The Flight of the Maidens

by Jane Gardam

From the author of Old Filth and The Man in the Wooden Hat

It is the summer of 1946, a time of clothing coupons and food rations, of postwar deprivations and social readjustment. In this precarious new era, three young women prepare themselves to head off to university and explore the world beyond Yorkshire, England. The bookish Hetty Fallowes struggles to become independent of her overbearing mother, Una Vane embarks on a bicycle trip around the countryside with a young man from the wrong side of the tracks, and Liselotte Klein, a Jewish refugee taken in by a Quaker family, heads to London in search of her only relatives to survive the Nazis.

As the three struggle to find meaning and love in a new world, they realize that they still have much to learn, and that their friendship is perhaps the only constant in an ever-changing world.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, British Literature, Literary Fiction, Novels, Coming Of Age, World War II

278 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

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

Reviews

[Elyse Walters · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very touching story … by a gifted writer!

Put a BIG SMILE on my face!!!

This is my type of novel!!!
…The warmth I felt in my body when I finished it -
…the smile on my face —
…my heart bathed with love — it’s ‘that’ type of novel ….
….exceptionally well written!

I honestly feel blessed for having read another treasure! (been on a role lately) …
Thank you, Bruce!!! Your review inspired me. I knew instantly it was my type of book.

Jane Gardam, British, is the only writer to have been twice awarded the Whitebread Prize for best Novel of the Year.
Many other awards—including the Booker Prize for ‘Old Faith’…. (well-deserved!)

A personal share:
When our daughter, Ali, was twelve-and-a-half years old, she wrote a speech of thankful acknowledgments at the end of her Torah reading,
during her bat mitzvah. (to the Rabbi, the Cantor, other adults who helped tutor her, and her family)
This is what she said about Paul and I:
“I especially want to thank my parents for giving me enough support in life to feel safe and enough independence to feel free”.

Hetty, Una, and Lieselotte were grappling with wanting security from their families- yet wanting to take flight - make their own choices, mistakes, and successes.
I related to this theme as a daughter- and again later as a mother.

There are hilarious scenes—heartbreaking scenes —
wonderful distinct characterization—family history—and damn great storytelling.

It was the 40’s. …defined by the Holocaust, atomic bombs, and the beginning of the Cold War.
The political and social issues were endless.
And for Hetty, Una, and Lieselotte,
…it was the summer of pinnacle
achievements for three Yorkshire girlfriends. They were celebrating their college scholarships … each having been granted one.
off to college in the fall…

Do others remember their summer vacation after high school?
I remember mine like yesterday:
a summer love —(swimming naked under a waterfall and Yosemite)
and
my girlfriends.
A transitional summer, indeed.

“The Flight of the Maidens delights with charming characters from interesting settings.
…Hetty must take flight from her mother’s overbearing presence in her life.
…Una has her first love.
…Lieselotte - the only Jewish girl must come to terms with her family’s fate.

A wonderful book - about real young women — a fascinating era —
It’s witty, charming, and compassionate.

Very engaging!!

For fun:
I found myself looking up the origins of ‘names’ that Jane Gardam picked for her characters:

One of the characters is named Eustace ….
What kind of name is Eustace, you ask? Me too.
…it’s a boy’s name of Greek origin….meaning ‘steadfast’.
Eustace was originally popularized by St. Eustace, who was born a Norman nobleman and is said to have been converted to Christianity by seeing a crucifix between the antlers of a deer he was hunting.

One of the girls point of view about Eustace;
“He’s good for nothing, that one, but the church choir”. (ouch)….
Nice - smart - guy ….. but a guy to make a girl melt with his kissing?… well?

A little dialogue sharing - girls just wanting to have a little fun:
[ the girls were each 17 … not quite drinking age]

Crème de menthe anyone?
“Hetty, Una, and Lieselotte looked with this belief at the size of the glasses”.
“It’s in thimbles, she said”.
“And they’re a crown each said Hetty. It must be a try-on. Yes, I bet it’s because we are from the North”.
“I think it’s the spirits, she said. Tastes just like peppermint creams. It’s gone so fast. It’s a wonderful colour, and she ran a scarlet fingertip around the rim”.
“I feel wonderful inside, said Una. We’d better leave at once or we’ll have Hetty arriving at the college rolling. It wouldn’t be a good beginning”.

Lots of new beginnings…

[JimZ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Second review 3 years later: Well when it came time to write up this review I found out I had already read the book....that has happened to me on more than several occasions. I don't know whether I should be disturbed by that or not. It was 3 years ago and lots of stuff happens in the interim and maybe it's healthy to not remember anything and everything that happened three years ago. OK, I feel better. 🙂 The weirdest thing is that in my earlier review I wrote down one incident from the book that I found hilarious....mind you the book is 279 pages long. The one incident I wrote in my notes for this time I read it (3 years later) was exactly that same incident! Imagine that!!!

I am not sure I had heard of this author until I read a review by a GR friend on the book, and it intrigued me enough to read it. Wow. 🙂

She really writes well. Her characters said and thought the funniest things at times.... reminded me of at least a couple of other authors I like that do that. Barbara Comyns comes to mind.

