The Bottle Factory Outing

by Beryl Bainbridge

This funny, yet horrifying novel creates an atmosphere of impending doom with an ending specialising in successive denouements.

Genres: Fiction, Humor, Literary Fiction, Classics, British Literature, Comedy, Novels

219 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1974

About the author

Dame Beryl Margaret Bainbridge DBE was an English writer from Liverpool. She was primarily known for her works of psychological fiction, often set among the English working classes. Bainbridge won the Whitbread Award twice and was nominated for the Booker Prize five times. In 2008, The Times newspaper named Bainbridge among their list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945".

Reviews

[Paul Bryant · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ten cheers for Beryl, I intend to read everything by her eventually. Her career was a major successful brow-swerve - she wasn't highbrow, lowbrow or middlebrow, she just banged along on her rickety typewriter smoking 25 ciggies per hour and coughing her lungs out, entirely in her own bubble, and such a weird four-dimensional bubble it was. This middling Beryl is a tale of a workers' outing, just like the plot of a Carry On film but translated into Russian by someone who didn't realise it was supposed to be funny, then retranslated back into English by someone who didn't realise it was a Carry on film. It's kind of painful, and funny, and grim, and funny, and ghastly, all at the same time.

I love Beryl!

And she died - I never thought she would! She just looked like she'd never get round to it.

[J. Kent Messum · Rating 3 out of 5]

Billed as a black comedy, my feelings on 'The Bottle Factory Outing' are mixed. I imagine most readers reactions would be mixed too, although I could see it being for considerably different reasons.

First, the skinny on the story: Two young flatmates, Freda and Brenda, work at a wine factory in London. They couldn't be more different from one another, or the mostly Italian immigrant men that work alongside them. Freda is fierce, independent, troublesome and romantic. Brenda is a victim plagued by victim mentality; shy, dependent, and also troublesome in her own way. Freda is in love with the factory owner's nephew, while Brenda is constantly dodging the advances of the factory manager. When both girls and a collection of the men embark on a company outing for the day, something horrible happens in the woods near their picnic, the result of which sends each character into a tailspin. The novel is a dive headfirst into the mentalities of men and women met with all kinds of tensions during that time period.

Beryl Bainbridge was brought to my attention by a trusted source as some recommended reading. I picked up this short novel and got cracking. Technically, it fit the profile of the material I prefer. Generally, I tend to read mostly older books; lean stuff from the 70s and 80s where a premium was put on talent and writing ability. These books don't qualify as 'classics' in the classical sense, but they challenge the talent that came before and set the bar high. Sometimes, however, there can be a strange atmosphere when reading them. It feels like too many generation gaps are acting as hurdles that hamper an otherwise good reading experience. No fault of the reader or the writer here, just one of those realities with older books.

I felt this novel was a good example of that. I found it hard to lose myself in the book because of a prevailing sense of disconnection that permeated the reading of it. On the flip side, it's very well written (despite the tremendous overuse of adverbs), and Bainbridge was obviously pushing some buttons at the time with her talent. One thing I found eye-opening in the novel was the abysmal treatment of women in the workplace in the 70s. The daily sexual/physical harassment suffered by female employees at the hands of the their male counterparts and superiors will make you shake your head in dismay. It's a decent little story, as well as a window into a world we would barely recognize today.

Overall, I found the fare a little light for my taste and also found myself rushing to finish the book off by the end of it. That being said, the impact of certain portions and passages were not diminished in the slightest, because when Bainbridge throws a punch, she hits you in the gut. A solid 3-star rating for a good book with some understandable shortcomings.

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brenda, who’s left her brutish drunken husband, and her boisterous and rotund friend Freda, share a bed-sit in northwest London. They also share a bed, but not the way you think; in fact they build a wall of bolsters and books between their respective halves to maintain decorum and to prevent Freda from interfering with Brenda in her vivid dreams! The young women work as bottlers and labellers at an all-Italian wine bottling plant down the road (I read somewhere that this experience is autobiographical since Bainbridge worked as a cellar girl in a bottling factory after leaving her husband). They’re planning a factory workforce outing to a Stately Home and have even convinced Mr Paganotti, the factory owner, to contribute four barrels of wine for the occasion. But when the day of the outing arrives, everything starts to go wrong…

This book is a black and bittersweet comedy and has some beautiful imagery, e.g. the recurring theme of cavalrymen, especially the scene where a group of soldiers offer a ride to the party, in exchange for food and wine, on the Queen‘s funeral horses, which they’re exercising in Windsor Park. However, the story also deals with serious issues such as the inability of the young women to find true love other than the crude advances of their male workmates, social inequality in general, poverty, and poor working conditions in the factory. Bainbridge seems to have a real affinity for the grotesque and burlesque, which she recounts in vivid and poetic language.

Verdict: very entertaining yet profound. Highly recommended. By the way on Wikipedia I read that the BBC planned a TV adaptation in the early 90s, starring Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders. What a shame it was never made: French and Saunders would have been perfect for the roles of Freda and Brenda, respectively!

[Ivy H · Rating 4 out of 5]

When life gives you lemons but you've got no sugar and the water is tainted, say goodbye to the lemonade...


