The Greengage Summer

Family of naive kids on their own in France, while their mother is in the hospital, encounter worldly people at their hotel. A coming of age story, and a coming of awareness story. The narrator is the younger sister and her voice is both that of herself looking back, and herself when young. How things end, and what happened to everyone, is left vague, which was tantalizing - I wanted the kid's dreams to come out right for them. Wonderful and disturbing.

With The Greengage Summer I have once again lost my heart to Rumer Godden. Aimed at a younger audience this book is in no way written down for children, rather it stretches the mind as it delivers a story both extremely atmospheric and, at times unsettling. Forever encapsulated in a green and golden world, The Greengage Summer is a coming-of-age story with both heart and soul.

With their father gone for years on a scientific expedition, their mother decides the Grey family needs a vacation and despite the tut-tutting of her brother William, packs the family off to France. She books them into a hotel called Les Oeillets at Vieux-Moutiers and fully intends on educating her five children by touring the battlefields of France. Unfortunately, show more a horsefly bite turns septic and the mother is promptly packed off to hospital for the duration of their stay. Although they are taken under the wing of a mysterious guest called Elliot, they are basically left to fend for themselves. What follows is an evocative story of innocence lost as the children tramp about the French countryside and learn more about the other guests and workers at the hotel.

The five Grey children are Joss, Cecil, Hester, Willmouse and Vicky. Joss is sixteen and just learning the power of her sexuality, but has no idea of what this means or how to use it. The masculinity of her name aside, Cecil, the story’s narrator, spends much of her time wavering between jealousy of her sister and wanting to protect her. At thirteen her emotions are constantly bubbling to the surface. There are three year gaps between each child since “three years is about the length of Father’s expeditions”. Each of the children is a distinct individual, and although the French characters at time verge on stereotyping, they still are interesting and engaging.

The Greengage Summer is a book that had I read when younger would probably have long held a place on my shelves as a favorite. Even at my advanced age this is wonderful read. Rumer Godden has the impressive ability of capturing the essence of childhood and transferring it to the pages and I found the Grey children very charming to read about. show less

My 5-star rating of this book, one of the golden books of my early adolescence, has more to do with how utterly enraptured I was by the novel one hazy Georgia summer than it does with literary merit, though it may have that as well. I simply was not a literary minded reader at 13. However, as a reader who as always appreciated a good story more than literary antics, I would say based on my over 30 year old memories of this book Ms. Godden is a hell of a storyteller whose unsentimental view of the young was engaging and liberating. It is a book that I have often thought of rereading, but am worried it would lose its glow. What A Tree Grows in Brooklyn seems to represent to many of my reading friends, The Greengage Summer was to me.

"Ever afterwards in our family, we called it the greengage summer", May 10, 2016 This review is from: The Greengage Summer (Ki, 11 May 2016

This review is from: The Greengage Summer (Kindle Edition)
Evocative account of five English children on holiday in France sometime after WW1. When Mother has to go to hospital almost immediately, they are left in the 'care' of the hotel staff: snappy Madame Corbet, kitchen-hand Paul, Mlle Zizi - and the English beau of the latter, the charming Eliot. But as all the children grow utterly enamoured of Eliot, they are becoming aware that something is not quite right :
' "We love him", I said uncertainly. Can one love someone who is not good?'

A novel of growing up; the eldest daughter Joss discovers her show more power over men - but how that can be used against her by a rival - and the joy of being able to escape at last back to their safe life as children, albeit forever altered by their experiences...
Quite a compulsive read. show less

A warm, hazy, green and golden book where a mother takes her children to a small town on the banks of the Marne to further their education; things turn out unexpectedly when the mother is bitten by a horsefly and has to spend most of her time in hospital, while the children - the oldest, Joss, is 16, the narrator, Cecil, is 13 - are taken under the wing of one of the guests (or is he a guest?) at the hotel, an Englishman called Eliot.
Coming of age, jealousy, naïve flirting, the children all learn more than everything their mother expected.

My 5-star rating of this book, one of the golden books of my early adolescence, has more to do with how utterly enraptured I was by the novel one hazy Georgia summer than it does with literary merit, though it may have that as well. I simply was not a literary minded reader at 13. However, as a reader who as always appreciated a good story more than literary antics, I would say based on my over 30 year old memories of this book Ms. Godden is a hell of a storyteller whose unsentimental view of the young was engaging and liberating. It is a book that I have often thought of rereading, but am worried it would lose its glow. What A Tree Grows in Brooklyn seems to represent to many of my reading friends, The Greengage Summer was to me.

25 Dec 2010 - Secret Santa gift from LibraryThing Virago Group member Parmaviolet

A delicious coming-of-age novel. Cecil and her delightfully-drawn siblings are thrown onto their own resources when their mother falls in on the way to their holiday in France. They are awakened to the mysteries of sex and adulthood by the set of characters at the hotel, some of whom - Eliot in particular - are meant to be protecting them. Hugely atmospheric and evocative of hot teenage summers and learning who to trust.