It’s not really a humorous book... It’s about three British 17-year girls in their last summer before they are scheduled to go off to college in 1946 — all three have won scholarships...Hetty is going off to London College, Liselotte off to Girton College (Cambridge), and Una off to Cambridge. For all three of them, one or both of their parents have been adversely impacted by either or both World War One and Two, and the girls are affected too.

While I was reading the book, I would occasionally be struck by a sentence or a phrase or a description of something from the pen of Gardam...her writing was a pleasure to read. I look forward to reading more of her oeuvre. 🙂

Here was one of the things I found to be funny/humorous...Hetty is arguing with her mother — the mother has a blind acquaintance, and the mother wants Hetty to accompany her to a social gathering in which the blind woman is in attendance, and Hetty does not want to go:
• “If she’s blind, why don’t you just pretend that I’m there?”

On the dust jacket (back) there is a blurb from New Statesman and I couldn’t agree more: ‘Well observed, crisp prose”.

Gardam has written a number of books, and some of them have garnered her awards (e.g., Whitbread Novel Award for ‘Queen of the Tambourine’ [1991]). If somebody has a fave book of hers, please let me know. I‘m trying to decide which book of hers to read next.

Reviews:
• https://www.theguardian.com/books/200...
• http://marywhipplereviews.com/jane-ga...
• https://www.startribune.com/review-th...
• https://www.curledup.com/maidens.htm

[Chrissie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This has left me with a huge smile on my face.

The story is about three girls living in a Yorkshire town. All are seventeen in the summer of 1946. All will be off to college in the fall, two to Cambridge and one to London University. All three are clever and talented. All three have won scholarships. The three friends are Hetty Fallows Una Vane and Lisolette Klein. The first two have been friends for years. Lisolette came to Britain from Hamburg, Germany, in 1939 through Kindertransport. She is Jewish.

The story is about loosening the strings that tie you to your parents and family, finding your own identity and yet still loving those who have shaped you. It is about standing on your own two feet. It is about friendship. It is about war and the imprints left on those who have lived through wars.

This is a very British story. You hear this in its pitch-perfect dialogs filled with colloquialisms and fantastic descriptions of British landscapes, people and mannerisms. What it says about the loosening of family ties goes beyond national borders.

This novel worked for me because of how Jane Gardam describes scenes. It worked for me because it draws people as they really are, and she draws different kinds of people each with their own quirks, faults and unique charm. Even subsidiary characters are well drawn. She had me laughing. The humor is often ironical. She had me thinking. I quite simply like how this author writes!

Over the summer the three girls go off in different directions. The story flips between what the three girls do and experience before school begins. I had no difficulty flipping between them. All three kept my interest. Lisolette’s story did stretch believability at times, but who cares--I like how the story ends?!

I like this novel as much as I do because of how it is written. The same events told by another author might not be at all as appealing as this.

The audiobook is narrated by June Barrie. She dramatizes. She uses different accents for different characters. I did not like this in the beginning, but by the end I ended up liking it a lot. Four stars for the narration. Many different accents are used. This is done well, and it makes you smile.

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

The Flight of the Maidens 4 stars
Bilgewater 4 stars
Faith Fox 4 stars
Crusoe's Daughter 4 stars
Old Filth 4 stars
The Man in the Wooden Hat 4 stars
God on the Rocks 3 stars
The Queen of the Tambourine 3 stars
A Long Way from Verona 3 stars
The Hollow Land 2 stars
The Summer After the Funeral TBR
Missing the Midnight TBR

[Bruce Katz · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good friend reminded me that participating on Goodreads is not meant to be a chore and that I am not obliged to try to write a full-blown, carefully reasoned review of every book. I am grateful for the advice. I needed it (though I'm not certain about that "carefully reasoned"thing). So, a short-ish review with carefully chosen excerpts.

“Flight of the Maidens” is a well-written, understated, and kindhearted serio-comedy about postwar England. “Serio-” because Gardam’s looking at real issues like the change of the Old World order, the dark after-effects of war (including the Bomb and the concentration camps), the crumbling of the British class system, the persistence of stereotypes, and yes, Coming of Age, because that’s a real and serious a process for almost all of us.

And -comic because it’s really funny.

The basic story: It’s the summer of 1946. The war is over, though deep scars remain in bodies, cities, and psyches. The book opens on a sunny day in a Yorkshire cemetery. Three teenage girls lie on the grass and talk excitedly about the changes coming in their lives. All three of them have won scholarships to University. Two are native Yorkshire girls of modest means who will be leaving their childhood homes and parents and going out into the world. The third is quiet and more reserved: she's a Jewish girl from Hamburg, who escaped Nazi Germany in the Kindertransport and has been living in Yorkshire with a Quaker couple.

"Flight" follows the girls over the course of that summer. One will have sex for the first time, another will have an adventure in which she encounters both ordinary Lake Country folk and the remnants of a landed old family. The third, Lieselotte, will learn — belatedly, because the information has been kept from her — that both her parents were killed at Auschwitz, and she’ll go to California to meet her last living relative, a stranger to her.

Gardam lays out the girls’ adventures with her usual kindness, playfulness, and great economy of style, where a little conveys a lot. They are all intelligent and well-read, these girls, but not nearly as knowledgeable about the world — or themselves — as they believe themselves to be, which is to say they’re teenagers. They dream big Romantic dreams, wonder if they're falling in love, and experience new things in the world but don’t always fully understand what it is they’re seeing. (Lieselotte's experiences are different, of course, as is her life situation now.) The adults around them are likewise flawed and frustrated and dreaming. And often hypocritical.