The above is perhaps an apt statement to describe the immutable predicament of the two female protagonists in this novel. This is essentially a very sad story but the author infuses a lot of dark comic and farcical elements to make it entertaining. That's what titillates the reader in this novel: you know you're watching a train wreck, with no possible salvation for the characters but you watch it with the eyes of a gleeful spectator who's happy not to be part of the events. Bainbridge begins the story with a funeral scene and ends on the same note. It's interesting that the funeral motif recurs throughout the novel, with references to Brenda's penchant for funereal clothing to the Queen's "funeral horses" to Maria's tea leaf prediction where Freda's white wedding gown ends up being the cheap peasant dress she wears at her own wake. The theme of working class poverty is also depicted in stark detail. The protagonists live from paycheck to paycheck and share a dismal bedsit in a house where the toilet doesn't work properly. Freda and Brenda even sleep in the same bed, with a barrricade of books separating them.

Freda and Brenda are a mismatched pair of convenient friends. They meet at a butcher's shop when the brash and confident Freda saves the pitiful, crying Brenda by taking her home, helping her find employment in a small, wine bottling factory and becoming her only friend in the world. Freda is a 26 yr old pretty, plump blonde whose confidence and optimism match her garish, peacock type of wardrobe and tacky blue eyeshadow. She's also very tall and bold but even though she has a girlish dream to have a man call her "Little One" in soft romantic tones, she never allows anyone ( male or female ) to see beneath her tough girl shield. Freda lives in a dream world. She loves theatre, wants to be a famous actress and even though she knows she doesn't have the conventional looks or talent to be a big star, she is content with minor roles in unimportant plays and musicals. Freda's penchant for drama is part of her personality too. She loves to grandstand, speak loudly and in exaggerated tones. Modern readers would call her an attention whore.

This is Freda:




Freda's also obsessively infatuated with her employer's nephew, Vittorio. He's the tall, rich, young and handsome Italian man and she spends lots of time daydreaming about living in his castello or his swanky flat in Hampstead. The funny thing is that one is never given actual proof that Vittorio actually has a castello in Italy and the flat in Hampstead is conjured out of Freda's fictional dream for future marital bliss. Freda is often found ogling him at work when she thinks he's busy. But the most humorous part of it all is that he's aware that she wants him and is always watching him. She kinda reminds me of this little dog and how he tries to hide the way he is salivating over the man's sandwich:



Brenda is the shy and insecure little brown wren, to Freda's plump peacock. Brenda's a 32 yr old who has run away from an abusive, drunken husband called Stanley and a domineering eccentric mother in law. Brenda comes from the lower middle class, unlike working class Freda, but she's the quintessential victim personality. She has been abused her entire life: first by her bullying mother, then by her husband and mother in law. Brenda has also been raped by a guy who gave her a lift while she was hitchhiking. Brenda's flaw is her inherent inability to take action against her abusers and would be abusers because she is one of those persons who can't bring herself to hurt somebody else's feelings. This leads her to her being sexually harassed on a daily basis by her boss Mr. Rossi. She hates Rossi's lecherous pinching and pawing but she doesn't do anything about it. Brenda seems to have given up on life and is content to merely exist and survive. She's so browbeaten that she has no hopes and dreams for the future. She also dresses in clothing that is dowdy, drab and colourless because she yearns to be invisible from prying eyes.

This is Brenda:




The story line revolves around an outing that Freda has engineered in an effort to spend more time with Vittorio. Brenda wants no part of the outing or Freda's plan but the ever optimistic and slightly bullying Freda lives by the following philosophy:




Unbeknownst to Freda, the transport minivan for the trip is cancelled deliberately by Vittorio because he is aware of her scheme since she's been chasing after him unashamedly. Rossi devises a new plan for the outing, whereby he and another employee will use their Cortina and Mini to transport a few lucky employees. Rossi's motives are purely lecherous because he wants to use the outing to seduce poor Brenda. There are funny scenes with people getting pushed out of cars and hit over the head with bread loaves. In the midst of all this chaos and buffoonery is Patrick. He's a middle aged, bossy, rabble rousing Irishman who also wants to seduce Brenda. Brenda doesn't want either Rossi or Patrick but she feels a bit guilty about the Irishman because he had fixed her landlady's toilet and saved her from being shot by her crazy mother in law. The outing takes an unpredictable turn because Rossi ends up driving to Windsor castle and then to a small private wannabe safari/zoo. Lots of funny, slapstick scenes ensue with Freda trying to seduce Vittorio while Brenda keeps running away from Rossi and Patrick. Things turn tragic when Rossi and Freda have a argument that ends with the latter being killed accidentally.

