Hello dear reader :)
Today's Book Spotlight is about Tessa Hadley's beautiful novel 'The Past'. I've decided to include a link to the Goodreads reviews and average rating to give you an at-a-glance idea of how others enjoyed/ didn't enjoy a book. Additionally, I will also include my own rating at the end of the post from now on. I have to say, I was bit surprised to see 'The Past' receive a rather low rating on Goodreads, because I found it mesmerising, and already look forward to re-reading it (definitely on a summer day, preferably in the English countryside).
Published 2015 // 3.18 stars on Goodreads
Anyway, first of all some covers:
And here's the cover I own:
The Plot:
Siblings Alice, Fran, Harriet and Roland visit their grandparents' house every summer. Somewhat isolated in the English countryside, it provides an escape from their ordinary lives, and also ties them to the mother they lost at a young age. Now adults, they bring their own families, problems and desires - Roland is accompanied by his new wife Pilar and his teenage daughter Molly, Alice brings her ex-boyfriend's nineteen year old son Kasim and Fran's young children Ivy and Arthur are running wild. As the holiday goes on, passions grow and not only Kasim and Molly are getting closer, but Harriet finds herself falling for Pilar...
*stop reading here to avoid spoilers*
The holiday has a melancholy note to it, as it will likely be the last at their grandparents' house. Increasingly falling into disrepair, the house is now in need of costly renovations, which none of the siblings can afford. However, it provides a link to the past, to their mother and grandparents, and Alice indulges in those memories. Pilar, reserved and strikingly beautiful, is a newcomer to the house and the family, and doesn't quite fit in with Roland's sisters. Only Harriet strikes up a friendship with her, and also develops an intense desire for Pilar. Romantically inexperienced and socially inhibited, this unexpected longing becomes Harriet's shameful secret. Meanwhile, Ivy and Arthur discover an abandoned farm house, complete with a dog's corpse inside. Fearful and intrigued at the same time, this becomes their secret, and the two regularly return. Kasim faces a straight-forward problem: How (and where) to seduce Molly? He settles on the abandoned farm house, and decides to clean it out to create a lover's nest. When he finds the dog's body, he burns it, thus unceremoniously destroying Ivy and Arthur's secret. Another secret comes to light when Harriet makes an impulsive decision to express her feelings to Pilar. This goes disastrously wrong and an outraged Pilar immediately leaves with Roland. Convinced that she has ruined her life, Harriet dramatically decides to await death lying in a field, until discovered and safely returned home by Alice. The same night, Molly and Kasim fail to return to the house, which sparks a search by Alice, Fran and the children the next day. Once they find them, it becomes clear that Kasim and Molly have spent the night together at the abandoned farm house. At the end of the book Harriet receives a postcard from Pilar in which she comments on some family problems she had previously discussed with Harriet.
The present is broken up with a sequence from the past, in which Hadley describes how the siblings' mother Jill returns to her parents' home in a bid to separate from her adulterous husband Tom. Three of her kids in tow (Harriet, Roland and Alice), she indulges in a fantasy of setting up home in the remote countryside, but in the end returns to Tom and has a fourth child (Fran, who we now know is likely not Tom's daughter). In the present, we learn that Jill has passed away, thus making the grandparents' house even more meaningful by its connection to the mother they all lost too soon.
It seems to me that at the end, almost all secrets are out in the open - Kasim and Molly have become lovers, Harriet's desire for Pilar is no longer secret and she opens up to her sisters, and Ivy and Arthur are no longer the only ones who knew about the dead dog in the abandoned farmhouse. The only secret that remains open only to us readers is that of Fran's true parentage. After Hadley tells us about Jill and the estate agent, it seems likely that he is her true father, which is again alluded to at the end of the book.
What I liked:
The prose is really beautiful, and I found this book a joy to read - I think it would be an especially delightful novel to read on a summer day, so get this book before August is over! The characters were also well described and easily came to life for me, particularly Pilar, Kasim and Ivy. Overall, I think that this is a complex and multi-layered book, and I'm not sure I understand the full significance of what I've read. Those are the best kind of novels though, in my opinion, because you can look forward to reading them again and again, and always uncovering a little bit more each time.
What I disliked:
I feel very conflicted about Harriet's character. She seems so painfully immature and inhibited where romance, self-esteem and her identity and self-expression are concerned, that I both pitied her and found her passages uncomfortable to read. On a more technical note, the way in which dialogue is displayed in the book took me a little while to get used to, as dashes, rather than quotation marks or italics, are used to separate speech from the narrative voice. I thought Roland and Fran got a little less attention than their siblings in the plot, and I would have enjoyed hearing a bit more from/ about them.
I didn't exactly dislike this, but there was a lot going on in this novel: The meaning of the house to the siblings, Kasim and Molly's relationship, Ivy and Arthur's discovery and rituals, Harriets crush, Pilar's arrival among the siblings, the siblings' mother Jill's death and so on. This novel seems to have so many layers that I'm finding it difficult to write a coherent review and tell you what happened and what I thought of it overall - one of the reasons why I definitely want to read this beautiful novel again. One thing that I thought a little bit unrealistic was Kasim's willingness to spend a holiday with his father's ex-girlfriend's family. Hadley writes that he only agrees to get some time away from his mother, but it still seems a little bit strange to me that a nineteen year old guy would agree to spend three weeks in a remote country house with adults who are mostly strangers to him. Still, stranger things have happened I guess.
If I had a book club, these would be my
questions:
- Why did Pilar send that postcard to Harriet at the end of the book? Was it a narcissistic assumption that she would still care about Pilar's life? A cruel way of reminding Harriet or her (Pilar)? Or a means of making amends with Harriet by somewhat 'resuming' a topic they discussed as friends? (I'm drawn to the last explanation. I think that Pilar is socially unskilled when it comes to discussing private/ emotional matters and that this was her reason for choosing to confide in Harriet - who obviously adored her - in the first place. In my opinion, sending her that postcard was a clumsy way of trying to tell Harriet that everything is ok now. This is total speculation of course, but those are my thoughts).
- Did you like the characters? (I felt that they were all somewhat unlikeable but not to the extent that I hated them or didn't find them relatable. For me, Alice came across as quite annoying, whereas Roland was uninvolved, Kasim was arrogant and Pilar seemed cold. I can't make up my mind about Harriet - she seems painfully immature but I also feel sorry for her).
- Harriet is convinced that Pilar 'led her on' and thus contributed to Harriet's mistake - do you think she is right? Did Pilar flirt with her? Or did Harriet misinterpret Pilar's behaviour? (I'm not too sure about this. At one stage, Hadley describes Harriet kissing Pilar's hand, which - to my mind - is definitely not normal behaviour among friends (unless done as a joke), and which should/ could have alerted Pilar to Harriet's crush).
- What significance did the past hold in this book? Why did Hadley include the story of Jill's attempt to leave Tom? (I think on the one hand it signifies the house's importance as a safe haven to return to. On another level, this lets us glimpse into Harriet's childhood during which her mother perceived her as attention-seeking and is rather harsh to her, which I think then inhibited Harriet's willingness to express herself later in life, e.g. romantically or where her appearance is concerned. What do you guys think?).
Should you read this book?
Plot aside, I think Tessa Hadley's writing style is so beautiful that I would recommend giving this book a try just for that alone :) That being said, the story lines are interesting and varied, and I highly recommend it!
My rating:
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
5.0 out of 5.0
