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God on the Rocks
Longlisted for the Booker Prize, God on the Rocks tells the story of Margaret Marsh's coming of age one summer between the world wars. Caught between her fervently religious father, a bitterly nostalgic mother, and the bawdy jokes of her nanny, Margaret escapes her home life by roaming the meadows and beaches of coastal England. When she meets two of her mother's childhood friends, they reveal a side to her mother that she has never known, unearthing long buried tensions as Margaret's world hurtles towards a moment of truth.
With subtlety and precision, God on the Rocks provides an intimate portrait of the tensions that divide men and women, and the love and sorrow that always linger.
With subtlety and precision, God on the Rocks provides an intimate portrait of the tensions that divide men and women, and the love and sorrow that always linger.
195 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1978
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1577 people want to read
About the author
Jane Gardam
68 books544 followersJane 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.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 316 reviews
November 11, 2016
Another one from the 1978 Booker shortlist. This was a very enjoyable read, but one which seems impossible to compare objectively with the last one I read, Rumours Of Rain - reading the two consecutively just makes you realise what a difficult job the judges have.
Set in a Northern seaside town between the wars, the first part of the book is told from the point of view of Margaret, a precocious eight-year old who is starting to see beyond the strict religious indoctrination she has been brought up with, and the story then widens out to focus on the people around her. A lovely book full of deft comic touches, warmth, wisdom and intriguing perspectives.
Set in a Northern seaside town between the wars, the first part of the book is told from the point of view of Margaret, a precocious eight-year old who is starting to see beyond the strict religious indoctrination she has been brought up with, and the story then widens out to focus on the people around her. A lovely book full of deft comic touches, warmth, wisdom and intriguing perspectives.
August 2, 2016
An exceptional book - one that defies genre. The novel, set during one summer on the coast of England in the 1930s, focuses primarily on 8 year-old Margaret Marsh, the daughter of a bank manager who preaches the gospel on "the sands" in his spare time and a mother who is a large, soft, submissive dreamer-type. The point of view is omniscient, and although we are in Margaret's keenly intelligent world for a good long time, the story drifts (sometimes jarringly) into the minds and hearts of others, including Margaret's mother.
The impetus for much of the drama comes in the form of the h-dropping, h-adding bawdy Lydia, who has been hired to help Margaret's mother after she has a baby boy. Conversations between Lydia and Margaret are hilarious, charming, and revealing - in that much of the dysfunctional family dynamic becomes clear. I was often taken by surprise but I never experienced disbelief. Margaret, bored by the fuss over the baby, has a fascinating truth-seeking mind. She sees her parents with a tragicomic clarity. By comparison, the rest of the cast are "nutters."
Gardam's writing is lyrical and compressed. The book is very short, yet the whole of it seems an examination of religion, culture, social class, and sexuality. I think the book is a small treasure.
The impetus for much of the drama comes in the form of the h-dropping, h-adding bawdy Lydia, who has been hired to help Margaret's mother after she has a baby boy. Conversations between Lydia and Margaret are hilarious, charming, and revealing - in that much of the dysfunctional family dynamic becomes clear. I was often taken by surprise but I never experienced disbelief. Margaret, bored by the fuss over the baby, has a fascinating truth-seeking mind. She sees her parents with a tragicomic clarity. By comparison, the rest of the cast are "nutters."
Gardam's writing is lyrical and compressed. The book is very short, yet the whole of it seems an examination of religion, culture, social class, and sexuality. I think the book is a small treasure.
October 29, 2020
3.5 rounded up.
This is Gardam's second novel for adults, published in 1978. She had written some short stories and children's books before this. Not as good as some of her later novels, it still shows her ability to take a simple plot at first glance and weave it into something much more intricate by the last page. Her characters are imperfect human beings who make mistakes and keep secrets, but continue to soldier on the best way they know how. I am a fan of all her books, and still have a few to look forward to.
Here we have eight year old Margaret, a precocious only child, who resents the new brother her parents have presented her with. She is sent off for a treat every Wednesday afternoon with the new maid, Lydia, who is a far cry from her ultra religious parents. She does indeed get treats, in the form of language and experiences that are new to her, and a course of events is set in action.
I was left with a couple of unanswered questions at the end, but was mostly satisfied at the twists and turns the story takes. Even early Jane Gardam is better than some and shows the later genius she became with the Old Filth trilogy.
This is Gardam's second novel for adults, published in 1978. She had written some short stories and children's books before this. Not as good as some of her later novels, it still shows her ability to take a simple plot at first glance and weave it into something much more intricate by the last page. Her characters are imperfect human beings who make mistakes and keep secrets, but continue to soldier on the best way they know how. I am a fan of all her books, and still have a few to look forward to.
Here we have eight year old Margaret, a precocious only child, who resents the new brother her parents have presented her with. She is sent off for a treat every Wednesday afternoon with the new maid, Lydia, who is a far cry from her ultra religious parents. She does indeed get treats, in the form of language and experiences that are new to her, and a course of events is set in action.
I was left with a couple of unanswered questions at the end, but was mostly satisfied at the twists and turns the story takes. Even early Jane Gardam is better than some and shows the later genius she became with the Old Filth trilogy.
November 27, 2016
Renoir, Young Girl in the Garden at Mézy, 1891
Written in the 1970s but set forty years earlier, this is one of those quiet, revelatory novels of family secrets and childhood understanding whose sensitivity to melancholy seems so well-suited to that period in Britain between the wars.
It's a lovely novel. Though no passages of writing leapt out at me, I'm left with a strong jumble of impressions of English seaside towns, men picking through the surf with trouser-legs rolled up and knotted handkerchiefs on their head, a heavy sense of memory and lost opportunities, a productive opposition between dogmatic religious fervour and a joyous, fleshy sexuality.
Except for the charming and serious eight-year-old, Margaret, most of the people in here are obsessed with choices they made years before, looking back variously to spoiled romances, to the first War, to when they still had money, to before dementia set in. This sense of looking back is reinforced by an epilogue set after 1945, and the effect is to make all the characters seem clear but also somehow indistinct, impressionistically blurred by memory. They are not unlike figures in a Renoir painting, one of which – perhaps the one above – plays a small, pivotal role in the story. Gardam seems like a wise and generous storyteller and I will definitely read more of her.
September 21, 2022
Sommer 1936: In einem kleinen Badeort im Nordosten Englands lebt Margaret mit ihren Eltern und ihrem neugeborenen Bruder. Die Familie gehört den Primal Saints an, einer Glaubensgemeinschaft, die jegliche Art von Spaß als Sünde betrachtet. Margaret langweilt sich in diesem Sommer schrecklich - ihr Vater predigt unaufhörlich und ihre Mutter hat sich in ein träges, stillendes Wesen verwandelt. Doch dann platzt das neue Hausmädchen Lydia in die Familie, der Mittwoch wird kurzerhand zum Ausflugstag erklärt und der Sommer verwandelt sich in eine unvergessliche Zeit, die das Leben der Marshs für immer verändern wird.
"Mädchen auf den Felsen" ist Jane Gardams Debütroman und somit die perfekte Gelegenheit, in das Werk der englischen Schriftstellerin einzusteigen. Der bereits 1978 in England erschienene Roman wurde 2022 erstmals von der Bestsellerautorin Isabel Bogdan ins Deutsche übersetzt und entführt die Leser*innen in ein karges Haus in einem kleinen Feriendorf an der nordöstlichen Küste Englands. Vor dieser malerischen Kulisse erzählt Gardam von verschiedenen Lebensentwürfen, die aufeinander prallen, vom Frausein in der Nachkriegszeit des 1. Weltkriegs und vom Aufwachsen in einer religiös-fanatischen Familie.
