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wannabemensch's review against another edition
2.0
I'll try again some other time. Not the book for me right now.
flogigyahoo's review against another edition
5.0
Faultless Writing, Pitch Perfect
1913. Frank , a printer, is an Englishman raised in Moscow. He has wed Nellie, an Englishwoman, and once back in Moscow., they have 3 children. Now suddenly Nellie leaves with the children, sending them home only to disappear on her own. Why? This mystery is cleared up only at the very end. Beautifully written, details of life in Moscow forming a backdrop for 2 love stories told with wit and wisdom, this book holds the reader with its fine writing and humor. Anyone who enjoys a terrific writer will enjoy this book.
1913. Frank , a printer, is an Englishman raised in Moscow. He has wed Nellie, an Englishwoman, and once back in Moscow., they have 3 children. Now suddenly Nellie leaves with the children, sending them home only to disappear on her own. Why? This mystery is cleared up only at the very end. Beautifully written, details of life in Moscow forming a backdrop for 2 love stories told with wit and wisdom, this book holds the reader with its fine writing and humor. Anyone who enjoys a terrific writer will enjoy this book.
nickelini's review
challenging
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
sarahc3319's review against another edition
2.0
This one was recommended to me. I enjoyed the moments of banter, the cleverness of Dolly. The ending made me smirk and giggle a little. But the book itself just did not grab me as I had hoped. I liked it enough to consider reading more by Fitzgerald.
piccoline's review against another edition
5.0
Penelope shines again. This feels like the funniest of her novels I've read so far (over Offshore, The Bookshop, and The Gate of Angels, though they're all very witty) but it also has a beautiful weight to it. She's as perceptive as ever in swiftly, deftly describing the way people interact with one another, and her construction of story is as angular and unpredictable as ever. Fantastic. Highly recommended.
—————
2020 reread: still perhaps my favorite of PF’s novels. So funny. So understated and dry and witty. Stronger clarity than ever about how extremely carefully constructed her novels are without feeling at all over-schematized.
—————
2020 reread: still perhaps my favorite of PF’s novels. So funny. So understated and dry and witty. Stronger clarity than ever about how extremely carefully constructed her novels are without feeling at all over-schematized.
dean299bf's review against another edition
3.0
I enjoyed reading this, but I’m not quite sure why. Penelope Fitzgerald has a distinct elegant prose style, but leaves many aspects of the story unexplained. This may be to reflect how life is most of the time: we can never really know someone else. Even those closest to us. This doesn’t stop Frank trying to find out what is going on with Nellie, his children, most of the other people in this story and the authorities. The thoughts and the reasons for the behaviour of those around Frank are only revealed to him when they are ready to do so if at all. The reader then experiences Frank’s predicament. In this way the story is similar to a le Carre novel. Perhaps this is why I like it.
erinbottger's review
4.0
Fitzgerald's "The Beginning of Spring" is a short (under 200 pages), quirky book. The story is of an ex-pat British family living in pre-Revolution Moscow; the mother of the two children has just abandoned them, leaving for England without explanation, and leaving her husband Frank, owner of a printing business, to cope.
The domestic dilemma of the care of the children and his household preoccupy Frank who still must keep his employees and business going full tilt. He first tries to place his afterschool kids with another large family but that proves to be a disaster. In the end, he hires a Russian maiden from the countryside to manage the household.
Also, on the domestic side, Frank's wife's brother comes visiting from England to complicate things. And, through it all, everyone is trying to locate Nellie somewhere in England.
