Anyone want a chat/nit pick about The Shell Seekers?

@Allington it's kept me plenty amused this weekend, I still love it!

I love Coming Home - I read it 20 years ago, working overseas and terribly homesick, and as I grew up in Devon and spent many happy camping weekends in Cornwall, it was simultaneously comforting and tear jerking!

To be fair, there was a reason for the Diana/Carey-Lewis marriage other than dodgy lust ...

And old man Billy is presented as being rather grim, rather than something acceptable, and I can completely see a 14 year old girl getting a crush on an older boy/young man.

As you might guess from my defence, it is still a comfort read for me

Actually I think Carey-Lewis was in his fifties when Diana married him. But it was perfectly acceptable because apparently he had always been in love with her anyway. So, like even before she was 17 then? So when she was in her early teens? A pre-teen? Because it's perfectly normal for a middle-aged man to have a romantic interest in a 14 year old girl, or younger!!!

I've read Shell Seekers at least twice, but don't remember any of those things happening. That means I can safely read it again

I've read all the Pilchers and I even have her book about Christmas

Jeezo, have downloaded Coming Home and it's all becoming clear - basically, everyone in Pilcher is in an age-gap inappropriate relationship! Diana marries Carey-Lewis when she's like 17 and he's in his 30s, Judith is nearly raped by old man Billy, and in the meantime she's falling in love with the young doctor when she's 14 and he's at least 25...

I guess it was acceptable in the 80s

PerkingFaintly, it's details like that which I love

fizzfizzplinkplink I interpreted taht quite differently, I thought that as Nancy (and daughter Melanie)w ere self obsesses, uncharming and snobby the writer took the liberty by making them fat and greedy

if that makes sense

Actually.... Does it?!

The way she made all the characters that she (the writer) liked slim and goodlooking is actually maybe a bit

Ew, I'd obviously forgotten the details of the Lawrence/Sophie relationship.

Antonia's not "a bit dim", though. She also isn't meek and wasn't given the oil sketches; Penelope gave them to Danus.

@Trewser- no I haven’t- but I will, thank you!

I love Penny Vincenzi for a good long family saga.

I did eventually grow to love the Cazalets but found the hy-uge cast really, really confusing at first. I think on balance I prefer a bit of Pilcher.

You are of course right though fizzfizz - there are a lot of problems in Shellseekers and the Lawrence/Sophie relationship is particularly ick.

There's lots wrong with this book. When Lawrence's best friend dies, he asks Lawrence to take care of his young daughter. Instead, Lawrence starts having sex with her when she is only 16 and he's in his 50s FFS. But it's perfectly acceptable because he's an artist and bohemian and everything. Anyway, she climbed in bed with him the first time so she seduced him, and he was powerless to resist. She was 16! He was middle aged!

The implication that if you're an educated, independent, career woman like Olivia, who enjoys expensive clothes and luxury, you are doomed to end up lonely and childless. But if you're a bit dim, don't care about clothes, happiest cooking and gardening and meekly wait for a man to notice you, like Antonia, then your life will be completely rewarding and satisfying.

And don't get me started on Danus and Antonia. Again she is a lot younger than him, he treats her quite badly but she still trails after him like a puppy. Then he suspiciously decides to marry her when he realises she has been given Lawrence Stern's etchings. They sell them and he uses the money to set up his market garden business.

The horrible implication that if you're overweight, like Nancy and her daughter, then you are ridiculed and have a greedy, selfish nature. Penelope even describes her chubby granddaughter as being pig like!

And isn't it The Shell Seekers where the two women successfully prepare a huge meal together, "chopping and cooking without a word of shared language"?

Such a beautiful, companionable description of the shared experiences of women the world over, with a language in common beyond words.

Perfectly describes the preparations for my best friend's wedding – remembering that scene reassured me it would all come out OK! And it did!

I love how much i can dislike Nancy, and how awful Granny Keeling is. Nancy is such a snob and so easy to dislike, and so satisfyingly gets her comeuppance time after time

I love Penelope going for dinner and not wearing stockings

I love the wartime romance

It's the details I love, I can picture it all (Ibiza!)

why did I not find this thread earlier? it should be buzzing with a hundred replies!

betrtand have you read any rosamund lehmann? I loved invitstion to the waltz and the weather in the streets

Interesting. I read it and loved it when it came out (I was probably about 35) and don't have a problem with it feeling dated now. Some of the characters remind me of members of my family and I think she captures very well the way the war completely fractured families (Coming Home is good for that too). I recognise a lot of that from my own childhood.
I think Noël is so unpleasant because he takes after his father.
It rambles a bit in places and the characters are a bit one-dimensionally good or bad, but it is still a comfort read for me.

Thank you!

Maybe I’ll just listen to the Cazalets again..I can thoroughly recommend the audiobooks by the way.

BertrandRussell

We've had our differences in the past but for the love of God don't do it.

I really really hated this. I think i thought it was going to be like the wonderful Cazelet chronicles. Thought the writing was shocking in parts, everyone drinks the same drink (whisky), thought the story was trite.

Sorry!

I was just about to use an Audible credit on the Shell Seekers- hoping it would be as good as The Cazalets....will I be disappointed?

I've just read Winter Solstice (recommended as a comfort food book on here) and as I loved September and quite liked the SS I gave it a bash.
I think RP's problem was that she tried to be a bit clever with her names and tenuous links. One of the Winter Solstice characters lives on Ranfurly Rd for example, which (years since I read the other two) but I damn sure a SS character lives there as well.

I do need to reread SS and September, but agree about the length.

WS's biggest plot hole (without wanting to give spoilers) is that someone has Something Really Bad happen within a chapter or two, and yet a couple of months later is in lurrrrrve with someone else and beyond gazing into space every so often he doesn't seem to give a flying fuck. I don't think she writes grief and sadness very well. I think she starts from the old trope of introduce characters-big event which shocks everyone-development-everyone lives happily ever after.

Oh I love Pilcher, yes she has dated quite badly but I can forgive her that. I'd completely forgotten about Coming Home (have dog-eared copies of September and Shell Seekers lying around) - must rebuy it, it will be perfect for my current mood.

Noel I think is meant to just take after his father, and Nancy has been spoiled by the mother in law - agree it's fairly simplistic. September is worth a read because Noel redeems himself, eventually.

I loved this book and rather liked the spiky Olivia. Also loved Coming Home. I didnt like September quite so much although recently met a chap who actually lives in Balmerino and i cant hear that without thinking Arche Balmerino.

I re-read The Shell Seekers a couple of years ago, and found myself sympathising a bit more with Noel and Nancy this time! Antonia and Danus were a bit too perfect. One thing that seemed odd was the bit where Penelope goes off to London with her small child, and says goodbye to her beloved and ailing father. It says it was the last time she ever saw him, because he died a year later. Surely she would have paid a visit at some time?