I have Marina Sofia at Finding Time to Write for introducing me to The Cazalet Chronicles by Elizabeth Jane Howard. I’d seen her books in our local library many times but (mistakenly as it turned out) thought they wouldn’t offer much beyond a long and meandering family saga.

However Marina Sofia’s review of the series (she read all five in quick succession) described them as offering “a rich social fresco” full of fascinating detail about clothing, food and entertainment in the period from the eve of World War II to the first decade of peace. That was all it took to persuade me to give the series a go as part of my #20booksofsummer reading plan.

The Light Years is the first of five books about the Cazalets, an upper middle class family which owes its wealth to a timber business.

Over the course of the novel we meet three generations of this family plus their servants and an assortment of friends and distant relatives. There are a lot of characters (29 adults and 12 children) so the family tree and list of individuals in my edition were invaluable. Without them I know I would have lost track of who was married to whom and which child belonged to which couple.  

There are three Cazalet brothers, two of whom — Hugh and Edward — run the family though ostensibly it’s their father (affectionately known as the Brig) who is in charge. The third brother Rupert longs to be a full-time artist. but has to teach just to keep his family clothed, fed and housed.

The brothers and their respective wives are such a close knit bunch that every summer they leave their London homes to congregate en masse in Sussex at the home of the Brig and his wife the Duchy. There they enjoy picnics by the seaside and large family meals:

They all had dinner – fourteen of them round the immense three-pedestal table extended to its uttermost and even then they were crammed round it. They ate four roast chickens, bread sauce, mashed potato and runner beans followed by plum tart and what the Duchy called Shape – blancmange.

The Light Years is slow to get off the ground — there are all those characters to introduce — but over time their individual personalities emerge and secrets and jealousies become apparent. One of the brothers keeps sloping off for afternoons with his mistress. One wife pouts and whines because she’d much rather be holidaying in the South of France than boring old Sussex. Another wants more from life than to be simply a wife and mother.

Overshadowing all these personal concerns, is the increasing tension on the world stage. Over the summers of 1937 and 1938, we find the Cazalets respond in different ways to the threat of war. Some believe it will never happen because “no-one wants a war”. Others put their faith in Neville Chamberlain’s ability to seek reassurances from Hitler. The less optimistic family members feel that war is inevitable and they should begin making preparations “just in case”.

Elizabeth Jane Howard beautifully blends the domestic world with the political and with social issues. Attitudes to sexuality and passion feature as do the experience of women in childbirth and the precarious condition of single women without the security of family money or relatives.

Of course she loved him, so what else could she say? Sex was for men, after all. Women, nice women anyway, were not expected to care for it, but her own mother had intimated (the only time she had ever even remotely touched upon the subject) that it was the gravest possible mistake ever to refuse one’s husband. So she had never refused him ……practice had dissolved these feelings into those merely of a patient distaste, and at the same time it was a way of proving her love which she felt must be right.

We also get a real sense of life in a large country house in the late 1930s through detailed descriptions of the decor, the food, clothing and established routines based on deeply held beliefs about what is appropriate. So young children must take afternoon naps; adults must dress for dinner; boys are educated at boarding schools and girls sent to finishing schools.

Talking of the children — they proved to be one of the most enjoyable aspects of this book. Howard captures so well the petty jealousies and rivalries between the cousins but also their struggles with the whole business of growing up. Her ear for dialogue is wonderful, conveying the different temperaments of each child perfectly. Their worries felt real whichever form they took — fears of a new school; loneliness; unhappiness at not being taken seriously. Some of the most deliciously comic moments come when these children come together.

This is the kind of novel that wouldn’t satisfy readers who like a strong plot. Though the book has a structure of sorts (one for each year), The Light Years really just meanders along, moving seamlessly from one person’s story to another without the artificiality of chapters. It’s a style that just makes you want to read another page … and then another .. and another.

I enjoyed this so much that I’ve now bought book two. As soon as #20booksofsummer is over I’ll be paying a return visit to the Cazalets.