up his job as a doctor to become a full-time writer.
Deeping's early work was primarily historical romances. His later novels can be seen as attempts at keeping alive the spirit of the Edwardian age. He was one of the best selling authors of the 1920s and 1930s, with seven of his novels making the best-seller list. His short fiction also appeared in several US magazines, including the Saturday Evening Post and Adventure.
Deeping was educated at Merchant Taylors' School, then Trinity College, Cambridge to study medicine and science, and then to Middlesex Hospital to finish his medical training. During the First World War, he served in the Royal Army Medical Corps. He later gave up his job as a doctor to become a full-time writer.
Deeping's early work was primarily historical romances. His later novels can be seen as attempts at keeping alive the spirit of the Edwardian age. He was one of the best selling authors of the 1920s and 1930s, with seven of his novels making the best-seller list. His short fiction also appeared in several US magazines, including the Saturday Evening Post and Adventure.
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February 17, 2016
Set in England 1926 the story is about a man who devotes his life to making his son's a success. In the course of the story many themes are explored including life, love, career and familial and marital relationships.
Watch here
Thanks Karen! Whilst this is neither Turgenev nor Foyles War, the father and son here lead caring, insular, and blinkered lives with the soul aim to get Kit his education. Things take a turn for the better when we get to women's rights, marriage and motherhood and Kit realises he is rather old-fashioned, awkward and dare I say it, mostly obsolete in the new-thinking within the social sphere. That all abruptly changes and Kit becomes a fantastic surgeon, loving husband and a dutiful son.
Honour Bright!"
January 6, 2015
Revised content rating: Adult only.
Until I finished the book (with my rating plummeting towards one star) I thought I was reading a not very likable piece of historical fiction set in Britain during the time between the wars. Then I belatedly discovered the publication date of 1925 and realized that the book’s timeline was all weird. The story starts at the end of WW1 around 1919 or 1920 and projects forward into the future with a final chapter that seems to be set in London sometime in the early 1940s. So what the heck was I reading? As best I can figure out it was a kind of social commentary, utopian/dystopian, near-future allegory that was so spookily on target that I had to upgrade it to three stars with lots of caveats.
My biggest caveat is that the two protagonists have an idealized flatness, rather like the icons of Byzantine saints that I’ve been reading about in another context. My second caveat is the intensely negative view of women. My third caveat is that by the end I was hoping everyone would die in the Blitz.
On the surface this is simply the story of a man of ‘gentle birth’ (and ridiculous pretensions) who served as an officer in World War I and was recently discharged. Captain Stephen Sorrell, gentleman, has one great love—his nine year old son Christopher for whom he would sacrifice anything. Christopher’s mother abandoned her son and husband and married again for money. And speaking of money—there is nothing; Sorrell is utterly destitute, completely without skills and growing desperate.
Sorrell’s early struggles and suffering and his seeming rescue by a sort of gentleman-entrepreneur bent on creating the best inn in England (no traveling salesmen or local drinking riff-raff allowed) were moving and quite engrossing. There were plenty of plot twists and turns and we see this unfolding imaginary world from both Captain Sorrell and Christopher’s point of view.
The love between fathers and sons is ostensibly the main theme and readers who can focus on just that might enjoy the story; unfortunately, there is a great deal more.
Over the course of the twenty year future-story, Deeping sends a clear and conservative message that hard work and clean living will lead to success, but he also airs (mostly in nervous, cryptic dialog) an extraordinary range of opinions that were once considered radical but that eventually became commonplace in upper class circles. The issues discussed—in no particular order: negative consequences of British classism (for all classes); the evolution of socialism and the Labour movement; the perils of progressive taxation; end of life care; classism vs.character; men and women living together without benefit of clergy; the role of higher education; bullying; global overpopulation and Malthusianism; birth control; STDs; women novelists; education reform; women who want careers and not children; health service reform; the arrogance of surgeons and other medical elite; the downgrading of women in the medical profession; physician-assisted suicide; sexual repression; the rights of non-married women; ‘progressive’ ideas about ethnicity, ageism and eugenics; the rights of women to have a career; parents living life through their children; midwifery and nursing; ideas of marriage—and not to be forgotten—why cabbage-growing is a sort of metaphor for stuff like Communism.
I think I might have left something out.
Perhaps the most interesting but disturbing aspect of the novel for modern readers is its treatment of women and sexuality. All of the women in the story are painted in a heavy-handed allegorical style and most of the portraits are really ugly. Women are portrayed, at best, as distractions and at worst, destroyers. Relationships with women are depicted as dangerous, leading to disease, vile bodily and spiritual corruption and death—and the horror—a third class pass at Cambridge. But same-sex pairings are also (I think) referred to in deep code as negative. There are a few invisible female servant types. We do meet one somewhat positive female figure who is self-sacrificing, apparently lower class, but alluring; it is implied that she is Jewish and that she might be a tad unbalanced or even suicidal. But most of the female characters are just appalling and that’s the view that predominates for about 95% of the book.
Cold shower celibacy seems the only option--along with lots of hard work. Meanwhile, Germans lurk on park benches, but seem, for the moment, innocuous. In the novel’s last chapters a New Woman appears and converts her man (and his father) to the notion of marriage as an equal partnership, but by this time non-scholarly modern readers who venture here might be forgiven for having decamped to less trying novels.
Those deeply interested in the evolution of British male views on women should, without a doubt, read this book. Students of Britain's social history in the 20s and 30s will find it utterly fascinating.
Content rating: Adult only. I thought about this a lot before revising my rating. The very negative portrayal of women is so inescapable that I would hesitate to give it to young readers of either sex. The book is also filled with anxious, veiled references to sex (or the lack thereof); it's such a constant theme that it becomes disquieting. There is also one morally questionable final scene that was intensely disturbing involving this is not something I would want a child or young person to read.
