Michael
The Offing is the story of Dulcie, an older woman living alone in cottage by the sea in England, and Robert, a sixteen-year-old boy who stumbles into Dulcie’s garden after walking from his home in the north. Dulcie is wise and eccentric, and apparently well-to-do. Robert has finished with school, which he hated, and has decided on a little freedom before he goes down into the coal mines as his father and grandfather have done. The time is just after World War II, when the soldiers who survived the war return, but nothing is normal yet in Great Britain. Unknown to Robert, Dulcie is grieving the death of her lover, a famous German poet. She despises what her country and Hitler has done but because she is German, her poems went out of favor.
This is a coming-of-age story for Robert, but it also meaningful for Dulcie. Although Dulcie and Robert are years apart in age and miles apart in social class, their relationship becomes a true and deep friendship.
This is a beautifully written book, with wonderful descriptions of the English countryside, the people who inhabit it and of Dulcie, Robert, and Romy who was Dulcie’s lover. It is also about class, the environment, and it is deeply pessimistic about our ability to avoid wars. Nevertheless, it feels to me like a quiet book.
My only, relatively minor complaint is about Dulcie. Is anyone really that wise, and not just wise, but smart. And why does she have all the exotic food she desires, while the rest of the presumably poor population is still using ration books?
Anyway, aside from this, it is a gem of a book.
The Offing is the story of Dulcie, an older woman living alone in cottage by the sea in England, and Robert, a sixteen-year-old boy who stumbles into Dulcie’s garden after walking from his home in the north. Dulcie is wise and eccentric, and apparently well-to-do. Robert has finished with school, which he hated, and has decided on a little freedom before he goes down into the coal mines as his father and grandfather have done. The time is just after World War II, when the soldiers who survived the war return, but nothing is normal yet in Great Britain. Unknown to Robert, Dulcie is grieving the death of her lover, a famous German poet. She despises what her country and Hitler has done but because she is German, her poems went out of favor.
This is a coming-of-age story for Robert, but it also meaningful for Dulcie. Although Dulcie and Robert are years apart in age and miles apart in social class, their relationship becomes a true and deep friendship.
This is a beautifully written book, with wonderful descriptions of the English countryside, the people who inhabit it and of Dulcie, Robert, and Romy who was Dulcie’s lover. It is also about class, the environment, and it is deeply pessimistic about our ability to avoid wars. Nevertheless, it feels to me like a quiet book.
My only, relatively minor complaint is about Dulcie. Is anyone really that wise, and not just wise, but smart. And why does she have all the exotic food she desires, while the rest of the presumably poor population is still using ration books?
Anyway, aside from this, it is a gem of a book.