Der Roman steckt voller Geheimnisse, die nach und nach in Rückblenden offenbart werden und die Lesenden immer wieder in die Vergangenheit der verschiedenen Figuren eintauchen lässt. Ich wurde so nach einigen anfänglichen Längen in den Strudel aus Ereignissen hineingezogen, habe mich von den scharfen gesellschaftlichen Analysen Gardams verblüffen lassen und konnte gänzlich in diese drückende Sommer-Atmosphäre eintauchen.
"Mädchen auf den Felsen" ist ein Roman, der mich vor allem ob seiner unkonventionellen, jungen Protagonistin einfangen konnte - Margaret ist schlagfertig, altklug und bibelfest -, den ich aber auch durch seine thematischen Schwerpunkte wirklich lesenswert finde. Von einer gewissen Langatmigkeit abgesehen, die man doch stellenweise aushalten muss, eine sehr gelungene Lektüre!
"Mädchen auf den Felsen" ist Jane Gardams Debütroman und somit die perfekte Gelegenheit, in das Werk der englischen Schriftstellerin einzusteigen. Der bereits 1978 in England erschienene Roman wurde 2022 erstmals von der Bestsellerautorin Isabel Bogdan ins Deutsche übersetzt und entführt die Leser*innen in ein karges Haus in einem kleinen Feriendorf an der nordöstlichen Küste Englands. Vor dieser malerischen Kulisse erzählt Gardam von verschiedenen Lebensentwürfen, die aufeinander prallen, vom Frausein in der Nachkriegszeit des 1. Weltkriegs und vom Aufwachsen in einer religiös-fanatischen Familie.
Der Roman steckt voller Geheimnisse, die nach und nach in Rückblenden offenbart werden und die Lesenden immer wieder in die Vergangenheit der verschiedenen Figuren eintauchen lässt. Ich wurde so nach einigen anfänglichen Längen in den Strudel aus Ereignissen hineingezogen, habe mich von den scharfen gesellschaftlichen Analysen Gardams verblüffen lassen und konnte gänzlich in diese drückende Sommer-Atmosphäre eintauchen.
"Mädchen auf den Felsen" ist ein Roman, der mich vor allem ob seiner unkonventionellen, jungen Protagonistin einfangen konnte - Margaret ist schlagfertig, altklug und bibelfest -, den ich aber auch durch seine thematischen Schwerpunkte wirklich lesenswert finde. Von einer gewissen Langatmigkeit abgesehen, die man doch stellenweise aushalten muss, eine sehr gelungene Lektüre!
June 11, 2012
Well, add this to my growing list of Gardam books read and enjoyed. Gardam has a way of viewing everyday people and finding their warts, displaying them lovingly, and making their stories fun to read, with a combination of the comic and pathos. There are some broadly comic moments in this novel but also lots of soul searching as the characters try to figure out how their lives have led to the current point.
I recommend reading and enjoying.
I recommend reading and enjoying.
May 30, 2012
My Dad has always been a great sports fan. When I was young, the TV stayed on all Saturday afternoon, which meant that I was exposed from an early age to a litany of magical names: Plumpton, Pontefract and Newbury, Hexham, Fakenham, Taunton. The winners were even more exotic: Humble Pie beat Mother's Pride, Redhotfillypepper came in third. There was a comment at the end of every result that intrigued me as a kid. "Five ran". I was convinced it meant that five of the horses had been disqualified for running instead of galloping.
Gardam tells this tale from the point of view of eight year old Margaret, a child who also misinterprets what she hears. She and her mother are a little early for tea with Mother's much posher friend Binkie:
"I don't like to be too early"
"Oh let's" said Margaret
"No dear. She may still be changing."
"Changing!"
"Yes, dear, Binkie always changes in the afternoons."
(From what? Into what? Spiders? Fairies? Serpents?...)
And it's not just the eight year old Margaret who falls prey to the curse of the homonym. Binkie herself has a bit of a breakdown with Father Carter, and bewails her life looking after her unmarried brother - she was at Girton you know. Father Carter tries to be sympathetic:
"I'm sure it must be dull. Dull for you now. Here. It is a very great waste..."
Through her tears the words of Thomas à Kempis went straying on. 'Oh if these things had a sweet savour and pierced to the bottom of thy heart how couldst thou dare so much as once to complain?' then she thought that he had said something about her waist.
He had said that she was fat.
"I was thin. I was thin as could be," she wept, looking into his face. "At Cambridge. If you had known me then...."
It must be a sign of intelligence. Unconventional thinking. And being so sure of your own convictions that there's no need to make that clarifying query. I don't need to ask what it means I know what it means.
A favourite story about one of our daughters: they were brought up bi-lingually, so knew all about languages and different speakers. In German, most names of languages end in the syllable 'isch': Spanisch, Englisch, Italienisch. Once in a busy restaurant with the whole family, her cousin over on the other side of the table told a joke.
"Daniel, can you tell that one again? I didn't get it."
He asked "Akoustisch?" , which in German is the quick way to ask do you mean you didn't hear (acoustically) or you didn't understand?
She looked at him for a moment, and then said: "Nein - Deutsch."
Gardam tells this tale from the point of view of eight year old Margaret, a child who also misinterprets what she hears. She and her mother are a little early for tea with Mother's much posher friend Binkie:
"I don't like to be too early"
"Oh let's" said Margaret
"No dear. She may still be changing."
"Changing!"
"Yes, dear, Binkie always changes in the afternoons."
(From what? Into what? Spiders? Fairies? Serpents?...)
And it's not just the eight year old Margaret who falls prey to the curse of the homonym. Binkie herself has a bit of a breakdown with Father Carter, and bewails her life looking after her unmarried brother - she was at Girton you know. Father Carter tries to be sympathetic:
"I'm sure it must be dull. Dull for you now. Here. It is a very great waste..."
Through her tears the words of Thomas à Kempis went straying on. 'Oh if these things had a sweet savour and pierced to the bottom of thy heart how couldst thou dare so much as once to complain?' then she thought that he had said something about her waist.
He had said that she was fat.
"I was thin. I was thin as could be," she wept, looking into his face. "At Cambridge. If you had known me then...."
It must be a sign of intelligence. Unconventional thinking. And being so sure of your own convictions that there's no need to make that clarifying query. I don't need to ask what it means I know what it means.
A favourite story about one of our daughters: they were brought up bi-lingually, so knew all about languages and different speakers. In German, most names of languages end in the syllable 'isch': Spanisch, Englisch, Italienisch. Once in a busy restaurant with the whole family, her cousin over on the other side of the table told a joke.
"Daniel, can you tell that one again? I didn't get it."
He asked "Akoustisch?" , which in German is the quick way to ask do you mean you didn't hear (acoustically) or you didn't understand?
She looked at him for a moment, and then said: "Nein - Deutsch."
October 19, 2016
This was the first of the books I read as part of a group project to read through the 1978 Booker prize shortlist. It was surprisingly good; I think I had some mistaken idea that Jane Gardam wrote children's books and not serious lit.