The story line veers into the farcical and the absurd after Freda's dead body is found. The men are all afraid of going to the police and they decide to go visit the mini safari with a dead person sitting in the car ! The Italians are all about protecting one of their own and Patrick ( who had been cuffed and shoved into a cupboard at Windsor castle by Freda ) is scared that police will think he's the prime suspect. What does Brenda do ? She does nothing ! That's not unexpected because Brenda cannot arrange her own life so how can one expect her to intercede on behalf of the only woman who has ever been a true friend to her ? Brenda's remorse is at a peak, however, because she and Freda had had a nasty argument during their final encounter. The comic elements begin to take on a greater element of pathos and the reader is amazed at the lengths these characters go to in order to preserve their own asses and keep the police from launching an investigation. Things come to a close when the Italians decide to put Freda's body in a wooden wine barrel filled with brandy and marked as defective; the latter part is done so that the sailors on the ship wouldn't actually open the barrel but dispose of it straight into the sea. That part tested my sense of logic but I was able to move on and accept it because there were more important issues worthy of analysis.

After Freda's wine barrel is transported to the ship, Brenda ends up right back where she started. Without Freda to guide and help her, she is useless. She decides to go back to her husband Stanley but changes her mind when she discovers that he has already moved in another woman to take her place. Instead of trying to sort out her life and be independent, Brenda goes back to her parents' home where she's going to be at the mercy of her bullying mother again. The saddest part of it all is that poor Freda gets the type of funeral that she hadn't wanted. When the novel had started, Freda had been mesmerized by all the ritual pomp and ceremony of her elderly neighbour's funeral:


‘You cry easily,’ said Brenda, when they were dressing to go to the factory.

‘I like funerals. All those flowers – a full life coming to a close …’

‘She didn’t look as if she’d had a full life,’ said Brenda. ‘She only had the cat. There weren’t any mourners – no sons or anything.’


‘Take a lesson from it then. It could happen to you. When I go I shall have my family about me – daughters – sons – my husband, grey and distinguished, dabbing a handkerchief to his lips …’

Beryl Bainbridge. The Bottle Factory Outing (Kindle Locations 53-57). Little, Brown Book Group. Kindle Edition.

This was bittersweet little novel about protagonists who try to make the best of the little they have but still find it impossible to escape the shackles of poverty. It's mainly about how impoverished unskilled women in the 1970's cope in a society whose template has been designed by the men who are in power. And, in this cold, hard world there are no romantic harlequin billionaires to sweep these women off their feet and give them the HEA of which they dream. In spite of the overwhelming atmosphere of sadness in this story, I couldn't help but find the author's dark humour hugely entertaining, because sometimes when you can't sweeten the lemonade, all that's left to do is hope for clean water and laugh because crying isn't going to solve anything anyway...

NB: This novel was a finalist for the 1974 Booker Award.

[Nigeyb · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Bottle Factory Outing is the first book I’ve read by Beryl Bainbridge. I suspect this is not up there with her very best work, however it inspires me to want to read more of her books as as there is plenty to enjoy in this unusual tale.

It put me in mind of my hazy recollections of Play For Today (1970s BBC adult drama TV programme), or the more playful work of Mike Leigh and Ken Loach. It is quintessentially English, and also makes some very astute observations about culture, class, desire, difference, gender differences and human relationships.

Brenda and Freda, the two women at the heart of the book, share a dingy 1970s London bedsit (think Rising Damp) and together they redefine the term “the odd couple”. In addition to being flatmates, Brenda and Freda are also co-workers at the eponymous Bottle Factory which is an Italian-run north London wine bottling factory predominantly staffed by agricultural workers plucked, by the factory's Italian owner, from a life of subsistence farming in Bologna and relocated to London, the relative land of plenty. They are a tight knit bunch who do not know quite what to make of the two English women in their midst....

Freda is loud, large and domineering whilst Brenda is compliant, quiet, serious, educated and desperate not to give offence - despite a less than attractive description, and to Freda’s chagrin - Brenda also seems to attract numerous male admirers who try to possess her.

By the day of the bottle factory’s outing, sexual tensions are running high. Beyond that, the less you know about the plot the better, suffice it to say that a lot happens in a very short space of time (the book is about 200 pages long) and whilst implausible it is consistently inventive, entertaining, insightful, blackly comic and beguiling.

3/5

[Hugh · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a brilliantly plotted black comedy set in an Italian-owned wine-bottling factory in London. Most of the workers are Italian, but Freda and Brenda, the two main protagonists who share a flat and an uneasy friendship, are English, and there is also an Irish porter.

The feisty, outgoing and confrontational Freda organises an outing, largely in order to further her tentative relationship with Vittorio, one of the Italian workers. Meanwhile Brenda, who has left her Northern farmer husband and wants to fit in quietly, is being harassed by Rossi, the deputy manager.

The first half of the book is largely comic, but the outing takes a macabre turn, which I won't spoil. The whole thing builds to a very satisfying conclusion, and is a pleasure to read.

This is the first of 21 books I hope to read for next year's Mookse Madness (see The Mookse and The Gripes group for more details), in which 16 of the writers who have multiple Booker shortlistings are represented by 4 books each. I really enjoyed this book, so I am looking forward to the rest even more.

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

As other reviewers have pointed out, this is a black comedy. Two young women, Freda and Brenda, decide to share a flat. They are opposites in temperament, which leads to some interesting interactions such as:

'You make me sick, you do.' Freda hit her repeatedly between the shoulder blades. 'You're always so damn reasonable. A bit upset am I?'