The author does a great job of capturing the humor, absurdity and essence of Russian life:
"He was heading toward the river, and the air was full of the reverberations of the bells from the five golden domes of the church of the Redeemer, not at anything like their full power, but like the full barrage of artillery before the main attack. The attack did not come-- it was Lent, and they chimed only once, but they were answered from across the river by a hundred others, always with one chime only. He stood listening to the bells in the open starlight. From the cathedral square a ramp went down to the water. The river ran darkly, still choked with the winter's majestic breaking ice and the debris carried along with it, an inconceivable amount of rubbish-- baskets, crates, way-posts, wash-tubs, wheels, cradles, the last traces of the traffic the ice had carried while, for four months, it was a high-road. Watching the breaking ice from the bridges was one of Moscow's favorite occupations. Thre Gazeta-Kopeika said that a pair of dead lovers, clutched together, had floated by, frozen into the ice. The Gazeta repeated this story every spring."
and "'Let me tell you a story from the district of Orel, from my part of the country,' shouted Kuriatin. 'What does it show? Why, simply the necessity of ruling in one's own house. A peasant took a young woman to wife...'
Kuriatin frequently told these stories, though, to do him justice, Frank had never heard him tell the same one twice. This might simply be because they weren't, as he always claimed they were, from the District of Orel, but invented to suit the occasion.
'With a hundred other women to chose from he took a lazy one, a lazy girl who did everything in the house as badly as possible, and made him sell his horse to buy her fine clothes. Meanwhile, the bread she made was so heavy that it had to be thrown to the pig. and the pig died in great pain. And the linen she spun was so coarse that when the husband got into bed with his wife the sheets tore off his skin. In the end, he said to the woman, 'You have caused me to sell the horse, the pig is dead and you have borne no children. So now you can get between the shafts and live on oats and rye, and do a horse's work.' In this way, he showed he was master in his own house. Remember that story, because there's a great deal of benefit to be got from it.'
'There's no benefit at all,' Frank replied. 'I object to it in principle and in detail.'
'You don't understand it. You have no peasants in England, and therefore no stories.'
'We have plenty of stories,' said Frank, 'but the woman always comes off best.'
'All the more reason to remember this one.'"
This story ends with a surprise, but you understand the family will need to escape Russia as the Bolshevik Revolution is about to burst on the scene. I think most readers will enjoy this tale and take pleasure in the poetic language and well-drawn characters.
The domestic dilemma of the care of the children and his household preoccupy Frank who still must keep his employees and business going full tilt. He first tries to place his afterschool kids with another large family but that proves to be a disaster. In the end, he hires a Russian maiden from the countryside to manage the household.
Also, on the domestic side, Frank's wife's brother comes visiting from England to complicate things. And, through it all, everyone is trying to locate Nellie somewhere in England.
The author does a great job of capturing the humor, absurdity and essence of Russian life:
"He was heading toward the river, and the air was full of the reverberations of the bells from the five golden domes of the church of the Redeemer, not at anything like their full power, but like the full barrage of artillery before the main attack. The attack did not come-- it was Lent, and they chimed only once, but they were answered from across the river by a hundred others, always with one chime only. He stood listening to the bells in the open starlight. From the cathedral square a ramp went down to the water. The river ran darkly, still choked with the winter's majestic breaking ice and the debris carried along with it, an inconceivable amount of rubbish-- baskets, crates, way-posts, wash-tubs, wheels, cradles, the last traces of the traffic the ice had carried while, for four months, it was a high-road. Watching the breaking ice from the bridges was one of Moscow's favorite occupations. Thre Gazeta-Kopeika said that a pair of dead lovers, clutched together, had floated by, frozen into the ice. The Gazeta repeated this story every spring."
and "'Let me tell you a story from the district of Orel, from my part of the country,' shouted Kuriatin. 'What does it show? Why, simply the necessity of ruling in one's own house. A peasant took a young woman to wife...'
Kuriatin frequently told these stories, though, to do him justice, Frank had never heard him tell the same one twice. This might simply be because they weren't, as he always claimed they were, from the District of Orel, but invented to suit the occasion.
