The Hollow Land

by Jane Gardam

THE HOLLOW LAND captures the beauty of the barren Cumbrian countryside, and among its few inhabitants, the lives of two young boys, Bill Teesdale and Harry Bateman. Bill, from a farming family, has been raised in the dialect, hard work, and myth of the fells. His new friend Harry is a tourist whose family spends summer holidays there every year. The pair’s inseparable friendship provides a series of delightful adventures rendered with Gardam’s gorgeous details and masterly use of humour.

Genres: Fiction, Short Stories, British Literature, Childrens, Contemporary, Adventure, Young Adult

178 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1981

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

[Diane Barnes · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved every word.

If you love English novels, you'll love this.

If you love Jane Gardam, you'll love this. If you've never read her, this is a great place to start. Europa Books is re-issueing her books, and the cover art is fabulous, as it is on all their novels.

One little nitpick, not with the book or author, but with it's classification as a children's book. Either British children are miles ahead of American children in their reading, or their understanding of adult themes is much more mature. Bee Teesdale and Harry Bateman are children at the beginning, but that doesn't qualify it as a kid's book in my mind. Don't pass it by for that reason.

[Jeanette · Rating 5 out of 5]

Masterful. So masterful and at the same time tightly succinct. These chapters are short stories within themselves, but all related to a place in Yorkshire's fells and the group of families that live there. This is alive with such power of exuberance amidst exact characterization and tone, that I would give it the 6th star. I doubted that I would ever like any Jane Gardam work as much as I liked Old Filth, but this 1981 does it.

This was written to approach a child audience of just preteen. Why does it not surprise me that Jane does not underestimate the intelligence or emotional nuance to neighbor and community that exists in kids. There is NO dumb down here.

The dialect is poetic. The ending with the eclipse viewed by the Standards, just sublime.

Oh what a joyous place- and it's for very reasons like these that I love and find a cottage in the country by the water. There are many terms I needed to investigate here in these conversations, like "beck". That's another thing, Jane Gardam teaches me something with every chapter. Her style is magical and her people just depths. Depths in which kindness or chat chic is never missing.

Strongly recommend this read for a summer peaceful place.

[Fiona · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book won the Whitbread Children’s Book Award but was shelved with adult fiction in Waterstones so I bought it unaware. I’m glad I did as Jane Gardam has long been one of my favourite authors.

Bell (not Bill) and Harry meet as young lads when Harry’s family leases Bell’s grandparents’ farm as a holiday home. There isn’t a traditional storyline. It’s more a series of sketches or vignettes starting with the two boys meeting and finishing with them as adults. The setting is a few miles outside Kirkby Stephen in Cumbria, by far the most beautiful English county (IMHO), and the descriptions of the landscape are just perfect. I burst out laughing several times as Gardam’s humour thankfully doesn’t change for children. It would be a lovely book to give to a child of perhaps 9-11 years old but it’s also a lovely book for adults. Bilgewater has been reclassified as adult fiction and I think A Long Way from Verona should be too. Perhaps classification is simply unnecessary for writers as wonderful as Jane Gardam?

[Chrissie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nine loosely connected stories about two boys of different background, their lifelong friendship and the friendship that grows between their families.

Beginning in the 1970s, the Batemans from London began spending their summers up in the Cumbrian fells of northern England. They rented a cottage from a sheep farming family, the Teesdales. A friendship is struck between the families’ two young boys—Bell Teesdale who is eight and Harry Bateman, a few years younger. Year after year, the Batemans return. A deep friendship and sense of continuity grows. The last story is set in August 1999 with the advent of a solar eclipse and a troubling event that must be resolved.

Covering a wide span of time, the stories change in character. The earlier ones read as adventure tales suited to a young reader—being trapped in an abandoned silver mine, being caught alone in a blizzard. In these stories, the world is viewed through the eyes of a child.

Other stories are not really for kids--the ways of Londoners are poked at, historical events and old traditions are spoken of. With humor is drawn the contrasting ways of urban versus provincial people. There is a heavy use of dialect which I believe a young reader will have trouble with. There are words tied to the Cumbrian milieu, which I, an adult, am unfamiliar with.

