kittykornerlibrarian's review
5.0
It's not my favorite Dodie Smith novel, but it is a Dodie Smith novel, so yes, five stars indeed. Her dry observation and keen sense of dialogue and timing bring me into the world of this book. Sisters May and June, married to brothers George and Robert, move from London to a dower house with cottage in the country. It's one of those books where not much happens (kind of like Jane Austen's Emma; and yes, I think that's a valid comparison) except changes in the relationships among the two families. A visit from freaky Aunt Mildred adds comedy to the story. I love Dodie Smith's writing. She always has something original to say about people and their lives.
katyla's review
4.0
I have fallen in love with Smith's writing and her vivid characters. After finding about three novels in a bookshop I am eager to get lost in her beautifully created worlds and get to know the hilarious and eccentric characters she creates. I would recommend her writing to everybody who enjoys a humorous, very well written read.
readingtheend's review
medium-paced
3.0
very Dodie Smith! in that it's full of people having light-hearted, bantery conversations and making terrible romantic decisions for terrible reasons. so, you know, comfortingly familiar!
johannalm's review
4.0
A Tale of Two Families, Dodie Smith
Smith, author of the wonderful I Capture the Castle and The Hundred and One Dalmatians, wrote this funny and quietly entertaining novel as well. I recently stumbled on it and had to give it a try. I was not disappointed in this oh so British novel.
The Two Claire families are very close because two brothers are married to two sisters. They decide to move from London to the country for a change of scenery for all, and to help May keep George's philandering out of sight so she can pretend it doesn't happen. The wealthier couple - George and May - live in the big house and the other couple, both younger siblings - June and Robert - live in the smaller but also lovely cottage. Both homes sit on a large piece of property that also includes a crumbling manor house in which live old man Strange and his very beautiful granddaughter Sarah Strange.
Everyone in the Claire family seems incredibly happy in this beautiful new setting. The family includes the father of the men - Baggy, who is now living in the big house, and the Women's lovely mother Fran, who is visiting for several weeks. Each couple has 2 children and both sets of kids are exactly the same age but of the opposite sex - - Hugh and Corrine 20, and Prue and Dickon 15. The parents fear the children will marry and have deformed babies (I kid you not about the fear or the names). Everyone spends much of their time trying to guess what the others are feeling and thinking, while trying not to make assumptions in case they result in misunderstanding. This results in equivocating and guessing and in very little discussion about feelings or what is really going on. However, everyone is very polite, very deferential and very loving until crazy and narcissistic aunt Mildred comes for a stay. Crazy aunt Mildred runs around in bizarre outfits, fantasies about her life and the live of those around her, and says mean or insensitive things that hurt others. What she also does is sometimes say insightful things that are better left unsaid. Her talk brings out feelings in several of the family members that were better left dormant.
All the coming and going and misreading and misleading lead to unforeseen changes, but in the end all is good. Lots of fun.
Smith, author of the wonderful I Capture the Castle and The Hundred and One Dalmatians, wrote this funny and quietly entertaining novel as well. I recently stumbled on it and had to give it a try. I was not disappointed in this oh so British novel.
The Two Claire families are very close because two brothers are married to two sisters. They decide to move from London to the country for a change of scenery for all, and to help May keep George's philandering out of sight so she can pretend it doesn't happen. The wealthier couple - George and May - live in the big house and the other couple, both younger siblings - June and Robert - live in the smaller but also lovely cottage. Both homes sit on a large piece of property that also includes a crumbling manor house in which live old man Strange and his very beautiful granddaughter Sarah Strange.