The grand Bottle Factory Outing itself was full of all sorts of mishaps ranging from minor to catastrophic. "Freda laid her embroidered tablecloth on the ground, and it flapped upwards immediately and threatened to fly into the branches of an oak tree." Who would bring an embroidered tablecloth for a picnic nowadays?

The tablecloth must have been quite lovely as, "The men were shy of placing their provisions on the cloth. They held tight to their briefcases and carrier bags and sat self-consciously on the grass." I thought briefcases were an interesting way to contain their sandwiches and other food items, but perhaps that's all they had.

My favorite part of their Outing is when they are discovered by some soldiers on horseback in Windsor Park. "The soldiers looked down at the ill-assorted group, at the blonde girl in her sheepskin coat, the disheveled black-suited workers, the paper cups strewn on the ground." It's a surreal scene!

Much to my surprise, it turns out that these "riders were on a training course from Aldershot. They were exercising the Queen's funeral horses."

The group of picnickers share their paper cups of wine with the soldiers and, in turn, the soldiers let them ride the horses. Like I said, surreal.

[Inside A Dog · Rating 4 out of 5]

..........Beryl Bainbridge's Bottle Factory Outing is a book about a chalk-and-cheese-couple, who reminded me of Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon in the film of Neil Simon's play "The Odd Couple" - complete opposites living a 'can't live with you but can't live without you either!' kind of existence, which is farcical and funny, but with Beryl Bainbridge there is a much more acidic, sharper, and very, very, bitter taste to the comedy - this is the sort of comedy that's just as likely to make you wince and grimace as it is to make you smile and laugh!

It's been about three weeks since I finished Beryl Bainbridge's The Bottle Factory Outing. In that time I've read and reviewed other books. But I've been putting off writing a review of this book because I just didn't know what to make of it. It's an odd book, and as I mentioned before, it's about a very odd couple!

Brenda and Freda are friends (sort of!), flatmates, and work colleagues at the bottling factory where they both work on the production line. Both have had their ups and downs, and to be honest, if you'd kept a score throughout their lives, probably a lot more downs than ups!! The story sees them preparing for and then going on a works outing which they are organising, partly to add a little change and colour to their fairly drab lives and partly because Freda has an ulterior motive - to get her hands on Vittorio, the relative of the factory owner and the most desirable of the many Italian immigrants working in the factory. Much of Brenda and Freda's lives revolve around the everyday and their work at the factory, owned by the almost mysterious Mr Paganotti, who is mentioned throughout the book but never actually appears. There's a host of strong Italian support characters, mostly from the factory, such as the unusual and amorous Mr Rossi, with a slightly eccentric Irishman chucked in for good measure!

However, it's the relationship between Freda and Brenda that is the heart and soul of the book. But I hesitate to call it a friendship - it reads and feels more like a kind of social and emotional marriage of convenience than a friendship. And from the outset, the odd feel to the book is rooted in this slightly bizarre pair. Their first meeting is odd - Freda virtually force-feeding Brenda into being adopted/taken under Freda's wing(not a terribly cosy or safe place to be!!), after a chance encounter in a shop as Brenda flees from a disastrous marriage, a seriously mad mother-in-law and a husband who is the village 'soak' essentially! The oddness is maintained in their everyday lives - for example, separated at night in the bed they share by a bolster of books of all things!

The first part of the book sets up the story and while mildly amusing in several places it's a gentler kind of comedy here. It's at the factory outing where the story really takes off into a whole new level of odd and where it really does become the blackest of black comedies! From this point on I'll say nothing more about the story for fear of spoiling it but suffice to say it's full of twists, blind alleys and an eventual denouement which is both hilarious and tragic at the same time! I laughed at it - but I'm ashamed to admit that I laughed at it!

So if it was hilarious, why wait so long pondering what to make of it before I came to review it?

I think the answer lies in the "black" part of black comedy - I found this to be so sharp, so acutely observed and so raw in places that it was almost uncomfortable to read. The tensions between Freda and Brenda or between them and the other characters are painful to observe in places - you almost feel embarrassed - it's a bit like when you see a couple rowing in public and you want the ground to open up and swallow you even though you don't even know them!

The few Beryl Bainbridge books I've read are all slightly quirky and odd - populated with characters who, if they were flat shapes would be all corners and sharp edges rather than smooth and curved! This is no exception. And yet, on reflection I did enjoy it - and I judge that partly on the basis that I laughed out loud several times when I was reading this book! (that in itself was an uncomfortable feeling though as I read this book on the dreaded, evil, Kindle, while walking the dog in the park - the looks from other dog-walkers and park -users at the man with the dog suddenly breaking out into laughter will forever be in my memory and associated with this book!).

Another feature of the other Beryl Bainbridge books I've read is that you get plenty of 'bangs for your bucks' with her. This was a short and very easy to read novel - and yet it's got comedy, farce, horror, violence, love, poverty, royalty, and much more, all packed into it! You can't do anything but like the way she writes and the characters she draws, who don't just leap off the page at you but who also grab you by the throat and pin you down until you submit!

Overall - the book is odd - it's about an odd couple in an odd relationship living in odd circumstances. It's a book that is quirky odd, cruelly odd, viciously odd, uncomfortably odd, and blackly odd, but overall it's really hilariously, terrifically, odd!

