L. P. Hartley (1895–1972)

Circa 1900 Leo is swaggering the hallways and  dormitories with a little cachet for dispatching a few of the boarding school's more loathsome bullies; a special malediction was left for them to chance upon . . . in his diary. It is their delicious misfortune that secures him a visit to the country during the summer break. 11-year-old Marcus (Brandham Hall) Maudsley invites 12-year-old Leo (Court Place) to slum it for a few weeks at his lesser abode.

The matriarch dictates the day's events show more at breakfast. The social events are primed well in advance. Idle conversations are always emblematic. The absurdity of class warfare is the thrashing of the plebs during the annual cricket bash; the majority of the regal team are servants from the great house pretending to be aristocratic sluggers for an afternoon. The parallels between various events suggest a wonderful sense of impending destination and forebode to the story.

Leo lays out his winter clothes on his bed and allows Miss Marian the once over to identify the deficiencies in his wardrobe for a pre-birthday splurge in the village; although Leo's class origins are evident every time he opens his mouth; he can't manufacture a posh aristocratic "Hughes" if his life depended upon it; Lord Trimingham's name always comes out sounding as an accusatory "You!" here in a glance, his social inferiority is revealed in every stich and darn. Marian can't resist marking him as such with a few whimsical purchases. The author also makes use of her allusion to give the readers a bird's eye view of the proceedings, allowing them to concentrate all their steely "you could never fool me" adult intelligence on the foibles of a schoolboy still awaiting his spritz of testosterone.

The thing I admired most about the novel was the foreshadows. Take the first visual pairing of Hughes and Marian at a dinner table: people have to be forewarned before approaching his Lordship so they don't tumble tail over teakettle from a Boer war veteran sporting the mother of all dueling scars. Since his Lordship is literally two-faced (the stately mansion is owned by him but he lets it out to Parvenus) can we make a casual assumption of the young lady sitting at his side, is she also a figurative skullduggerist? Or perhaps this is merely a suggestion that great beauty is a swirling vortex, the girl can't help it― with a bat of an eyelid, she can derange the stars both young and old.

I liked the subtle numerology. Leo's daily visit to one of the lawns where a Fahrenheit thermometer has been installed; it strains to touch the centenary. In a magic year (the double oughts) one can simply wipe the slate clean and begin a new life. Later on, one of the older servants will mention the anomalous year, the summer has been unseasonably torrid. If we were to inspect further Trimingham’s church, I'm sure we would discover each wall panel contained exactly 12 portraits, matching the precision of the zodiac. Or maybe it is 12 plus one, the irrational occult? Since there is a motif of a young sorcerer casting his first autodidactic spells.

Small children take it as a given they are the cause of any flare of domestic violence around them. One always has to take them aside and carefully explain they are not the cause; otherwise, they may internalize the blame. The protagonist of the novel is of course, one of the great burn victims of literature and this is his icarian flight; Lionel will take to great heights like a little bird discovering his wings but unlike the mythical personage he will not plummet to his death but find a chance hayrick. Although broken in all the places that count, he will stumble to his feet and limp for another 60 years.

There is a micro-suggestion that a custodial delegation was dispatched from the great house to offer farmer Ted a lesson in efficient weapon maintenance and in the schooling they accidently blew off the top of his head. In the epilogue, dispatched on a final errand, Lionel cruises into the driveway of the boarding school; the author has the courtesy not to mention the hue of his automobile. Early on Hartley suggests that Marian is retained for the sake of wonderful convenience, eliding over the fact Lionel never overheard or eavesdropped her actual name once. The craquelured man is a masterwork with ethereal flicks of the scalpel that dread bone. show less

Tea was made a feature of at Brandham. {…} cakes and sandwiches and jam. Half of it went back into servants’ hall. The decorous sounds we all made eating and drinking, the light chatter, the unemphatic voices, small safe sounds of things being moved about and passed from hand to hand, the glitter of the trail of gold. How captivating it all was and yet I shouldn’t have realized it so much if I hadn’t known the other when I took my cup.