'With a hundred other women to chose from he took a lazy one, a lazy girl who did everything in the house as badly as possible, and made him sell his horse to buy her fine clothes. Meanwhile, the bread she made was so heavy that it had to be thrown to the pig. and the pig died in great pain. And the linen she spun was so coarse that when the husband got into bed with his wife the sheets tore off his skin. In the end, he said to the woman, 'You have caused me to sell the horse, the pig is dead and you have borne no children. So now you can get between the shafts and live on oats and rye, and do a horse's work.' In this way, he showed he was master in his own house. Remember that story, because there's a great deal of benefit to be got from it.'
'There's no benefit at all,' Frank replied. 'I object to it in principle and in detail.'
'You don't understand it. You have no peasants in England, and therefore no stories.'
'We have plenty of stories,' said Frank, 'but the woman always comes off best.'
'All the more reason to remember this one.'"
This story ends with a surprise, but you understand the family will need to escape Russia as the Bolshevik Revolution is about to burst on the scene. I think most readers will enjoy this tale and take pleasure in the poetic language and well-drawn characters.
lnatal's review
3.0
Penelope Fitzgerald's novel of an English family in Moscow, adapted by Penny Leicester. The winter of 1913 finds Frank Reid, owner of a printing company, abandoned by his wife. Frank Reid is not being helped by his accountant, Selwyn. The English Chaplaincy has a scary resident and now a shop girl is taking on the nannying duties. Lisa, the new nanny, is too beautiful for Frank, even with her plaits cut off.
Narrator: Clare Higgins; Frank: Richard McCabe; Selwyn: David Bamber; Nellie: Jennifer Lee Jellicorse; Dolly: Charlotte Ellis. Other parts played by Sonia Ritter, Rachel Atkins, Samuel Barnet, Richard Bremmer and David Collins. Producer: Tim Dee.
Narrator: Clare Higgins; Frank: Richard McCabe; Selwyn: David Bamber; Nellie: Jennifer Lee Jellicorse; Dolly: Charlotte Ellis. Other parts played by Sonia Ritter, Rachel Atkins, Samuel Barnet, Richard Bremmer and David Collins. Producer: Tim Dee.
arirang's review
4.0
In my review of Penelope Fitzgerald's The Gate of Angels I praised "Fitzgerald's wonderfully compact prose. In 160 pages she manages to tell a (simple) story, create an evocative sense of historical place, introduce us to some memorably baffling characters and explore a number of powerful themes.
....
Against that, the novel suffers from, to the reader at least, oblique (at least to the reader) developments and characters, although ultimately that is a function of Fitzgerald's brevity and a part of her charm. "
I could - indeed I have! - simply cut and paste this for this review, and out of the 5 of Fitzgerald's books which I have read, it mostly closely resembles The Gate of Angels.
As always with Fitzgerald, she has a wonderful ability to provide the one-line character sketch. The fussy sister-in-law of Frank, the main character: "Frank got the impression that Grace always talked about damp." His purposeful wife: "even her curling hair seemed to spring up her for head with determination."
And beautiful sentences. This when the Chief Compositor is absent from Frank's print works: "Hand printing, whose rhythm was still that of the human body, went adrift with the disappearance of the pacesetter, assumed always to be on duty as the given condition of the whole process."
One key obvious difference is the setting - pre revolutionary Russia. There is something quintessentially English about the settings of her other novels (Blue Flower obviously excepted): the conservative countryside (The Bookshop), cloistered Cambridge (The Gate of Angels), or eccentric houseboat life (Offshore).
Here, I had mixed views as to whether Fitzgerald was successful.
She provides similarly adroit character sketches for the Russian characters, and even Moscow itself:
"Dear, slovenly, mother Moscow, bemused with the bells of its four times forty churches, indifferently sheltering factories, whore houses and golden domes, impeded by Greeks and Persians and bewildered villagers and seminarians straying on to the tramlines, centred on its holy citadel, but reaching outwards with a frowsty leap across the boulevards to the circle of workers' dormitories and railheads, where the monasteries still prayed, and at last to a circle of pig-sties, cabbage patches, earth roads, earth closets, where Moscow sank back, seemingly with relief, into a village."