Rather than continuing in this vein, I’m going to share some excerpts and let the book speak for itself. It doesn't capture the pleasure of Gardam's plot development.

The three girls in the graveyard: “‘D’you know what it says on this [tombstone], Het? It’s Latin. Come on.’ ‘It says the geezer died,’ said Hetty, ‘and his wife died, but before she died she had twelve children and they all died, and before he died he married again and the new one had eight children (he was quite a goer). And then she died and she was still only, let’s see, twenty-seven. Nice sort of life. We’re pretty lucky. Makes you want no children. They must have been scared crazy in the eighteenth century when they got, you know, pregnant. I’m not having any children. Even now, it’s dangerous. And disgusting. Even if they don’t die.’”

The mother of one of the girls: Mrs. Fallowes spoke of her own ill health, indeed of everybody’s, of life itself, as a treacherous river on which we are flung at birth and must struggle against until this transient miserable body, the soul’s guest, merges properly into the sea of heaven. These beliefs Kitty did not discuss directly in the Lonsdale Café, where she spent most of the time talking about Hetty, of whom she was tremendously proud and tremendously jealous. Mrs. Fallowes’s poor health as a child (the local doctor was famous for prescribing only glasses of water) had meant that she had had almost no education, and like many High Church women of the time, filled with the idea of making their bodies a living sacrifice and trying not to think of sex except as a method of pleasing a husband, she had thrown her passions into motherhood and Church ritual. And penitence. And Confession. And ‘being unworthy’.

Old attitudes persist: “‘I’ve no belief in women with careers,’ came from the mound of rags in the new mechanical wheelchair that was Mrs. Eaves. ‘It shrinks the womb.’”

And: “Nothing about the war had shaken Mrs. Lonsdale in the least: not the air raids, not the bomb on the Gentlemen’s Club, not the films at the Palace cinema of the German concentration camps, which she had thought unreal and probably done with models, if they were honest.” (The local vicar likewise asserts that the pictures have been faked. The girls, however, are haunted by them.)

One of the girls’ mother dies and a group of her (um) friends gathers to commemorate her: “‘D’you know,’ said Joyce Dobson, ‘I believe [she] baked that sponge herself. I could always tell a sponge of hers.’ ‘She never did! Oh, but that’s dreadful. I know she always had everything planned ahead,
but . . . it’s awful really. Eating her sponge.’ ‘It wasn’t as fresh as usual,’ said Vera Robertson.” (No one would take Gardam's novels as anything other than British, I think. I can visualize this scene with ease.)

Not everyone at the Home Front had the same experience of war. Class standing was one reason: ‘The bombing wasn’t fun, [says one of the girls to the lady of the manor she’s visiting]. Twenty-six people were killed in Shields East one night, down the road from us. It wasn’t fun. We knew everybody!’ ‘Oh, and here we had nothing!’ said Ursula. ‘We were blessed, but we do sometimes feel guilty, you know. But we were stiff with German prisoners, of course. I’ve got some here tonight.’ ‘Here?’ ‘Yes. It’s one’s Christian duty, and they’re so useful about the estate. There’s not a Nazi among them and one of them went to Eton. It’s so strange that you never ever meet a German who was a Nazi.”

An example of Gardam’s sense of humor: “‘Oh, of course. They’re all Catholics! I’d forgotten. That’s it! He’s in line for being a saint, and he’s got the stigmata.’ ‘They are Catholics, just so,’ said Mrs. Satterley. ‘The Fitzurses are cradle Catholics, always have been, but I didn’t say Rupert was a saint, and I never heard tell he had anything the matter with his eyes.’”

The father of one of the girls, a well-educated man who was emotionally scarred in the First World War and now works as a gravedigger: “I am good for nothing but continuing to dig holes for the dead. Now there will be no work for me at all. The Bomb eliminates graves. We shall only be painted shadows across whatever walls are left. We shall be as the flat hordes of the extinct animals that stampede across the cave walls of prehistory. But there will be nobody left to marvel at us.’”

And finally this wonderful exchange between the girls: “‘How do you know all this?’ ‘I know a lot more than I did. It must be because I have a lover.’ They sat in silence as the train rushed on; began to slow down. ‘You mean a real lover?’ said Hetty. ‘In the technical way?’ ‘Yes.’” (Ah, the hard-won acquisition of knowledge.)

Yes, I liked it a lot, and no, I’m not doing it any justice, I know that. But I will say that I have yet to be disappointed in any book written by Jane Gardam. I’m very glad I have lots more of her books to look forward to.

[Kathleen · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Well, friends are vital for girls …”

Marvelous book! It’s left me feeling all warm inside.

World War II has ended, and three girls in Yorkshire have received scholarships to university. Now they must each in their own way prepare for college and life on their own. The girls are so distinct and unusual, with fascinating home lives, brought to life by the fabulous writing.

Hetty, the main character, is funny, smarter than she realizes, and will be studying English Literature. Her thoughts on reading were great fun for me. “Page after page of wet, salt ink, blotted, legible, confident. It was ink that had freed her. Blessed ink. Ink for immortality. Stronger than history. History itself. There will always have to be ink.”