[Ray · Rating 3 out of 5]

A delightful comedy with a dark twist.

Workers from a factory go on an outing (who would have guessed it). How will simmering tensions and passions translate from the factory floor to an outdoors setting? Will Freda get her man? Will Brenda be able to fend off the factory's resident creep?

Written in the 70s and showing it a little, but enjoyable nonetheless. Funny and tragic.

[Sonya Feher · Rating 1 out of 5]

I only read this book because it was on Feminista's Top 100 Works by Women Authors. Throughout the book, I kept thinking there had to be something more. The Bottle Factory Outing follows Freda and Brenda, two roommates who work at a wine bottling factory. They are an anomaly because they are British, while the rest of the workers are Italian, and they are two of three women who work in the factory. While both Brenda and Freda are somewhat interesting character studies in that Brenda is a liar, so polite one can't trust she's ever saying what she really thinks, and Freda is a bully whose view of herself and everyone around her is so skewed she could be said to be lying to herself, neither of them is particularly deep or interesting. Their back stories and their lives held almost nothing that fascinated me even remotely, though each character's history was explored enough to reveal divorce, family troubles, shattered dreams. By about page 30, I knew I did not care what happened to these women.

I shouldn't have plowed through. The only explanation I have for this book making Feminista's Top 100 is that the jacket copy claims it is a dark comedy and Feminista somehow believed women don't write black humor or couldn't find anything else to fit that slot on their list. I should have skipped to the last 30 pages so I could have sated my curiosity about the outcome of the factory worker's outing was. Even then, the payoff wasn't worth it. I should have put it down. If you read this review, you just shouldn't pick the book up in the first place.

Read Feminista's Top 100 Books by Women Authors with me.

[James Barker · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm a fan of Beryl, particularly because I love the way she captures working class life through the ages, so it was something of a disappointment to find this factory-based black comedy falling somewhat short of her usual success.

It starts well. The two female leads, boisterous bombshell Freda and her timid flatmate Brenda, are shown living a dismal life of unfulfilled dreams on the edge of destitution, which would seem to be the lot for northerners in London back in the 1960s (and beyond). They are the only English girls working in a factory owned and run by Italians. Freda lusts after the factory owner's nephew, Vittorio; Brenda is too polite to tell the factory manager, Rossi, to keep his hands to himself. Freda has planned an outing for the workers, principally because she hopes to advance her friendship with the dreamy Italian beau. On the day, Brenda finds herself batting away the attentions of Rossi and Patrick, the Irish driver. There is certainly a rich comic seam in the novel, the highlight for me being when Brenda builds a barrier out of books in the double bed she shares with Freda to guard against accidental lesbianism.

Bainbridge tended to write autobiographical novels, often adding a murder into the mix to spice things up... this is no exception. But the outing itself goes on for too long- almost half of the book- and I found myself willing it to be over, which is not my usual response to Bainbridge's writing. It seemed to me inevitable who the victim would be, even how the body would be disposed of.

One outing too many for Bainbridge.

[Bev · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh, it's delicious. It's like a French movie in a book: you know it's over because the credits roll up the screen.

This little gem was one of those wonderful lucky finds in a second-hand bookstore, and what a lucky find. I wanted to step into the pages and meet the OTT Freda and the various characters who spend their days at the Italian wine-bottling factory of the title. I found them delicious, fascinating, intriguing.

The word "offbeat" has been used to describe the book, as have the words "haunting", "taut" and "mercilessly comic". It is all of those things. As I write this, months after reading the book, those words resonate and I can feel a laugh bubbling up just remembering certain scenes. I want to go back right now, right this very afternoon, and reread it, but, as they say, "So many books; so little time", and so I will deny myself the pleasure and move on to other works that I hope are as enjoyable. In short, I loved it, and I think Beryl may find a few more places to inhabit in my bookshelves.

[George · Rating 4 out of 5]

A generally humorous novel about Brenda and Freda who live together. Brenda is 32 and has left her husband Stanley. Freda is 26 and is a well built young woman who speaks her mind out loud on a regular basis. They both work in an Italian bottle factory that employs mostly Italian men. The factory has been operating for over thirty years.

Freda is the instigator of the idea to have a factory outing of employees on the weekend. Freda hopes to marry one of the eligible Italian employees.

Interesting characters and lots of plot momentum make for a satisfying read.

This book was shortlisted for the 1974 Booker Prize.

[Roger Pettit · Rating 2 out of 5]

Oh dear! I had such high hopes of this novel. The edition that I have just read has printed on its cover laudatory comments about the story by such literary heavyweights as Graham Greene and William Trevor. The former describes "The Bottle Factory Outing" as "an outrageously funny and horrifying story". In addition, the novel was shortlisted for the UK's most prestigious literary award - then known as The Booker Prize. And, it has apparently been cited by The Observer newspaper (a Sunday broadsheet in the UK) as one of the greatest 100 novels ever written. Well, I must have missed something. It's a moderately amusing novel whose glints of humour are overshadowed by the dullness and the implausibility of much of the story. "The Bottle Factory Outing" is a desperately disappointing read that deserves none of the accolades that have been heaped upon it.