The parts I liked best were those filtered through the pov of Margaret when she was a child. This strategy is something that sometimes works (Bowen's the House in Paris) and sometimes doesn't (cf. What Maisie Knew, which I found pretty terrible), but it works brilliantly here. I think part of it is that Margaret is not simply lacking in information that we have as readers, but also that she is very perceptive in other ways. She has instincts about situations even when she doesn't have quite the same understanding that an adult has, and this works very well. Her dislike (too strong a word perhaps? her distaste I almost want to say, for her mother) of her mother also has a quality that rings true as well, and is nicely handled. It's nice to see it appear at all in a work of fiction, frankly, as I think this kind of reaction and relationship may be more common that it seems from the heartfelt fiction that knows only closeness or abuse and nothing in between.
I also enjoyed the humor -- there were many moments where a situation or a well-turned phrase actually made me laugh (as opposed to thinking "oh, that's funny"). It doesn't hurt, for me anyway, that much of the humor is at the expense of the hypocritical heavy religious nutjob characters.
There were parts that seemed out of place. I'm ambivalent about them, as they were also sometimes very successful little pieces of writing in their own right. I'm thinking here of the monologue of Nurse Booth, which doesn't seem to have much to do with anything, but which is nonetheless quite successful. I feel like a longer book, perhaps something starting towards an Iris Murdoch-y kind of mode, could have incorporated this kind of thing better. As it was, there seemed to be a focus on Margaret with enjoyable but unnecessary digressions.
Other random striking things: Lydia's final monologue, so worth the price of admission. Also, the women's bodies and their connection to sex -- the recurring image was one of bigness, heaviness, of flesh straining to burst, and this was appealing to all and sundry, an irresistible sensual being which has nothing to do with the way we think or talk about sexiness today.
The parts I liked best were those filtered through the pov of Margaret when she was a child. This strategy is something that sometimes works (Bowen's the House in Paris) and sometimes doesn't (cf. What Maisie Knew, which I found pretty terrible), but it works brilliantly here. I think part of it is that Margaret is not simply lacking in information that we have as readers, but also that she is very perceptive in other ways. She has instincts about situations even when she doesn't have quite the same understanding that an adult has, and this works very well. Her dislike (too strong a word perhaps? her distaste I almost want to say, for her mother) of her mother also has a quality that rings true as well, and is nicely handled. It's nice to see it appear at all in a work of fiction, frankly, as I think this kind of reaction and relationship may be more common that it seems from the heartfelt fiction that knows only closeness or abuse and nothing in between.
I also enjoyed the humor -- there were many moments where a situation or a well-turned phrase actually made me laugh (as opposed to thinking "oh, that's funny"). It doesn't hurt, for me anyway, that much of the humor is at the expense of the hypocritical heavy religious nutjob characters.
There were parts that seemed out of place. I'm ambivalent about them, as they were also sometimes very successful little pieces of writing in their own right. I'm thinking here of the monologue of Nurse Booth, which doesn't seem to have much to do with anything, but which is nonetheless quite successful. I feel like a longer book, perhaps something starting towards an Iris Murdoch-y kind of mode, could have incorporated this kind of thing better. As it was, there seemed to be a focus on Margaret with enjoyable but unnecessary digressions.
Other random striking things: Lydia's final monologue, so worth the price of admission. Also, the women's bodies and their connection to sex -- the recurring image was one of bigness, heaviness, of flesh straining to burst, and this was appealing to all and sundry, an irresistible sensual being which has nothing to do with the way we think or talk about sexiness today.
February 27, 2017
I am going to start by advising against choosing the audiobook narrated by Maggie Ollerenshaw. Her narration got between me and the author’s words. I found myself listening to the intonation rather than the specific words. I became confused about who was talking. There is a lot of dialog, and colloquialisms abound. On one hand this is good because such augments the atmosphere, but at times I failed to understand what was inferred. The intonation enhances this problem; in dialogs words are too often slurred, indistinct, mumbled or exclaimed. Probably this was done to make the dialect accurate, to show how people really would say the words, but I needed to hear those words so I could comprehend the text! Anyhow, I did end up understanding what happened, but the struggle annoyed me. The author also does not move forward chronologically. The two together added to my confusion.
I like the author's manner of writing. I am speaking of the dialog and the intermediary prose. The sentences are short and abrupt; they often leave you with the sense that more is being said than the words themselves. I like this because it is up to you to fill in the meaning. The dialogs feel genuine. This is how people talk! Innuendos lie under the surface and the reader must determine what is implied. How one talks is not how one writes! Both must be mastered to achieve success in a novel. The characters in this book are from different social groups and you hear this in how they express themselves. I like this too.
Jane Gardam wonderfully depicts different social groups and the atmosphere of a time and place. Here it is British provincial life between the two wars. This she does to a tee. I have filed this under historical fiction, not because it tells history but rather because it so well mirrors the life style of a group of people set in time and place. The effects of World War I lie as a blanket over all that follows. Later the book shifts forward in time and we see how all that happened in the story has shaped the future too. I like the continuity of this.
The book, through its plot and what the character say, leaves a message. Every book has to have something to say, right? Well, I like what it says, not that I can necessarily live as it says one should. It leaves a message you can remind yourself of. It is something to think about. It is not hammered in.
Religion can be pushed to an extreme. A religious person might focus more on this theme, but I would widen the idea to say that most anything can be pushed to an extreme.
I am unsure to what extent the narration of the audiobook has distracted me and thus has influenced my rating of the book. I try to separate the two but am unsure if I have succeeded here. I have given the book three stars, but the narration only two. Two because I understood most of that which was said, but it detracted from my appreciation of the author’s lines.
**********************
The books I have read by Jane Gardam in order of appreciation:
Bilgewater (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)
I like the author's manner of writing. I am speaking of the dialog and the intermediary prose. The sentences are short and abrupt; they often leave you with the sense that more is being said than the words themselves. I like this because it is up to you to fill in the meaning. The dialogs feel genuine. This is how people talk! Innuendos lie under the surface and the reader must determine what is implied. How one talks is not how one writes! Both must be mastered to achieve success in a novel. The characters in this book are from different social groups and you hear this in how they express themselves. I like this too.
Jane Gardam wonderfully depicts different social groups and the atmosphere of a time and place. Here it is British provincial life between the two wars. This she does to a tee. I have filed this under historical fiction, not because it tells history but rather because it so well mirrors the life style of a group of people set in time and place. The effects of World War I lie as a blanket over all that follows. Later the book shifts forward in time and we see how all that happened in the story has shaped the future too. I like the continuity of this.
The book, through its plot and what the character say, leaves a message. Every book has to have something to say, right? Well, I like what it says, not that I can necessarily live as it says one should. It leaves a message you can remind yourself of. It is something to think about. It is not hammered in.
Religion can be pushed to an extreme. A religious person might focus more on this theme, but I would widen the idea to say that most anything can be pushed to an extreme.
I am unsure to what extent the narration of the audiobook has distracted me and thus has influenced my rating of the book. I try to separate the two but am unsure if I have succeeded here. I have given the book three stars, but the narration only two. Two because I understood most of that which was said, but it detracted from my appreciation of the author’s lines.
**********************
The books I have read by Jane Gardam in order of appreciation:
Bilgewater (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)
January 1, 2020
Not my kind of book. The attempt at humour is not funny to me. Sense of humour varies greatly from one person to another. The plot is total nonsense until the end, when the entire convoluted explanation is crammed into the final five pages. I did not relate to any of the characters. Near the end of the book, I was still having to stop and think with each change of scene — “Now who are these people?”. My first book by this author. Now, the question is “Should I give her a second chance? Did she write any novels which are better than (i.e. different from) this one?”