Una will be studying Physics. She’s independent, and her bicycling trips are inspiring. She did a fair bit of preparatory reading too though. “… she thought how much and how long she had loved him, but how, after Tolstoy, the love was now perhaps all draining away.”

Liselotte, who will be studying Modern Languages, is a Jewish refugee from Hamburg. She came to England at 10 years old, and has been living an extremely quiet life with Quakers, but her journey is the most tumultuous and fascinating, full of colorful and revealing details.

Of course there’s more to preparing for adulthood than tackling your summer reading list, and as these girls encounter their different challenges, the reader can feel them stretching and growing into women.

One of those books you’re happy to live in for a time, with intricate characters, relatable scrapes, told in smooth, lively prose. Off to find more Jane Gardam to read.

[Ann G. Daniels · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jane Gardam's novels are small miracles. Like looking through both ends of a telescope at once, her stories and characters are crystal clear and at the same time infinitely close and infinitely far away; you see a very big picture by seeing a very small segment in its tiniest details.

In Flight of the Maidens, three school friends follow unexpected and widely diverging paths in rural England during the summer of 1946, before they are to enter renowned universities on prestigious scholarships. Una loves her cheerful single mother but also her "bad boy" admirer, with whom she longs to go on the open road; Lieselotte, the German Jew who appeared amongst them as a refugee during the war, must make huge choices about her future without knowing what happened to her past. But the book really belongs to Hetty - Hester, as she renames herself - who struggles to free herself from her conflicted love for her overbearing but terribly loving mother and her war-addled father.

I suspect, from the writing and the odd dedication, that Hetty was once Jane Gardam herself, and that this is more than just the amusing, well-written book it appears to be. Look a little deeper and it's a beautiful story of finding out who you are, who you were, and who - against all odds - you might be.

[Book Concierge · Rating 4 out of 5]

From the book jacket: It is the summer of 1946. A time of clothing coupons and food rations, of postwar deprivations and social readjustment. In this precarious new era, three young women prepare themselves to head off to university and explore the world beyond Yorkshire, England.

My reactions:
I’ve read three of Gardam’s novels before this one, and I rated them all 4****. I made a note to myself immediately on finishing this one with my 4-star rating, but now, a week later, as I sit to write my review I think I may have been over-enthusiastic. I’ll leave my rating at 4 since that was my initial reaction, but perhaps it should really be 3.5***.

What I love about Gardam’s writing is the way she paints her characters and shows us who they are. Hetty (Hester or “Hes-tah”) Fallowes is somewhat bookish and saddled with an overbearing mother. She sympathizes with but doesn’t really understand her father, who suffers from the traumas he witnessed in the trenches during WWI (what we would today recognize as PTSD). Her best friend (since age five) is Una Vane. She had a somewhat privileged upbringing, until her doctor father walked out one morning, and his body was discovered days later at the base of a cliff. He, too, had suffered from his experiences in WW1. The third girl is a recent member of their tight circle of friendship.

Leiselotte Klein, is a Jewish refugee who was taken in by a Quaker family. While Hetty and Una are thin, even skinny, Leiselotte is chubby. She slouches and is always knitting. She knows nothing of what has happened to her family, and while the Quaker couple who have taken her in have provided all they can for her, they have not been warm and loving. Her “foreignness” in this small Yorkshire community sets her apart and she’s remained rather solitary. At least until the three are joined together by the news of their scholarships.

The book opens with the three girls “picnicking” and talking about their recent acceptance at university. All will be setting off for London: Hetty to London to read Literature; Una to Cambridge to study physics; and Leiselotte to Cambridge where she’ll study Modern Languages. But before they go, they’ll have the summer months to grow up a bit.

Gardam changes point of view from chapter to chapter to give each girl a chance in the spotlight. Hetty heads for the Lake District on her own, an attempt to get away from her mother and try to get a head start on the basic reading she is certain her fellow university students have already studied. Una takes a bicycle trip around the countryside in the company of a boy from the wrong side of the tracks. Leiselotte’s journey is the most wide-ranging and full of surprises. I’m not sure I ever really got to know her in this novel and felt that her story was somewhat tacked onto that of the other girls.

[George · Rating 4 out of 5]

An engaging, charming, witty, delightful historical fiction novel mainly set in a Yorkshire town in the summer of 1946. The book follows the journeys of three young women aged around seventeen. Hetty Fallowes has a relationship with 22 year old Eustace and has a strong relationship with her talkative mother. Her father is a gravedigger. She wants to study literature. Una Vane’s father died when she was nine, found dead on the rocks of Boylby Head, a victim of the First World War. Una wants to study physics at university. She is in love with a railway worker. Liselotte Klein, is the outsider of the three. One of the many Jewish children smuggled out of Germany in 1939. She wants to study foreign languages at college.

All three have eventful life experiences in the summer of 1946. Gardham fans should find this book a very satisfying reading experience.

This book was first published in 2000.

[Fiona · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would have given this 5 stars but I thought the ending was just a bit weak. It's otherwise classic, brilliant Jane Gardam. It's about the hiatus in life between leaving school and going to University. That very special last summer when you're still a child at heart, desperate to be a grown up but scared of what that means. It's very poignant at times, hilarious at others. Set in the North of England mostly, it's easy to imagine Julie Walters and Victoria Wood having some of the conversations - wearing hats with hat pins in, over a pot of tea and an Empire biscuit in a Lyons Corner House!

