They contemplate an August that is dead and gone, but not so at all, shimmering in their heads, and presumably in other heads, an assemblage of fragments, of sea and rock and sand and faces and voices, things said and done, things seen and thought.
(Page 87)
The story of an unusual family told with descriptions of a place, an event, a person, like random pictures from a family album. This is in short the content of this novel. Not a big, engaging story (though there are some surprises!), only little, "normal" stories. A fascinating writing, that conquers even with just the description of a single moment, a feeling, an experience. A reading that made me curious about this author: I think I'll read more by Penelope Lively!
Quotes
Gina turned her car off the road and into the driveway of Allersmead. At this point she seemed to see her entire life flash by. As the drowning are said to do. She thought of this, and that the genuinely drowning can never have been recorded on the matter.
[incipit]
Roger was not unduly competitive but Scrabble can bring out the worst in anyone.
(Page 128)
Paul is amongst them because this is a time when he does not care about anything, he does not care what he does or where he is, he would prefer not to be anywhere at all, he would prefer not to be. He is simply moving through days, one pointless painful day after another.
(Page 161)
See Jane Austen, see the plight of girls in the man-deprived years after the First World War.
(Page 181)
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