June 20, 2023
Es fing an wie eines von diesen britischen Büchern, in denen es um Strickjacken, Tee und Vikare geht und von denen ich eigentlich keines mehr lesen wollte. Aber ich mochte den Stil und die Erzähltechnik, und es passiert dann auch von Anfang an ungewöhnlich viel. Also natürlich nur so viel, wie in einem Strickjacken-Tee-Vikare-Buch eben passieren kann, aber die Möglichkeiten dieses Genres werden ausgereizt. Einziges kleines Ärgernis: Die achtjährige Protagonistin spricht und denkt wegen ihres ultrareligiösen Vaters viel in Bibelzitaten, und zwar komplett mit Angabe der Stelle. Das ist doofer Romanwunderkindquatsch, selbst wenn man mit acht die Bibel auswendig kann, wird man doch wenigstens ab und zu denken "Johannes neunzehn, fünfunddreißig ... oder war es vierunddreißig?"
April 25, 2024
Oh, Jane Gardam, you are such a wonderful writer. Your characters are believable, completely human, and your stories speak to the mystery that is life.
God on the Rocks explores the ideas of faith and love and attraction. We meet Margaret, eight, and her nanny, Lydia, as Margaret's mother, Ellie, is recovering from childbirth. We meet Margaret's dad, a fervent fundamentalist Christian. We meet Ellie's friends from her past, intellectual brother and sister Charles and Binkie. We meet Charles and Binky's mother, and her mother's companions. And somehow this all results in a story full of ideas that resonate with us as readers and fellow partakers of this thing that is life.
God on the Rocks explores the ideas of faith and love and attraction. We meet Margaret, eight, and her nanny, Lydia, as Margaret's mother, Ellie, is recovering from childbirth. We meet Margaret's dad, a fervent fundamentalist Christian. We meet Ellie's friends from her past, intellectual brother and sister Charles and Binkie. We meet Charles and Binky's mother, and her mother's companions. And somehow this all results in a story full of ideas that resonate with us as readers and fellow partakers of this thing that is life.
May 24, 2011
I have not read a five-star book in a while and I am glad that this book was still lying around after my wife had read it and other books by Ms. Gardam.
I think of "God on the Rocks" as an understated comedy. At the beautiful, well crafted ending, loose ends in the lives of the characters, living and dead, are tied up, and life histories and resolutions are summed up. For example, the revelation of who Mr. Beezer-Iremonger actually is. For example, the fulfillment and onward movement of Charles and Elinor. For example, the return of Lydia, the Marshes' maid and the odd angel of the small group. For example, the capacity of Margaret to continue to love and the wonder of her not being a victim and of her freedom from a guilt that other writers might dwell on.
The title is an interesting one. Mr. Marsh is a major character because it is his existence that drives the current situation of the characters. The title references his religiosity and his slipping off the rock at the Eastkirk(?) beach during a finely written moment of sexual tension with the suspicious Lydia --- an event that he turns into a revival meeting. It also references the foundering of the lifeboat on the rocks where Margaret is stranded and Mr. Marsh's drowning. It references the small, neat, sometimes ridiculous, but always human, Mr. Marsh at his ridiculous and his sublime moments.
There are some lovely funny scenes. For example, the slipping off the rock, mentioned above. Also, the flight of Elinor to the house of Charles and Binkie and the remarkable loss of her clothing to a rummage sale donation. Also, there's Lydia's pleasure at shedding her corset and brassiere at the tree. And, throughout, Margaret views all with a dispassionate eye. Just marvellous.
Definitely a keeper.
I think of "God on the Rocks" as an understated comedy. At the beautiful, well crafted ending, loose ends in the lives of the characters, living and dead, are tied up, and life histories and resolutions are summed up. For example, the revelation of who Mr. Beezer-Iremonger actually is. For example, the fulfillment and onward movement of Charles and Elinor. For example, the return of Lydia, the Marshes' maid and the odd angel of the small group. For example, the capacity of Margaret to continue to love and the wonder of her not being a victim and of her freedom from a guilt that other writers might dwell on.
The title is an interesting one. Mr. Marsh is a major character because it is his existence that drives the current situation of the characters. The title references his religiosity and his slipping off the rock at the Eastkirk(?) beach during a finely written moment of sexual tension with the suspicious Lydia --- an event that he turns into a revival meeting. It also references the foundering of the lifeboat on the rocks where Margaret is stranded and Mr. Marsh's drowning. It references the small, neat, sometimes ridiculous, but always human, Mr. Marsh at his ridiculous and his sublime moments.
There are some lovely funny scenes. For example, the slipping off the rock, mentioned above. Also, the flight of Elinor to the house of Charles and Binkie and the remarkable loss of her clothing to a rummage sale donation. Also, there's Lydia's pleasure at shedding her corset and brassiere at the tree. And, throughout, Margaret views all with a dispassionate eye. Just marvellous.
Definitely a keeper.
September 29, 2022
Ich mag es, wie Jane Gardam Geschichten erzählt, leider bin ich von den Geschichten selbst oft nicht so angetan. Und so war es auch bei ihrem Erstlingswerk, von dem ich mir etwas mehr erhofft hatte. Die Figuren sind für mich alle zweidimensional geblieben, die Geschichte war interessant und durchaus spannend, wirklich begeistern konnte ich mich aber nicht für die einzelnen Schicksale.
July 10, 2025
Dieser Roman war ein seltsamer Hybrid - los geht es mit einer achtjährigen Erzählerin. Man stellt sich also auf so etwas wie ein Kinderbuch ein. Doch ziemlich bald beobachtet die Achtjährige ihre Haushaltshilfe beim Sex. Also offenbar doch kein Kinderbuch. Und je länger man liest, desto mehr bewegt sich der Roman weg vom Kind hin zu den Erwachsenen um sie herum. Und ab da wurde es für mich interessant und spannend. Wie immer also eine Leseempfehlung für Jane Gardam!
October 3, 2014
If you haven't read any of Jane Gardam's books, you are missing a real reader's delight. GOD ON THE ROCKS is one of the earlier ones. It was short-listed for the Booker Award. I became so enamored of her work after reading her triology: OLD FILTH; THE MAN IN THE WOODEN HAT; and LAST FRIENDS, all of which struck me as genial, humorous and wonderfully constructed. I became a "groupie," so to speak. Ms. Gardam is one of Britain's unrevealed literary treasures and her work has won numerous awards, including two prized Whitbread Awards. God of the Rocks is a coming of age story set during a summer between World Wars. Margaret Marsh, the protagonist, is a feisty precocious eight-year old, the child of a religious fundamentalist and a slightly embittered mother. What I love about Jane Gardam's books are the wonderful characters she creates. They live and breathe ... and now and then, shock us with the honesty of how they see the world. Her dialogue runs true. When I pick up one of her books, I know I am in for a jolly good time.
June 2, 2013
What I love about Gardam is that her characters are often surprising. There is no cheap psychology at work. They are credible because they are not predictable.
Here and there a sentence will stop you cold, like, "Still and quiet and almost looking flimsily aged at ten years old she had loved him and he had the blessing of having someone it was quite safe to hurt."
This about two children who were friends.
The thing with Gardam is that the characters are so recognizable, and might reveal something about you that you had perhaps been mistaken about for many years.
