Customer Reviews

Growing Up

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

 

 

Showing the struggles and hardships during the war years on the homefront in Britain, Growing Up brings back old favorites and introduces new friends. It shows the anxiety of the unknown, always present for those with loved ones serving in the war and humor abounds in new characters; Selina, Doris and Lily-Anne the railway porters, Nannie and old Jasper. Old friends from previous books in the series; Tony Morland, Mrs. Morland, Tommy Needham, Lydia and Noel Merton, Octavia Crawley, and Philip Winter make for a delightful reunion.

Like the reviewer who disliked the characters in this novel so much, I am midway through reading all Thirkell's Barsetshire novels chronologically. I too think some of her books are better than others. (So far, I think the best is August Folly and the worst Northbridge Rectory; Growing Up falls somewhere in between.)

What I don't understand is how someone who hates Leslie and Lydia (the two main characters in Growing Up) could like any of Thirkell's other books. None of the Barsetshire novels are very different from any other; for those who like them that is part of their charm. They are predictable and slightly snobbish, but light and enjoyable reading for readers who appreciate this variety of English wit.

This is a sweet book. Very like the typical Thirkell but addresses the question form two characters..."Are we grown up, yet?" Well done!

I'm almost finished Summer Half, by the same author. She's fantastic, like a more lovable and often daring Jane Austen. Give one of her books a try, even though she was writing them in the 1930's.

Over the past decade I've been reading my way chronologically through Thirkell's Barsetshire, with some long pauses while I tried to fill holes (missing volumes). Thanks to the Moyer-Bell reprints, enough holes have been filled that I have begun to read again... and then I came to this one, which nearly put me off the series altogether. I hope and think it is the absolute low point, and things improve thereafter. The problem is that we really see only two characters at any length in GROWING UP, and both are nearly unendurable. Deep in WWII, Thirkell seems to deliberately restrain the humor. The Mixo-Lydians do a half a page walkon, and a Mrs. Spender comes on in a kind of music hall turn to fill several pages. Finally, the always charming Mrs. Moreland shows up toward the end, to charm us a bit more.

But almost every page is devoted to the "feelings" (one can scarcely call them thoughts, as both characters are utterly mindless) of Lydia and Leslie, two young girls who each worry about a beloved brother off in some unknown theater of war, and each worry that they themselves aren't doing anything to help anyone. That's it. That's all there is in this novel, these two hopeless losers worrying about the same two topics. Over and over. Page after page. Ad nauseum. Lydia (Keith) has appeared in previous novels, and has always been obnoxious. This is Leslie's first (and one devoutly hopes last) appearance, and she is equally unendurable. About the only way I could keep going was to fantasize that Jack the Ripper would soon appear and introduce the girls to his dissecting knife.

There is one more problem that greatly hampered my reading pleasure. These Moyer-Bell volumes seem to be typeset at the computer by someone who transcribes directly from the Knopf first (and only) edition. Whoever that person is needs glasses, or a new prescription. Thirkell's supple, delightful prose is all but ruined by weird typos on nearly every page. Imagine "had" being routinely typed as "and" and imagine what that does to the meaning of a sentence! Imagine commas being typed as periods, cutting a long, elegant Thirkell sentence into two meaningless fragments. And so on.

Come the end of the novel and the only payoff is that Lydia has totally given up any hope of doing anything useful and--- I wish I were making this up--- has resigned herself to being a baby factory. We see her combing her hair seductively, although her thoroughly non-entity husband doesn't seem to notice, and reminding herself that they also serve who only produce litters for the war machine 20 years down the road. There is no hint of satire or humor in this terrifying thought.

There is virtually no hint of humor or satire in this very disappointing book.