Until I finished the book (with my rating plummeting towards one star) I thought I was reading a not very likable piece of historical fiction set in Britain during the time between the wars. Then I belatedly discovered the publication date of 1925 and realized that the book’s timeline was all weird. The story starts at the end of WW1 around 1919 or 1920 and projects forward into the future with a final chapter that seems to be set in London sometime in the early 1940s. So what the heck was I reading? As best I can figure out it was a kind of social commentary, utopian/dystopian, near-future allegory that was so spookily on target that I had to upgrade it to three stars with lots of caveats.
My biggest caveat is that the two protagonists have an idealized flatness, rather like the icons of Byzantine saints that I’ve been reading about in another context. My second caveat is the intensely negative view of women. My third caveat is that by the end I was hoping everyone would die in the Blitz.
On the surface this is simply the story of a man of ‘gentle birth’ (and ridiculous pretensions) who served as an officer in World War I and was recently discharged. Captain Stephen Sorrell, gentleman, has one great love—his nine year old son Christopher for whom he would sacrifice anything. Christopher’s mother abandoned her son and husband and married again for money. And speaking of money—there is nothing; Sorrell is utterly destitute, completely without skills and growing desperate.
Sorrell’s early struggles and suffering and his seeming rescue by a sort of gentleman-entrepreneur bent on creating the best inn in England (no traveling salesmen or local drinking riff-raff allowed) were moving and quite engrossing. There were plenty of plot twists and turns and we see this unfolding imaginary world from both Captain Sorrell and Christopher’s point of view.
The love between fathers and sons is ostensibly the main theme and readers who can focus on just that might enjoy the story; unfortunately, there is a great deal more.
Over the course of the twenty year future-story, Deeping sends a clear and conservative message that hard work and clean living will lead to success, but he also airs (mostly in nervous, cryptic dialog) an extraordinary range of opinions that were once considered radical but that eventually became commonplace in upper class circles. The issues discussed—in no particular order: negative consequences of British classism (for all classes); the evolution of socialism and the Labour movement; the perils of progressive taxation; end of life care; classism vs.character; men and women living together without benefit of clergy; the role of higher education; bullying; global overpopulation and Malthusianism; birth control; STDs; women novelists; education reform; women who want careers and not children; health service reform; the arrogance of surgeons and other medical elite; the downgrading of women in the medical profession; physician-assisted suicide; sexual repression; the rights of non-married women; ‘progressive’ ideas about ethnicity, ageism and eugenics; the rights of women to have a career; parents living life through their children; midwifery and nursing; ideas of marriage—and not to be forgotten—why cabbage-growing is a sort of metaphor for stuff like Communism.
I think I might have left something out.
Perhaps the most interesting but disturbing aspect of the novel for modern readers is its treatment of women and sexuality. All of the women in the story are painted in a heavy-handed allegorical style and most of the portraits are really ugly. Women are portrayed, at best, as distractions and at worst, destroyers. Relationships with women are depicted as dangerous, leading to disease, vile bodily and spiritual corruption and death—and the horror—a third class pass at Cambridge. But same-sex pairings are also (I think) referred to in deep code as negative. There are a few invisible female servant types. We do meet one somewhat positive female figure who is self-sacrificing, apparently lower class, but alluring; it is implied that she is Jewish and that she might be a tad unbalanced or even suicidal. But most of the female characters are just appalling and that’s the view that predominates for about 95% of the book.
Cold shower celibacy seems the only option--along with lots of hard work. Meanwhile, Germans lurk on park benches, but seem, for the moment, innocuous. In the novel’s last chapters a New Woman appears and converts her man (and his father) to the notion of marriage as an equal partnership, but by this time non-scholarly modern readers who venture here might be forgiven for having decamped to less trying novels.
Those deeply interested in the evolution of British male views on women should, without a doubt, read this book. Students of Britain's social history in the 20s and 30s will find it utterly fascinating.
Content rating: Adult only. I thought about this a lot before revising my rating. The very negative portrayal of women is so inescapable that I would hesitate to give it to young readers of either sex. The book is also filled with anxious, veiled references to sex (or the lack thereof); it's such a constant theme that it becomes disquieting. There is also one morally questionable final scene that was intensely disturbing involving this is not something I would want a child or young person to read.
August 11, 2019
I think it was Coleridge who said that in order to enjoy a work you have to be willing to overlook the artist's flaws. Deeping has two egregious flaws that take some effort to disregard. The first is that he's a crank. We're never in any doubt which characters we're meant to admire, because they won't have been long in the protagonists' lives before they will venture some opinion along the lines of how the socialists all want to wreck everything that's good, and they want everybody to be equal because they secretly resent their betters, and how even if their philosophy was honest it wouldn't work because the only decent people are individualists who disdain society and taxes and laws and just do what's right out of a sort of cavalier aristocratic sense of the aesthetic.
I don't mind an author being right-wing, even as crazily libertarian as old Deeping is, but the unforgivable crime is that he doesn't mind boring the reader with it. Holding Randian opinions and ranting them at other characters is the label that comes tied to every "good" character. Other hallmarks are that those characters are either handsome and athletic (if a natural gent) or ugly as a bulldog (if one of Deeping's few self-made working class good guys). Bad guys all look unhealthy, effeminate or somehow untrustworthy: little eyes, over-groomed moustache, oiled hair, that kind of thing.
Meanwhile, the decent women are all calm and mystically wise, while the women we're to loathe are characterized as blowsy, if more than a certain age, and hard-bitten trivial party-goers, if young. The strange thing - or perhaps it's not strange at all - is that Deeping very vividly evokes the lascivious physical attractiveness of a young vamp to the immensely dull, priggish and slow-witted Mary Sue of a lead character. (He goes home and has a cold shower, never fear, and survives the encounter with a champagne hangover but virtue intact.)
Deeping writes pleasing prose, as pretty much anyone with a good Victorian or Edwardian education could - by which I mean plain, elegant English with touches of poetry, as opposed to the modern trend for overblown Bookerese. But (and here's his principal flaw) he is a terrible storyteller. Time and again he sets up a challenge for the hero. A bullying employer, a rival, a business on the verge of ruin, an infection that could mean amputating an arm. He'll even say how the hero is trying to think of a way to overcome this latest obstacle. And again and again, out of the blue, blind luck takes care of it. A new job comes along. The rival is fired after being caught with his hand in the till. Unexpected media attention turns a failing business into a thriving concern. The hero refuses amputation but recovers anyway. There is never one hard choice, never a single challenge that the characters must deal with for themselves.
