Statues in a Garden
by Isabel Colegate
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'Just the right mixture of doomed fun, melancholy and faintly lascivious despair' Observer'I am afraid I have something to tell you. It is that we are all about to be destroyed.' 1914. The old standards are going. There is bitterness in politics, talk of civil war in Ireland. But all this means little to Cynthia Weston, attractive wife of cabinet member Aylmer Weston, and her nephew by marriage Philip. They are caught up in the charmed, perilous toils of a mutual passion that will destroy show more all they hold most dear - while the shadow of war lengthens and darkens, ready to swallow their world whole.A captivating portrait of a lost world, Statues in a Garden is a rediscovered masterpiece by one of the most important and neglected British female writers of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
Read during Summer 2003
Like 'The Shooting Party', 'Statues in the Garden' takes place in the perfect English summer preceeding World War I. The eldest daughter of the aristocratic Weston family is getting married. Sir Aylmer Weston is an MP preoccupied with 'the Irish question'. His adopted son and nephew leaves the army and tries to make a fortune on the stock market. A new governess is hired for Kitty, the youngest daughter, who wants to become a suffragrette. What makes all this interesting is that is is told from constantly shifting points of view. There is an unamed narrator as well. Despite all these different plotlines, there is the constant theme of Phillip, the nephew and his capacity for complete self-destruction. His show more narrative is the most harsh and brutal. Cythnia Weston, mother and wife, is the most enigmatic character, though. It is hard to tell, is she innocent and trusting or just vain and completely conceited? I kept changing my mind. show less
Like 'The Shooting Party', 'Statues in the Garden' takes place in the perfect English summer preceeding World War I. The eldest daughter of the aristocratic Weston family is getting married. Sir Aylmer Weston is an MP preoccupied with 'the Irish question'. His adopted son and nephew leaves the army and tries to make a fortune on the stock market. A new governess is hired for Kitty, the youngest daughter, who wants to become a suffragrette. What makes all this interesting is that is is told from constantly shifting points of view. There is an unamed narrator as well. Despite all these different plotlines, there is the constant theme of Phillip, the nephew and his capacity for complete self-destruction. His show more narrative is the most harsh and brutal. Cythnia Weston, mother and wife, is the most enigmatic character, though. It is hard to tell, is she innocent and trusting or just vain and completely conceited? I kept changing my mind. show less
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Author Information
16+ Works 1,314 Members
Isabel Colegate is the author of thirteen previous books, including the novels The Shooting Party, The Summer of the Royal Visit and, most recently, Winter Journey. She is married with three children and lives near Bath
Awards and Honors
Common Knowledge
- Original publication date
- 1964
- First words
- The sun shone all summer.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)It is that we are all about to be destroyed.
Classifications
Statistics
- Members
- 100
- Popularity
- 321,301
- Reviews
- 1
- Rating
- (4.20)
- Languages
- English, Spanish
- Media
- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 8
- ASINs
- 7
