Customer Reviews

At Freddie's

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

What a surprising book and what a funny one. The first Penelope Fitzgerald I read and a lovely introduction to her wonderfully witty work. "At Freddie's" is life in a slowly fading London Theatre school for children. It is the 1960's and Freddie, who is the mysterious woman who runs the school, believes that children should be trained for Shakespeare and for the stage - not for the fleeting career of television and advertisements which are starting to pull children from other schools.

Into this world drop Carroll, an unsuprisable Irishman, who doesn't seem to be able to do anything. He applies to Freddie for a job as a teacher but admits he can't really teach, or in fact do anything. Freddie hires him because he is cheap and honest, and he procedes to do just what his interview shows he could do so promisingly - nothing. But he has fallen in love with the other teacher who applied the same day, Hannah. Hannah is more ambitious and wants to 'chose, not be chosen'. A dictate which runs her life. Their relationship is played out against the lives of school's precocious children, mostly the strange friendship of Mattie - a 13 year old child over-actor and the quiet, self-contained 9 year-old, Jonathon.

It was a wonderful, fun read.

At Freddie's may not be the absolute best of all Fitzgerald's novels (the competence is so stiff), but Freddie may very well be her most original and likeable character. If you love theater, Shakespeare, London, have a sense of humor and some respect for children's creativity for mischief, in all probability you will be as defenseless against her as all the other characters seem to be in this very compact, very enjoyable and unexpectedly moving novel . All Fitzgerald books can take us to other worlds, the world of Freddie truly deserves to be visited.

Penelope Fitzgerald is at her most devilishly entrancing in this tale revolving around the London acting school run (and I mean RUN!) by Freddie, a larger-than-life Gorgon whose will cannot be resisted. Fitzgerald has fun skewering the backstage pretentions, intrigue and petty jealousies of the London theater world of the early 1960s, but, clearly loving every seedy corner of it, she celebrates it with such gusto that you want to sign up on the spot for a season or two. That combination of wryness and fondness makes this short novel among Fitzgerald's most satisfying. And when Freddie goes out looking for a pound or two, hang on to your wallets!

"Freddie", a woman who is part institution and part legend, speaks the quote above; she is also the latest spectacular person that Ms. Fitzgerald offers to readers.

The quote is unremarkable until it is penned as an answer to an Accountant named "Unwin", who stated, "Surely a discussion should have a basis of substantial fact." The rejoinder that is the title of this review follows, and you have a good sense that Freddie flaunts convention, floats above the rules that affect others, and when she is confronted with a bit of reality, ends the discussion with her nemesis feeling not only were they wrong, but they are indebted to her. A debt collector not only fails to collect, he leaves his vest for use as a costume for the students of Freddie's school for children of the theatre.

Precocious children are not new to Ms. Fitzgerald's books. In this book the line between child and adult is blurred even further, as these thespians in the making are adept at changing who they are when circumstances or their own whimsy calls. All the affectation that can be associated with their mature counterparts of the stage, are played out by the kids, and this makes for wonderful reading, as age is modified by characterization, and not measured in years.

There are more eccentric players in this book than the others I have read by Ms. Fitzgerald, to sample just one, a gentleman when deciding on which of the sins he would choose, does not pick one with even some benefit in this life, but chooses sloth. His opinion of himself is in line with the wish, and a more pathetic character has rarely appeared.

Into all this there is a love triangle of sorts, a grand piano that is sinking through the floor, "as though wading ashore", and a vast and rich story that Ms. Fitzgerald once again delivers on so few, but so spectacular pages.

Even if you are not a particular fan of Penelope Fitzgerald, and I am not, this work is definitely worth your time.
I usually grow impatient with Fitzgerald's characters, mainly because they can be so very passive, in such a maddening way, just when some spirit is called for. They act as something of a counterweight, or drag, to the vigor and sharp insight that Fitzgerald brings to her own authorial voice. Fitzgerald can also indulge in savaging characters just because it seems convenient.
I think "Freddie's" works because the theater and Freddie's school are such target rich environments that Fitzgerald can be absolutely brutal, and the novel just keeps rolling merrily along.
Unlike other reviewers I don't particularly care for the Freddie character herself, (a little bit of her goes a long way). I see her as the massive tent pole that keeps up the circus tent, and allows room for all of the secondary performers. The children are two-faced horror shows; actors are sketched in as riotously dysfunctional. The love affair between the two School teachers, which is the true heart of the book, is chiseled out with icy detachment. Other minor characters also shine, and everyone is accorded sharp, penetrating, satisfying dialogue. Then, all is drenched with Fitzgerald's brutal and hilariously dry asides.
The upshot? If you have wondered what the deal is with Fitzgerald - all the awards and the rave reviews - this is a good place to start.

I have been moderately taken with the four other novels that I have read by Penelope Fitzgerald. I am rather less enthusiastic about AT FREDDIE'S. It shares many characteristics of the other novels - well-crafted, witty, relatively short, an utter disdain for sentimentality. Although none of her novels seems to me to aspire to the realm of "great literature", AT FREDDIE'S seems somehow a little less ambitious than the others, written almost solely for the purpose of literate entertainment (dare I say "literate fluff"?).

Freddie is Frieda Wentworth. "Freddie's" is the Temple Stage School, which exists for the purpose of training children for the stage (as well as films, television, and commercials). By hook or by crook and with the force of her indomitable personality, Freddie keeps the Temple Stage School in business, tatterdemalion place that it is. The novel tracks events at Freddie's over a few months as Freddie deals with (largely, by ignoring) the precarious finances of the School, hires and breaks in two new teachers to look after the academic interests of her charges, and supplies child actors to several West End productions, including a new (and peculiar) staging of Shakespeare's "King John".

AT FREDDIE'S contains more than the usual dose of Fitzgerald's crackling wit. (Example: when Freddie's benighted accountant trots out a balance sheet in preparation for a meeting with a potential investor, Freddie commands, "`Put it away,' in the tone she used to the local flasher.") The novel proceeds at a very brisk pace. The characters are characters, especially Freddie herself, who may be the most singular person I so far have encountered in Fitzgerald's fiction. But somehow I don't get the sense that Fitzgerald really cares about her characters. They seem to exist only as dramatis personae in her rather idiosyncratic production. Anyone who is a fan of the British stage will probably enjoy this novel, but for others I cannot give it a strong recommendation. Three-and-a-half stars.