A typical example: Sorrell Junior has found himself a girlfriend in London, and embarks on an affair despite being a ridiculous prude. But wait - she's working class, and he's a budding surgeon. How's that going to work out? Never fear. A handy car runs her down in Oxford Street, allowing our doltish lad to rush to her side for a tearful farewell before she conveniently expires. The whole book is like this. It almost demands to be rewritten by somebody who could actually think of ways for those plot threads to entangle and draw tighter, increasing the tension, allowing our heroes to shine by showing us what they're made of, rather than simply being told we must admire them by their creator.
I don't mind an author being right-wing, even as crazily libertarian as old Deeping is, but the unforgivable crime is that he doesn't mind boring the reader with it. Holding Randian opinions and ranting them at other characters is the label that comes tied to every "good" character. Other hallmarks are that those characters are either handsome and athletic (if a natural gent) or ugly as a bulldog (if one of Deeping's few self-made working class good guys). Bad guys all look unhealthy, effeminate or somehow untrustworthy: little eyes, over-groomed moustache, oiled hair, that kind of thing.
Meanwhile, the decent women are all calm and mystically wise, while the women we're to loathe are characterized as blowsy, if more than a certain age, and hard-bitten trivial party-goers, if young. The strange thing - or perhaps it's not strange at all - is that Deeping very vividly evokes the lascivious physical attractiveness of a young vamp to the immensely dull, priggish and slow-witted Mary Sue of a lead character. (He goes home and has a cold shower, never fear, and survives the encounter with a champagne hangover but virtue intact.)
Deeping writes pleasing prose, as pretty much anyone with a good Victorian or Edwardian education could - by which I mean plain, elegant English with touches of poetry, as opposed to the modern trend for overblown Bookerese. But (and here's his principal flaw) he is a terrible storyteller. Time and again he sets up a challenge for the hero. A bullying employer, a rival, a business on the verge of ruin, an infection that could mean amputating an arm. He'll even say how the hero is trying to think of a way to overcome this latest obstacle. And again and again, out of the blue, blind luck takes care of it. A new job comes along. The rival is fired after being caught with his hand in the till. Unexpected media attention turns a failing business into a thriving concern. The hero refuses amputation but recovers anyway. There is never one hard choice, never a single challenge that the characters must deal with for themselves.
A typical example: Sorrell Junior has found himself a girlfriend in London, and embarks on an affair despite being a ridiculous prude. But wait - she's working class, and he's a budding surgeon. How's that going to work out? Never fear. A handy car runs her down in Oxford Street, allowing our doltish lad to rush to her side for a tearful farewell before she conveniently expires. The whole book is like this. It almost demands to be rewritten by somebody who could actually think of ways for those plot threads to entangle and draw tighter, increasing the tension, allowing our heroes to shine by showing us what they're made of, rather than simply being told we must admire them by their creator.
February 1, 2015
When you finish reading a book like this you realize how important are your parents for you. You are were you are because they are your staircase - you reach the top because you climb on their shoulders. If you are a good listener, you will know what to do at any time, because your parents taught you well. But when you have only one parent, the bond is even stronger, because he is your mother and your father, your lover and your brother. He learns easily how to avoid being a tyrant and how to advise you without seeming to do that. And in the end you realize you cannot do anything better for him/they than to find your place in this world.
This is the story of Stephen Sorrell, who devoted his life to Kit.
This is the story of Stephen Sorrell, who devoted his life to Kit.
April 19, 2012
A lovely old-fashioned book...just a delight to read.
May 5, 2023
Edwardian England meets (and struggles with) the mores of the 1920s - eventually made explicit when the elder Sorrell is described as hankering after the London of hansom cabs, while his son Kit is quite at home with the bustle of the modern metropolis. There are flappers and unemployed soldiers and brassy females and wildly successful musical comedies; I was reminded at different points of Priestley's The Good Companions, of Sayers' Gaudy Night, of Mary Renault's The Friendly Young Ladies, and in particular of Dornford Yates' Anthony Lyveden, which opens with its impecunious ex-officer protagonist taking a series of jobs in domestic service (clearly a popular trope of the era, although Lyveden regains his status as a gentleman and Sorrell continues to regard himself as a social embarrassment to his son however financially prosperous that career becomes).
Ultimately this isn't so good a book as any of the above, though it's probably closest in style and theme to the equally-popular-and-then-forgotten Dornford Yates. Yates has a more consistent strain of lyricism, though, and more sense of melodrama; he is writing thrillers, and this isn't a thriller.
The title, which reminded me of "Dombey and Son", actually is a pretty fair description of the book. Ultimately it is about the relationship between Stephen Sorrell, who gives up his class and intellectual interests, and his son Kit, in whom Sorrell invests all his own ruined hopes. Kit is to be properly educated (which ends up involving a mishmash of just about every option save the public school of the type his father attended) and to pursue the career of his dreams rather than being pushed into one by family expectations; this turns out to involve studying to become a surgeon, which requires further long years of pecuniary support from his father even after Kit has taken his protracted medical degree. And he is not to emulate his father in rushing into an unsuccessful marriage with the first girl he goes to bed with.
The book spends quite a lot of time discussing contemporary sexual politics (the idea apparently endorsed by the author being the daringly modern proposition that marriage is only relevant if the woman decides she wants children), but in the end all the couples, however adamant on the subject of liberation, do somehow end up married - even Roland and his long-term muse Cherry. The author isn't particularly strong on romance, though; perhaps the most touching partnership is the side-story of silent film stars "Duck" and Ethel, who are trying to dodge publicity. (Luckily for them they are planning to give up the silver screen within a few years, since their style of cinema was to crash and burn within a few years of publication. One problem the author probably didn't anticipate was that by following Kit into adult life he ended up projecting his timeline into a fictional future... and in 1925, there was a great deal of drama just around the corner that nobody as yet could have guessed, which means that when you pause to think about it, the book depicts what amounts to a version of the 1930s that remains stuck forever somewhere circa 1922!)
