This is an old-fashioned book, but that’s not a complaint. Written in
the mid-1950’s, it describes a world almost as remote and alien to us
now as the medieval period or the Regency. Superficially there are
resemblances - suburban houses, family life, schools with teachers and
pupils, ‘difficult’ estates - but below the surface lurk strangenesses
which are difficult to comprehend from a distance of fifty-something
years. The style is odd, too. Modern novels insist on rigid points of
view, so that the author stays firmly within the perspective of a single
character for a time, before a clearly marked shift to another. Here,
the author jumps from head to head with abandon, now telling us the
thoughts and feelings of one character, leaping to another for three
sentences and then on to yet another. So, this is not the easiest book
to read, in many ways.
The plot revolves around a pupil and
teacher at an east Glasgow school. Charles Forbes, the idealistic
teacher, decides to take his star pupil, Tom Curdie, a slum child, on
holiday with his family of wife, two children and mother-in-law. It
will, he thinks, show the boy the possibilities of a better life. How
this generous plan gradually unravels forms the essence of the story,
although for modern readers the vignette of post-war life is at least as
interesting as the story itself.
The characters are mostly
finely drawn, particularly Charles and Tom, and it’s a pity that the
slum-dwellers, namely Tom’s own family and his friends, are not much
more than caricatures, simply wheeled on for comic or shocking effect.
Gillian, Charles’s daughter, has a difficult role, being initially a
jealous and spiteful thorn in Tom’s side, and later a sympathetic and
compassionate helper, and the transition isn’t entirely convincing. The
two women of the family, Mary, Charles' wife, and her mother, struck me
as the most realistic, being a nice mixture of common sense,
self-interest and prejudice which I found wholly believable.
The
setting, a peaceful holiday resort and the gentle pursuits of the
family, which the author brilliantly evokes, form a stark contrast to
the inevitable disaster which concludes the story. It's obvious almost
from the start that things are not going to end well, but still when the
final moment comes, it's surprising and shocking. It's also a bit of a
contrivance, depending on a whole series of coincidental events, as well
as Gillian's somewhat implausible change of heart. This is in the
nature of fiction, of course, to call on unlikely events, but I can't
help feeling that a great deal of grief could have been avoided if some
of the central characters had simply sat down and talked honestly to
each other at key moments, and this strikes me as a major flaw.
On
the other hand, perhaps reticence was too much a part of their
characters, or perhaps it was just part of the social fabric of the time
that adults didn't talk openly to children, or to each other,
sometimes. Perhaps the gulf between classes was too great to be bridged
under even the most favourable circumstances. And of course, it’s
perfectly possible that the half century of distance makes it impossible
for me to truly empathise with the characters and their dilemmas.
Still, I felt it was a weakness, so despite the overall quality of the
writing, that keeps it to three stars for me.
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