[Jeanette · Rating 4 out of 5]

Three 17 year olds are leaving their homes and beginnings during the year after the War (WII) ends. Wonderful, vibrant Jane Gardam "talk-over each other style" dialog and social groupings. Marvelous plots and it is so good I will not tell you more. Except that these 17 year-olds would at the least be 26 (maturity, self-knowledge, skills etc.) in 2014.

And the last 40 pages were 5 star plus. Stupendous endings!

Not an easy read- as there is constantly changing location, situation, nuance, and much colloquial language. I would need to reread at times, but always such WIT embedded within 7 to 10 words, that it was more than a pleasure to do so. Coming of age to choices in life of work/school, sexual identity and choice to attachment- and how they get rerouted and/or empowered! Lovely energy here- even the old have it.

Just the exact warm hearted, yet quirky and unpredictable, tale of family life and fate to happenstance read that I was looking for on the first really beautiful sunny day after a dank spring.

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is my third Jane Gardam book this year, and while it isn't my favorite book of hers (so far its Old Filth), I still really enjoy this woman’s writing. I think I’ve stumbled on a pattern though. It seems that Jane and I don’t get along through the first few chapters. It seems for the other two titles I’ve read of hers as well, I just don’t know what the hell is going on for a good 50 pages. She’s a big proponent of not making things too obvious to the point that you seriously have to make some wild eyed predictions to even begin to glimpse where the story is going. Her dialogue is witty and quick, like many a British authors, so if you’re not on your toes, you can get lost in that way too. I love her quirky characters though, and her time periods! Just barely post WW2 England, where people are still using ration coupons and there are daily reminders of the blitz everywhere you turn?! Sign me up. Once again, I am so glad that Jane is finally getting her dues, as her books are now just starting to reach acclaim here in the U. S. of A. as I saw a book of hers that was published in the 70s, just reviewed in the NY Times Sunday Book Review. God, what is wrong with this country!? We let good writers slip through our fingers for 30+ years, meanwhile Snookie is publishing a memoir! Bolllacks!

[Thomas · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really liked Gardam's Old Filth trilogy, but the more I read her other work the less I like. I started out really loving this book, started to get a little bored in the middle, and then sped my way through what I thought was the disappointing resolution.

[Brian E Reynolds · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Flight of the Maidens is a 2000 novel by British author Jane Gardam, best known for her later work, The Old Filth Trilogy: Old Fifth, The Man in the Wooden Hat, and Last Friends. This novel is set in 1946 after the end of WWII and is about three young Yorkshire lasses as they contemplate and experience life during the period before they go off to university. Each is the recipient of a government scholarship.

Main character Hetty, the most social and a surprise scholarship winner, is off to London to read Literature. Una, her close friend since age 6 and the historically better student, is off to Cambridge to read Physics. Finally, new friend Lieselotte, a German Jewish refugee, is also off to Cambridge but to read Modern Languages. The book explores the adventures and mind-set of all three during the period before university.

And each does have an adventure of sorts. Hetty is off to seclude herself in The Lake District to get better read for university. Una is off on biking trips with her first boyfriend and Lieselotte’s role as refugee takes her on new family discoveries and new places. The story contains much dialogue and internal monologue and describes the three’s relationships with each other, family members, pseudo family members, current and prospective suitors and general mentors as each goes through this life-changing time period.

The novel started slowly with me. I don't find Gardam’s prose to be that fluid. While it’s not difficult, it does not flow so easily as to entice me into reading more as reading stylists such as Somerset Maugham or Elizabeth Taylor do. Yet here, as with the The Old Filth Trilogy, as the story went on I found myself getting more and more engrossed. If not fluid, Gardam’s writing and storytelling are still extremely engaging.

I also thought Gardam successfully created 3 young women characters. I found Hetty the most interesting, but that’s because Gardam showed us more of her inner thoughts than the other two. Lieselotte had the most fascinating storyline which made her relative absence from the last part of the novel a bit disappointing. Una’s character and story may have gotten less attention than the others but I thought her character attractive as she served as the glue for the group.

Born in 1928, author Gardam would have been the same age as her characters in 1946. As a result, although it was written in 2000, the book felt like it could have been written in 1950. That contributed to this felling like a very realistic and accurate slice of life post WWII story. I enjoyed this and rate it as 4+ stars.

[Eleanor · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the English summer of 1946, three young women in Yorkshire are experiencing their last months before going to University. This is the story of what they do in those months and the decisions they make. If this sounds mundane, it is anything but that, although Jane Gardam writes so beautifully that she could make a telephone directory interesting.

The shadows of both the World Wars still fall on their young lives; two whose fathers survived the Great War but continued to live with its horrors, and one who is German Jewish. Her life was saved by the Kindertransport, but she has to learn to deal with the fate of her family back in Hamburg.

Jane Gardam herself would have had some of these experiences and known of others. Everything she writes rings true.

Highly recommended.

[Cathérine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Echt van genoten, Jane Gardam is een topauteur!