At heart I think the story is intended to depict a chivalric ideal in terms of the father/son relationship, and a father who tries hard and effectively succeeds in being 'a friend' to his son rather than an overbearing Edwardian patriarch. Some of the other episodes are unsatisfying; it's hard to understand why Roland is regarded as a good employer when he deliberately fails to act on the knowledge that his protege Buck is bullying Sorrell to a state of physical breakdown and only sacks him when he engages in a consensual liason with one of the maids. The story of Pentreath and his wife, hinted at ominously, is abandoned and completely forgotten. And Kit's mother vanishes out of the story with convenient completeness after making her failed bid for Influence over him, while his first lover removes herself in an equally obliging fashion as soon as he starts to get bored of her, leaving him free to take up the heavily trailed relationship with Best Friend's Little Sister as soon as the latter becomes an independent adult... I could see that coming a mile off, and I don't know if it was just because it is an overused trope or if it really is being signposted with heavy handed obviousness.
The politics are pretty heavy handed as well: the author preaches (but doesn't really demonstrate) the superiority of the lone aspirational rebel soaring above the mass of society that tries to drag down the noble-spirited. And he has a massive and unsubtle down on Labour with a capital L, and with a small one: ungrateful factory workers who bankrupt their paternal employers, savage and resentful masses in the industrial north, and lower class Londoners riddled with venereal disease.
The politics per se are unsurprising (no one with Sorrell's history is likely to harbour sympathy towards socialism) and common to other novelists of the era, e.g. Nevil Shute, but here they are presented in the form of what amounts to random rants with nothing in the actual depiction of the story that backs them up. It's like reading tabloid headlines interjected into the novel at intervals. The character of Buck, for instance, makes sense, because we are shown glimpses of Sorrell through his eyes, those of the loud-mouthed petty officer feeling threatened by a sullenly intellectual recruit, a potential barrack-room lawyer. But when Sorrell fulminates about "social war" or proclaims himself an individual and a lone fighter, this doesn't seem to bear any relation to the life experience we have witnessed: he is ranting against something he has vaguely heard of rather than ever undergone. If you want the reader to believe in the threat of the envious many striving to pull down the superior few, then you might at least present a credible depiction of such behaviour within the story.
Sorrell's ex-wife Dora is a credible character because she has some depth, and we get moments of sympathy or of showing the action from her point of view. But the threat of 'Labour' is simply used as a chimeric bogeyman.
There are very lyrical passages of writing: "Wandering out afterwards in the cool of the summer evening under a tumultuous yet quiet sky Roland saw the great trees of the Close all edged with gold. He passed in and stood looking at the cathedral's western façade, the magnificent windows recessed between two towers, the arcades and niches, and all that grey and delicate silence in stone. The lawns, like rich old velvet, sheltered by the trees, and refreshed by the mists from the moat of the palace, were vividly green in spite of the heat of the past week." The main issue from that point of view is that the author has a tendency to over-deploy dashes in dialogue in much the way that some writers abuse ellipses:
Ultimately this isn't so good a book as any of the above, though it's probably closest in style and theme to the equally-popular-and-then-forgotten Dornford Yates. Yates has a more consistent strain of lyricism, though, and more sense of melodrama; he is writing thrillers, and this isn't a thriller.
The title, which reminded me of "Dombey and Son", actually is a pretty fair description of the book. Ultimately it is about the relationship between Stephen Sorrell, who gives up his class and intellectual interests, and his son Kit, in whom Sorrell invests all his own ruined hopes. Kit is to be properly educated (which ends up involving a mishmash of just about every option save the public school of the type his father attended) and to pursue the career of his dreams rather than being pushed into one by family expectations; this turns out to involve studying to become a surgeon, which requires further long years of pecuniary support from his father even after Kit has taken his protracted medical degree. And he is not to emulate his father in rushing into an unsuccessful marriage with the first girl he goes to bed with.
The book spends quite a lot of time discussing contemporary sexual politics (the idea apparently endorsed by the author being the daringly modern proposition that marriage is only relevant if the woman decides she wants children), but in the end all the couples, however adamant on the subject of liberation, do somehow end up married - even Roland and his long-term muse Cherry. The author isn't particularly strong on romance, though; perhaps the most touching partnership is the side-story of silent film stars "Duck" and Ethel, who are trying to dodge publicity. (Luckily for them they are planning to give up the silver screen within a few years, since their style of cinema was to crash and burn within a few years of publication. One problem the author probably didn't anticipate was that by following Kit into adult life he ended up projecting his timeline into a fictional future... and in 1925, there was a great deal of drama just around the corner that nobody as yet could have guessed, which means that when you pause to think about it, the book depicts what amounts to a version of the 1930s that remains stuck forever somewhere circa 1922!)
At heart I think the story is intended to depict a chivalric ideal in terms of the father/son relationship, and a father who tries hard and effectively succeeds in being 'a friend' to his son rather than an overbearing Edwardian patriarch. Some of the other episodes are unsatisfying; it's hard to understand why Roland is regarded as a good employer when he deliberately fails to act on the knowledge that his protege Buck is bullying Sorrell to a state of physical breakdown and only sacks him when he engages in a consensual liason with one of the maids. The story of Pentreath and his wife, hinted at ominously, is abandoned and completely forgotten. And Kit's mother vanishes out of the story with convenient completeness after making her failed bid for Influence over him, while his first lover removes herself in an equally obliging fashion as soon as he starts to get bored of her, leaving him free to take up the heavily trailed relationship with Best Friend's Little Sister as soon as the latter becomes an independent adult... I could see that coming a mile off, and I don't know if it was just because it is an overused trope or if it really is being signposted with heavy handed obviousness.
The politics are pretty heavy handed as well: the author preaches (but doesn't really demonstrate) the superiority of the lone aspirational rebel soaring above the mass of society that tries to drag down the noble-spirited. And he has a massive and unsubtle down on Labour with a capital L, and with a small one: ungrateful factory workers who bankrupt their paternal employers, savage and resentful masses in the industrial north, and lower class Londoners riddled with venereal disease.
