readingoverbreathing 's review for:

The Light Years by Elizabeth Jane Howard

4.0

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"It was funny how with grown-ups you had to say the same things again and again. Perhaps that was why babies were born with such big heads: the head stayed the same and the person got larger, but it meant that there was the same amount of room in your brain to remember things, so the longer you lived, the more you forgot."

I've been dying to read this book for ages, and while it was a bit different from what I'd expected, I would still say that I adored it.

I would pitch this in the vein of Downton Abbey and [b:The Forsyte Saga|23464384|The Forsyte Saga, Complete Nine Novels|John Galsworthy|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1429644204l/23464384._SX50_.jpg|55071005], but with the humor and charm of something more like [b:Anne of Green Gables|34349673|Anne of Green Gables A BabyLit® Places Primer (BabyLit Primers)|Jennifer Adams|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1491975978l/34349673._SX50_.jpg|55425653], as a lot of the narrative really centers around the children, particularly the three eldest girls, Louise, Polly, and Clary, who are just beginning to come of age.

There's nothing I love more than a huge cast of characters and a big house in the English countryside, so this immediately checked several boxes for me. While I'm usually not big on books that switch perspectives frequently — and be warned, this one was doing it every few pages — I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know the inner thoughts, feelings, and desires of every single character, both the family and their servants. Howard does a very difficult thing, managing to make the voice of each heard and distinct, while also maintaining a steady tone and sense of action and place that, coupled with its lack of traditional chapters, encourages you as the reader to keep moving, as though flitting from room to room within Home Place. She very much follows the action on a day-to-day basis, allowing you the omniscient power of seeing the whole scene, while the character themselves only catch glimpses of what the others are really up to.

Despite its humor and seemingly idyllic setting, Howard's narrative still speaks quite frankly about a number of more serious topics that aren't always touched on in novels, especially 'women's' novels, which I guess you could argue this is, from this period both the one she writes about and the one she was writing from. Sex, abortion, lesbianism, abuse, periods, death, childbirth — none of it is off the table.

I can already tell that making my way through this saga is going to be a real treat, one I am thoroughly looking forward to. I would certainly recommend this to fellow Persephone readers, or really anyone who finds themselves drawn to sprawling family dramas or anything set in an equally sprawling home in the English countryside.