Incline our hearts

The Lampitt Chronicles #1

by A.N. Wilson

From A.N. Wilson, comes the story of the sentimental education of Julian Ramsey. After an agonizing (and often hilarious) passage through prep school, public school, and army service, Julian begins an exploration of love and friendship and what it really means to "know" someone, in this comic, yet touching, coming of age story.

Genres: Fiction

250 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1988

About the author

Andrew Norman Wilson is an English writer and newspaper columnist, known for his critical biographies, novels, works of popular history and religious views. He is an occasional columnist for the Daily Mail and former columnist for the London Evening Standard, and has been an occasional contributor to the Times Literary Supplement, New Statesman, The Spectator and The Observer.

Reviews

[Colin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This first book in A. N. Wilson’s five volume series, the Lampitt Papers, is a very satisfying comedy of manners-cum-family saga of a kind that may well struggle to get published today. Its leisurely pacing, discursive plot, and lengthy descriptive passages are unlikely to appeal to a twenty-first century editor (the book was published in 1988). There are distinct echoes of the first volume of Anthony Powell’s A Dance to the Music of Time in Incline our Hearts and the same sense that minor characters are likely to play major roles in future books in the series. There are some big themes here: public lives and how they are understood, the impossibility of biography, the dangers of misplaced loyalty, families and their secrets, and I look forward to them being developed further in the remaining four books in the series.

[Piper · Rating 2 out of 5]

There are some quite funny and even insightful moments here but I can’t say the book overall is very successful. Based on this I remain quite interested to read some of A.N. Wilson’s non-fiction work (ie the Tolstoy biography I’ve had lying around for ages) because certain high points notwithstanding he does not seem entirely at home with the novel. Notably many of the best passages were just reflections on the nature of biography writing in comparison to fiction as ways of getting ahold of human nature. Aside from this almost nothing particularly interesting happens to any of the not especially charismatic characters in the book. So I would be pleased to see what Wilson makes of real people with more eventful lives.

[Barksdale Penick · Rating 4 out of 5]

For many years my wife Jennifer listened to me recollect a passage from a novel I couldn't remember, where a young man observes the differences between the English and French, as exemplified in their gardens and cooking. I expected never to find it again, but lo and behold about two thirds of the way through Incline Our Hearts, there it was:

"Emerging from the cliff path, one crossed a patch of rough ground, entered a small gate into a shrubbery, and the emerged into the garden of Les Mouettes. Passionate Anglophile that she was, Madame believed that she had created, with her few flowerbeds and abundant hydrangeas, a veritable English garden. But there were no borders, no roses. There was none of the abundance of the Rectory garden at Timplingham. It would have astonished Madame de Normandin to know that a woman like my aunt spent hours every day digging and weeding, and dead-heading and transplanting, and trundling wheelbarrows down muddy paths. She frequently spoke of the wonders of British gardens and obviously thought that her own was comparable with them. But why English gardens were so green and colorful and abundant was probably a mystery. If she had known how much time the English spend on their gardens, I am fairly sure she would have it an absurd waste of time, just as my aunt, who prided herself on what she called 'good, plain cooking' would have been scandalised by the artistry, the day-long kitchen toil, of Therese."

Just a few pages before I had noted a passage that resonated with me:

"For another person to place something in our consciousness deliberately, so that we never forget it, that is art.”

And that is exactly what A. N. Wilson’s writing did for me. It must have been twenty five years since I read this previously, and I never forgot that passage. The writing is uniformly good throughout the book. I noticed when I typed out the quotation that he used the word “abundant” three times in a paragraph. Who would have thought that worked? But it does.

The cover of the book compared it to A Dance to the Music of Time, which seemed silly—how can one 240 page book be compared to a twelve book series? But it is an apt comparison, as characters regularly reappear in different hats—I guess that is maybe how English society felt for so long. This book was published in 1988, but it could have been written in the fifties or sixties. It has that timeless Englishness which honestly makes me glad to be an American.

As is so often the case, my quibble is with the story line. The first half or so of the book is set in a grim boarding school where floggings occur every day. Funny and realistic. Great dialogue. But as we move forward much of the plot revolves around a writer, whose name is used in sentences such as “Gibbons and [fictional writer] wrote such lucid prose…” I have previously found it difficult as a reader to envision an unseen art, to absorb the story line when I can’t read the writing or the painting or hear the music of the fictional artist. This happened to me reading A Dance to the Music of Time, where there was a fictional painter, I believe, and in Proust where there was a fictional composer, always with comparisons to actual artists. I guess it is sort of like almost every dream sequence I ever read—my mind wanders. But that is hardly a reason not to read this most enjoyable novel.

[Laura Conrad · Rating 3 out of 5]

I got a Kindle cheap off of eBay so that I'd be able to read in my sunniest window and to take advantage of the Amazon Lending Library. It turned out to be really hard to find anything I wanted to read among the thousands of books in the library, but I've always liked A N Wilson, and they turn out to have several of his, including this one, which is the first of the Lampitt Series. It's a pretty good coming of age story, with the eucatastrophe involving both getting out of school and getting out of the "provinces".

[Kathryn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book, as an adult woman long after leaving school yet I enjoyed the adventure and related to most of it. Above all, it's A.N. Wilson's style that grabs and led me to read more of his work.

[Elizabeth Ashley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having just read A Question of Upbringing by Antony Powell, I was interested to read this similar fictionalised account of another young middle class boy's early schooling and adolescence. Both books were amusing and thought provoking although I think A N Wilson just had the edge. I liked his style of engaging with the reader especially when describing the eccentricities of English manners. I often get the same impression when reading a Charles Dickens novel - you feel like you could be sitting round the kitchen table with the author saying "yes, I know just what you mean."

[Jay Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having read and loved Powell’s A Dance To The Music Of Time series, I was hoping this smaller suits might hold a candle to it. I enjoyed the first two books and am currently on the third, which is dragging a bit and doesn’t bode well, especially considering Goodreads members’ 1- and 2- star ratings of the final two pieces.

[Esther · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bit strange this, a farce with some funny moments but a lot of just odd-ness. Very Wodehouse at times, and then at times just a little dull.

[Kwoomac · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very British story of a boy's journey toward adulthood, through the eyes of Julian as he goes through boarding school and university. Very sweet.