The Beginning of Spring [Paperback]

Penelope Fitzgerald (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 3, 1998

Frank Reid is a struggling printer in Moscow. On the eve of the Revolution, his wife returns to her native England, leaving him to raise their three young children alone. How does a reasonable man like Frank cope? Should he listen to the Tolstoyan advice of his bookkeeper? And should he, in his wife's absence, resist his desire for his lovely Russian housemaid? How can anyone know how to live the right life?

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

In March 1913, Frank Reid's wife abruptly leaves him and Moscow for her native England. Naturally, she takes their daughters and son with her. The children, however, only make it as far as the train station--and even after returning home remain unaffected by their brief exile. "They ought either to be quieter or more noisy than before," their father thinks, "and it was disconcerting that they seemed to be exactly the same." Frank's routines, however, drift into disorder as he tries desperately to take charge of life at home and work. Even his printing plant is suddenly confronted by the specters of modernization and utter instability.

In Penelope Fitzgerald's fiction, affection and remorse are all too often allied, and desire and design seem never to meet. Frank wants little more than a quiet, confident life--something for which he is deeply unsuited, and which Russia certainly will not go out of her way to provide. The Beginning of Spring is filled with echoes of past wrongs and whispers of the revolution to come, even if the author evokes these with abrupt comic brio. (In one disturbance, "A great many shots had hit people for whom they were not intended.") As ever, Fitzgerald makes us care for--and want to know ever more about--her characters, even the minor players. Her two-page description of Frank's chief type compositor, for instance, is a miracle of precision and humor, sympathy and mystery. And the accountant Selwyn Crane--a Tolstoy devotée, self-published poet, and expert at making others feel guilty--is a sublime creation. His appetite for do-gooding is insatiable. After one fit of apparent altriusm, "Selwyn subsided. Now that he saw everything was going well, his mind was turning to his next charitable enterprise. With the terrible aimlessness of the benevolent, he was casting round for a new misfortune." As she evokes her household of tears and laughter, Fitzgerald's prose is as witty as ever, rendering the past present and the modern timeless. --Kerry Fried

From Publishers Weekly

Booker Prize-winner Fitzgerald ( Offshore ; Innocence ) reveals here the depth of a distinct and imaginative talent to amuse. Set in Moscow in the spring of 1913, the story concerns an English household that has fallen apart with the unexpected flight of Nellie Reid, a good and proper wife and heretofore devoted mother of three young children. (Fitzgerald is especially good at very droll children.) Nellie's husband, Frank, must carry on with his family and printing business while holding out hope for her return. A mysterious young woman from the countryside--she may be a dryad--is engaged to care for the children, and the plot, such as it is, takes many unexpected turns. But one doesn't read Fitzgerald for plot structure so much as for her sheer powers of invention: her novel raises more questions than it means to answer. Rich in subtle characterizations, wit and wonderfully textured prose, Fitzgerald's seventh novel succeeds in evoking the very essence of life one long-ago spring at 22 Lipka Street.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 187 pages
• Publisher: Mariner Books; 1st Mariner Book ed edition (September 3, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 039590871X
• ISBN-13: 978-0395908716
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #699,727 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wow! How could this be written by someone who wasn't there?, February 12, 2000

By 

Ricardo Ramos - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Beginning of Spring (Paperback)

This is the most likable of the four PF novels I've read (I admire all of them). Her ability to create characters with extreme economy is breath-taking. Even more than in _Blue Flower_, she illuminates a milieu distant and time and space, the Moscow of a British businessman in Moscow ca. 1913 (i.e., on the verge of the First World War, the Bolshevik revolution further off). I don't really know that there were households or businesses like those she brings to life. If the concrete details are imagined rather than researched, her accomplishment is even greater, but it is also considerable if she has "merely" brought back to life vanished Russian and expatrate English ways of being.