The politics per se are unsurprising (no one with Sorrell's history is likely to harbour sympathy towards socialism) and common to other novelists of the era, e.g. Nevil Shute, but here they are presented in the form of what amounts to random rants with nothing in the actual depiction of the story that backs them up. It's like reading tabloid headlines interjected into the novel at intervals. The character of Buck, for instance, makes sense, because we are shown glimpses of Sorrell through his eyes, those of the loud-mouthed petty officer feeling threatened by a sullenly intellectual recruit, a potential barrack-room lawyer. But when Sorrell fulminates about "social war" or proclaims himself an individual and a lone fighter, this doesn't seem to bear any relation to the life experience we have witnessed: he is ranting against something he has vaguely heard of rather than ever undergone. If you want the reader to believe in the threat of the envious many striving to pull down the superior few, then you might at least present a credible depiction of such behaviour within the story.
Sorrell's ex-wife Dora is a credible character because she has some depth, and we get moments of sympathy or of showing the action from her point of view. But the threat of 'Labour' is simply used as a chimeric bogeyman.
There are very lyrical passages of writing: "Wandering out afterwards in the cool of the summer evening under a tumultuous yet quiet sky Roland saw the great trees of the Close all edged with gold. He passed in and stood looking at the cathedral's western façade, the magnificent windows recessed between two towers, the arcades and niches, and all that grey and delicate silence in stone. The lawns, like rich old velvet, sheltered by the trees, and refreshed by the mists from the moat of the palace, were vividly green in spite of the heat of the past week." The main issue from that point of view is that the author has a tendency to over-deploy dashes in dialogue in much the way that some writers abuse ellipses:
"Flowers.--Bowden sent them in--"
"Yes,--for the table,-- Kit's dinner."
"Good of Bowden.-- You are all being very good to us."
As others have commented, the story is mainly gripping at the beginning, when it is the tale of Sorrell struggling to achieve financial security. Once he becomes comfortably off and able to support Kit without a qualm into an indefinite future, even buying and furnishing him a house in London, the tale turns into that of Kit's travails with the fair sex in one guise or another, which are less compelling. Even when , no action is taken other than to do nothing and hope things will come out right all by themselves, massively against the odds.
August 18, 2021
A bit of a snorefest of a book, but its quaintness and little charms make it a compelling read that you want to see to the end... just barely. The last 100 pages were sort of torturous, just wanting the book to end. Its the first 200 pages, rather, that save the book and create the foundation that want you to keep reading.
The story follows Sorrell and then abruptly the story passes to his son Kit, when his son comes of age. I feel, in a lot of ways, that this writer is a good writer but definitely not great. Most of the side characters other than maybe Thomas Roland are undeveloped and you feel no connection to them. The plot winds a little too quickly, so that the book reads more as a review of the two men's lives, which.. would be interesting if they were real men but they are not.
Part of the problem with this being a 400 page book is that there is often times no character development, just lots of little conversations that at times seem to have no affect on the plot. By the time I was at page 315 I was just like conclude this story already!
The story follows Sorrell and then abruptly the story passes to his son Kit, when his son comes of age. I feel, in a lot of ways, that this writer is a good writer but definitely not great. Most of the side characters other than maybe Thomas Roland are undeveloped and you feel no connection to them. The plot winds a little too quickly, so that the book reads more as a review of the two men's lives, which.. would be interesting if they were real men but they are not.
Part of the problem with this being a 400 page book is that there is often times no character development, just lots of little conversations that at times seem to have no affect on the plot. By the time I was at page 315 I was just like conclude this story already!
April 8, 2013
Well...as I said so many times, there are books which need to be read at a certain age. I am glad I did it at the right time, like 2 centuries ago, when a teenager. I remember I read it during one night and I absolutely loved it.
2 centuries later, nowadays, I re-read it, because I couldnt remember absolutely anything from it. The feeling was rather weird. I would definitely not recommend it for somebody who is over 20-25. The dialogues are obsolete and ridiculously simple for today's taste.
But Sorrell, both son and father are interesting characters, even if a bit awkward and not entirely convincing.
2 centuries later, nowadays, I re-read it, because I couldnt remember absolutely anything from it. The feeling was rather weird. I would definitely not recommend it for somebody who is over 20-25. The dialogues are obsolete and ridiculously simple for today's taste.
But Sorrell, both son and father are interesting characters, even if a bit awkward and not entirely convincing.
September 10, 2020
Discovered this author by accident when I bought an old book of his in a junk store. I’m so glad I did. There is depth, plot, rich characterization, culmination, to the very end, and “life lessons”; like a Dickens novel. Entertaining and absorbing... though it did bog down in some places, too heavy with the “Life lessons.” I tended to skip over some paragraphs, even a few pages. But overall, makes me want to read more of his writing...and goodness knows there is plenty to choose from. He wrote a lot!
February 24, 2009
I seem to recall this one being rather misogynistic.
January 14, 2016
Made it to page 171, but I could never really get invested and it was starting to make me nervous, so I abandoned it for the next book in my pile.
February 26, 2022
Sorrell încerca să strângă curelele de la mica valiză cafenie, dar aceasta era atât de veche şi atât de ticsită, încât trebuia să procedeze cu băgare de seamă.
— Vino să te aşezi pe ea, Christopher!
Băiatul, căruia prefera să-i zică pe numele mic, Kit, stătea călare pe un scaun în faţa ferestrei, împărţindu-şi atenţia între ceea ce făcea tatăl său şi partida de fotbal pe care un grup de băieţi foarte murdari şi gălăgioşi o jucau pe Lavender Street, una din străzile unui cartier sărac din Londra.
Christopher veni să se aşeze. Era un copil brun, de unsprezece ani, cu faţa gravă care se lumina deodată de un zâmbet plăcut. Genunchii îndoiţi scoteau şi mai mult la iveală luciul pantalonilor.