There are portions where nature is beautifully described. The two boys come upon the dazzling splendor of a frozen waterfall, icicles glittering in all the colors of the rainbow. The fells are vividly described at different seasons of the year. The chapters with nature writing were my favorites.

The events that occur in the last story are farfetched. I believe the book ends as it does to instill a message. Look at the strength of the friendship that has grown between the Teesdales and the Batemans. Look how people of different social class, occupation and character can come together. The message delivered is educative, schmaltzy and sweet.

The stories did not knock me over. Kids will like the first ones. Adults will comprehend what the book intends to teach. Older kids might get this too. For me the book is simply OK.

The audiobook is narrated by Mike Rogers. He uses both a London and northern dialect. This fits the text well. Three stars for the narration—it’s good.

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

*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

[Leselissi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Das Buch flutscht! (naja, außerdem ist es auch nicht so dick.) Aber ich liebe einfach Jane Gardam und es ist immer eine Freude und ein Genuss etwas von ihr zu lesen. :)

[Sarah Sophie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Die Schlichtheit des Dorfes und seiner Bewohner, das einfache Leben auf dem Land und die Jungenfreundschaft zwischen Bell und Harry in all ihren Facetten hat mich einfach genau im richtigen Moment erwischt. Sommerlich, ländlich, sprachlich toll 👏🏼 😊

[Anja · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eine richtig tolle Sommergeschichte mit ganz viel englischem Flair. Ich dachte am Anfang es wird eine ganz besondere und innige Freundschaftsgeschichte,aber es steckt noch deutlich mehr dahinter. Land/ Stadtleben, und die damit verbundenen Vorurteile, ein bissl Abenteuer und alte Geschichten. Ein schöner Lesegenuss. An der einen oder anderen Stelle wäre ich gern tiefer in die Geschichte gegangen,daher der Stern Abzug aber trotzdem eine Leseempfehlung.

[dunkelgefunkel · Rating 2 out of 5]

Selten habe ich für so wenige Seiten so lange gebraucht. Abbrechen wollte ich es auch nicht und dachte das muss doch zu schaffen sein. Verpasst hätte ich nichts.
Ich habe mir hier einen stimmungsvollen Sommer mit einer tollen Jungenfreundschaft erwartet, allerdings habe ich diese Verbundenheit so gar nicht gefühlt. Für mich wirkte sie eher zweckmäßig. "Wir sind nun mal 2 Jungs hier in ähnlichem Alter, also verbringen wir die Zeit halt gemeinsam." Erst ganz zum Schluß konnte man erahnen, dass das doch mehr war.
Das wurde zb. bei 'Acht Berge' von Paolo Cognetti besser verpackt.

Die Episoden vom Landleben waren auch nett, aber ich glaube das gefällt einem auch besser, wenn man aus der Gegend da kommt oder… sie waren leider oft einfach banal. Auch der Erzählstil hat mich nicht begeistert und die Art der Dialoge fand ich oft anstrengend.

Der junge Harry hat mich erinnert an 'Dewey' von 'Malcom mittendrin'.

[Gedankenlabor]

-abgebrochen- ... leider habe ich auch dieses Buch von Jane Gardam abgebrochen. Ich glaube mit der Autorin werde ich einfach nicht warm...

[Kirsten · Rating 5 out of 5]

A magical book about friendship and love of the countryside and country life (in this case, in Cumbria, UK). I just finished and would be happy to start reading it again right now.

[Lea · Rating 3 out of 5]

Had no idea this was a children's book when I picked it up, because this edition is obviously trying hide the fact and make it look very serious. It was a charming little book (if a bit oldfashioned) but clearly an odd way to start with Gardam. Imagine The Famous Five a bit more literary.

[Trina · Rating 5 out of 5]

I adored this short novel set in former mining country (hollowed out with old mines) of North Yorkshire. Folksy and gently humorous, it focuses on two boys, one a local farmer's son and one a London boy, son of a journalist, who visits for the summers. The locals are colorful and well-meaning and the boys' adventures are sometimes dangerous but always turn out ok. They grow up and live their lives in this plain place that Gardam has made magical.

[Cynthia Dunn · Rating 5 out of 5]

So charming. I wish it had gone on and on.