[Karen M · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. It transported me to a time my mother knew but rarely spoke of ,the greige post war years where everything was in short supply and yet it didn’t matter as the war had ended. Three girls teeter on the edge of womanhood and a life of their own , all simultaneously different yet similar they are joined by friendship and the need for support against their parents’ generation. This generation , scarred by two wars, is fearful of the changes taking place. Indeed some of the women’s conversations were almost Cranfordian or was it Mrs Bennet multiplied ? The dialogue is a joy.
I fell for each girl and her unique problems ,Una, Hetty , and Lieselotte . One minute I was laughing at the bottled grapefruit reward next I was horrified at the way Lieselotte , borne on the wheels of the last kindertransport was treated by England and the English. Terribly.
Her story spans America , and has an almost fairytale quality to it. I’d not really considered the post war chaos or that people were so unfeeling. The ignorance of the death camps was almost unbearable as was the idea that no one really considered the effect of taking a young Jewish refugee to see the film of the emancipation of Dachau.
Hetty and Una are trammelled by their mothers lives and expectations. Both live under the shadow of WW1 let alone WW2. Una’s romance is beautifully unfolded in all its youth hostel glory , I’m no great romantic but it drew me in and I cheered when she declared she would marry the socialist working class hero determinedly bettering himself with the help of his mould breaking mother.
So many layers , so many moments I loved , I was sad to finish but glad they all made it in their own way. What’s more there was even a letter as a key ingredient Austen and Gaskell would approve I think.

[Lynn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm really on a Gardam kick, and her work is consistently well-written and compelling. This early novel is about three young women who are suddenly out of high school and onto independence. It's a scary time at the best of times, but these three have various home problems, and all were deeply affected by the first and second world wars. Gardam fits these facts in carefully and unobtrusively, but the reader comes to understand the wide-reaching effects wars have on everyone.

This is an earlier Gardam, so her style is still in development, but her sense of humor and deep human feeling for her characters is certainly there. There's a nice novelty in a girls' coming-of-age story, which is so often directed at boys. But these girls are entering a radically changing world with radically changing minds. Well done.

[René Stommel · Rating 3 out of 5]

wel een aardige roman, maar met een nogal losse structuur waardoor ik er moeite mee had om mijn aandacht er bij te houden.Draait om drie meisjes die op het punt staan om te gaan studeren. Het is 1946. Eén van die drie is een joods meisje dat via een vluchtprogramma naar Engeland is ontkomen en dat bij (meerdere) rare pleegouders is ondergebracht: dat geeft wel mooie ingehouden observaties. Er heerst een wat landerige sfeer, de meisjes doen wel avontuurlijke zaken op de drempel van volwassenheid.. ik kreeg er geen vat op, dat zou goed kunnen passen bij het thema: zoeken.

[Ruut Willemsen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Een heerlijk boek over drie meiden die zoekende zijn na hun beurs voor de studie. En veel achtergrond krijg je over 1946 en die tijd.

[Dirk · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Flight of the Maidens recounts the summer of three young women, friends in a small town in Yorkshire, after each has received a generous and prestigious scholarship to a different university. The basic theme of the book is the process of separation of daughters from their family. It is 1946, and Britain is just beginning to recover from the Second World War. Gardam provides each of her heroines with a different struggle. One, Hetty, is deeply enmeshed with her mother and suffers an attendant obsessive and painful separation process on both sides. Una has middling relation to her somewhat distant and eccentric mother and is progressing nicely. Lieselotte is a Kindertransporte child, that is her Jewish parents sent her from Germany to England for safety in 1939. Presumably, they have died, but at least at the beginning of the book they are absent even from Lieselotte's memory. She lives at first in a kind of stunned forgetfulness in a silent Quaker household.

The three girls and Hetty's mother and father are fully drawn, effective characters. Two of the threads are peopled by some exotic and eccentric figures who might have wandered in from Evelyn Waugh or even P. G. Wodehouse. They are viable in their context, which is idle wealth.

No fighting is described in this book, but both the First and Second World War lie with a chilly hand. Una's father, a doctor, has killed himself as a result of what we would now call posttraumatic stress syndrome. Hetty's father suffers from similar psychological war damage, more of him later.

Besides Lieselotte's terrible story, the aftereffects of the Second World War remain in ration books, ruined buildings, and memories of friends killed in bombing raids.

In the middle section, Lieselotte takes long, obsessive walks through the ruin-scape of bombed out London that recalled for me Martha Quests' similar walks in Lessing’s The Children of Violence Series. Another daughter trying to separate.

It is also a story of daughters with absent fathers. Lieselotte of course, but note that only her father is mentioned, her mother never appears even in her memory. Una's father is a suicide. Hetty's father is present but damaged. Although an Oxford graduate, the only other character within scenting distance of the university, he works as a gravedigger and wanders through the town rather aimlessly looking in from the outside. In that sense, he is absent. But he is also the one who gives straight answers to Hetty when she asks questions, a relief for her from her mother's responses are always distorted by her intense fantasies about her relation with her daughter.

In terms of style, the book falls into three parts. The first part, before the maidens leave their homes, begins like any realistic novel, except with wittier characters and writing and better descriptions than most. This is very sharp writing. Each character is witty in a way appropriate to her particular personality.

It shifts into a period when the maidens are away from home in which they have adventures that rather resemble fairy tales. The fairytale quality rings true because, particularly for young women, entering the world maybe like entering the dangerous land of the skriker. It returns to realism toward the end as problems pile up and are resolved.

