Chatterton Square

Product Information

On the other hand I gained a fascinating insight into how married women's roles were perceived before the war and the kind of desperation many of them must have been sentenced to. I don’t have this one (trying to limit my book purchases at the moment), but I remember enjoying Tea Is So Intoxicating immensely, and I have Dangerous Ages lined up next.

Yes, very much a five-star read for me as the main characters – particularly the women — seem so ‘real’ and authentic. There is no real “action”, because we know that is coming within the year: there is no real ending either, but that doesn’t seem to matter. I've found an article in the Evening Post archives that suggest Chatterton Square is actually Clifton's oddly triangular Canynge Square, and it would certainly be in about the right place for that to be true. Mrs Blackett has tolerated her misery by pretending to be happy, and mocking her husband to herself.

As Simon Thomas points out in his excellent afterword, on the surface, Chatterton Square appears to be a straightforward story of two neighbouring families, one relatively happy and functional, the other much more constrained. In 1980, a four-part series based on her novels – mainly Miss Mole – was shown on BBC television as "Hannah". It is a novel of contrasts, an exploration of lives – women’s lives in particular – in the run-up to the Second World War. This family transfixed me, and is the triumph of the novel in my opinion, but we should turn our attention to the other family. The way Young draws this marriage is truly astonishing – in the minutely observed ways each behaves, and the vividly real dynamic that emerges.

She and Rosamund have a close friendship that yet retains many barriers – not least a one-way emotional dependence. The only criticisms I would make are that the oblique political and personal references are perhaps a little too oblique for modern tastes - I didn't quite get what was going on for two of the background characters, one of whom doesn't even make a direct appearance. Their mother is unusual; concerned for her children, she has the rare ability to love them without stifling them.they had known each other since their childhood days, and he had wanted to marry her but had to go to war and when he came back she was recently married to Herbert, who didn’t fight in the war. While many Britons – Mr Blackett included – consider the avoidance of war as a victory, others – including the Frasers, Piers and Miss Spanner – see Chamberlain’s actions as treacherous. Powerful portrait of a domestic despot who unconsciously believes that everything he thinks or does is the only way to be. The action of the story focuses on the slow making of relationships between the two families and while doing so demonstrates the author's brilliant depiction of the personalities involved. The story centres on two families living next door to each other: 1) the Frasers, comprising Rosamund, her five children (most of whom are grown up) and her close friend Agnes Spanner, and 2) the Blacketts, comprising Mr and Mrs and three daughters.

She wrote about love and hate and, of course, about sorrow and joy and pain and all of the little, almost imperceptible emotional mutations which mean that we are living, that we are alive. The book is set in the lead-up to the Munich Agreement in 1938 when Chamberlain was advocating for appeasement.Some moments in history are easily overlooked, and it’s one of these on which Young focuses – the period before the outbreak of the Second World War when the nation waited to know if its fate was war or peace. I've read Chatterton Square, but your review reminds me of how much I enjoyed it, so I am going to do a re-read. However, the degree of depth and nuance Young brings to her portraits of the main characters makes for a particularly compelling read – more so than that description suggests.

I read Chatterton Square before this beautiful new edition came out, (in a green VMC) but I have this edition as well for when I want to re-read it. The two families seem entirely separate, both in out look and lifestyle but as the spring and summer progress, circumstances and relationships bring them closer together.As the novel draws to a close, the political developments in Europe become an increasingly dominant factor.