How things that happen in the past can continue to resonate with the present. As a child, Leo becomes involved in a clandestine love affair as the go-between, not knowing what the consequences could be. An interesting snap shot of life in England at the turn of the last century. ( )

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1166285...

A story of a young boy who becomes involved in a secret romance - some similarity with McEwan's Atonement, though the outcome is quite different. I found the narrator very naïve for a thirteen-year-old - at that age I was devouring Agatha Christie novels and I like to think I'd have worked out what was going on. However, otherwise Hartley has some acute observations about the way adults treat children, and each other. The coda, set two generations later, manages to be a satisfactory conclusion to the novel and yet shows that the story is not over (and perhaps never will be). ( )

I came to this book from the beautiful movie version of 1970, which was written by Harold Pinter. Just picked it up recently and rereading was a joy. Famous for its first line: "The past is a foreign country. They do things differently there". Set in the country house and grounds of a well to do English family in the summer of 1900 it is the story of Leo a scholarship boy at school who spends the summer with his friend's family. He is quite taken in by them in both senses of the word. When his friend gets the measles he is left to his own devices and becomes more and more injvolved with his job as messenger between the daughter ofthe house and the farmer who she is having an affair with. Out of his depth, Leo struggles with adult behaviour and attitudes which he is just vaguely staring to comprehend. Another quote from the book:
"You flew too close to the sun and your wings melted". [Disclaimer on the exact correctness of the quotes - from memory]

Really wonderfully done story about 12-year-old schoolboy and first person narrator Leo's summer spent with his wealthier school pal, Marcus, at Brandham Hall. From the prologue, the narrator as a grown man coming upon his childhood diary "lying at the bottom of a rather battered, red cardboard collar-box, in which as a small boy I kept my Eton collars" the narrative voice carried me so comfortably along that it was pure pleasure to read. ( )

Wonderfully evocative story of the end of a boy's innocence, set in baking Edwardian English summer, with class distinctions rampant. ( )