The characters in this book are sufficiently complex and vividly draw that you think about them rather as you might think about people you know. How successfully will these young women progress as autonomous individuals in the rest of their lives? I'm dubious about Lieselotte and Hetty. I feel the terrible stress on Lieselotte about who she is will leave her forever tense about how other people see her. I feel Hetty's wrenching struggle with her mother will always grip her. It's to the book's credit that I think about such things.

[Kathleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jane Gardam once again transports the reader to a different time and place far from the disturbing issues of our contemporary world. Three friends, almost 18, in a small Yorkshire village have all been granted scholarships to attend university in London and Cambridge. “The Flight of the Maidens” is their story of the summer of 1946 as England takes its first breaths following the war's devastation, strict social mores just beginning to shift, a new world just beginning to emerge. Against this background, the three friends, Hetty Fallowes, Una Vane and Lisolette Klein struggle with their thoughts of love and independence, their yearning to chart their own course, rejecting mothers and home life, wandering a little further and further from the nest, and then, scurrying back before leaving for good.

Jane Gardam provides a snapshot of village life with great insight, empathy and humor. “The Lonsdale Cafe was the Versailles of Shields East, the melting pot for ideas and discoveries, the epicentre of the post-war world.” This is the world the young women want to shed...” 'No love lost in the Lonsdale' was a refrain of the grave-digger but in fact there was no love to lose...'It is only contingency,' said the grave-digger, 'contingency and hats.' ”

Among the many memorable characters is Kitty Fallowes, Hetty's mother, who rambles on and on at home (ad nauseum in her daughter's opinion) about the small moments in her neighbors' lives, their history, their digestive habits, their teeth, their gardens, an ailing dog. As intrusive as she was, sharing details about Hetty with the Lonsdale group, anticipating and providing every amenity she could imagine for Hetty, I could have wept several times for Kitty, married to Malcolm, far brighter than she, defining herself only by her daughter's success.

Hetty's father, Malcolm Fallowes, a man suffering relentlessly from the Battle of Somme, is referred by all throughout the novel as “the grave-digger.” The reference stirred the dormant memories of the grave-diggers in “Hamlet” and sent me to re-read passages. Malcolm, too, is perceptive, offering tongue-in-cheek comments and insightful observations.

Hetty flees to the Lake District to complete her reading in the land of Wordsworth. There she met people who appeared and left almost as if in a dream: Ursula, Rupert, Mabel, all changing her. Una leaves her single mother to embark on a series of bike trips with Ray, stretching the rigid social rules and exploring her feelings. Lisolette Klein, one of the children transported from Germany to England in 1939, flees the furthest having lived first with the Stonehouses, a Quaker family. Later in the novel, she observes, “she couldn't forgive them their forgiveness.” After being contacted by an agency connecting German families, she disappears from her friends to live next with the elderly Feldmans in London where she begins to experience her first taste of freedom, and then to her only surviving relative in California.

The chapters alternate among them, and the stories become more complicated as their experiences are more diverse, so different from their small village life. What remains consistent is their friendship held together across so many miles and how they are loved, by family, by the many villagers, Hilda and Dorothy, their Girl Guide leaders, the librarian. The last chapters move quickly filled with epiphanies, loss, and lessons learned.

I loved the closure and the hope within the very last sentence of the novel: “Go...I love you both very much, but go. There's a lot to be seen to.”

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was my seventh book by Jane Gardmam, and in my opinion her best. I think it surpasses her award winning and nominated novels and even the "Old Filth" trilogy about Sir Edward Feathers QC, where I gave the last two books five stars. It may be that this novel is not "important" enough for award juries, but that is to ignore the masterful prose, brilliant characters, wonderful humour and fabulous descriptions of the English countryside.

The main characters are Hetty (Hester or Hesta! if you prefer), Una and Lieselotte, the three friends whose experiences during that month or so in 1946 between "A" Levels and University, reminds us of that poignant time. Although they are the main characters, there are others who I found even more engaging. I am particularly thinking about Hetty's father Malcolm Fallowes (mostly referred to as the Gravedigger) an enigmatic veteran of the first war, damaged in some ways, but still that incredible intelligence that occasionally rises to the surface, seemingly less disturbed of mind than was once thought.

Then there is Una's widowed mother (Mrs Vane) whose hairdressing salon at the front of their house had "once been a doctor's surgery and still held the whiff of anxiety and prognosis". Una herself has a cycling friend in Ray ( a railway porter) who ultimately makes the proposal "You'd do for my life, Una. You know that".

All sorts of reminders of those days after the war. It's Hetty who finds the "WC, which was ancient and decorated inside the cracked bowl with garlands of grey flowers. There was an overhead chain and rusty cistern and the toilet paper was squares of newspaper threaded on a string". Exactly as my grandmothers outdoor lavatory before the council installed one indoors. Then there is the ending, one of the most emotional that I have ever come across. Superb.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked up this book years and years ago on a bookstore clearance cart and then it sat gathering dust on my shelves for many, many years. I finally picked it up this summer and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it since I finished reading it. It has gotten under my skin.

When I initially closed the last page, I thought that I didn't like the book as much as I had hoped I would. But after sitting with my thoughts for a few days, I realized what an impact the story had on me. It was billed as a bit of a coming of age story of three friends in the summer immediately following the end of WWII in Britain as they are about to enter university.