— Nu trebuie să forţezi prea mult, spuse Sorrell. Înţelegi?
Capul întunecat al tatălui atingea capul brun al băiatului. Purta şi el un costum de serj albastru, lustruit de vechi ce era. Stătea cu trupul lui înalt îndoit deasupra valizei, cu umerii aduşi, cu faţa crispată de îngrijorare. Vecinătatea băiatului îl făcea să pară şters şi şubred.
— Acum, cealaltă curea, bătrâne! Nu prea brusc! încetişor…
Era cu sufletul la gură, vorbea în frânturi de fraze, în timp ce trăgea cu mişcări prudente cureaua de piele. O curea ruptă ar fi fost un dezastru! Căci încuietoarea nu mai ţinea şi această teamă de o catastrofă banală părea să se transmită mâinilor sale lungi, inteligente, care se mişcau atent dar energic. Zgomotul respiraţiei lui umplea camera.
— Gata! răsuflă uşurat.
Cum stătea aşa îngenuncheat, privind spre fereastra prin care apărea o fâşie de cer retezat parcă de cornişa lugubră şi de olanele cenuşii ale casei de peste drum, părea o vietate care încearcă să evite un picior uriaş ridicat deasupra ei. În aceşti trei ani din urmă, de fapt după demobilizare, viaţa fusese pentru Sorrell un fel de fiară monstruoasă care îl călca în picioare, iar el – o biată fiinţă prăvălită în noroi, suflând din greu, zbătindu-se să pareze loviturile, înnebunită, plină de ură şi spaimă. Acum reuşise să închidă valiza şi simţea că se îndepărtează în sfârşit de spectrul acelei fiare enorme. O şansă nesperată îl ajutase să-şi salveze ultimul costum făcut de comandă – era tot ce-i mai rămăsese din eleganţa de altădată.
— Vino să te aşezi pe ea, Christopher!
Băiatul, căruia prefera să-i zică pe numele mic, Kit, stătea călare pe un scaun în faţa ferestrei, împărţindu-şi atenţia între ceea ce făcea tatăl său şi partida de fotbal pe care un grup de băieţi foarte murdari şi gălăgioşi o jucau pe Lavender Street, una din străzile unui cartier sărac din Londra.
Christopher veni să se aşeze. Era un copil brun, de unsprezece ani, cu faţa gravă care se lumina deodată de un zâmbet plăcut. Genunchii îndoiţi scoteau şi mai mult la iveală luciul pantalonilor.
— Nu trebuie să forţezi prea mult, spuse Sorrell. Înţelegi?
Capul întunecat al tatălui atingea capul brun al băiatului. Purta şi el un costum de serj albastru, lustruit de vechi ce era. Stătea cu trupul lui înalt îndoit deasupra valizei, cu umerii aduşi, cu faţa crispată de îngrijorare. Vecinătatea băiatului îl făcea să pară şters şi şubred.
— Acum, cealaltă curea, bătrâne! Nu prea brusc! încetişor…
Era cu sufletul la gură, vorbea în frânturi de fraze, în timp ce trăgea cu mişcări prudente cureaua de piele. O curea ruptă ar fi fost un dezastru! Căci încuietoarea nu mai ţinea şi această teamă de o catastrofă banală părea să se transmită mâinilor sale lungi, inteligente, care se mişcau atent dar energic. Zgomotul respiraţiei lui umplea camera.
— Gata! răsuflă uşurat.
Cum stătea aşa îngenuncheat, privind spre fereastra prin care apărea o fâşie de cer retezat parcă de cornişa lugubră şi de olanele cenuşii ale casei de peste drum, părea o vietate care încearcă să evite un picior uriaş ridicat deasupra ei. În aceşti trei ani din urmă, de fapt după demobilizare, viaţa fusese pentru Sorrell un fel de fiară monstruoasă care îl călca în picioare, iar el – o biată fiinţă prăvălită în noroi, suflând din greu, zbătindu-se să pareze loviturile, înnebunită, plină de ură şi spaimă. Acum reuşise să închidă valiza şi simţea că se îndepărtează în sfârşit de spectrul acelei fiare enorme. O şansă nesperată îl ajutase să-şi salveze ultimul costum făcut de comandă – era tot ce-i mai rămăsese din eleganţa de altădată.
March 18, 2023
DNF @ page 244
This book seemed a lot better when I read it as an impressionable, still wet-behind-the-ears 13 year-old. Reading it as an adult, it comes across as annoyingly dated and preachy. Sorrell and his son are a bunch of Gary Stus who can do no wrong and succeed in life through nothing but a borderline pigheaded stubborness. Every male character who either doesn't have the same work ethic, view on life, or even physical appearance is basically a crook.
The book is also eerily misogynistic. The fact that Kit's mum left him when he was young because she wanted to date men with money and sex drive sets the tone, and every woman who comes into the Sorrell's lives is henceforth compared to her. This basically means that any woman ends up being labelled as either a Madonna or a Whore. At one point, Kit meets a woman who doesn't seem to fit any of those tags, which must have confused the hell out of the writer because he decides to get rid of her by having her run over by a bus a dozen pages later.
As the weeks dragged on and I was barely made any progress, I realized that this book was genuinely making me unhappy. It was boring and repetitive, the characters were flat and not engaging, the dialogue was oddly choppy, and it lacked nuance. In the end, I decided that struggling with depression on a daily basis is enough, I don't need to make my life miserable on purpose just for the sake of finishing this drudgery. So into the DNF pile it went.
This book seemed a lot better when I read it as an impressionable, still wet-behind-the-ears 13 year-old. Reading it as an adult, it comes across as annoyingly dated and preachy. Sorrell and his son are a bunch of Gary Stus who can do no wrong and succeed in life through nothing but a borderline pigheaded stubborness. Every male character who either doesn't have the same work ethic, view on life, or even physical appearance is basically a crook.
The book is also eerily misogynistic. The fact that Kit's mum left him when he was young because she wanted to date men with money and sex drive sets the tone, and every woman who comes into the Sorrell's lives is henceforth compared to her. This basically means that any woman ends up being labelled as either a Madonna or a Whore. At one point, Kit meets a woman who doesn't seem to fit any of those tags, which must have confused the hell out of the writer because he decides to get rid of her by having her run over by a bus a dozen pages later.