This is the story of the young 12-year-old show more Leo’s stay at Brandham Hall in his host’s family’s Norfolk counry estate in England during the hot summer of 1900. Leo has been invited for the summer holidays by his school- friend, Marcus. There is a gap between the two boys in terms of social class, and Leo feels out of place. Although unused to the upper-class rituals of the ruling class, he manages to get by.

Marian is the only daughter of the wealthy Maudsley family of Brandham Hall. She is kind to Leo he is initially enraptured by her beauty. She’s a kind of woman often seen in British novels and TV dramas. Lady Mary Crawley in Downton Abbey, and Cecilia Tallis in Mcewan’s Atonement come to mind. Indeed, McEwan wrote his novel Atonement In homage to L.P. Hartley's classic novel. Or did he just steal the plot?

it’s a fairly simple story, Leo becomes a secret messenger for Marion, carrying letters between her and her lover, the local farmer Ted Burgess. Of course the affair cannot be known, Ted being Marian’s social inferior. In any case she is about to be engaged to the Viscount Trimingham Hugo, whose face has been horribly scarred during his stint in the Second Boer war.

What makes this book so special is the way it is told, from the older Leo 50 years hence, looking back at his childhood self. We learn of the 12 year-old’s experience and emotions in such a way that the reader is placed into the story. Young Leo possesses innate moral standards, but is a child of his time. He admire the Viscount as a true man, a war-hero, but at the same time he is impressed by the physical prowess and features of Ted the farmer.

Leo does not at first realise what the messages are about, until by chance he manages to see a few lines of a letter, and realises in part of what’s going on, though he never really understands the physical aspect of the love between Marian and Ted. He is an intelligent child and tries hard to make sense of what’s happening in the Hall.

During a cricket match between the Hall and the local villagers, Leo’s heart is on the side of the villagers. His natural instincts are good. But he’s taken over by the comfort and generosity of his hosts. But is it generosity, he starts to wonder? Is he being used?

As well as the dark intrigue to do with the bar between the ill-matched lovers, there are many delightful scenes. I particularly remember this scenes between Leo and Marcus, using their schoolboy language of the Eton-like Southdown Hill preparatory school. They actually call each other terms like “old chum”, and sometimes lapse into French, Marcus doing his best to outdo the socially inferior Leo.

What makes The Go-between such a good novel, better I think than McEwans’s Atonement, is how the period is captured, the class difference is gently exposed, the life of the people being described subtly and the affair being told through the eyes of the innocent 12-year-old.

I can’t remember a lot of McEwans Atonement, and my memory is a bit tainted by seeing the film version. Perhaps the film version is more obvious and has made me remember that the actual book was so. In any case, I really enjoyed The Inbeween and the can see why it is often considered a classic. Highly recommended. show less

It's been a long time since I've been so flummoxed by a book that it leaves me (almost) without words.

One part of my mind says this: I like the writing well enough, and Hartley seems to spin a well-constructed story; and for the most part, it isn't objectionable.

The other part says this: I hated it with undefinable passion.

I wondered, what did I really dislike? I didn't like the pretentious little prig who was nothing but a little blusterer with an inflated sense of self. In his defence, show more one could argue that self interest is the raison d'être of every 12-year old boy -- and leave it at that. But this particular 12-year-old-boy added a special type of annoyance, for some reason.

I objected to his affected naivety which, at times, co-mingled with a worldly arrogance of class-conscious superiority. I objected to his condescensions. He was sometimes-insolent; smug; cocky, without having any right to be, by virtue of his age, and his class.

Class mattered to him a great deal, and in the end, was the sin that unravelled the lives of so many. It mattered to him that boundaries should not be crossed, even though he was the first transgressor of those boundaries. By natural extension, then, he had no right to enjoy the patronage of his social superiors when he could not return the courtesy to his social inferiors. And that's the great fault in the novel: while enjoying the hospitality and benefaction of his friend's family, he turns his own narrow-mindedness against someone who had not done him any harm; to compound the sin, he somehow manages to put the blame on others.

He takes cover under the notion that he was young; he ascribes blame to the adults who "used" him. He turns the emotional tables to say he was "put upon" by those who were older and wiser. If he had simply played his role as it was defined for him, that of a simple go-between, and nothing more, then perhaps he could have used that argument in his defence. But, he took charge, and manipulated the circumstances to suit his own selfish nature. No one forced him to lie. He interfered, where he had no right to interfere, because he was a class-conscious and jealous little snob.

