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The Greengage Summer

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Stepping in dew, my head in the sun, I walked into the orchard and, before I knew what I had done, reached up to touch a greengage. This story line is very different to us now as readers, with our modern perspective of an o In this case, at the Hotel Ouilletts in France, where Cecil and her 4 siblings are stranded after their mother is hospitalized for weeks. Eliot gave us vin rosé, and the rose-coloured wine, the réchaud flame, the lights were reflected in the windows over and over again, shutting us into a warm lit world. Eliot is an interesting, mysterious character, by turns warm and inscrutable whose motives remain hazy to the children.

Their vague and often harrassed mother is pushed to make the sudden decision to take the children to France on a holiday she can’t afford when their ungrateful behaviour makes her determined to teach them a lesson by showing them the battlefields of WWI. The faded elegance of Les Oeillets, with its bullet-scarred staircase and serene garden bounded by high walls; Eliot, the charming Englishman who became the children’s guardian while their mother lay ill in hospital; sophisticated Mademoiselle Zizi, hotel patronne, and Eliot’s devoted lover; 16 year old Joss, the oldest Grey girl, suddenly, achingly beautiful. While Renard is questioning the uncooperative children the next morning, their solicitor uncle, Mr Bullock ( Maurice Denham), arrives. They are virtually abandoned as their mother is taken ill and has to stay in hospital and they are looked after by the owner of the hotel, Madam Zizi, and her English lover, Eliot.

The Greengage Summer is part of a classics collection of beautifully designed Pan MacMillan books that I collect and I will admit I had never heard of this book or author. With it now almost certain that the police will capture Eliot attempting to escape via the river barge, Hester breaks down in tears and is consoled by her uncle, while Joss walks away alone from the hotel down a country lane, disconsolate but accepting the consequences of her actions. Uncle, William and Mother had had those pictures when they were children, but Joss had taken them down and put up a Chinese painting instead; she took that with her to Willmouse’s room, and I brought the prince back. The early part of the film, when the relationship between More and the children is developing, is particularly charming and pleasantly staged. I think I now have most of her books, including her two part autobiography, and an authorised biography.

Madame Zizi, the owner, is obsessed with her handsome, well-dressed English lover, Eliot, who, when he is the mood, takes the Grey children under his wing. They build relationships of different kinds with the hotel staff and local people, and begin to see what life is really about – and some of it is ugly. If you enjoyed Rumer Godden’s An Episode of Sparrows, you will find The Greengage Summer a sheer delight. The faded elegance of Hotel Les Oeillets, with its bullet-scarred staircase and serene garden bounded by high walls; Eliot, the charming Englishman who became the children’s guardian while their mother lay ill in hospital; sophisticated Mademoiselle Zizi, hotel patronne, and Eliot’s devoted lover; sixteen-year-old Joss, suddenly, achingly beautiful.Happily, Virago has started reissuing some of them (I reviewed a couple of these in issue 1 of SNB if anyone’s interested – http://shinynewbooks. The narrator, 13-year-old Cecil Grey, is in a unique position to observe adult behavior, though she does not always interpret its meaning correctly. When the oldest child, 16 year old Joss, also becomes ill, it creates a space for the narrator to claim the space that is usually held by the more glamorous and self-assured older sister. The Greengage Summer begins literally and figuratively in a Paradisal garden, which is eventually invaded by sin.

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