A House Unlocked

Love this person's fiction but couldn't get into the memoir

I love Penelope Lively, and though this isn't my favorite book of hers, I found a lot of the history--particularly about the history of children being sent to the English countryside during WWII--very interesting. Definitely a book for the history buff to savor.

Lively chooses objects from her childhood home as touchstones to discuss changes in British life and society, e.g., The classes of people, eating habits, parenthood, Fox hunting, billeting during the War, etc. There's a wise and tolerant voice behind it all. A pleasure to read.

Lively does a great job of linking her ancestry and past to the physical structure and contents of the family's country home. Great detail and description of another time, but it becomes a bit ponderous. I raced through the first half of the book, and plodded through the last quarter.

I love Penelope Lively's trips down memory lane.I think she loves being English, loves the language and uses it so gloriously.Never a bore, always insightful, she brings her entire family to life throughthe life what once was a marvelous manor house.Her Grandmother, events of first half of the 20th Century, come to life asthe house unlocks its memories.A joy.

Penelope Lively has been a wonderful find. Her insight and down to earth approach of life in general no matter the age, makes her books a pleasure to read.

I am a huge fan of Lively. This one was interesting but a little slow reading at times.

What a brilliant, insightful, erudite and modestly astounding writer. This is the next installment of her memoirs.

The book is an interesting overview of the changes that have taken place over the hundred years. The house, communications how it has changed rural and urban life of how it has bought them closer, earlier life was very different between the two sections.. country people were generally healthier with home grown food, fresh air, exercise. Urban folk did not have these facilities so their health and quality of life diminished.:)The book is ideal for discussion groups with in-depth analysis of the variations of life , and the changing perceptions of various members of the different class system and how it slowly is becoming a more social upwardly mobile society through the more education system which is improved through the different governments but how still the private system in the majority of areas is still the most effective. Though in some areas of the country the academy,s and state schools can be better which is the parents aspiring wishes for their children and not necessarily a middle class aspiration. But the ballot box is used to get this, voting politicians locally and nationally to achieve thisHow houses have changed due to the different circumstances, no silver cutlery, Tec people do not have time or inclination now people do not have time to be prepared to

Despite her 1980s triumph in the Booker Prize the name Penelope Liveley is hardly a "household " one for me. So I only chose to read this later work due to a very slight association I have with the Edwardian built house which she "unlocks", namely Golsoncott in the Rhodewater Valley, nr Minehead, Somerset.In my view this book is like a fine wine, most suited for the educated palette, being notable for its stylistic quality of research condensed into steady cadenced prose. It is a series of essays - or meditations perhaps - on a number of subjects that occur to the now seasoned literary professional who was once a girlhood visitor to a largish Edwardian house with a garden/grounds managed over time by her grandmother and aunt (the late visual artist Rachel Reckitt). The subjects cover quite staid subjects, such as 19th century garden design, embroidery samplers, the changing dynamic of travel to the South West of England. Also historical ones relating to refugees both foreign and English who stayed at Golsoncott during the years in and around WW2.For me the most telling meditation was upon English/European social identity, which for much of the existence of Golsoncott was still relatively stable and the book arouses quite strong feelings regarding the contrasting instability of the current age in this key respect. Familes today certainly are not distanced by alloted pew from the church altar according to their social level as in the author's recollected sources and it has indeed become almost impossible to quickly "place" a stranger as one of the author's relatives considered their expected right. Lively,who incidentally grew up partly in Egypt, does not - at least in content - lament the passage of time, but it is hauntingly evoked in this work for me and I was continually struck by the measured and controlled pace of her delivery, which felt musical in its structured tempo, almost to the point of elegy.I was in some respects tailor-made to favour this work due to association but I think it was enjoyable and stimulating in its own right. It certainly made me want to explore her novels in part to explore whether so fine an essayist could produce fiction and whether this abiity would be an impediment to creating sustained realised character within works of the imagination. I therefore purchased Liveley's Moon Tiger (as it won a notable literary prize in 1987) but any comment on that more complex work would be another story!

the book arrived on time and was as described. completely satisfied.

The book arrived earlier than expected, given the pandemic. The book jacket wasn't as pristine as expected, given the price paid.

I am reading this book with my reading Group. So far so good but not my cup of tea really.