As the weeks dragged on and I was barely made any progress, I realized that this book was genuinely making me unhappy. It was boring and repetitive, the characters were flat and not engaging, the dialogue was oddly choppy, and it lacked nuance. In the end, I decided that struggling with depression on a daily basis is enough, I don't need to make my life miserable on purpose just for the sake of finishing this drudgery. So into the DNF pile it went.
June 20, 2022
I actually bailed at almost 90% through. I just got so tired of the descriptions of characters. If they were women, they were usually grasping, seductive, and petty. If some poor character had physical disabilities, he was CONSTANTLY described as simian, apelike, and having to eek out a horrid life with 'teeth and claws'. For heaven's sake, the man was an accomplished doctor!
Warwick Deeping comes across as anti-woman in this book. This doesn't scream like a banshee in other books he's written; other female characters were weak and strong in sensible ways according to the culture of the times and in interesting, timeless ways. But this book was trying so hard to capture a harsh world where morals don't matter anymore because England is losing its class-obsessed culture in the face of amoral socialistic whatevers. So we retreat into flower gardens for solace.
I'm tired.
I felt for the main character for some time. But somehow, the book dragged me down. The characters had some integrity, but no morals. Lots of adult topics in here. Then it got so that I cared so little that I just walked away.
I did watch the 80s miniseries. That kinda spoiled the ending for me, but not nearly as much as Deeping himself did.
Moving on to some other old book.
Warwick Deeping comes across as anti-woman in this book. This doesn't scream like a banshee in other books he's written; other female characters were weak and strong in sensible ways according to the culture of the times and in interesting, timeless ways. But this book was trying so hard to capture a harsh world where morals don't matter anymore because England is losing its class-obsessed culture in the face of amoral socialistic whatevers. So we retreat into flower gardens for solace.
I'm tired.
I felt for the main character for some time. But somehow, the book dragged me down. The characters had some integrity, but no morals. Lots of adult topics in here. Then it got so that I cared so little that I just walked away.
I did watch the 80s miniseries. That kinda spoiled the ending for me, but not nearly as much as Deeping himself did.
Moving on to some other old book.
March 14, 2019
This was a big bestseller in 1925, and this male fantasy of selfless father son love still has appeal.
Sorrell is a sensitive man, evidently a gentleman of rare breeding, who has returned from the trenches of WWI. He has a son and his son’s unwavering love. But he has no job and his wife has left him. What can he do? A job as a porter at a tacky hotel, where his efforts aren’t appreciated. But Sorrell has a goal — to raise a decent, well-educated man. And that is the single goal of his life, and he will make any sacrifice to do it.
The first third of this is good drama, as Sorrell has to scratch and scrape to stay employed as a porter, and is bullied by his superiors. But once Sorrell actually makes it, the focus shifts to an odd 1920s social Darwinism that mixes eugenics and misogyny that makes for unpleasant reading. The perfect life for Son seems to exclude women, except, of course, when he gets restless and must have release. A woman for Son does arrive in the closing chapters, but she seems rather an afterthought.
Sorrell is a sensitive man, evidently a gentleman of rare breeding, who has returned from the trenches of WWI. He has a son and his son’s unwavering love. But he has no job and his wife has left him. What can he do? A job as a porter at a tacky hotel, where his efforts aren’t appreciated. But Sorrell has a goal — to raise a decent, well-educated man. And that is the single goal of his life, and he will make any sacrifice to do it.
The first third of this is good drama, as Sorrell has to scratch and scrape to stay employed as a porter, and is bullied by his superiors. But once Sorrell actually makes it, the focus shifts to an odd 1920s social Darwinism that mixes eugenics and misogyny that makes for unpleasant reading. The perfect life for Son seems to exclude women, except, of course, when he gets restless and must have release. A woman for Son does arrive in the closing chapters, but she seems rather an afterthought.
Read
July 25, 2020Warwick Deeping was a doctor who was a prolific novelist. He was the forerunner of A.J. Cronin who recycled many of his themes. Being a doctor, he had a good understanding of human nature. His most titular work is "Sorrell and Son" which is a moving story of the close relationship between a down- and- out single father and his son. The father would do anything, even go through hell to ensure his son has a good future as a medical doctor. A successful television adaptation was done for British television. Deeping has many other equally good novels some of which have a medical theme.His work has largely been forgotten. It has been dismissed because of its exposition of male chivalry that is deemed irrelevant for modern times.I beg to differ. Similar themes of A.J. Cronin have remained perennial favourites. "The Citadel" borrows aspects from a number of Deeping's books.
August 21, 2023
"A memory may be a wound, but what is life without wounds? They are sacred."
This book surprised me in the best way. The story of a father and a son, of the struggles and sacrifices a parent goes through in order to give everything to his child. It was, not only well written, but also very kind and respectful. I was also amazed at the fact, even though it is a old story written by a man, it had a woman with a very nice-paying job that refused to give up her career for marriage and children, and instead she and Kit (the Son) understood and complemented each other. It was truly wonderful to see.
A really amazing and heartful story ❤️
adapted films:
sorrell and son (1927) dir. Herbert Brenon.
sorrell and son (1934) dir. Jack Raymond.
adapted serie:
sorrell and son (1984)
This book surprised me in the best way. The story of a father and a son, of the struggles and sacrifices a parent goes through in order to give everything to his child. It was, not only well written, but also very kind and respectful. I was also amazed at the fact, even though it is a old story written by a man, it had a woman with a very nice-paying job that refused to give up her career for marriage and children, and instead she and Kit (the Son) understood and complemented each other. It was truly wonderful to see.
A really amazing and heartful story ❤️
adapted films:
sorrell and son (1927) dir. Herbert Brenon.
sorrell and son (1934) dir. Jack Raymond.
adapted serie:
sorrell and son (1984)
September 29, 2021
A curiosity. An ex-army officer and single parent struggles to raise his son, who grows up with the ambition of being a great surgeon.