And she manages to pack in a lot of interesting detail of Russian life (e.g. that windows were literally sealed with putty for the winter and the forced opening of the windows marks the beginning of spring), capturing well the flavour of a country where nature is implacable and the authorities capricious:
"In a country where nature represented not freedom, but law, where the harbours freed themselves from ice one after another, in majestic sequence, and the earth's harvest failed unfailingly once in every three years, the human authorities proceeded by fits and starts and inexplicable welcomes and withdrawals"
But, against that, most of the main characters are British by origin and at times it's easy to forget the setting. At times it seems like the Russian and period details are mere facades over an English comedy of manners, although in a sense that reflects Frank's own character and situation, as flagged from the outset:
"Frank had been born and brought up in Moscow, and though he was quiet by nature and undemonstrative, he knew there were times when his life has to be acted out, as though on a stage."
Overall, not as strong as Offshore or City of Angels, but enjoyable nevertheless, and perhaps the funniest of the 5 of her novels that I have read.
....
Against that, the novel suffers from, to the reader at least, oblique (at least to the reader) developments and characters, although ultimately that is a function of Fitzgerald's brevity and a part of her charm. "
I could - indeed I have! - simply cut and paste this for this review, and out of the 5 of Fitzgerald's books which I have read, it mostly closely resembles The Gate of Angels.
As always with Fitzgerald, she has a wonderful ability to provide the one-line character sketch. The fussy sister-in-law of Frank, the main character: "Frank got the impression that Grace always talked about damp." His purposeful wife: "even her curling hair seemed to spring up her for head with determination."
And beautiful sentences. This when the Chief Compositor is absent from Frank's print works: "Hand printing, whose rhythm was still that of the human body, went adrift with the disappearance of the pacesetter, assumed always to be on duty as the given condition of the whole process."
One key obvious difference is the setting - pre revolutionary Russia. There is something quintessentially English about the settings of her other novels (Blue Flower obviously excepted): the conservative countryside (The Bookshop), cloistered Cambridge (The Gate of Angels), or eccentric houseboat life (Offshore).
Here, I had mixed views as to whether Fitzgerald was successful.
She provides similarly adroit character sketches for the Russian characters, and even Moscow itself:
"Dear, slovenly, mother Moscow, bemused with the bells of its four times forty churches, indifferently sheltering factories, whore houses and golden domes, impeded by Greeks and Persians and bewildered villagers and seminarians straying on to the tramlines, centred on its holy citadel, but reaching outwards with a frowsty leap across the boulevards to the circle of workers' dormitories and railheads, where the monasteries still prayed, and at last to a circle of pig-sties, cabbage patches, earth roads, earth closets, where Moscow sank back, seemingly with relief, into a village."
And she manages to pack in a lot of interesting detail of Russian life (e.g. that windows were literally sealed with putty for the winter and the forced opening of the windows marks the beginning of spring), capturing well the flavour of a country where nature is implacable and the authorities capricious:
"In a country where nature represented not freedom, but law, where the harbours freed themselves from ice one after another, in majestic sequence, and the earth's harvest failed unfailingly once in every three years, the human authorities proceeded by fits and starts and inexplicable welcomes and withdrawals"
But, against that, most of the main characters are British by origin and at times it's easy to forget the setting. At times it seems like the Russian and period details are mere facades over an English comedy of manners, although in a sense that reflects Frank's own character and situation, as flagged from the outset:
"Frank had been born and brought up in Moscow, and though he was quiet by nature and undemonstrative, he knew there were times when his life has to be acted out, as though on a stage."
Overall, not as strong as Offshore or City of Angels, but enjoyable nevertheless, and perhaps the funniest of the 5 of her novels that I have read.
subdue_provide75's review
2.0
It was lovely, but always one of those books were I kept reading and reading, waiting for the story to really start, and then it ended?
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