Such a pleasure to read.
Here and there a sentence will stop you cold, like, "Still and quiet and almost looking flimsily aged at ten years old she had loved him and he had the blessing of having someone it was quite safe to hurt."
This about two children who were friends.
The thing with Gardam is that the characters are so recognizable, and might reveal something about you that you had perhaps been mistaken about for many years.
Such a pleasure to read.
April 9, 2023
Spannender, als ich dachte, mit mehr Witz, als ich dachte, weniger Entwicklung der Charaktere, als ich dachte!
February 10, 2020
*** 3.75 ***
December 10, 2012
I loved this book so much, I am now nonplussed, and can barely make any sense with my words of praise.
The humor, so divine. (Oops--I think I just unintenionally made a pun, considering some of the subject matter of this novel.)
The thing I love most about Jane Gardam's writing, is that she pokes fun at each of her characters. So, you have some fun, as the reader, in seeing these flaws and laughing at their foibles.
Yet while this poking fun is going on, one also cannot help but fall in love with each character, or at least, come to understand and admire them, and root for them, flaws and all.
So, that's what I did here, and devoured each page and chapter about these people, getting caught up in their personal dramas, wondering how it would all come out in the end, smiling or chuckling at every other page.
Loved how things tied together in the end.
Beautiful, beautiful little novel.
The humor, so divine. (Oops--I think I just unintenionally made a pun, considering some of the subject matter of this novel.)
The thing I love most about Jane Gardam's writing, is that she pokes fun at each of her characters. So, you have some fun, as the reader, in seeing these flaws and laughing at their foibles.
Yet while this poking fun is going on, one also cannot help but fall in love with each character, or at least, come to understand and admire them, and root for them, flaws and all.
So, that's what I did here, and devoured each page and chapter about these people, getting caught up in their personal dramas, wondering how it would all come out in the end, smiling or chuckling at every other page.
Loved how things tied together in the end.
Beautiful, beautiful little novel.
November 24, 2010
Thanks to the overwhelming popularity of Old Filth, Jane Gardham is at last finding her earlier works being reissued and made available. Although written thirty years before Atonement, this book shares similarities in that they both deal with how misinterpretations from the past can affect the present, and regrets for actions taken can leave unhealed wounds. Gardham releases information only as needed with an economy of purpose so there is not an unnecessary word. Her characters are filled with breadth and scope, her situations believable. She is able to short points of view almost unnoticed, giving the story its three dimensional quality. There are also several scenes of high farce, surprising in a story seemingly so serious. Highly recommended.
April 12, 2021
An odd concoction of a book, neither one thing nor the other. At times the dialogue seems drawn from an old drawing room comedy or one of those black and white films from the 30s with witty repartee. (A perfectly suitable analogy, given that the book is set on the coast of England between the wars.) At other times dense and rather sad. Serious in its examination of class, religion, memory and dreams, of tensions between parents and their children. In fact, I was struck by how wildly the book seems to veer from one emotional tone to another: from wordplay and ribald set pieces to touching scenes of frustrated dreams and regretted acts. In my mind, it is this back and forth movement that left me liking the book well enough -- it is Jane Gardam, after all -- but not very enthusiastically.
The book opens in a tone reminiscent of, say, a Jane Austin novel. Sort of. Because the baby had come, special attention had to be given to Margaret, who was eight. On Wednesdays therefore she was to go out with Lydia the maid for the whole afternoon. Wherever Lydia liked. So long as Margaret's mother knew of course where that was.
On one of these day trips, Margaret, a precicious and spirited girl, wears "a cotton dress with smocking along the back as well as the front. 'It's only by the back you can tell,' her mother always said. 'You can tell a nice child from the back.' Some gulf obtained between Margaret and children with undecorated backs." A gulf indeed. Lydia is quite a character. Ribald, forthright, self-confident. Uneducated and unrefined ("I'll do nowt. Not owt. I's sweating) but wise to how the world works.
The first half of the book centers around Margaret's household -- mother, father, Lydia, and baby Terrence, whom Margaret rather resents. One day, Margaret has a conversation with her mother ("a great breast-feeder at a time when it was fashionable to be otherwise") about the religious belief her father holds so close. She says, "If I'd been God I'd have left it at dinosaurs. I'd have been satisfied looking down at that." For which her mother reprimands her, saying "we believe in Genesis here." She continues: "Most people believe in myths -- you know what myths are? -- invented by Sir Charles Darwin about how we grew out of fishes and monkeys and things." Blasphemy, Mother explains, means "taking the name of God lightly,' to which Margaret rejoins, "Better than heavily."
The scene concludes with Mother muttering about how God "made us in his own image," then: She looked at the trussed baby, face down, its red head like a tilted orange rearing yp and down on the undersheet as if desperately trying to escape. Giving up, it let its head drop into suffocation position and there was another explosion followed by a long, liquid spluttering from further down the cot: and a smell. "Oh dear," said Mrs Marsh contented, "now I'll have to start all over again with a new nappy. Could you hand me the bucket, darling?" "His own image," said Margaret watching the horrible unwrapping. "If God looks like us... What's the point?
Scenes like these seem to appear primarily -- perhaps only -- when it is young Margaret who is in the author's sight. The tone becomes more serious when she writes of adults. Margaret's mother -- Elinor -- is deeply frustrated in her marriage. One evening, she thinks back (as she often does) to her childhood, the time she spent in the company of two children from a wealthy family. A complicated relationship, complicated for many reasons. She recalls in particular one afternoon spent in the rich family's library with Charles, the son. He playing with toy soldiers, she reading a book, when they are called away. I'll quote a passage in full to demonstrate the emotional and psychological weight Gardam gives these moments. The woman, Elinor, recollects:
It was the end that day, Elinor thought now, putting Terence into his crib. Even though I went back again, that day was the end. I was fourteen. Now I'm thirty-six. Yet it has never changed for me.
The deep silence... seemed to suggest that there was a formidable audience somewhere in the house considering Ellie. In fact all grew so still that she became afraid and walked out on to the landing. Her husband, her daughter and Lydia were all downstairs in the tiny house, yet there was not a sound. Even the baby slept. Pressing around her alertly were a dozen sad ghosts.
Mother and father knew, she thought. They knew how I loved being at the Hall but they never asked about it. I suppose they thought it was charity. It was a different age. It was medieval. The War was supposed to change it all... All wars are meant to change it all.
What a very odd thing to have thought, she said to the staircase wall and walked back into her bedroom. That's what the book was -- the one I was reading that day. It was War and Peace and I've just remembered. I never did finish it. But it's what it was about -- war not changing anything.
Her thoughts are interrupted by the sound of "a long hollow crumpling noise from war away which might have been a storm if it had not been such a balmy evening." This noise, heard more than once, is never explained. But the reader senses what it is: the fate that lies before Elinor and those around her. The coming war that will change everything. As indeed, everything changes over the course of the book. Sometimes raucously, sometimes with sad sobriety.
As I said, it's an odd little book, not at all like the author's better known "Old Filth". Frequently very funny, occasionally quite confusing (the story jumps from person to person, not all of them entirely sane: a significant part of the book takes place in a building that was once home to the wealthy family and became a residence for people with mental disabilities of some sort), and sometimes serious, even portentous. The reader just has to hold the reins loosely and let the book go where it wants to go. I found it mostly worth the ride, if a bit less than satisfying.