Set in London in the 1970s, the novel is essentially the story of two lonely young women, Brenda and Freda, who share a bedsit and who are as different from each other as chalk is from cheese. Brenda has an unhappy marriage largely behind her - she came to London from the north of England primarily to escape the clutches of her frequently drunken husband who is prone to urinating on the doorstep of the family home. Privately educated Brenda is a diffident and downtrodden person who has little or no personal confidence. From an early age, she was taught by her mother to give in on things she doesn't want to do and to resist those things that she does want to do. Freda is from a lower social class than Brenda but has bags more confidence and is not averse to speaking her mind. She has ambition and determination. Both characters work at a wine bottling factory down the road from where they live. They are two of only three women employed at the factory, which is staffed primarily by Italian male immigrants. One of the male employees, Rossi, is keen on Brenda. Freda is determined to forge a relationship with one of the other employees, Vittorio. The thrust of the plot is an outing for everyone at the factory - to a stately home with beautiful gardens - that Freda has organised. However, Freda's plans go awry. The outing becomes something rather different, with fewer participants. Tragedy strikes during the course of the trip, an event that has far-reaching consequences for all of the factory staff.

Despite occasional moments of effective comedy, "The Bottle Factory Outing" is an uninteresting story whose plot is ludicrously unrealistic. The writing style is dull and uneven and the characterisation is largely unconvincing. I simply could not believe that two individuals like Brenda and Freda would ever be friends with each other, let alone share a bedsit - and even a double bed (albeit with a protective barrier of books and bolsters to ensure the preservation of each other's private space). The actions of several other characters also seem highly improbable. These include a visit from Brenda's gun-toting mother-in-law and the disposal of a dead body in what can only be described as a most ridiculous manner. There are occasions too when the dialogue is unconvincing. At one point, Freda says the following words to Brenda: "You are not flotsam washed up on the shore, without recourse to the sea"! It is simply not credible that, given what we know of her character, Freda would speak in that way. I am afraid I simply could not believe the astonishingly grotesque conclusion of the story or the actions of the individuals involved. And I really didn't care about most of the major characters.

I cannot help thinking that a story such as this would have fared much better in the hands of someone like Alan Bennett. This is not one of Beryl Bainbridge's better novels. 4/10.

[Nikola · Rating 2 out of 5]

E, svašta.

Berilka Bejnbridž je predstavljena kao vanserijski talenat među spisateljicama sa silnim Gardijan nagradama, pet nominacija za Bukera i specijalnim Bukerom. Kako? Ne znam. Ako je suditi po ovoj knjizi, verujem da je Vesna Vukelić Vendi za nju izmislila književnost. Video sam ovu knjigu kod Štrika, zainteresovao se, moju zabludu je učvrstila Zorana sa Makart buktjuba.

Knjiga je kancer. Sve suprotno od onoga što je obećano. Radnja je neinventivna, dosadna, glavni likovi (ličkinje, likuše, likenjke?) su dve toliko stereotipno kliše žene, da je bilo bolno čitati. Uvek je jedna neodlučna i mutava mommy issues od muža pobegulja, a druga kamenjarka koja samo što ne počne da bije sve oko sebe kao Boda Tajson, ali joj feminizam bude ubijen u pojam čim vidi mačo Italijana. S druge strane nalazi se milion likova Italijana i jedan Irac koji su - pogađate - MASNO PROKLETO STEREOTIPNO KARAKTERIZOVANI. Da, Beril, svi su Italijani strastveni, svi zalizuju kosu. A najbitniji među njima - lepi maniri, brčići, macho look, obrazovan, još samo fali da drži spojene prste kad objašnjava. Irac - taman posla da ne bude narandžaste kose i kože tako da "svetli u mraku". Taman posla da se ne potkači "on je Irac, kako sme da ne zna katoličke običaje". Karakterizacija likova - minus hiljadu. Ja ne pamtim da sam neku ovako kratku knjigu sa ovolikim proredom čitao duže. U sinopsisu piše - komedija, ali je kraj tužan. Od komedije ovde nema ni K, Kursadžije su izmislile komediju za ovo. Od tužnog kraja - jok, možda patetika, i to pod slabo razjašnjenim okolnostima. S v a š t a.

Ukratko - mršava dvojka. Stil i nije toliko užasan, mada je u nekom trenutku takav da ti dođe da pozoveš Šešelja da ti zarđalim kašikama vadi oči na suvo. Ima par okej momenata, zbog čega ovo ne može da bude klasična jedinica. Ali u svakom slučaju - grozota, glupo, stereotipno, a Beril Bejnbridž ne bi smela ni da zna šta je Buker, a kamoli da ga je dobila, a s obzirom na godinu rođenja, bolje da se šaltala sa Anom Frank, potonja je znala lepo da piše.

1,6⭐

[Saya · Rating 3 out of 5]

A small man hugs a large lady and she falls over and breaks her neck. Then they put her in a wine barrel bound for Portugal. Weird.