Everyone in the Claire family seems incredibly happy in this beautiful new setting. The family includes the father of the men - Baggy, who is now living in the big house, and the Women's lovely mother Fran, who is visiting for several weeks. Each couple has 2 children and both sets of kids are exactly the same age but of the opposite sex - - Hugh and Corrine 20, and Prue and Dickon 15. The parents fear the children will marry and have deformed babies (I kid you not about the fear or the names). Everyone spends much of their time trying to guess what the others are feeling and thinking, while trying not to make assumptions in case they result in misunderstanding. This results in equivocating and guessing and in very little discussion about feelings or what is really going on. However, everyone is very polite, very deferential and very loving until crazy and narcissistic aunt Mildred comes for a stay. Crazy aunt Mildred runs around in bizarre outfits, fantasies about her life and the live of those around her, and says mean or insensitive things that hurt others. What she also does is sometimes say insightful things that are better left unsaid. Her talk brings out feelings in several of the family members that were better left dormant.
All the coming and going and misreading and misleading lead to unforeseen changes, but in the end all is good. Lots of fun.
jessreadsthings's review
emotional
funny
lighthearted
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
han_cat's review
3.0
A 2 star plot/characterisation wise that I'm rounding up to a 3 based on writing. Loved the time stood still, one spring feel to it - though what decade is it set in?! Beautiful sense of place, fun set of characters (very different to anyone you'd normally find). But nobody acted in a way that made any sense so I found it impossible to engage with the story.
Would make a good TV adaptation though!
Would make a good TV adaptation though!
balancinghistorybooks's review
3.0
I have enjoyed everything which I have read of Dodie Smith's to date, and was incredibly pleased when I spotted a copy of her novel, A Tale of Two Families, on the shelf of a local charity shop for just £2. This is a book which I have struggled to get my hands on for an age, and I began to read it almost immediately.
A Tale of Two Families, which was first published in 1970, seems relatively under the radar. However, the praise which it has received since its 2015 reissue by Hesperus Press has been glowing. J.K. Rowling comments that the novel 'has one of the most charismatic narrators I've ever met', for instance, and Entertainment Weekly writes: 'Dreamy and funny... an odd, shimmering timelessness clings to its pages.'
Our protagonists are many; really, the entire Clare family. May suspects her husband, George, of conducting an affair in London, and 'decides it is high time the family moved... [to] the country' - specifically to a large property called the Dower House in Surrey. Her sister, June, moves with them, along with her husband, Robert - who is incidentally George's brother - and they occupy a cottage on the grounds of the chosen property. 'What could possibly go wrong?' asks Dodie Smith. Well, in answer... rather a lot. The novel is consequently described in its blurb as 'a classic tale of complicated family ties, friendship and forbidden love in the beautiful English countryside.'
Smith follows each of the characters in turn throughout the novel. As well as the two married couples and their relatively grown-up children - siblings Corinna and Dickon, and Hugh and Prudence - we are also introduced to Baggy, George and Robert's retired father, and a rather formidable great aunt. Despite also being related, Corinna and Hugh are fully expecting to marry one another.
It is clear that there are quite a few differences between both distinct family groups. May and George are incredibly well off; June and Robert not so much so. Of Corinna and Hugh, for example, Smith clarifies the following: 'It was one of those occasions when she [Corinna] was reminded of how much more luxurious her upbringing had been than his had. As children they had called their respective families the Clares and the Poor Clares - but had had the tact to keep this from their parents.'
I was surprised that there is so little description included of the house, placed within its own lilac grove, since it is the location in which almost the entire novel is set. The descriptive writing which Smith has crafted, however, which is often part of reminiscences, is nice enough: 'Whenever June looked back on their early days in the country she remembered sunshine, vividly green grass, budding trees, wonderful meals and much laughter - even when things went wrong, they went wrong amusingly. All this, in retrospect, was jumbled together in a vague blur of happiness; she found she could not recall very many actual days, they merged into one another.'
I love familial sagas as a genre, and largely appreciated this tale of a rather unconventional family beneath a very conventional facade. As one might expect, A Tale of Two Families is filled with a wealth of domestic details, and the quite complex relationships which so often exist within the family. There is not a great deal which occurs in terms of plot; rather, Smith is interested in her characters, both individually and with regard to the wider group structure.