The book opens in a tone reminiscent of, say, a Jane Austin novel. Sort of. Because the baby had come, special attention had to be given to Margaret, who was eight. On Wednesdays therefore she was to go out with Lydia the maid for the whole afternoon. Wherever Lydia liked. So long as Margaret's mother knew of course where that was.
On one of these day trips, Margaret, a precicious and spirited girl, wears "a cotton dress with smocking along the back as well as the front. 'It's only by the back you can tell,' her mother always said. 'You can tell a nice child from the back.' Some gulf obtained between Margaret and children with undecorated backs." A gulf indeed. Lydia is quite a character. Ribald, forthright, self-confident. Uneducated and unrefined ("I'll do nowt. Not owt. I's sweating) but wise to how the world works.
The first half of the book centers around Margaret's household -- mother, father, Lydia, and baby Terrence, whom Margaret rather resents. One day, Margaret has a conversation with her mother ("a great breast-feeder at a time when it was fashionable to be otherwise") about the religious belief her father holds so close. She says, "If I'd been God I'd have left it at dinosaurs. I'd have been satisfied looking down at that." For which her mother reprimands her, saying "we believe in Genesis here." She continues: "Most people believe in myths -- you know what myths are? -- invented by Sir Charles Darwin about how we grew out of fishes and monkeys and things." Blasphemy, Mother explains, means "taking the name of God lightly,' to which Margaret rejoins, "Better than heavily."
The scene concludes with Mother muttering about how God "made us in his own image," then: She looked at the trussed baby, face down, its red head like a tilted orange rearing yp and down on the undersheet as if desperately trying to escape. Giving up, it let its head drop into suffocation position and there was another explosion followed by a long, liquid spluttering from further down the cot: and a smell. "Oh dear," said Mrs Marsh contented, "now I'll have to start all over again with a new nappy. Could you hand me the bucket, darling?" "His own image," said Margaret watching the horrible unwrapping. "If God looks like us... What's the point?
Scenes like these seem to appear primarily -- perhaps only -- when it is young Margaret who is in the author's sight. The tone becomes more serious when she writes of adults. Margaret's mother -- Elinor -- is deeply frustrated in her marriage. One evening, she thinks back (as she often does) to her childhood, the time she spent in the company of two children from a wealthy family. A complicated relationship, complicated for many reasons. She recalls in particular one afternoon spent in the rich family's library with Charles, the son. He playing with toy soldiers, she reading a book, when they are called away. I'll quote a passage in full to demonstrate the emotional and psychological weight Gardam gives these moments. The woman, Elinor, recollects:
It was the end that day, Elinor thought now, putting Terence into his crib. Even though I went back again, that day was the end. I was fourteen. Now I'm thirty-six. Yet it has never changed for me.
The deep silence... seemed to suggest that there was a formidable audience somewhere in the house considering Ellie. In fact all grew so still that she became afraid and walked out on to the landing. Her husband, her daughter and Lydia were all downstairs in the tiny house, yet there was not a sound. Even the baby slept. Pressing around her alertly were a dozen sad ghosts.
Mother and father knew, she thought. They knew how I loved being at the Hall but they never asked about it. I suppose they thought it was charity. It was a different age. It was medieval. The War was supposed to change it all... All wars are meant to change it all.
What a very odd thing to have thought, she said to the staircase wall and walked back into her bedroom. That's what the book was -- the one I was reading that day. It was War and Peace and I've just remembered. I never did finish it. But it's what it was about -- war not changing anything.
Her thoughts are interrupted by the sound of "a long hollow crumpling noise from war away which might have been a storm if it had not been such a balmy evening." This noise, heard more than once, is never explained. But the reader senses what it is: the fate that lies before Elinor and those around her. The coming war that will change everything. As indeed, everything changes over the course of the book. Sometimes raucously, sometimes with sad sobriety.
As I said, it's an odd little book, not at all like the author's better known "Old Filth". Frequently very funny, occasionally quite confusing (the story jumps from person to person, not all of them entirely sane: a significant part of the book takes place in a building that was once home to the wealthy family and became a residence for people with mental disabilities of some sort), and sometimes serious, even portentous. The reader just has to hold the reins loosely and let the book go where it wants to go. I found it mostly worth the ride, if a bit less than satisfying.
Read
February 17, 2018Ooo. Oooh! Excellent. A summer in north England between the Wars, a precocious young girl and the horrible adults who surround her; a puritanical father, a weak mother, a lascivious nanny, a bunch of other less than lovely, though sympathetic and understandable, characters. This is very well written, but rarer (at least among a lot of the books I find myself reading) it is masterfully plotted, offering the sort of narrative anticipation that high literature often feels like it doesn't need to bother with (sidenote: it is generally wrong). Excellent all around, I'll definitely keep an eye out for more by Ms. Gardam. Another library book, but I'd keep this in principal.
January 27, 2014
A finalist for the Booker Prize in 1978, God on the Rocks once again showcases the substantial storytelling and writing skills of Jane Gardam. I can use the expression “once again” because: 1.) I only heard about her less than a month ago when I received her first book, “A Long Way from Verona” 2.) This is the third book of hers I have read in the past 19 days and 3.) I am hoping she reads my reviews and contacts me for a cup of tea and a little chat about her books.
This novel takes place during the suffocating heat of the summer of 1936 in a small, English coastal village. Eight-year old, precocious Margaret Marsh lives with her mother, father and baby brother at Seaview Villas. Her father, a respected bank manager turned preacher on the weekends, perceives the world through his conservative, narrow interpretation of the Bible and imposes those views relentlessly upon his family. Margaret’s claustrophobic life with him has been a never ending tape of Bible lessons; by the time she is eight, she knows her Scripture. Spouting specific references, she makes connections to her life throughout the novel, her father never quite sure if her motives are respectful. Her mother, living in a breast-feeding, distracted fog with a newborn, alternately deals with Margaret using her recently acquired Freudian knowledge and echoing her husband’s Primal Saints Church theology.
Enter Lydia, the sensual young woman, “a real bobby-dazzler,” who has only recently come into their lives to assist with the baby. Kenneth Marsh views her as a sure sign from God that she must be “saved.” Elinor Marsh sees Lydia as her personal savior helping with a new baby and for Margaret with whom she provides a weekly “treat” excursion to nearby Eastkirk.
While on these weekly excursions, largely left to explore on her own, Margaret discovers another world, which has unexpected connections to her mother’s past. As the weekly excursions continue, Elinor fears Lydia is changing the family, which frightens her, and Kenneth, attracted to Lydia, plans to pray through it. The ever-perceptive Margaret, trying to navigate her life with the new baby has a visceral observation. ‘“What are you thinking, sweet Margaret?’ her mother asked. ‘That everyone’s mad,’ Margaret shouted.” Ah, precocious Margaret.
Gardam is a gifted story teller weaving memorable characters within surprising plot lines. Margaret’s feelings about the new baby and the world around her are affirmed by her new artist friend, Mr. Drinkwater, who makes similar connections to the world he lives in. What Margaret doesn’t know is that this friend lives on a beautiful property that is actually a mental asylum. In the meantime, Mrs. Marsh takes Margaret to tea, introducing her to her old and very dear friends, Binkie and Charlie. Mr. Marsh, tagging along on a weekly excursion, begins to preach on the beach, “God on the rocks,” and begins to draw a curious crowd.
