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Loading... Mothering Sunday (original 2016; edition 2016)by Graham Swift (Author)
Work InformationMothering Sunday by Graham Swift (2016) Loading...
Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. Graham Swift has a wonderful way with words, creating characters and scenarios artfully from just the minimum. Over the course of Mothering Sunday, he reveals how one day shaped the life of Jane Fairchild, gradually revealing the rest of her life in this novella. On the exceptionally warm and sunny day in March, Jane is a servant for the Nivens, a couple who lost their sons during the Great War. Mothering Sunday is a ‘day off’ (post breakfast and before dinner) for the servants, an opportunity to visit their own mothers. For Jane, that’s not possible as she’s an orphan. Her plans are to find somewhere quiet and sunny and read one of the books from the Niven’s library (with permission of course, Mr Niven is supportive of Jane’s reading). But a phone call to the house beckons her to ride to her lover’s house, where he is alone. Paul is about to marry someone else, and Jane is not quite sad, not quite envious. She’s curious as to what Paul’s fiancé Emma is like and fairly accepting of the class differences between them. Afterwards, Paul must meet his fiancé for lunch but tells Jane to stay in the house as long as she likes. Big houses don’t really hold an allure for her, so she returns to the Nivens early, only to meet Mr Niven. A shocking thing has happened, and knocks both of them for six. In a way, this defines a turning point in Jane’s life and sets her towards becoming a writer. Jane’s future is gradually revealed over the course of the novel, first via a sentence here and there until it takes over the last part of the novella. It’s in contrast to the slow, lazy morning of that day and its shocking conclusion. Piecing together Jane’s life over the novel was fun, as was languishing over each of Swift’s sentences. He captures the melancholy post-war as well as the change in the air as the end draws near for big houses and servants. It’s beautifully constructed, creating emotion through experience of one woman’s eyes. This is the kind of novel that makes a reader’s heart sing. http://samstillreading.wordpress.com I can't say I enjoyed this book but I did find it somewhat intriguing. I thought the premise was interesting but didn't find the story sufficiently developed. A 22 year old woman, in service, is having a secret physical relationship with the son of her employers' close friends. Two weeks before he is to be married to another "socially acceptable" young woman they have their final liaison. It is the morning of Mothering Sunday, 1924 when he calls her to issue the invitation. This is the one day of the year that practically every servant in England is given the day off to visit family. Because they know they will be alone this assignation is unlike any previous. She entered his home through the front door and went to his bedroom. The day however, did not end as expected.
Graham Swift's slim, incantatory new book is one of those deceptively spare tales (like Julian Barnes' The Sense of an Ending) that punch well above their weight. Mothering Sunday, more novella than novel, zeroes in on a time of seismic change in English society and a turning point in the life of a woman who against all odds becomes a famous author. Mothering Sunday is a powerful, philosophical and exquisitely observed novel about the lives we lead, and the parallel lives – the parallel stories – we can never know: “All the scenes. All the scenes that never occur, but wait in the wings of possibility.” It may just be Swift’s best novel yet. Comparisons will be made with Ian McEwan’s controversially Booker-shortlisted On Chesil Beach, at 166 pages marginally longer than Mothering Sunday. Both narratives share the focus on a single pivotal moment and its consequences, on intimacy as hazardous territory, on Englishness and on the unknowableness of others. But where On Chesil Beach feels like a meditation under a low grey sky, Mothering Sunday is bathed in light; and even when tragedy strikes, it blazes irresistibly.
"From the Booker Award winner: a luminous, profoundly moving work of fiction that begins with an afternoon tryst in 1924 between a servant girl and the young man of the neighboring house, but then opens to reveal the whole life of a remarkable woman. Twenty-two-year-old Jane Fairchild, orphaned at birth, has worked as a maid at one English country estate since she was sixteen. And for almost all of those years she has been the secret lover to Paul Sheringham, the scion of the estate next door. On an unseasonably warm March afternoon, Jane and Paul will make love for the last time--though not, as Jane believes, because Paul is about to be married--and the events of the day will alter Jane's life forever. As the narrative moves back and forth from 1924 to the end of the century, what we know and understand about Jane--about the way she loves, thinks, feels, sees, remembers--deepens with every beautifully wrought moment. Her story is one of profound self-discovery and through her, Graham Swift has created an emotionally soaring and deeply affecting work of fiction"-- No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)823.914Literature English & Old English literatures English fiction Modern Period 1901-1999 1945-1999LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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This is a fairly inconsequential novella. Swift writes about the literary muse and how experience informs a novelist's prose, but there will always be some truth held back. Hardly a searing insight, but the book is a pleasant enough read for people who like Downton Abbey and similar Edwardian aristos and servants stories. Swift writes beautifully of the period, although I could have done without his fixation on cum stains. ( )