The Greengage Summer

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A gentleman who’s sleeping with one of the proprietors of the hotel takes them under his wing, at least to some extent, but it’s clear from the start that he has his own reasons for keeping them around.

Their vague and often harrassed mother is pushed to make the sudden decision to take the children to France on a holiday she can’t afford when their ungrateful behaviour makes her determined to teach them a lesson by showing them the battlefields of WWI. However, the trip is doomed from the start when the childrens’ mother gets septicaemia from an infected insect bite, and is clearly dangerously ill by the time they arrive at the coolly glamorous hotel, Les Oeillets, in the heart of the Marne’s golden countryside. Taking place in the shabby hotel of Les Oeillets, once gloriously elegant, the four children of the Grey family find themselves alone with the shady eccentrics who run the hotel. For instance, the emotional situation here is clear to the children–they recognize the love triangles within triangles, though the underlying personal histories of the lovers are not always clear.

Joss Grey (Susannah York), a 16-year-old English girl, finds herself responsible for the care of her three younger siblings on a summer holiday in France when their mother is suddenly taken ill and rushed to the hospital. reines-claudes,” she would say to teach us its name as she put our particular plate down, but we were too full to eat. Years ago when I was traveling, in India, I got some type of insect bite that grew into a golf size round ‘green-pus-ball’, on my lower leg…. The children have a unique viewpoint, and in that way children relate to animals, Cecil relays how they are herded like cattle, everywhere like insects, and chased and cornered like rabbits.

I can't understand any mother, no matter how ill, choosing to entrust her children to the care of strangers, rather than sending for their admittedly judgemental Uncle William. Hester, 10 years old, accompanies Cecil on many of their great adventures, while Willmouse, age 7 designs dresses for his dolls and Vicky, age 4, follows the head chef everywhere and charms him so thoroughly that she grows quite fat from all the tidbits. In a nutshell, The Greengage Summer is a glorious read with its evocative portrayal of summer, a meaty storyline and a cast of memorable characters. Alles könnte perfekt sein - das Hotel ist herrschaftlich, der Garten verwunschen, die Temperaturen hochsommerlich warm - doch schon auf der Hinfahrt erkrankt die Mutter schwer und die fünf Kinder sind im Hotel auf sich allein gestellt.

Alongside this, the reader is treated to an intriguing mystery in the form of Mr Eliot, who is an absolutely fascinating and appalling character in equal measure.