And the story just becomes more compelling with Gardam alternating among the characters, visiting the past and returning to the present, revealing secrets, regrets, grudges and sacrifices. The summer offers Margaret one startling revelation after another. She observes, “Father…is not clever like Charlie and Binkie…but, poor thing, he tries to be good.” Her mother’s lament, “It’s because I never went away that no one will ever think I’m clever. Charlie and Binkie were at Cambridge…a place for clever people” is the “most astonishing thing Margaret had ever experienced.”
The remaining third of the novel involves scenes that are hilarious, poignant and heartbreaking, bringing insight and epiphanies to the characters and setting life-changing events into motion. Among so many other things, Charlie acknowledges his shallowness, the mistakes he has made trading Elinor for his inheritance, which he lost anyway; Elinor realizes she has been living in a “mad house;” Rosalie Farley, Charlie and Binkie’s mother, attempts to right an old wrong; and Father Carter observes “Here are the survivors – strong and well and bitterly unhappy. With nothing to do. Whatever has Christianity to offer this one?” Kenneth Marsh risks all to save his daughter from drowning, the daughter he barely noticed except when “saving” her through Scripture.
The story moves forward to 1947, and the reader learns what has happened to the little town and the people since that last stormy summer night. Binkie, steadfast as ever, offers her own memories from the past, narrating and filtering what might be helpful to Margaret and her younger brothers. “Mother was a snob…she was a bit of a joke really but nobody minded. She belonged to the past.” Her caution to Margaret, now 20 years old and quite brilliant, is filled with wisdom, “Because there’s a lot it’s not wise to fuss over. To prise out. Extract. It is best just to look and be.”
If the final scene weren’t strong enough, Lydia comes upon the group who are all delighted to see her again and marvel at how time seems to have stood still for her. Lydia, who truly saved them all those years ago, who set them free, says, “Oh, our Margaret, but I have (changed)…I were bloody daft them days.” God on the rocks, indeed, and I just have a little milk in my tea, Jane.
This novel takes place during the suffocating heat of the summer of 1936 in a small, English coastal village. Eight-year old, precocious Margaret Marsh lives with her mother, father and baby brother at Seaview Villas. Her father, a respected bank manager turned preacher on the weekends, perceives the world through his conservative, narrow interpretation of the Bible and imposes those views relentlessly upon his family. Margaret’s claustrophobic life with him has been a never ending tape of Bible lessons; by the time she is eight, she knows her Scripture. Spouting specific references, she makes connections to her life throughout the novel, her father never quite sure if her motives are respectful. Her mother, living in a breast-feeding, distracted fog with a newborn, alternately deals with Margaret using her recently acquired Freudian knowledge and echoing her husband’s Primal Saints Church theology.
Enter Lydia, the sensual young woman, “a real bobby-dazzler,” who has only recently come into their lives to assist with the baby. Kenneth Marsh views her as a sure sign from God that she must be “saved.” Elinor Marsh sees Lydia as her personal savior helping with a new baby and for Margaret with whom she provides a weekly “treat” excursion to nearby Eastkirk.
While on these weekly excursions, largely left to explore on her own, Margaret discovers another world, which has unexpected connections to her mother’s past. As the weekly excursions continue, Elinor fears Lydia is changing the family, which frightens her, and Kenneth, attracted to Lydia, plans to pray through it. The ever-perceptive Margaret, trying to navigate her life with the new baby has a visceral observation. ‘“What are you thinking, sweet Margaret?’ her mother asked. ‘That everyone’s mad,’ Margaret shouted.” Ah, precocious Margaret.
Gardam is a gifted story teller weaving memorable characters within surprising plot lines. Margaret’s feelings about the new baby and the world around her are affirmed by her new artist friend, Mr. Drinkwater, who makes similar connections to the world he lives in. What Margaret doesn’t know is that this friend lives on a beautiful property that is actually a mental asylum. In the meantime, Mrs. Marsh takes Margaret to tea, introducing her to her old and very dear friends, Binkie and Charlie. Mr. Marsh, tagging along on a weekly excursion, begins to preach on the beach, “God on the rocks,” and begins to draw a curious crowd.
And the story just becomes more compelling with Gardam alternating among the characters, visiting the past and returning to the present, revealing secrets, regrets, grudges and sacrifices. The summer offers Margaret one startling revelation after another. She observes, “Father…is not clever like Charlie and Binkie…but, poor thing, he tries to be good.” Her mother’s lament, “It’s because I never went away that no one will ever think I’m clever. Charlie and Binkie were at Cambridge…a place for clever people” is the “most astonishing thing Margaret had ever experienced.”
The remaining third of the novel involves scenes that are hilarious, poignant and heartbreaking, bringing insight and epiphanies to the characters and setting life-changing events into motion. Among so many other things, Charlie acknowledges his shallowness, the mistakes he has made trading Elinor for his inheritance, which he lost anyway; Elinor realizes she has been living in a “mad house;” Rosalie Farley, Charlie and Binkie’s mother, attempts to right an old wrong; and Father Carter observes “Here are the survivors – strong and well and bitterly unhappy. With nothing to do. Whatever has Christianity to offer this one?” Kenneth Marsh risks all to save his daughter from drowning, the daughter he barely noticed except when “saving” her through Scripture.
The story moves forward to 1947, and the reader learns what has happened to the little town and the people since that last stormy summer night. Binkie, steadfast as ever, offers her own memories from the past, narrating and filtering what might be helpful to Margaret and her younger brothers. “Mother was a snob…she was a bit of a joke really but nobody minded. She belonged to the past.” Her caution to Margaret, now 20 years old and quite brilliant, is filled with wisdom, “Because there’s a lot it’s not wise to fuss over. To prise out. Extract. It is best just to look and be.”
If the final scene weren’t strong enough, Lydia comes upon the group who are all delighted to see her again and marvel at how time seems to have stood still for her. Lydia, who truly saved them all those years ago, who set them free, says, “Oh, our Margaret, but I have (changed)…I were bloody daft them days.” God on the rocks, indeed, and I just have a little milk in my tea, Jane.
December 3, 2019
Als ik het even niet meer weet, qua lezerij, pak ik Jane Gardam. Zij stelt werkelijk nooit teleur.
Het boek God on the Rocks is van 1978, het is recentelijk vertaald als Op de Klippen.
Het verhaal wordt op bol.com goed samengevat, maar misschien is het beter om zonder voorkennis in het boek te duiken en je te laten meeslepen in een hete zomer halverwege de jaren dertig, waarin alles verandert voor de achtjarige Margaret, vroegwijs en zeer bijbelvast kind uit een zwaar vroom gezin.
Ik heb weer regelmatig naar adem gehapt van bewondering. Ik heb ook ontzettend gelachen, ik heb aan andere boeken gedacht zoals de Geheime Tuin en The Children's Book, ik heb aan Virgina Woolf gedacht die schrijft dat je als schrijver een grot moet uitgraven achter je personages.
Margaret heeft pas een broertje gekregen, en omdat moeder haar ook iets leuks gunt, mag ze met voluptueus dienstmeisje Lydia iedere woensdag een uitstapje maken. Ze gaan naar het strand, en daarna het bos in.
"Lydia lay down on her side under the tree like a range of quiet hills."
Vloeit zo'n zin Gardam uit de pen of heeft ze daar 's nachts op liggen broeden?
De stijl in de eerste hoofdstukken is af en toe bijna die van een schoolopstel, wat goed past bij de steile, nuchtere Margaret.