[Nicole · Rating 2 out of 5]

Der Anfang, vielleicht die ersten 50 Seiten haben mir sehr gefallen, so dass ich mich auf eine kurzweilige Lektüre freute. Insbesondere der pfiffige Bell war mir sympathisch. Allerdings wurde das Buch zwischenzeitlich ziemlich langweilig, so dass ich mich auch daran erinnerte, dass ich ein früheres Werk der Autorin (Ein untadeliger Mann) ebenfalls aus Nichtgefallen bzw. Langeweile abgebrochen habe. Leider keine Empfehlung von mir.

[Angela Leivesley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This novel is more a collection of short stories spanning twenty years which recount incidents in the lives of the Bateman family from London on their visits to Light Trees, a former farm now holiday cottage on the Cumbrian fells, which they lease from a neighbouring farming family, the Teasedales.
Due to a clash of culture and language the Bateman's acquaintance with the Teasedales is almost short-lived but turns into an enduring friendship. This novel is charming, has fabulous characters and it made me laugh out loud. I was sorry when it came to an end.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading in the time of the Pandemic... Jane Gardam might be just the thing. I picked this up at the library about one month ago when my local library was on the verge of closing. Gardam's Old Filth is a novel that I had much admired and was moved by. This book was written years earlier. It's a series of vignettes about two boys: One is Bell Teasdale who lives on a farm in Cumbria, the northwest of England, the Lake District. The other is Harry Bateman, who comes with his family from London to lease the Teasdale's old farmhouse for their holidays. Through the years, Harry and Bell have a series of adventures, some quite harrowing, and in the the process, the two families, though very different, come to be quite fond of each other. Gardam is a wonderful writer of both subtlety and pathos, but never sentimental. These stories end happily, for the most part, but not is a pat way. As you're reading, you are introduced to folklore and ancient ways. Sometimes even Wikipedia couldn't explain the references. The landscape brought me back to a hike I took last summer through southern Scotland and Northumbria, northeast of the book's location, but similar with fells, gates, and lots of sheep. Truly, one of the happiest times of my life.

[Ginger Bensman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gardam gives us nine connected stories about two boys (Bell Teesdale, a Cambrian country lad, and Harry Bateman, youngest son of a London family, who, every year, lease an old family cottage from the Teesdales "to take their leave of London and get a rest from the city"). This is a beautiful story about growing up adventures, enduring friendship, about community, and finding your place in the world. Just perfect.

[Margaret · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jane Gardam is good, but either I read this too fast or the book is just differently paced enough from her other work that I wasn't as in love with it as her other novels. Still, Gardam does a good job writing a novel.

[StefanieFrei · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ein einfach schönes All-Age-Buch über lebenslange Freundschaft

Die Teesdales sind Farmer in einer Gegend, die ihren Namen von Jahren des Bergbaus unter Tage herleitet, von den Minen, die die Region zerlöchert haben wie einen Schweizer Käse: dem „Hohlen Land“, so auch der Originaltitel, „The Hollow Land“, dieses ursprünglich aus dem Jahre 1981 stammenden Buches. Grandad Hewitson vermietet sein altes Haus, „Light Trees“, an Familie Bateman aus dem fernen London, „Freizeitfarmer“, die nicht viel vom Landleben verstehen und deren Lebensstil umgekehrt auch nicht verstanden wird. Wie kann jemand permanent alle Radios am Laufen haben, sich dann aber beschweren darüber, dass nun einmal das Heu dringend vor dem Regen gemacht werden muss?

Fast kommt es darüber zum Zerwürfnis und der Abreise der Batemans, doch die beiden jüngsten Söhne beider Familien, der 8jährige Bell und der jüngere Harry, greifen zu einer List. Die Geschichte begleitet die Jungs beim Heranwachsen in ihren Familien, erzählt von ihren Streichen und den skurrilen Dorfbewohnern. So gelingt es den Batemans nicht, den Schornsteinfeger und Fischer Kendal höflich hinauszukomplimentieren: „Sie wollen doch sicher nach Hause zu ihrer Frau?“ „Ach nein, sie kennt mich ja.“

Irgendwann sind Bell und Harry erwachsen und immer noch befreundet und weiter kommt Harry in den Ferien nach „Light Trees“. Doch die Idylle ist bedroht.

