Treasures of Time

An acute observation of entitled British society in the hierarchical sense, covering employment situations, societal boundaries, and family expectations. While reflective of the times (1970's), many aspects still ring true.

Lively wrote eloquently of Laura, the widow, her sister (Aunt Nellie), and Kate (Laura and Hugh's daughter). The juxtaposition between a retrospective by the BBC's documentary team and the different views of the surviving family, sets the background for the story of Hugh Paxton, the deceased archaeologist and his achievements. In filming at Charlie's Tump, Hugh's land-breaking dig, more secrets emerge and disrupt the prevailing attitudes of what was found there and how it was interpreted by the participants then and show more now.

Readers spend time with supporting characters: the BBC lead person (Tony), Aunt Nellie, and Kate's fiancé (Tom Rider) amongst others, which reveals the flaws and positive attributes amongst these individuals. Some participants appear respected (but evidently disliked by their peers), some cater to upper class snobbery, and others are disdainful. Penelope Lively conveys all these impressions so thoroughly, readers will easily feel they, too, are in the midst of the arguments and discoveries.

Philosophically, this is a strong book and I highly recommend it. My one niggle: the final closing pages seemed flat. Though realistic, the storyline simply wasn't filled out. Nevertheless, the book is wholly worth reading because there's a maturity to the narrative and the incisive writing is brilliant. show less

Easy reading with characters that are fully fleshed out. The plot revolves around the re-examination of a now deceased archaeologist's (Hugh Paxton) work and theories which are centred on an ancient barrow in Wiltshire.
In the course of this story, those associated with the archaeolgist, his family and colleagues, must re-examine their own choices in life.
Paxton's work is clouded since his great discoveries because he has drawn conclusions about it that might tend to favour his own advancement. He has concluded what he wants to see in his discoveries.
Likewise, his family members and associated characters are forced to recognize that their own preconceptions of self and others are, in the course of this novel, matters that they too might show more have good cause to reassess.
Intelligent writing, coherent and well paced narrative. show less

Penelope Lively's second novel for adults, first published in 1979, is an enjoyable mixture - a sometimes poignant comedy of misunderstandings, with a theme about history and archaeology, but very much a book of its time - whatever happened to the Britain in which "There's political stability and a fair degree of tolerance and a certain capacity to admit mistakes."

The plot centres on the family of a now dead archaeologist Hugh Paxton, who made his name with spectacular finds from a dig at a barrow known as Charlie's Tump near his Wiltshire home. His widow Laura, who had little interest in his work, now occupies their house with her disabled elder sister Nellie, a former archaeologist who was responsible for introducing the mismatched show more couple. Their only child is Kate, who has her own dealings with the past in her museum job. Kate's partner Tom is writing a thesis on the (real) eighteenth century archaeologist William Stukeley. Tom likes a drink, is wary of commitment and easily led, and much of the comedy in the book derives from his misadventures.

A television crew turns up intending to make a program about Hugh Paxton and his work, and this leads the various protagonists to share their very different accounts of the events at the pivotal dig and what they saw and felt. The ending is a little melodramatic but rather satisfying.

A very enjoyable book, as Lively's novels always are. show less

The fact is, of course, that what you feel about what you see depends not on what is, but who you are. A place is an illusion.

A very subtle, understated measure of time—in the individual sense; in the familial sense; in the generational sense; and in the historical sense—and how all of these converge and conflict when the BBC descends upon the fractured Paxton family, intent on making a documentary about deceased archeologist Hugh Paxton. 



Navigating the different memories this present-day excavation unearths, Lively is able to give us a true sense of how those who have devoted their lives to uncovering the truths of history—e.g., Paxton, and also the young Tom, engaged to Paxton’s aloof and emotionally traumatized show more daughter, Kate—may know less than those who have lived their own histories more organically, such as Nellie, first Paxton’s lover and then sister-in-law (and, possibly, her lover yet again), who is confined to a wheelchair after a stroke yet is still more mobile in the outside world—as well as the inner world—than many of the other characters; Laura, Nellie’s sister and Paxton’s widow, who, despite her class-conscious snobbism and her disdain for the new generation (it seems like the mid-to-late-1970s), clings to memories of her past, even if only for purely selfish reasons; and the Paxtons’ daughter Kate, who is as unpredictable as the land her father explored and charted, proving, in short, that only nature rules where mankind fails, and that it is our blunder to think we can either rewrite history or claim ownership or knowledge of a land’s spoils.

While this is a minor Lively, her pacing is spot-on, even as she moves somewhat quickly from each characters’ point-of-view and from the present to the past. Recommended for fans of Lively’s more mature work, fans of Bowen, fans of Taylor, and also perhaps fans of Brookner. show less

Tom, an academic, lives with Kate, whose father was a famous archaeologist. As past and present intertwine, we learn more about each person. Cleverly written with a realistic ending.

(7.5)This is one of this author's earlier novels published in 1979, so forty years ago. I found it 'very English' in its depiction of the landed gentry and their mannerisms, the rural setting and Oxbridge. A pleasant undemanding reading.

Not my favourite Penelope Lively, but not bad all the same. Characters all seeming a bit dated now.