I have on my bookshelves a copy of Isabel Colegate's The Shooting Party--a novel of the waning days of the Edwardian era, which I've long wanted to read. So when I came across another of her novels whilst browsing the shelves at work I was, of course, instantly curious. Winter Journey is Colegate's last published book (not sure if she is still writing?), which came out in 1995. I feel as though I'm cheating a bit since this is a more recent book, but I figure any book on the shelves is fair game, since I've heard the rumor that circulation stats are down these days.
I'm afraid I've not been able to find out a lot about Colegate. Her online bio is somewhat sketchy. She was born in 1931, has won several awards for her writing and has more than a dozen books to her name. Though I'm not sure it's true of this particular book, she's known for novels dealing with the English aristocracy and social class. Publishers Weekly called this an "elegant novel", which is about two ageing siblings who during a visit reflect on their shared and separate pasts. PW calls it something of a social history of England between the 1970s and 90s. It sounds like a quiet novel that is more about the characters than anything else. Here's a little taste:
"Having travelled, Alfred now lived where he had spent his childhood. The house, the nearby farm buildings, the wood beside, the valley behind, were all to him like consciousness itself, much deeper than appearance. Even when he had been away for several years and had come back, he had not seen them as separate from himself. They were his essence, as the high grassland into which the valley narrowly reached was the essence of the Mendip hares who frequented it. The photographs which filled the attic rooms at the top of the house bore witness to the close scrutiny to which he had subjected his relationship with the place, as well as to his occasionally desperate attempts to escape it. He had overlaid its soft contours with the drama of the Apennines, imposed on its green watery light the high lucidity of the Himalayas, the black on white shadow of summer in a Mediterranean side street, the dry rock of a cave in the Atlas mountains. In one of the rooms a woman danced into the air, and perhaps flew."
This even takes place in a country house, though perhaps not of the same scope as some of these.