The Beginning of Spring (1988)

It is 1913 in Moscow and Frank Reid is a Russian born Englishman, married to an Englishwoman who has left him to return to England. With three young children to care for and a business to run, Frank finds that he must hire Lisa Ivanovna (who finds odd but compellingly attractive) as a 'temporary' governess. This book is rich with humour and with a good insight into life in pre-revolutionary Russia. Nothing is ever quite explained and the ending of the story is strangely unsatsifying while being distinctly realistic. I was given this book as a gift and hadn't read any of Penelope Fitzgerald's work before - I find that I am quite won over by her writing and will definitely look for more of her work. ( )

It is 1913, and Frank Reid is an Englishman who was born and raised in Moscow, and now runs his family's printing business. His English wife has suddenly up and left him and he is left to raise their three children. He also has to negotiate the capricious business and social world of per-revolutionary Russia.

Fitzgerald is an amazing writer in both her gift at crafting beautiful sentences, capturing bits of humour, and in creating an astounding world. How does an Englishwoman writing in the 1980s know this level of detail about Russian life at the beginning of the century? This is my first encounter with her, but I own a few others and want to read them right away.

The Beginning of Spring is one of those books that require reading between the lines to figure out what is going on, and where it often feels like there is a bit missing that the reader must puzzle out. But for the reader who enjoys that type of reading experience, it's a rewarding novel. And this is what historical fiction should look like.

Recommended for: readers who love rich detail, gorgeous writing, and nuance in their novels. Not recommended for those who like a straight-forward story with no complexity. ( )

I love the way the author writes. Even if when the content of the story wasn't that interesting, I still found myself becoming lost in the writing and how the narrators voice came off the pages. I also enjoyed some of the imagery throughout the book along with the ending. Although, I think the metaphor at the ending, was a bit lost on me, I did enjoy the ending, surprised but I enjoyed it.

Overall, the book was average story, but lovely writing style. I found it was easy to be bored with the plot and I also found that the flow of the plot was a bit disjointed, pieces here and there just didn't seem to fit into the story as a whole. Which made for a bit of a choppy read at times. The plot had some interesting tidbits in it. Especially considering the social and political issues going on during the time it was set, but I found it was lost at times of where and how everything pieced together. At times there did seem to be something missing just to connect everything together more.

Not a bad read, but lovely writing style that pulls you in until the end.

Also found on my book review site Jules' Book Reviews - The Beginning of Spring ( )

Frank Reid is an Englishman living and working in Moscow, the city where he was born and raised. He owns the small printing firm his father started. He has visited his native country only long enough to attend University and find a wife. It is now 1913, and Frank comes home from work one day to find a letter from his wife Nellie announcing that she has left him to return to England, taking their three young children with her. There had been no hint of dissatisfaction on her part either with Frank himself or their situation in Moscow. Frank is even more dumbfounded when he soon gets a call from the train station saying that his three children are there needing to be picked up. Giving no reason, Nellie has abandoned them at a station down the line and sent them back to Moscow unescorted.

Frank is the sort of man who takes life as it comes, but now he has all he can handle. His wife is mysteriously missing. He has three young children on his hands. Moscow is a simmering stew of political unrest, and as a printer and a foreigner he comes under increasing scrutiny from the tsarist police. Moscow is a city where, it seems, everyone knows everyone else's troubles, and Frank is soon besieged with offers of advice and assistance. A would-be governess virtually stalks him looking for a job. A Russian friend wants to foster Frank's children. And his head accountant, a fellow Englishman but a Tolstoyan utopianist, virtually forces on Frank a mysterious young woman, Lisa Ivanovna, as the children's caretaker. Frank only complicates things himself by falling in love with Lisa.

The Beginning of Spring is a beguiling portrait of the last days of Old Russia. It is a mixture of genuine warmth, political suspicion, quaint customs, totalitarian regulations, festive energy, and wasteful inefficiency. Penelope Fitzgerald's wry humor is reminiscent of Gogol and Goncharov. Her prose is both beautiful and concise, and her characters are marvelously engaging. The description of both the city and nature coming alive in the Russian spring is breathtaking. In the end we come to see everything with poor bewildered Frank in a new light, as he learns that he can't always depend on people being what he believes or wishes them to be. ( )

Penelope Fitzgerald has influential family connections, although from the book, she can certainly stand on her own. The Beginning of Spring is set in Moscow, 1913, just before the Russian Revolution. It tells of the family and work troubles of a British printer who is born and raised in Russia.

I like how Fitzgerald incorporates the literal into the metaphorical (or is it the other way round?): everything extraneous and illicit is dumped into the river; in Russia, there are only white birch trees. I also like how the characters are never in sync with one another as if we, the readers, are missing parts of the conversation.

But don't ask me what the metaphors mean, and don't ask me what the philosophy of the book is because I really don't know. ( )