Haar moeder, Elinor, wordt een beetje gek van het thuiszitten met de baby, en ze gaan op theevisite bij Charles en Binkie. Ze moeten niet te vroeg komen, want "Binkie always changes in the afternoons. (From what? Into what? Spiders? Fairies? Serpents?)"
Met deze theevisite zal alles veranderen.
Alle personages hebben enorme grotten achter zich – ik zie dat echt zo voor me, ze staan sereen glimlachend voor de opening, en niemand weet wat er zich in de vochtige duisternis daarachter afspeelt. Eigenlijk is dat altijd waar Gardam over schrijft: over het geheime innerlijke leven van mensen, waarvan wij als lezer een glimp mogen opvangen om voor altijd een groot mededogen te voelen, al was het maar omdat ze het allemaal alleen moeten dragen. Zoals Binkie het uitdrukt: "And nobody knows … what it costs to live the life I live."
Het lijkt ook een handelsmerk van Gardam om een laatste hoofdstuk toe te voegen waarin sommige raadsels ontraadseld worden maar andere worden toegevoegd, uit het zicht van de personages, in het vage zicht van de lezer. Waarbij het hart van de lezer een beetje breekt.
Het boek God on the Rocks is van 1978, het is recentelijk vertaald als Op de Klippen.
Het verhaal wordt op bol.com goed samengevat, maar misschien is het beter om zonder voorkennis in het boek te duiken en je te laten meeslepen in een hete zomer halverwege de jaren dertig, waarin alles verandert voor de achtjarige Margaret, vroegwijs en zeer bijbelvast kind uit een zwaar vroom gezin.
Ik heb weer regelmatig naar adem gehapt van bewondering. Ik heb ook ontzettend gelachen, ik heb aan andere boeken gedacht zoals de Geheime Tuin en The Children's Book, ik heb aan Virgina Woolf gedacht die schrijft dat je als schrijver een grot moet uitgraven achter je personages.
Margaret heeft pas een broertje gekregen, en omdat moeder haar ook iets leuks gunt, mag ze met voluptueus dienstmeisje Lydia iedere woensdag een uitstapje maken. Ze gaan naar het strand, en daarna het bos in.
"Lydia lay down on her side under the tree like a range of quiet hills."
Vloeit zo'n zin Gardam uit de pen of heeft ze daar 's nachts op liggen broeden?
De stijl in de eerste hoofdstukken is af en toe bijna die van een schoolopstel, wat goed past bij de steile, nuchtere Margaret.
Haar moeder, Elinor, wordt een beetje gek van het thuiszitten met de baby, en ze gaan op theevisite bij Charles en Binkie. Ze moeten niet te vroeg komen, want "Binkie always changes in the afternoons. (From what? Into what? Spiders? Fairies? Serpents?)"
Met deze theevisite zal alles veranderen.
Alle personages hebben enorme grotten achter zich – ik zie dat echt zo voor me, ze staan sereen glimlachend voor de opening, en niemand weet wat er zich in de vochtige duisternis daarachter afspeelt. Eigenlijk is dat altijd waar Gardam over schrijft: over het geheime innerlijke leven van mensen, waarvan wij als lezer een glimp mogen opvangen om voor altijd een groot mededogen te voelen, al was het maar omdat ze het allemaal alleen moeten dragen. Zoals Binkie het uitdrukt: "And nobody knows … what it costs to live the life I live."
Het lijkt ook een handelsmerk van Gardam om een laatste hoofdstuk toe te voegen waarin sommige raadsels ontraadseld worden maar andere worden toegevoegd, uit het zicht van de personages, in het vage zicht van de lezer. Waarbij het hart van de lezer een beetje breekt.
August 10, 2013
Can a book be too English? That was the question another reviewer had about Jane Gardam’s acclaimed 1978 novel, God on the Rocks. The question struck a respondent chord with me because although I have been transported by the later novels of Ms. Gardam, this one failed to move me.
Gardam’s skill and imagination are evident as are her quirky plot twists. For me, God on the Rocks is too English. What I mean is the characters lapse into local idioms frequently, and they stay in a claustrophobically small geographical space. Another problem for me was the characters. I’m just not interested in the experiences of an eight year old—even one as precocious and bright as Margaret—or the trials of her religious fundamentalist father.
Sometimes the quirky structure of the novel bothered me, as well. Dialog can be mysterious. At one point a character talks about someone using another character’s name. She’s confused, and it took me a while to figure that out. It’s like a mystery novel. You have to put together clues as to what’s happening and to whom.
Can a book be too English, or too northern Californian, or too mid-western? I think so. God on the Rocks explores a tiny universe with imagination, but for me it’s too tiny.
Gardam’s skill and imagination are evident as are her quirky plot twists. For me, God on the Rocks is too English. What I mean is the characters lapse into local idioms frequently, and they stay in a claustrophobically small geographical space. Another problem for me was the characters. I’m just not interested in the experiences of an eight year old—even one as precocious and bright as Margaret—or the trials of her religious fundamentalist father.
Sometimes the quirky structure of the novel bothered me, as well. Dialog can be mysterious. At one point a character talks about someone using another character’s name. She’s confused, and it took me a while to figure that out. It’s like a mystery novel. You have to put together clues as to what’s happening and to whom.
Can a book be too English, or too northern Californian, or too mid-western? I think so. God on the Rocks explores a tiny universe with imagination, but for me it’s too tiny.
September 26, 2016
Jane Gardam's books are a treat. She is funny, she is wicked, she is smart and oh so sly. I felt this when reading her wonderful book, Filth and its sequel, and I felt it now, reading God on the Rocks. The story begins innocently enough being told from the point of view of Margaret, an 8 year old, whose mother lavishes her attentions on her new baby brother. Her father is strict in his strange faith and preaches to all and sundry. Margaret can quote chapter and verse of every biblical saying. The fun begins when Margaret is given the treat of a day outing with the nanny, Lydia, and both end up on the grounds of the Hall, once the home of Charles and Binky and where Margaret's mother, Ellie, was schooled, adored Charles and he her, but is now a home for mental patients. The story moves to Ellie, we learn that Charles and his sister have after 12 years returned to town, but not to their old home where their mother is dying, and the plot as they say thickens. A lot of hanky-panky, a few absolutely hilarious English teas, various weird and slightly mad characters all meeting and parting--all under the finely controlled pen of Jane Gardam.
November 1, 2014
Margaret is a precociously intelligent 8 year old who has been raised in a strictly religious family. She can recite chapter and verse from the bible to cover most situations and has an insight beyond her years as well as the naïveté of a child. She weaves her way into the lives of the other characters who, as always with Jane Gardam, are a bit off the wall, particularly the delightful Lydia. It's classic Gardam through and through with lots of twists and turns along the way. I've given it 3 stars because I didn't enjoy it quite as much as some others but it's a 3+ or 4- really (for all that matters!).
March 13, 2018
This Booker shortlisted novel from the late seventies is a masterclass in narrative technique. Expertly weaving together disparate strands and making the reader work to fully comprehend characters and motivations, God on the Rocks is an immensely satisfying book. As young Margaret Marsh, on the cusp of adolescence, finds herself a (not always unwitting) observer of an adult world of lies, repression, secrets and religious fervour, she discovers some surprising truths which play out as both farce and tragedy. Brilliantly capturing small town seaside in life the period before the Second World War, God on the Rocks is another must read from Jane Gardam.
November 25, 2014
Jane Gardam, in my experience, has never written a bad or even mediocre book.
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