Das kleine feine Buch hat einen Preis gewonnen, als es erschienen war, den „Whitbread Children's Novel prize“, und es ließe sich sicherlich auch von Kindern wunderbar lesen, ist aber vor allem ein herrliches All-Age-Buch. Die hübschen Wiederholungen, wie brav Harry ist beispielsweise, kennt jedes Kind, aber sie lassen auch jeden Erwachsenen schmunzeln. Die besonderen Nachbarn haben mich in ihren Bann gezogen; wunderbar, wie eine untergegangene Welt vor meinem geistigen Auge entstand. Die Erzählung endet 1999, also achtzehn Jahre nach ihrem Erscheinen, in die Zukunft gedacht. Hier liegt vielleicht ihr einziges Manko, in einer imaginierten Zukunft, die so nicht kam, und die dadurch ein wenig befremdete.

Ungeachtet dessen: einfach schön. 5 Sterne.

[Gerdien · Rating 4 out of 5]

At first I was not too engaged, the book is actually a series of stories, about families living in Cumbria. There was no storyline. But I am glad I read on until the end. In chapter 10 there suddenly is a plot and the book has a happy ending, which was very satisfying.

Gardam writes really well. The book consists almost only of dialogues, very natural, it is as if you can hear the people speak. So, 4 stars.

[Patricia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ein leider enttäuschender und mittelmäßiger Jane Gardam Roman. Die Geschichten rund um Bell und Harry hängen nur lose miteinander zusammen und haben nicht diesen besonderen Gardam-Flair wie "Weit weg von Verona" oder "Old Filth".

[JoBerlin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Leider - es muss klar gesagt werden: Dieses Buch gefällt mir nicht. Natürlich ist es gut geschrieben, das ist bei einer Autorin wie Jane Gardam wohl selbstverständlich, aber ach - wo sind die berührenden, die komischen, die zur Selbstreflektion anregenden Entwicklungen der Trilogie um "Old Filth", wo sind die guten Stories aus "Privilege Hill" - wo ist die geliebte grande dame der englischen Literatur nur hier noch zu finden?
Die nur sehr lose zusammenhängenden Erzählungen um Hollow Land, einem Landstrich zwischen Lake District und den Yorkshire Dales, kommen reichlich verstaubt daher und muten wie Serienunterhaltungslektüre aus einem Urlaubermagazin an. Und auch die sonst doch sehr guten Übersetzungen der Isabel Bogdan können hier nicht durchweg überzeugen, insbesondere die Übertragung des Dialekts der Dorfbewohner konnte nicht zufriedenstellend der Hochsprache der städtischen Urlauber gegenübergestellt werden.
Jane Gardam hat mit diesem Buch 1981 den bekannten Whitbread Award ( heute Costa Book Award) gewonnen, allerdings in der Rubrik "Kinderbuch", das erklärt manches. Dass der deutsche Hanser Verlag dies nicht kennzeichnet, ist ein Versäumnis - ich bleibe zukünftig jedenfalls beim englischen Original.

[Saskia · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 Sterne | Die Ausschnitte aus der Freundschaft zwischen Bell und Harry und deren Familien haben mir sehr gefallen. Vor allem, weil sie mich an meine eigene Kindheit haben denken lassen. Leider, ist der Funke nicht ganz so übergesprungen und meine eigene Nostalgie hat dem ganzen einen kleinen Dämpfer gegeben.
Jedes Kapitel erzählt eine Episode aus der besagten Freundschaft, die sich über mehrere Jahre erstreckt. Dabei geht es nicht nur um die gemeinsamen Abenteuer die Kinder erleben, sondern auch, um die Dynamik innerhalb der Dorfgemeinschaft. Es werden die Eigenheiten der Städter und Landbewohner porträtiert, samt der anfänglichen Schwierigkeiten in der Kommunikation und Weltanschauung. Mit der Zeit zeigen sich auch die Konflikte der Generationen, die aber eine gemeinsame Basis haben und den Zusammenhalt verdeutlichen.
Mit knapp 200 Seiten schafft es Jane Gardam mich über zehn Jahre jünger werden zu lassen und trotzdem in eine ganz andere Welt zu entführen.

[Don · Rating 5 out of 5]

(FROM MY BLOG) Eight-year-old Bell Teesdale watches with wonder when a family of Londoners -- "talking South" -- arrive to rent his parents' farm house.  "There's not owt for 'em here.  What's use of a farm to them?  Just for sitting in.  Never a thing going on." 

