"The Fortnight in September" by RC Sherriff was published in
September 1931. It was glowingly reviewed: 'A lovely novel,'
declared the "Daily Telegraph", 'a little masterpiece' wrote the
"Sunday Express". In America, the "Saturday Review of Literature"
thought that 'nothing since Dickens has come closer to giving
between covers the intrinsic spirit of England.' "The Spectator"
reviewer said: 'There is more simple human goodness and
understanding in this book than in anything I have read for
years...Once more, the author of "Journey's End" has enriched our
lives.' "Journey's End" (1929) is one of the great stage plays. Set
during the First World War, it had no women in it, no heroes and no
love interest - it was about the hopes and fears of a group of
ordinary men waiting in a dug-out for an attack to begin. It was
based on Sherriff's own letters home, and its success was in part
due to his ability to recreate the trench experience exactly as he
had lived it."The Fortnight in September", written two years after
"Journey's End", shares its emphasis on real people leading real
lives. But the atmosphere could not be more different, embodying as
it does the kind of mundane normality the men in the dug-out longed
for - domestic life at 22 Corunna Road in Dulwich, the train
journey via Clapham Junction to the south coast, the two weeks
living in lodgings and going to the beach every day. The family's
only regret is leaving their garden where, we can imagine, because
it is September the dahlias are at their fiery best (hence the
endpaper): as they flash past in the train they get a glimpse of
their back garden, where 'a shaft of sunlight fell through the side
passage and lit up the clump of white asters by the apple tree.'
This was what the First World War soldier longed for; this, he
imagined, was what he was fighting for and would return to (as in
fact Sherriff did).He had had the idea for his novel at Bognor
Regis (as in "Journey's End", and "The Hopkins Manuscript",
Persephone Book No. 57, the physical setting is wonderfully
evoked): watching the crowds go by, and wondering what their lives
were like at home, he 'began to feel the itch to take one of those
families at random and build up an imaginary story of their annual
holiday by the sea...I wanted to write about simple, uncomplicated
people doing normal things. 'Sherriff adds, in his memoir "No
Leading Lady" (a few pages of which is reprinted at the beginning
of the book): 'The story was a simple one: a small suburban family
on their annual fortnight's holiday at Bognor: man and wife, a
grown-up daughter working for a dressmaker, a son just started in a
London office, and a younger boy still at school. It was a
day-by-day account of their holiday from their last evening at home
until the day they packed their bags for their return; how they
came out of their shabby boarding house every morning and went down
to the sea; how the father found hope for the future in his brief
freedom from his humdrum work; how the children found romance and
adventure; how the mother, scared of the sea, tried to make the
others think she was enjoying it.'"The Fortnight in September" was
a very brave book to write because it was not obviously 'about'
anything except the 'drama of the undramatic'. And yet the
greatness of the novel is that it is about each one of us: all of
human life is here in the seemingly simple description of the
family's annual holiday in Bognor. This is a book which fits fairly
and squarely on the Persephone list.
General
Imprint: |
Persephone Books Ltd
|
Country of origin: |
United Kingdom |
Release date: |
September 2006 |
Authors: |
RC Sherriff
|
Dimensions: |
194 x 154 x 26mm (L x W x T) |
Format: |
Paperback
|
Pages: |
336 |
ISBN-13: |
978-1-903155-57-8 |
Categories: |
Books >
Fiction >
General & literary fiction >
Modern fiction
|
LSN: |
1-903155-57-6 |
Barcode: |
9781903155578 |
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