A House Unlocked is rather different from Lively's usual fare as a
distinguished novelist. Golsoncott is a country house which her
family has inhabited since 1923. As Lively looks through the
strange, old-fashioned catalogue of possessions found within the
house, she reflects on the social and political history which they
invoke. She explains: 'This book has tried to use the furnishings
of a house as a mnemonic system'. The house, and its belongings,
such as the gong stand and the bon-bon dish all belong to a
different age, an age which Lively herself remembers, and from
which she recalls fascinating stories. The history of Mary
Britnieva, a strong Russian woman whose husband was killed by the
Bolsheviks during the Russian Revolution is movingly recounted, as
is that of Otto Kane, a Jewish boy escaping from the Third Reich.
These mini-biographies all come together to form the history of
this unconventional and yet very British country house. In this
thought-provoking book Lively shows how much society has changed
over the three-quarters-of-a-century during which her family has
inhabited Golsoncott. (Kirkus UK)
‘The house as I knew it exists now only in my mind. I can walk through the front door into the vestibule, and from there into the hall. Ahead of me, the garden door frames a green section of Somerset …’
The only child of divorced parents, Penelope Lively was often sent to stay at her grandparents’ country house Golsoncott. Years later, as the house was sold out of the family forever, she began to piece together the lives of those she knew fifty years before.
Through a needlework sampler, she sees her grandmother and the wartime children that she sheltered under her roof in 1940. Potted meat jars remind her of the ritual of doing the flowers for church. The smell of the harness room brings her Aunt Rachel – avant-garde artist, fervent horsewoman – vividly back to life.
In A House Unlocked, Penelope Lively delves into the domestic past of her former home, unearthing the stories surrounding the house and family, not only telling of her own youth but also brilliantly evoking the contrasts between life today and the way they lived then.
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