I read elsewhere that this novel is set during the late 1960s; however, there is very little to ground it within this time period, and it feels quite old-fashioned overall. Some of the conversations between characters reveal little, and serve merely to saturate the text; they do feel a little unnecessary on the whole.
Whilst A Tale of Two Families is certainly readable, at no point did I feel as pulled in and absorbed as I have done with all of Smith's other books. It is a nice, gentle read, but it is not quite as transporting as I expected. I found some of the characters more interesting, and ultimately more believable, than I did others; the younger characters were largely quite forgettable, and used rather clunky language at times. Whilst I would never discourage anyone from picking up this book, I feel that novels like The New Moon with the Old, and Smith's most well known classic, I Capture the Castle, are far better executed, and more memorable.
A Tale of Two Families, which was first published in 1970, seems relatively under the radar. However, the praise which it has received since its 2015 reissue by Hesperus Press has been glowing. J.K. Rowling comments that the novel 'has one of the most charismatic narrators I've ever met', for instance, and Entertainment Weekly writes: 'Dreamy and funny... an odd, shimmering timelessness clings to its pages.'
Our protagonists are many; really, the entire Clare family. May suspects her husband, George, of conducting an affair in London, and 'decides it is high time the family moved... [to] the country' - specifically to a large property called the Dower House in Surrey. Her sister, June, moves with them, along with her husband, Robert - who is incidentally George's brother - and they occupy a cottage on the grounds of the chosen property. 'What could possibly go wrong?' asks Dodie Smith. Well, in answer... rather a lot. The novel is consequently described in its blurb as 'a classic tale of complicated family ties, friendship and forbidden love in the beautiful English countryside.'
Smith follows each of the characters in turn throughout the novel. As well as the two married couples and their relatively grown-up children - siblings Corinna and Dickon, and Hugh and Prudence - we are also introduced to Baggy, George and Robert's retired father, and a rather formidable great aunt. Despite also being related, Corinna and Hugh are fully expecting to marry one another.
It is clear that there are quite a few differences between both distinct family groups. May and George are incredibly well off; June and Robert not so much so. Of Corinna and Hugh, for example, Smith clarifies the following: 'It was one of those occasions when she [Corinna] was reminded of how much more luxurious her upbringing had been than his had. As children they had called their respective families the Clares and the Poor Clares - but had had the tact to keep this from their parents.'
I was surprised that there is so little description included of the house, placed within its own lilac grove, since it is the location in which almost the entire novel is set. The descriptive writing which Smith has crafted, however, which is often part of reminiscences, is nice enough: 'Whenever June looked back on their early days in the country she remembered sunshine, vividly green grass, budding trees, wonderful meals and much laughter - even when things went wrong, they went wrong amusingly. All this, in retrospect, was jumbled together in a vague blur of happiness; she found she could not recall very many actual days, they merged into one another.'
I love familial sagas as a genre, and largely appreciated this tale of a rather unconventional family beneath a very conventional facade. As one might expect, A Tale of Two Families is filled with a wealth of domestic details, and the quite complex relationships which so often exist within the family. There is not a great deal which occurs in terms of plot; rather, Smith is interested in her characters, both individually and with regard to the wider group structure.
I read elsewhere that this novel is set during the late 1960s; however, there is very little to ground it within this time period, and it feels quite old-fashioned overall. Some of the conversations between characters reveal little, and serve merely to saturate the text; they do feel a little unnecessary on the whole.
Whilst A Tale of Two Families is certainly readable, at no point did I feel as pulled in and absorbed as I have done with all of Smith's other books. It is a nice, gentle read, but it is not quite as transporting as I expected. I found some of the characters more interesting, and ultimately more believable, than I did others; the younger characters were largely quite forgettable, and used rather clunky language at times. Whilst I would never discourage anyone from picking up this book, I feel that novels like The New Moon with the Old, and Smith's most well known classic, I Capture the Castle, are far better executed, and more memorable.
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