[Anja Karenjina · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75🌟

[Rock · Rating 3 out of 5]

With perhaps the least romantic confluence of English words ever conceived for a title, this novel isn’t likely to inspire an expectation of setting your short and curlies aflame, though why this would ever necessarily be a good thing remains debatable. The premise is not apparently promising: two women room together in a dreary boarding house, work at a wine-bottling factory, and go on a planned Outing (archly always capitalized) to the country with their fellow industrial serfs. It's like Laverne and Shirley, except in London instead of Milwaukee, and the roommates hate each other, and— against all probability— it's about a hundred times more banal. If I'm not mistaken, the main characters appear to be having a contest on who can be the most unlikable; but at least they compete with distinction while using opposite tactics. Brenda, the “born victim”, is dishonest and has the passivity to make a sloth appear the captain of its soul. The other, Freda, just marginally preferable, is the fat one with not the least jolly self-deprecation to preempt the inevitable fat jokes; she’s assertive with a penchant for cruelty and implausibly fancies herself as something of a seductive thespian. Amid the story's Iron Curtain of bleak monochrome, something finally happens, though the resolution is met with the previous characteristic color,

While I would have preferred more cutting edge in this study of beta drudgery and constraints, the writer has an unaffected, readable style (which makes one of us) and an ironic, if slight, voice. This is not the magnificent entertainment of a young moisture farmer toppling a galactic empire, but the book’s world of small moves might have a place somewhere on your terrestrial shelf.

[Fiona · Rating 3 out of 5]

My first Beryl Bainbridge and possibly my last unless my Goodreads friends have any recommendations.

Freda and Brenda work in a bottling factory. Both are odd characters, full of contradictions and hang ups, living a sad existence in a grotty bedsit and both uncertain of how they should behave with men. Freda has the idea of a works outing to the countryside. The first half of the book is the build up to this as the mainly Italian workforce and the two women work themselves into a mixture of frenzied excitement and apprehension. By three fifths of the way through, I was becoming really bored as nothing much was happening and I was finding the storyline pointless but then.......the totally unexpected happens and the book turns into a black farce. Not a great one but at least it made for a more interesting read.

If the unexpected event had happened half way through and the book had been shorter, I might have enjoyed it a bit more. As it is, I can only express myself the way in which my American friends do and say, in summary, meh!

[Lisa Hope · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an odd book, but I found it captivating. I can't imagine it would be everybodies' poison, but I found it creepily fascinating

[Val · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was the first book I read by Beryl Bainbridge and after it I was hooked. It is dark, very funny and quite wonderful. It is also a feminist book in a provocative, subversive and humorous way.

[Realini Ionescu · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Bottle Factory Outing by Beryl Bainbridge



This book is included somewhere on a top comedy books list. The Guardian has two book lists: one for top 100 and another, larger one for the best 1,000. The latter is divided into sections: comedy, crime…

The Bottle Factory Outing could be included in both comedy and crime, because there is humor, but from one point on we have to solve the mystery of a crime, even if the situation is more complicated and I will not reveal in what manner, to keep you on the edge of the seat. My Literature teacher, Mr. Chevorchian told us that all great books have a crime plot: Crime and Punishment for instance.

The Bottle Factory Outing is no masterpiece, just an interesting story, with two likeable characters: Freda and Brenda. They each have their shortcomings, but everybody has them and one of them pays a dear price for anything she did wrong.

There is confusion, lying and Italian honor and macho attitude. It makes for some fun, light reading, but no big theme is casting a shadow or a light over the landscape. I am not even sure how many stars should I give it on Goodreads: 4 would be generous, but also too much. I will go for 3, even if 2 may be closer to the reward I feel I got from it.

[Joy D · Rating 3 out of 5]

Friends Freda and Brenda are living together in a small flat and working in a wine bottling factory in North London in the 1970s. Their work consists of applying labels to wine bottles. Freda is single, outgoing, and assertive. Brenda is separated from her husband. She is an introvert who tries to get along with everyone. The factory owners are Italian. The majority of the workers are Italian immigrants, plus one Irishman. Freda is seeking to develop a romance with the factory owner’s son. Brenda must fend off advances from one of the (married) factory managers. The main event is a picnic for the workers. When this outing finally occurs, it takes a tragic turn.

This story is a combination of gallows humor, sexism, and classism. The characters and settings are well drawn. The prose is elegant. Primary themes are loneliness, power, and fears of immigrants at being blamed for whatever has gone wrong. It was published in 1974 and nominated for the Booker Prize. Dark humor is obviously going to be appreciated by some readers more than others. I enjoyed the writing style and plan to read more from this author.

[Blair · Rating 3 out of 5]

After adoring Harriet Said..., I knew I would want to read more by Bainbridge. But this particular title was not a deliberate choice – I found it in a charity bookshop and picked it up along with a pile of other books. As it turns out, it’s really not my cup of tea.

The Bottle Factory Outing is a black comedy – at first, I thought, not black enough, but later events contradicted that impression – focused on Freda and Brenda, two women who share a bedsit and work at a wine-bottling factory. The pivotal event, the titular workers’ day out, brings to a head various tensions surrounding Freda’s pursuit of the factory owner’s nephew and Brenda’s attempts to evade two male colleagues; all this ends, incongruously, in tragedy. I loved the first chapter, but often felt like I was failing to properly grasp much of the rest, finding characters’ behaviour either incomprehensible or implausible. I suspect some of the humour is era-specific and hasn’t aged very well.