While naivety, and innocence and youth could all be mitigating factors in that horrible, unconscionable decision that he made, it strikes me that Hartley doesn't paint him well enough; it seems that Hartley paints him more as a "simpleton adult" rather than as a child in the in-between years of childhood and adulthood. And that is the other great fault: Hartley hasn't captured what it is to be a child; he's merely super-imposed adult sensibilities onto a shorter, younger body and pretended that it's a child's point of view.

There are irritating little interjections and insertions throughout the novel that are quite beside the point and provide nothing but an unwelcome distraction.

As a complete aside, one of the greatest annoyances was the repeated trope of mispronouncing the name Hugh. A constant play on Hugh/you, which first time was charming; by the fifth or sixth time I wanted to step into the story and slap him silly, or into oblivion.

"Hugh asked me to tell you"- I began.
"I asked you to tell me?"
"No, not you, Hugh."
"Not you, you," she repeated. "I can't understand a word you say. Is it a game?"
"No," I said wretchedly, for it seemed I was fated to mispronounce Hugh's name. "Hugh, you know, Hugh."
"Yes, of course I know myself," she said, apparently more mystified than ever. ...
... "Oh, HUGH, " she said, almost like an owl hooting. "How stupid of me. But you do pronounce his name in a funny way."

Really? This is barely funny the first time, let alone at least a dozen more. Who's On First only worked for Abbott & Costello.


The boy (Leo is his name) is also playing out a CinderFella fantasy, it strikes me. (With apologies to Jerry Lewis!)

Leo ends up being the star of the cricket match... of course! (They would have been lost without him, apparently.) Leo ends up being the star of the after dinner concert, singing "like no one has sung before" ... of course! Some might call his interpretations charming. I call them delusional.

I don't see the Grand Romance/Grand Tragedy that people tell me it is. I see an annoying little-man-in-the-making inserting a stick into the spokes of the wheel and upsetting the balance of lives, just out of a moment of spite. I don't see the Coming-of-Age trope as a successful argument either: he barely grows an inch, spiritually or psychologically; in fact, you could say he is in stasis, since his own actions bring on a mental collapse.

Too many problems here to satisfy my enquiring mind.

What gnaws at me further is the Introduction, written by Douglas-Brook-Davies in my edition, who points out that many of the elements of this story are autobiographical. It's a disturbing thought that L.P. Hartley was such a boy as Leo Colston.

So, why 3 stars? I did read it to the end. It was certainly "better than OK", but definitely not what I would term "very good". Would I read more by Hartley? Hmmm .... I doubt it. But never say never ... ? show less

Leo Colston is turning 13 in the summer he spends at his friend Marcus's house, Brandham Hall. Although he and Marcus attend the same school, Marcus is certainly higher on the social ladder than he is, with a larger house, servants, and a more carefree attitude to money. Leo is an awkward youth who nevertheless tries to fit in, and he fits in by serving as a go-between, carrying messages for Marcus's sister, Marian, and her lover. The three weeks or so he spends at Brandham Hall are burned show more onto his memory, and the story is told from his perspective as a much older man remembering all the sensations, emotions and events of that time.

I really enjoyed this book and made short work of it. It is said to be fairly autobiographical, and the vividness of Leo's emotions, as well as the details of the Hall and its surroundings, made that an easy assertion to believe. It was also interesting as a portrayal of friendship between Leo and Marcus; they fought and made up and were indifferent to each other in a way that felt realistic to me, although I don't know or remember that much about the social behaviours of preadolescent boys. And as someone who was also crushingly awkward in early adolescence, I could relate all too well to Leo's plight at school that begins the novel.

The New York Review of Books edition contains an interesting introduction by Colm Tóibín and an introduction by Hartley himself. I read Tóibín's and skipped Hartley's.

Worth reading if you like stories about awkward protagonists, the early 20th century, or England. Also worth reading just so you get the full context for that famous first line: The past is a different country: they do things differently there. show less