“The Fortnight in September”

[CurlewKate]

I’m reading this after a recommendation from another poster- and I am loving the sense of (so far) gentle melancholy. Without spoilers if possible, is something truly awful going to happen? It feels as if it is, and I need to be slightly prepared!

No so you can relax.

I am waiting for this from my local library, but there is several weeks wait.
I hope you enjoy it.

I loved this book. So gentle but so interesting with a real sense of the time.

Don't worry. It's a book where nothing really happens but it's fabulous.

Thank you! I was starting to be worried because of the air of gentle melancholy-it could go either way and I’m not up for tragedy at the moment!

One of all time favourite books- I agree there's a sense of melancholy but it's so gentle it's my comfort read. There was a lovely dramatisation of it on Radio 4 which is worth looking out for.

One of my favourite comfort reads too. Have just ordered a copy for mum, her mum would've been around the age of the daughter at that time I think.

My favourite book! 😍

It’s just a really lovely book, and so evocative of its era it is like stepping into the past.

I've recommended this book under another username!

Nothing happens. Just loveliness.

Stupendous read! I found myself ruminating on it for months after I read it.

Things do happen and change, but nothing blockbuster dramatic. It’s all subtle and piercing.

Beautiful book. All about everything and nothing. I’ve just bought it on Audible so I can re-live it in the car.

Very true. I found myself thinking about the lady running the boarding house a lot.

I loved it. I'm a bit of a fan of Persephone Books anyway, but this one was lovely (albeit with an awareness of the looming political crises of the 1930s and WWII).

I've also read R C Sherriff's The Hopkins Manuscript, which is entirely different, and felt tense and quite scary, about the moon crashing into the earth.

Finished it now. I loved it, of course, the mood building and characterization is spectacular. I am old, and I could still recognise very faint ghosts of that world in my own childhood. However, I couldn’t help feeling an element of…not sure of the words… a study of the lower middle class. Almost like a fictionalized sociology essay. Fascinating that Sherriff was a grammar school boy who was an officer in WW1 and who went to Oxford in his 30s. He must have seen the class system from both sides.

@CurlewKate yes I know what you mean! Who was your favourite character? Mr Stephens was mine (and RC Sheriff's I think). The football club part is so well done and so sad.

I absolutely love this book, I have read it twice (having only discovered it last year). I understand your sense of foreboding OP at the start, I think we’re so used to dramatic things in books so we’re tuned to expect something g awful but I love how this is just a snapshot in time of a family. No drama other than daily, “normal” drama.

I agree about the football club business @KittyRannaldiniit’s so true to life. I love how Mrs Stephens has her port on holiday. And the scene on the train when the husband and wife are looking at each other and really seeing each other. So much of that book is timeless.

The scene where the air gets sucked out of the room is amazing writing.

There used to be a lovely abridged audio version of the book on BBC sounds which I found very soothing but sadly they’ve removed it for some reason 😒

Is anyone else a fan of Brideshead Revisited? I imagine Sherriff as like Hooper. An Officer-but a suburban grammar school boy. Not a public school Ryder type.