Probably two stars for my personal enjoyment of it and four for its actual quality – so, three as a compromise. (And I still intend to read more Bainbridge!)

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[Marija · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dve zvezdice jer se osećam velikodušno, a i ima nekih dobrih aspekata (doduše premalo). Ali ako bi ocena bila odraz više subjektivnog nego objektivnog, onda lagana jedna zvezdica...
Šteta, baš sam se radovala knjizi

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

First third of the book is slow and confusing, but stick with it and it really gets going when the outing starts. Hilarious dark satirical comedy

Think: A Confederacy of Dunces meets Weekend at Bernies

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beryl Bainbridge made it to the Man Booker prize shortlist a record five times but never succeeded in winning the award. The Bottle Factory Outing, her fourth novel was one of the shortlisted titles in 1974 but was beaten to the prize by Stanley Middleton's Holiday.

Bainbridge's story is set in a small Italian-run factory somewhere in London which bottles wines and some spirits. Freda and Brenda are two members of the workforce , working alongside some middle aged Italians who clean and label the bottles for despatch. The pair share a workbench by day and a miserable bedsit room by night. They also share a bed though they build a wall of books to ensure there is a clear demarkation of space on the mattress.

They are an unlikely pair of women to hitch up together. They have little in common either in their backgrounds or their attitudes to life.

Freda is one of those people who seem born with a bigger pair of lungs than the average human being. Loud and fearless, she has aspirations to be an actress or, failing that, to marry someone rich. Brenda is her complete opposite, dark haired and completely passive, the kind of girl that will never say no to anyone in case they are offended. Her one moment of bravery it seems was to leave her husband, a drunkard much prone to urinating on the doorstep of their home in the north of England and to set up alone in London.

Freda is a girl with dreams. She comes up with a plan for the entire team to take off for a day out in country. It will, she hopes, give her the opportunity to capture the heart of the manager, Vittorio. Brenda has more pressing concerns - how to avoid the amorous intentions of her fellow worker, the lecherous Rossi.

Their day of freedom fails to live up to all their expectations. It's starts with the non appearance of the van they'd booked as transport and gets steadily worse because instead of a wine-fuelled picnic in the grounds of a stately home, they have to enjoy their repast on a patch of grass near the road. It all ends in in tragedy.

The Bottle Factory Outing is a novel inspired by Bainbridge's own experience of working in a bottling plant. At times offbeat, the humour is mingled with moments of poignancy particularly in the final scenes as the workers gather at a bizarre party in the factory attic.

The front cover blurb says Grahame Greene considered The Bottle Factory Outing to be 'outrageously funny and horrifying.' Funny yes with some scenes that are pure farce but I couldn't find anything remotely 'horrifying' within these pages. It struck me rather as a story that ripples with pathos. All the workers in this factory have dreams that sustain them through their mundane lives; they long for something to relieve that monotony but ultimately those wishes and desires come to nothing.

I enjoyed Bainbridge's economic style of writing and warmed to these two women but the novel ultimately failed to live up to its promise. The black humour and the poignancy ultimately became as unlikely a pairing as Freda and Brenda.

[Meredith · Rating 1 out of 5]

A company outing takes an unexpectedly disastrous turn.

The Bottle Factory Outing is listed in The Guardian's "1000 novels everyone must read," and the premise caught my interest: two mismatched roommates who work at a small wine bottling factory go on a company picnic that irrevocably alters their lives and the lives of their co-workers.

Perhaps because I am not British, the humor was lost on me. This is the story of two zany working-class ladies, one born to wackiness and the other having ridiculousness forced upon her.

Freda is a plump outrageous blonde who fancies herself having a talent for the theatric and is hell-bent on seducing Vittorio, their co-worker of supposively aristocratic origins.

Brenda is her cowed dumpy roommate whose inability to stand up for herself has made her a life-long victim. Her latest ordeal is dodging the unwanted advances of the lecherous Rossi while trying not to hurt his feelings. I especially disliked how Brenda’s being subjected to constant low levels of sexual battery was portrayed as comic.

Freda cooks up the scheme of a factory outing, which is one quirky calamity after another ending in complete disaster. That's where the unexpectedly bizarre twist steps in.

Rather than humorous, I found the story rather painful to watch unfold. The moments that might result in laughter to cover the awkwardness just didn't strike me as funny. And as far as being one of the 1000 novels everyone must read, I just don't get it.

[Andy Bird · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not the best. It is a quick read, however it is all over the place. The story is very manufactured and unbelievable, in fact at times it is just silly. I found the characters annoying and didn't like any of them. I think it was trying to be a black comedy/farce, but it failed miserably. I wouldn't recommend it.

[Darren · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing (hence 5 Stars). Very difficult to describe, this has to be read to be understood. Extraordinary atmosphere/characters/sequence of events. Bonkers in overall conception (in fact, I wouldn't be surprised to find that BB was just making this up as she went along!), surprisingly touching, and just a joy to read from beginning to end :oD