But the book feels like so much more than that. The girl's stories were not as interconnected as I expected and "friendship" is perhaps too strong a word for their relationship. We watch as the events of the summer unfold and as, slowly, major changes start rippling through their lives.

A story of growing up, of life after war, of finding your place in the world. This book resonated with me in ways I wasn't expecting.

I don't think this book will be one everyone will enjoy. I wasn't even sure I was enjoying it while reading it. But I won't soon forget it, that's for sure.

[Alarie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read an inordinate number of novels set in or near WWII: perhaps it’s my way of keeping my parents near. Gardham did a wonderful job of bringing a fresh perspective to the times, partly by splitting the story between three main characters who go off on different adventures and partly by introducing quirky and intriguing characters in the supporting roles.

We meet Hetty, Una, and Liesolotte in 1946, just after high school graduation, in a small town in England. Two of the girls have been lifelong friends. Their lives have been challenged not only by poverty but by the effects of the first World War on their families. The third girl has even worse troubles: she’s Jewish and arrived in 1939 via the kindertransport. She doesn’t know what has become of her family. All three girls are united by being bright and ambitious. They’ve all received government scholarships to go to college. Without that money, there’d be no school and no prospects for the bright futures they’re eager to start. We only spend the summer with them, but it’s amazing how much adventure a 17-year-old, bent on independence, can squeeze into a few months.

[Judy · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The Flight Of The Maidens" is the story of three 17-year-old girls in England in the summer of 1946. They are all preparing to go off to college, and their feelings of excitement and trepidation mix with other emotions - love (or is it?), attachment to and anger at parents, confidence and lack of confidence... it all feels very true to life. One of the girls is German, brought to England as a child on the kindertransport to live with a Quaker couple, and her story is particularly powerful - I was close to tears in one scene. Her story follows a strange trajectory at points, then returns to the main storyline.

This book was written in 2001, before "Old Filth (2006)" and "The Man in the Wooden Hat (2009), and doesn't have the same mysterious pared-down-ness, but it has its own strengths, and I very much enjoyed reading it.

By the way, I got this at the Elkins Park library used book sale for $1.50 - if you ever get a chance, go look at their great selection! The people in EP read a lot of good books.

[Teresa · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 stars for a refreshingly engaging and blessedly straightforward narrative, as well as great prose, and wit. Not as strong in comparison with her other works, such as one of my all-time favorite novels -Old Filth. But that’s an unfair comparison. In comparison to much of the glorified blockbuster screenplays posing as literature these days, Gardam’s novels are intelligent and imaginative. In this novel, she toys a bit with allusions to “Alice in Wonderland” and more overtly, “Pride and Prejudice,” making the storyline even more entertaining. I could read her forever. Well, maybe along with some Elena Ferrante, too.

[Ali · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a lovely novel, I read it in a little over 24 hours and thoroughly enjoyed it. I was fascinated by the story of Lieselotte, a German Jew, who had come to yorkshire as a ten year old in 1939. All three girls however have a summer that in some way changes their lives. There are both poignat and hugely funny moments, and so much that rings true - after all we have all been 17. The writing is great, and the characterisation is brilliant - Hetty's mother is a truly awful - and at the same time wonderful character.

[Alice · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is my first Jane Gardam and thoroughly enjoyed it. It's Austinlike in its depiction of village life right after WW II, but takes flights of fancy into the realms of near gothic and fairy tale. The horrors of both WW I and WW II weave their way through the novel gently but powerfully. And at last a book about mothers and daughters and the pitfalls of separation before going off to college. Looking forward to reading more.

[Jan Koster · Rating 3 out of 5]

Link naar mijn bespreking, https://bit.ly/40p6MoQ
ik vind het niet haar beste boek, maar evengoed zeer genietbaar!

[Hella · Rating 5 out of 5]

een drempelboek

Nog steeds kan ik in een leesput een beroep doen op Jane Gardam. Deze was ook weer zó mooi.
Drie jonge meisjes – 17, 18 jaar – hebben hun eindexamen gehaald en wonder boven wonder een beurs gekregen voor de universiteit. We schrijven 1946, het is eindelijk vrede, maar zij hebben dus hun hele puberteit in oorlog doorgebracht, in een bekrompen Engels dorp. Hetty bij haar overbezorgde moeder en gek-geworden-in-wereldoorlogI-vader, Una bij haar artistieke moeder die een kapsalon runt te midden van tientallen katten, en Lieselotte, een Joods meisje dat met een Kindertransport naar Engeland gekomen is, en door een Quaker familie is opgevangen.
Het is zomer, ze kunnen pas eind september op de universiteit terecht (alle 3 een verschillende) dus deze tijd wordt een drempeltijd. Hetty gaat naar het Lake District om boeken te lezen, al die literatuur die ze gemist heeft. Una gaat fietstochten maken met de krantenjongen. Lieselotte gaat naar Londen om te onderzoeken of er nog familie leeft.
Ze beleven de wonderlijkste avonturen, die drie, voor het eerst proeven ze van het echte leven. Ik moest terugdenken aan die zomer van 1976, voordat ik naar Groningen ging om Engels te gaan studeren. Je heel vrij en volwassen voelen, en ook wel bang voor wat komen gaat.