The visitors get off to a rocky start with their summer landlords -- the older visitors do, that is, but not their 5 or 6-year-old son Harry.  When the Batemans are about to cancel their vacation because they find the sounds of haying too noisy, Bell watches the younger boy.

I sees this little lad, Harry, looking out of his bedroom window and I catches his eye.  And somehow I know he's all right, this one, London boy or not.  I know he understands how we have to make all this racket to see hay cut ahead of rain.

The boys become fast friends, the Batemans end up staying -- and returning year after year -- and the ensuing stories revolve about the boys' friendship and adventures, as they age year by year, into their early teens.

Diligent followers of my blog will recall that, in 2012, my niece and I hiked some 70 miles through England's Lake District.  We climbed fells, jumped over becks, walked beside tarns, crossed meadows, and enjoyed the rain.  We talked to other hikers; we exchanged pleasantries with innkeepers.  What we didn't do is talk to the folks who lived in the Lake District and who made their living from pursuits other than tourism.

Maybe in the Lake District, everyone makes his living from tourism?  I don't know. 

But I now know something of how folks live in Westmoreland, the former county (now absorbed into Cumbria) immediately to the east of the Lake District.  After reading a laudatory review in the New York Times book section, I purchased and have just finished reading Jane Gardam's achingly beautiful collection of stories entitled The Hollow Land, published in 1981 in England and now published in America.

Most of the stories have the shadow of a plot -- being trapped in a mine (the title refers to how the village and the Teesdales' farmland, rising up into the fells to the east, are built over a honeycomb of abandoned silver mines); visiting a scary old woman who sells eggs (the "Egg-Witch"); listening with a combination of scepticism and fear to local ghost stories, while outside the English rains beat down without mercy; a long bike ride and hike through bitter cold, at Bell's urgent insistence, to behold a wondrous display of icicles, icicles that raise philosophical questions in the youngsters' minds; a run-in with gypsies, who prove scarier by reputation than they are in person. 

But these plotlines serve primarily as devices for the author to describe with intensity and in detail the awe-inspiring beauty and the eccentric characters of the inhabitants of this corner of Westmoreland.  She shows, without editorializing, how city dwellers -- including the Batemans, until they become acclimated -- zoom through life in a daze, failing to observe the wonders about them that are so obvious to the shepherds and farmers of the countryside.  Not even professed lovers of nature -- trail hikers -- are exempt from Bell's boyish scorn:

They walk in clumps -- great fat orange folk with long red noses and maps in plastic cases flapping across their stomachs.  Transisters going sometimes too, and looking at nowt before them but their own two feet. 

I  think back over my own hikes in Britain.  I can only hope I seemed different!

But it's not just the beauty of nature that Londoners ignore, and it's not only how the land serves harmoniously to raise crops and graze sheep and cows.  What is equally important to the families who live here -- and whose ancestors have lived here from time immemorial -- is the history they have inherited.  And if the history at times includes questionable horrors and terrifying ghosts -- the combination of history and legend and folk tale is a force that binds them to the soil and to each other.  

Mrs. Teesdale and Mrs. Bateman set out for the antique shop about half past two.  It was only a few miles over Stainmore, over the wonderful old road the Greeks and Celts and Romans and Vikings, Angles, Saxons, and the odd Jute had used before them more adventurously.  Ghost upon ghost haunts this road from Greta Bridge, where a spirit got caught under a stone and twice they've had to put her back; to the blue ghost you can see sometimes on bright sunny afternoons near Bowes, the wife of a Saxon lord still wearing her Saxon dress, but without her head; to the white ghost near the old mines who walks quietly in her apron.

Londoners may have their transistors and their holidays on Spanish beaches; what they have lost is the richness of a life unself-consciously enmeshed in history and in nature.

The final chapter jumps ahead twenty years to 1999, when Bell and Harry have become adults, and when the flow of petroleum has for unstated reasons dried up.  Horses, railroads, and steam engines are again of critical importance.  But the paradise of the Teesdales' world is threatened by a figure who represents all that endangers the family's happiness and their orderly world  -- selfishness, rapacity, and an unthinking hunger for mineral wealth that gladly and willingly sacrifices both history and nature.