One of Fitzgerald's many gifts is creating prematurely wise prepubescent female characters (as in _The Bookshop_ and _Offshore_) who view the fumblings of adults with clear-eyed but mostly gracious bemusement and fitfully attempt to keep the adults from totally mucking up. Dolly takes that role here. The omniscient narrator has her own compassionate bemusement at the frailities of adults who want to be loved and try to be useful to others. Frank and Selwyn are prime examples from this book. As far as I can tell, the only thing Ms. Fitzgerald can't do is create rounded prepubescent male characters (Ben here).

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A question, October 12, 2000

By 

taking a rest - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Beginning of Spring (Paperback)

Did your copy have 187 pages? If it had more, I would very much like to know how your version finishes. I, and others have commented on how Ms. Fitzgerald leaves a certain ambiguity at the end of some of her works. She invites her readers to finish the story based on what she has shared, or the reader has understood. This time around, I first felt I was reading a work like Dickens' unfinished, "The Mystery Of Edwin Drood". However this time it was a bit abrupt, a door opens, the reader pops their head in, and, she decapitates the reader with efficiency that Dr. Guillotine would have admired.

This is the fifth of her nine novels I have read, and it will be difficult to top this work. Everything I have read has been excellent, so the pleasure of reading her work is just a matter of degree. The complaint as stated at the beginning is more frustration than anything else. So much appears to be shared with the reader, that ultimately deception is far to mild a word, and then when you think the puzzle is complete; she adds another thousand potential pieces by bringing the story to an abrupt halt.

But the story really is quite complete. After you read what she has written a logical explanation follows. She sets the process in motion, steps back, and knows the reader will continue to follow her lead. She pulls the strings of a reader like twine on a top. Once pulled she can step back, the top continues to spin. She is as manipulative as any writer I have had the pleasure to read, she also respects her readers with the presumption they will read what she gives them, and though left wanting more, will be able to put their own finish to what she has written.

I cannot use any names, as it would ruin the piece. She produces one character that is such a brilliant fraud, that when his actions come to be known, his victims are left with mouths agape when they should be throttling him. As she has done in other works, she has children that are well beyond precocious, and other players that the reader is routinely lead to underrate.

Ms. Penelope Fitzgerald was a great discovery for me, as I knew nothing of her or her work. She started writing late in life, and sadly died earlier this year. The collective work she has left behind, is as good a written legacy any writer could have left, for all who love to read.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Penelope Fitzgerald - The Unexpected, September 20, 1998

By 

Lenore S. Schellinger "linn556" (Humble, TX USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Beginning of Spring (Paperback)

Many writers tend to get stuck on one theme and write the same story over and over. Not Penelope Fitzgerald! I've enjoyed THE BOOK SHOP, OFFSHORE, and THE BLUE FLOWER, each so different that I'm amazed the same author penned them.

THE BEGINNING OF SPRING is my most recent Fitzgerald reading, and it may be my favorite so far. Frank Reid, the main character, runs a printing company in Moscow, a business he inherited from his father. Frank was born and brought up in Moscow although he is still considered a foreigner because his parents were English. Frank was sent back to England to polish his education and while there he married Nellie, a woman who felt constrained by the narrowness of her English hometown. She was ready to leave that town, but she wasn't prepared for Moscow and could never quite adjust. One day, she gathers up their three children and leaves on the train to return to England. Not being able to cope with the children, she sends them back to Frank before she continues onto England. Frank is mystified by his wife's actions and doesn't know if he will be able to cope with the children either.

This is the story of a domestic crisis, but the backdrop of unrest brewing in Russia clearly presages the Revolution. The year is 1913. Frank doesn't know how much longer he can maintain his business, and he's not sure where his sympathies lie.

Ms. Fitzgerald does have one trick: she seems to lead the reader one direction, and then bam! you find that's not where she was headed afterall. I thought THE BEGINNING OF SPRING was quietly wonderful, but when it concluded I found that it just seemed quiet and the resolution was resounding.