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'A meticulously observed modern classic' INDEPENDENT 'Exact, piquant and comical' OBSERVER 'Tantalising ... Funny, sharp' DAILY TELEGRAPH Jane Gardam has a spectacular gift for detail of the local and period kind, and for details which make characters so subtly unpredictable that they ring true' TLS
Product Description
During one glorious summer between the wars, the realities of life and the sexual ritual dance of the adult world creep into the life of young Margaret Marsh. Her father, preaching the doctrine of the unsavoury Primal Saints; her mother, bitterly nostalgic for what might have been; Charles and Binkie, anchored in the past and a game of words; dying Mrs Frayling and Lydia the maid, given to the vulgar enjoyment of life; all contribute to Margaret's shattering moment of truth. And when the storm breaks, it is not only God who is on the rocks as the summer hurtles towards drama, tragedy, and a touch of farce.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
31 of 31 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Despite the sometimes farcical aspects of this story, it's a moving and still believable tribute to childhood, old age, passion, obsession and loneliness. Each character can stand alone as a pen sketch in human nature. This is a lovely book, touchingly simple in its descriptions of the human condition, but full of complex characters - just like life itself!. I loved it and highly recommend it as an introduction to Jane Gardam.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Wednesdays is `treat' day for Margaret, when her mother allows her to go on an outing with the maid, Lydia. Ellie, Margaret's mother, has just had another baby and she knows that Margaret, now eight, needs to feel loved. There are several things wrong with this scenario and, gradually, Gardam lets us discover what they are. Lydia, for instance is a magnet for young men, blowsy, large and blonde. Margaret's parents are members of the Primal Saints, a small Christian sect who do not allow pictures, music or dancing and there must be no alcohol or smoking in their houses. Margaret's father is a bank clerk and leader of the sect. Lydia has been sent (by distant Saints in Bishop Aukland, recommended as "a good girl from a devout family, strong in the faith and a good scrubber."). Lydia is not averse to work, but she is far from the paragon promised. Mrs Marsh is disconcerted: "We thought - you see, we thought -," she said. "Didn't you know? Mr Marsh, and I of course, and the children - we are The Faithful."
"Think nothing of it," said Lydia, "Where d'you keep yer butter?"
Astonishingly for Ellie Marsh, her husband will not hear of Lydia being sent away, "She has been sent," said Marsh. "We are to work His will."
The novel as a whole is a delight. Lydia wreaks havoc, Margaret learns that her mother is fallible and that the world is a much larger place than she thought. Ellie Marsh has a past more interesting than her present, with connections to an aristocratic family living nearby - whose matriarch has disinherited her children after ruining most of their lives and turning their stately pile into a refuge for so-called lunatics. These elements of the story are gradually brought together to provide a brilliant and exhilarating comedy of manners.
Shortlisted for the Booker in 1978, this novel is funny, sometimes provoking and profound.
"Think nothing of it," said Lydia, "Where d'you keep yer butter?"
Astonishingly for Ellie Marsh, her husband will not hear of Lydia being sent away, "She has been sent," said Marsh. "We are to work His will."
The novel as a whole is a delight. Lydia wreaks havoc, Margaret learns that her mother is fallible and that the world is a much larger place than she thought. Ellie Marsh has a past more interesting than her present, with connections to an aristocratic family living nearby - whose matriarch has disinherited her children after ruining most of their lives and turning their stately pile into a refuge for so-called lunatics. These elements of the story are gradually brought together to provide a brilliant and exhilarating comedy of manners.
Shortlisted for the Booker in 1978, this novel is funny, sometimes provoking and profound.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Set in England in the era between the two world wars, God on the Rocks, with its sly, multi-layered title, is one of Jane Gardam's earliest novels, a delightful but carefully considered look at society, religion, personal responsibility, and acts of fate in the lives of several families. Eight-year-old Margaret Marsh, the primary speaker, is energetic and thoughtful, living comfortably with her very religious bank manager-father and her subservient and seemingly passive mother. The family has recently been joined, however, by Lydia, a "fallen woman" whom her father Kenneth believes he is called upon to "save."
