Rumer Godden's The Greengage Summer is a really lovely novel. Truly this is a hidden gem of a story and now I must go and find Godden's other books. I have two others on hand though she wrote something like sixty works including novels, children's books, poetry and nonfiction. I picked up my copy for a pittance at a library sale and then it promptly ended up in one of my book bins (must admit the cover of my edition doesn't do much for me, but it just goes to show you you can't judge a book by its cover) until I was invited to read along with a few other Library Thing members. I'm so glad I did as otherwise it might have been years before I finally got to this one.
I believe Godden is well known for her children's works, and this story is told from the point of view of five siblings, primarily thirteen-year-old Cecil. It's one of her novels, though this is easily a book that can be enjoyed and appreciated by a younger audience as well. It's a coming of age story told very perceptively. Godden is obviously quite comfortable residing in the heart and mind of a child yet she tells this very nuanced story with simple sophistication. I finished it at the very end of last year and had I done so before I made out my favorites list it would easily have been included. I love her writing style which is so lush and fitting for the story she told.
"...I am back; I can smell the Les Oeillets smells of hot dust and cool plaster walls, of jasmine and box leaves in the sun, of dew in the long grass; the smell that filled house and garden of Monsieur Armand's cooking and the house's own smell of damp linen, or furniture polish, and always, a little, of drains. I can hear the sounds that seem to belong only to Les Oeillets: the patter of the poplar trees along the courtyard wall, of a tap running in the kitchen mixed with the sound of high French voices, of the thump of Rex's tail and another thump of someone washing clothes on the river bank; of barges puffing upstream and Mauricette's toneless singing--she always sang through her nose; of Toinette and Nicole's quick loud French as they talked to each other out of the upstairs windows; of the faint noise of the town and, near, the plop of a fish or of a greengage falling."
Joss, Cecil, Hester and the Littles: (as they are known) Willmouse and Vicky have come to France with their mother in the stifling August heat. Although it's meant to be a holiday, they're there to visit the battlefields by the Marne, "So you can see what other people have given" as they've been especially difficult. The Greys aren't quite like other ordinary families. Their absent father is a botanist and almost always off on expeditions leaving Mrs Grey to cope as best she can. Even she is anything but ordinary, preferring to be with Vicky and Willmouse rather than the other ladies of Southstone doing grown up things.
Almost immediately upon arrival Mrs Grey is taken ill and the children must remain at Les Oeillets on their own as she recovers in the hospital. There's a faded elegance to the hotel and its inhabitants. Mademoiselle Zizi, the proprietor, with her dark red hair and her enormous eyes that seem "like sunflowers" is beautiful but in a faintly overripe way. Stern Madame Courbet takes care of the many small details of running the establishment and noting each and every thing down in the children's account. The children's presence is only begrudgingly allowed but they easily fall into the routines and rhythms of the hotel as only children know how to adapt.
"We had settled. After that first disrupted day we might have been in Vieux-Moutiers all our lives."
The children are taken under the wing of a mysterious Englishman, a seemingly permanent guest at the hotel. Eliot is tall and charming and becomes the children's champion, though the nature of his relationship with Mademoiselle Zizi isn't entirely understood by them. Children can be amazingly observant, but processing what they see is sometimes another matter entirely. The children may not always be welcome guests, but the summer is still in many ways idyllic. Under the placid surface, however, simmer heated emotions and petty jealousies. Cecil is the narrator of the story and the observer of all the occurs, but elder sister Joss who is on the cusp of becoming a woman is really the one at the center of the whirlwind. Joss may not realize just how alarmingly pretty she is becoming, or maybe she does. One alluring look will change the fates of nearly all the characters.
The Greengage Summer was such a surprise of a novel, but then I love coming of age tales. It's questionable just who actually comes of age--Joss or Cecil, though in some ways I suppose they both do. And there is a mystery tied into it all as well, which rolls out nicely along with the rest of the story. The characters are so well rounded that even the kitchen help comes to life. Now I think I'm going to go dig through my bins for the other books by her that I own. This one is highly recommended.