Van has finished reading…Abigail by Magda Szabó (translated by Len Rix)

In Budapest in 1943, Gina’s cosseted and carefree existence is about to change forever. Her father, a General in the Hungarian army, having already sent her beloved governess back to France, sends Gina to a boarding school far away from the capital. Ensconced in a very strict religious institution, with any and every instinct towards individuality repressed Gina rebels. But with rebellion comes punishment, and not only from those in authority. Alienated from staff and pupils alike, she finds herself truly alone for the first time in her life. Alone except for Abigail, a statue in the grounds who pupils confide in through handwritten messages. Can Gina find a way to navigate this alien world she finds herself in? Can she see beyond her selfishness to understand those around her? And can she find out who is the mysterious figure behind the statue and the legend of Abigail?

 

There’s little doubt you’ll have come across coming-of-age stories set in boarding schools before, and possibly ones hinging around wartime but that’s no detriment to how enjoyable a read Abigail is. You get all the things you would expect – the pupil shenanigans, the adult-pupil power plays, the firm friends and sworn enemies – but into the bargain there’s the author’s immaculate plotting, the casually-discarded breadcrumbs that raise the reader’s eyebrow, and the expert timing that never once delivers a pay-off until a good few pages after you expected it to arrive. Where there’s mystery Magda Szabó keeps the possibilities alive so you’re never entirely sure you’re on the right track until the moment of truth.

One of the real joys of reading Magda Szabó’s Abigail is the balance of awareness. What the reader sees in the wider context, and what each of the characters know or believe or choose to believe in spite of everything is central to the whole thing ticking like a well-tuned clock. I don’t doubt you’ll find yourself willing Gina to listen more closely, to see more clearly, to understand better. But then how many of us were just like Gina in some way at that age, and with so much less at stake! Perhaps it’s this that touches us in the reading, the wish that we could’ve been, can still become the best of ourselves.

 

It’s no wonder Abigail is Magda Szabó’s most popular book in Hungary. It’s a novel that wears its wisdom lightly. A story that holds the attention, it is funny, and sweet, and very human. It is urgent, heartfelt and honest without once leaning toward sentimentality. It really is a joy to read.

 

Abigail is published by MacLehose Press on 14^th January 2020 ISBN:9780857058485

My thanks to Corrina at MacLehose for allowing me to review this fabulous book.

Van has finished reading… The Past by Tessa Hadley

Four siblings meet up in their grandparents’ old house for three long, hot summer weeks. But under the idyllic surface lie simmering tensions.

Roland has come with his new wife, and his sisters don’t like her. Fran has brought her children, who soon uncover an ugly secret in a ruined cottage in the woods. Alice has invited Kasim, an outsider, who makes plans to seduce Roland’s teenage daughter. And Harriet, the eldest, finds her quiet self-possession ripped apart when passion erupts unexpectedly.

Over the course of the holiday a familiar way of life falls apart forever.

 

Tessa Hadley’s The Past is a gloriously intricate novel, though the weight of that intricacy doesn’t impinge in the slightest. The writing is crisp and delicate, with a lilt to it that continually put me in mind of Jane Austen. The characters are finely tuned, each in their own way at the mercy of their disparate desires, shaped by the agony of attaining and the fear of losing. As they navigate the proximity imposed by their family holiday each life is like a miniature-scale landslide, so the most mundane decisions becomes freighted, the blandest of words barbed. So often, what’s not said echoes as much as words shouted aloud. Yet there’s comfort too in the knowledge they have of each other, in their shared history in the house they grew up in. Whether they choose to look or turn away, the past is always there.

Speaking of things not said, I particularly enjoyed the bittersweet image of closing paragraphs, or rather the thoughts it left to linger – how closeness is not the same as proximity, and how blood ties rarely find their strength in blood. Did they know? Would it have made a difference if they did? In both cases I’m inclined to think not.

 

The Past was published by Jonathan Cape in 2015

I read the Vintage paperback ISBN:9780099597469