Considered a giant in his time, Deeping has now faded, and it's easy to see why with this work which is very much anchored in the mores of the time and quite challenging for the modern reader to decipher. The key question - how how men and women can live together without the constraints imposed 1920s standards -- is talked around but never addressed, and the unstated reasons for the strong positions on both sides can only be guessed at.
September 2, 2024
Very good book. Excellent depiction of a Father & Son relationship. The father sacrifices much to insure that his son has the best chance at success in life. The son repays the father with hard work, love and devotion. Set in England between the two World Wars it brings to life a changing England in this era. Moving and suspenseful, good description and character development. It's worth the read.
September 16, 2025
An addictive tale of a father’s love in 1920’s England
One might not agree with the author’s sentiments on all subjects—he’s not a great fan of children or Socialists and even womanhood at times— but his philosophy of life and his ability to rebuild himself after fighting in World War I will make you believe you can do the same if need be.
One might not agree with the author’s sentiments on all subjects—he’s not a great fan of children or Socialists and even womanhood at times— but his philosophy of life and his ability to rebuild himself after fighting in World War I will make you believe you can do the same if need be.
January 15, 2021
Un reminder extraordinar al importantei prezentei sau absentei parintilor in viata copiilor si a adultilor.
August 13, 2024
Although I’d never heard of Warwick Deeping, I was particularly struck by his anxious demeanour on the picture of him included in the 1937 set of Wills’ cigarette cards featuring Famous British Authors.
I also found his name especially striking - and imagined that he might be the author of hard-boiled detective novels in the style of Raymond Chandler.
I found this not to be the case when I happened upon a vintage copy of his novel, “Sorrell and Son”, in a charity shop in Ipswich. I was instantly charmed by the picture on the front cover – always a treat because most of my second-hand, hard-back books have long lost their dust jackets.
My copy dating from 1940 is the 35th reprint since it was first published 15 years earlier in 1925. This shows the phenomenal success of the book in the two decades between the World Wars.
It’s very clearly a novel of that time – and it follows a theme that features repeatedly in books written by authors in the 1920s and 1930s. It’s about a young man who returns from the trenches and struggles to adjust to everyday life in a world where everything seems displaced and disorientating.
Warwick Deeping explores this theme through the relationship between a returning, working-class war hero, Stephen Sorrell, and his young son, Kit. As the novel progressed, I grew increasingly anxious that the struggles and unfairnesses of life would eventually overwhelm them.
The more the father made sacrifices for his son, to give him every opportunity he’d never had himself, the more I feared it would all go wrong and the son would turn out, in typical pot-boiler fashion, the viciously ungrateful child from hell.
Yet despite the many blows and set-backs father and son come up against, hard work and decency finally pay off. No wonder readers lapped this up in the tough years of depression and disillusionment after the First World War.
A novel that could so easily have teetered over into sentimentality actually won me over with its engaging honesty and freshness. Perhaps it was because it reminded me of my own grandfather who struggled to adapt after traumatic war experiences he would rarely talk about. In any case, I found Warwick Deeping resonated with me in a way I hadn’t expected and I’m very much looking forward to finding other books by him to explore.
I also found his name especially striking - and imagined that he might be the author of hard-boiled detective novels in the style of Raymond Chandler.
I found this not to be the case when I happened upon a vintage copy of his novel, “Sorrell and Son”, in a charity shop in Ipswich. I was instantly charmed by the picture on the front cover – always a treat because most of my second-hand, hard-back books have long lost their dust jackets.
My copy dating from 1940 is the 35th reprint since it was first published 15 years earlier in 1925. This shows the phenomenal success of the book in the two decades between the World Wars.
It’s very clearly a novel of that time – and it follows a theme that features repeatedly in books written by authors in the 1920s and 1930s. It’s about a young man who returns from the trenches and struggles to adjust to everyday life in a world where everything seems displaced and disorientating.
Warwick Deeping explores this theme through the relationship between a returning, working-class war hero, Stephen Sorrell, and his young son, Kit. As the novel progressed, I grew increasingly anxious that the struggles and unfairnesses of life would eventually overwhelm them.
The more the father made sacrifices for his son, to give him every opportunity he’d never had himself, the more I feared it would all go wrong and the son would turn out, in typical pot-boiler fashion, the viciously ungrateful child from hell.
Yet despite the many blows and set-backs father and son come up against, hard work and decency finally pay off. No wonder readers lapped this up in the tough years of depression and disillusionment after the First World War.
A novel that could so easily have teetered over into sentimentality actually won me over with its engaging honesty and freshness. Perhaps it was because it reminded me of my own grandfather who struggled to adapt after traumatic war experiences he would rarely talk about. In any case, I found Warwick Deeping resonated with me in a way I hadn’t expected and I’m very much looking forward to finding other books by him to explore.
August 19, 2021
Veryimpressiv book
October 11, 2012
This is another that had been on my “to read” list for several years. Written in 1925, it is rather a period piece now, but I’m still glad I read it. Steven Sorrell, an Englishman, is divorced and is bringing up his son Christopher, called Kit. When the boy is grade-school age, they eke out an existence as Sorrell takes a job as a porter in a hotel and Kit boards with a woman in town and goes to school. Their condition improves as Sorrell is able to get better jobs, and Kit is able to go to college and medical school. There is no action in the book that comes to any kind of a climax and that is the weak point of the story, in my estimation. It was apparently very popular when it was published, going through seven printings in its first four months of publication and many more through the rest of the 20’s and 1930.
April 13, 2015
I absolutely love every book I have ever read of Warwick Deeping.
October 10, 2015
A beautiful story about father/son love, growing up and becoming a man.
March 4, 2016
inspirational
January 22, 2024
Ein schrecklicher Roman, der mit allen Regeln einer guten Geschichte bricht.
Read
January 11, 2017Very English; very good.
August 26, 2017
This book seems to be not so interesting at the beginning but then it catches your attention and makes you wondering what will happen next. I recommend it also to medical students that are at the beginning of their career. A great book!
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