An especially precocious child, Margaret is having a hard time at home, these days, unable to understand the God who has sent her a baby brother who bores her (she wishes she could call him "Scummy," instead of Terrence), and as she and her mother argue about why Margaret needs to love the baby, Margaret reveals an unusually sophisticated ability to think on two levels--that of her real life, which is infinitely more exciting now that Lydia has arrived, and that of the spiritual life which her parents are encouraging in her. As Margaret questions the act of creation on all levels, along with what love really is, she is confused. "If I'd been God, I'd have left it at dinosaurs," she remarks. "And if God looks like us...What's the point?"
Through flashbacks, Margaret's early rebellions appear, and as she happily meets "damaged" people at the beach, like Drinkwater, an artist who may be living at the rest home nearby (primarily for the shell shocked), her view of the world also grows. Her mother's childhood and the circumstances under which she married Kenneth Marsh, the points of view of several other characters and their courtships and marriages, and the tendency of all people to try to control the vulnerable, who have less power than they do, become subjects of exploration as the novel continues.
Without ever losing her sense of humor, often very dark, Gardam explores the contrasts between "good" and "evil." Her ability to describe in the most minute (and perfect) terms the people and places of her novel, and to see the world at large with humor, even as some of her characters cannot avoid seeing the world "writ small," cannot help but remind older readers (especially) of the enormous contrasts between novels written in precise and carefully considered language in a previous generation, which were the primary venue for new thematic insights, and the present world in which the primary venue is the internet, where the sound bite and the bumper sticker phrase reign. When a "dark and stormy night" brings the climax, and each of the characters must face a crisis of life-changing dimensions, the author's sense of irony and dark, mordant humor reach their peak, and reality vs. fantasy, sanity vs. insanity, and religious destiny vs. fate combine with the characters' identities as we have known them to create a memorable and unforgettable battle among the protagonists and the points of view they represent. Mary Whipple
Old Filth
The Man in the Wooden Hat
The Queen of the Tambourine
The People on Privilege Hill
An especially precocious child, Margaret is having a hard time at home, these days, unable to understand the God who has sent her a baby brother who bores her (she wishes she could call him "Scummy," instead of Terrence), and as she and her mother argue about why Margaret needs to love the baby, Margaret reveals an unusually sophisticated ability to think on two levels--that of her real life, which is infinitely more exciting now that Lydia has arrived, and that of the spiritual life which her parents are encouraging in her. As Margaret questions the act of creation on all levels, along with what love really is, she is confused. "If I'd been God, I'd have left it at dinosaurs," she remarks. "And if God looks like us...What's the point?"
Through flashbacks, Margaret's early rebellions appear, and as she happily meets "damaged" people at the beach, like Drinkwater, an artist who may be living at the rest home nearby (primarily for the shell shocked), her view of the world also grows. Her mother's childhood and the circumstances under which she married Kenneth Marsh, the points of view of several other characters and their courtships and marriages, and the tendency of all people to try to control the vulnerable, who have less power than they do, become subjects of exploration as the novel continues.
Without ever losing her sense of humor, often very dark, Gardam explores the contrasts between "good" and "evil." Her ability to describe in the most minute (and perfect) terms the people and places of her novel, and to see the world at large with humor, even as some of her characters cannot avoid seeing the world "writ small," cannot help but remind older readers (especially) of the enormous contrasts between novels written in precise and carefully considered language in a previous generation, which were the primary venue for new thematic insights, and the present world in which the primary venue is the internet, where the sound bite and the bumper sticker phrase reign. When a "dark and stormy night" brings the climax, and each of the characters must face a crisis of life-changing dimensions, the author's sense of irony and dark, mordant humor reach their peak, and reality vs. fantasy, sanity vs. insanity, and religious destiny vs. fate combine with the characters' identities as we have known them to create a memorable and unforgettable battle among the protagonists and the points of view they represent. Mary Whipple
Old Filth
The Man in the Wooden Hat
The Queen of the Tambourine
The People on Privilege Hill
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