[Ellemir · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ich bin bei dieser Autorin ein wenig zwiegespalten - ich mag die Art, wie sie das Setting aufbaut, die Landschaft beschreibt, aber für meinen Geschmack kommen die Figuren ein wenig zu kurz, bleiben etwas zu blass. Gerade bei den Nebenfiguren finde ich das ungemein schade. Das ist einer der seltenen Fälle, in denen ich sagen muss, ein paar Dutzend Seiten mehr hätten dem Buch echt gut getan.

[Chrystal · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this a lot; connected stories about different characters in a farmland community in the Westmoreland fells, covering four generations. I listened to the audiobook, beautifully read by Mike Rogers.

[Lese lust · Rating 3 out of 5]

Es war "nett". Und mir total entfallen, dass ich das auch im vergangenen Jahr so zwischendurch mal gelesen habe. Blieb also nicht wirklich im Gedächtnis...

[Spiros · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I saw Jim Jarmusch's film "Paterson", I felt that I was seeing the last movie before our current, shit-fueled moment of being ruled by a narcissistic, sociopathic, racist imbecile. This book likewise feels like the last book written before Thatcherism. It describes the enduring friendship of two boys, Bell Teesdale and Harry Bateman, who come from entirely different worlds: the fells of Cumbria and middle-class streets of London. All parties are provincial and prejudiced, but they find that the things they share in common far outweigh their differences. This book is absolutely lovely.

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jane Gardam is a doyenne of British literature, better known there than in the U.S. Her writing career is now over—she’s in her late eighties—but what a grand career it’s been. Arguably among the best contributions in 20th century English literature is her trilogy Old Filth (Filth means “Failed in London, tried Hong Kong”); it’s a masterpiece on relationships among a group of Brits—and on British culture—during and after WWII. Gardam’s ability to put you into the thoughts and feelings of her characters is her best quality, enhanced by just magnificent writing. OK, enough of the sales pitch!

The Hollow Land, a short 1982 novel, won the Whitbread Prize for Children’s Literature, but don’t dare let that turn you off. The main protagonists are two young boys in a rural Cumbrian mining community (mined areas are “hollow land”). Filled with deserted houses as well as beauty, peace, and quiet, their little part of Britain is fast becoming a peaceful summer place for urban folk. The Batemans are the latest of the urban swarm; they arrive to rent one of the local houses, a house called Light Trees. Light Trees is an extra house owned by the Teesdales, who have farmed the remote area since before elves planted gold. Just up the road, at the end of the lane, is another house called Dark Trees.

The first meeting of the families is a disaster. Mr. Bateman is a writer who is there for the quiet. The first full day and night are ruined by clanking farm machinery and shouting voices as the Teesdales reap their hay crop—rain is predicted and the crop must be brought in or be ruined. The meeting of the cultures is unpleasant but very British—no “FU”s shouted, no punches thrown. An angry Mr. Bateman decides to take his family back to London forthwith in his search for peace.

But during that brief episode of family tumult, eight-year old Bell Teesdale and five-year old Harry Bateman have made contact, sparking a lifelong relationship. The precocious boys develop a plan to forestall disaster—each will find a way to demonstrate to his parents that the other family has apologized. Success! Visits are made, amity is restored.

So begins a sweet novel about being young and discovering that although not everyone is like you they can still be likeable. The book is less a novel that a series of vignettes detailing some episode in their joint life of the Batemans and Teesdales. My favorite among many is titled “The Household Word,” in which a famous television interviewer visits with her eleven-year old very sulky daughter. A surprise ending begins a generations-long meshing of the Bateman and the Teesdale families.

As the book (regrettably) ends, we are aware that there is a real life for all of us, and its not found in material things—its called “family.” At least in Britain!

My advice: Read Jane Gardam! The Hollow Land is a perfect appetizer, Old Filth is the perfect entrée, and dessert is the rest of the Old Filth Trilogy: The Man with the Wooden Hat and Last Friends>, in that order.

Five stars!

[Nina · Rating 1 out of 5]

Nach der Hälfte todeslangweiliger "Handlung" habe ich abgebrochen. Möglicherweise liegt es an der deutschen Übersetzung, aber ich wurde wirklich so gar nicht warm mit Bell und Harry.