The Go-Between, L.P. Hartley - Book Review

[@joesix-pack4022]

You didn't read the novel very attentively! The Maudsley family isn't related to Viscount Trimingham, they are not aristocrats, they are a wealthy, upper middleclass family who rent the Viscount's stately home. Leo is in the cricket team as 12th man, not 11th man! BTW, it's pronounced VY-count, not VIS-count!

[@donnyetta]

Thank you very much. I checked this one out because L P Hartley used to live in Peterborough where I was born. He was born in Whittlesey, Peterborough then whilst very young, the family moved to Woodston, Peterborough. They lived in "Fletton Towers" which was a gothic castle, really. I found on the internet that he believed one wing of his home was haunted. I recently walked up to it with a copy of one of his books and a letter explaining who he was. I think his home was sold last year for 2.5 million. Queens Walk.

[@grantlovesbooks]

Thanks for this amazing insight, I really enjoyed reading this.

[@tracyjohn826]

Thank you. I have loved this movie/book from the time I saw the movie in the 1970s… your review will encourage people to discover ……

[@grantlovesbooks]

Hello Tracy John, thanks for the comment. That is the goal with my rough efforts on this channel, to try to encourage people to read some of the great books that don't get as much attention as they should.

[@BoudicaJ]

One of my utterly fave books, ever. It’s perfect. Am very emosh about it.

[@grantlovesbooks]

It is a great book. Every time it catches my eye from the shelf I think, 'I have to read that one again. I'll bet it's even a lot better the second time.'

[@BoudicaJ]

@@grantlovesbooks I've read it ten or more times, it never disappoints xxx

[@grantlovesbooks]

Wow! My record for any novel is five times, and that is 'As I Lay Dying.' When I move apartments I will keep this book with me to read again in the future! Give it another chance and try to appreciate it a little more. I think the first time reading a novel one can only get so much. It is the subsequent reading that really begin to expose the inner layers.

[@BoudicaJ]

Not related to Viscount Triminghan, he’s engaged to Marian. They aren’t aristocrats! They rent it from Trimingham.

[@debpalm8667]

Hi!

[@grantlovesbooks]

Hi Deb!

[@nickellingham1764]

I remembered this book from school recently and listened to it unabridged on Audiable. I heard "The past is a foreign country......." refered to on the radio which instantly reminded me of this book and decided I needed to read it again properly. The phrase was not said in conjunction to this book at all. I was 12 or 13 when we read it at school and I never apriciated it back then. The deadly nightshade plant and the thermometer were the only things I could remember about it. After reading it again very recently aged 40 I realised I knew it better than I thought I did. The Cricket match chapter is excellent and very symbolic. The book is outstanding. The 1970s film is quite good too. I don't keep a diary but wish I did from my youth. Memories will slowly disappear and fade with age. I suppose people who use Facebook have a diary of sorts they can look back to in years to come but it would rarely contain their true thoughts and feelings!! I'm severely dyslexic and have a terrible short term memory but quite a good long term one. An object or a place can often trigger some very distant but vivid memories. I don't really keep photographs or anything physically sentimental to remind me of times gone by. When im 60 like Leo I'm sure I will wish I did. Lol.

[@grantlovesbooks]

Hello Nick! For someone with sever dyslexia you did an amazing job of writing a very long comment! Keeping a diary is (to use a cliche) a double-edged sword. I recently visited my parents and collected about 4 pounds of old diaries that I kept while living in Budapest. Most of it is quite trivial and immature. Or it is terribly personal, perhaps even hurtful. And then there are all the regretful bits, the hardest and truest bits, but some of the most difficult to read and re-live. I don't know what it's like to live with dyslexia, it must be quite hard, since my lifelong passion is reading. But I do know that generally people don't have as good a memory as they think they do. Keeping a diary, photo albums, really are important, and as you get older can be more and more surprising to revisit oneself. (Especially as the world gets crazier and crazier!)

[@nickellingham1764]

@@grantlovesbooks Dyslexia often means it takes me far more words to explain what I mean than it would most people so my writing tends to ramble on a lot!. i do have all my old school excercise books from aged 5 upwards which do remind me of very distant times and old photos my pearents took when me and my sister were young. Its amazing how a photo of something 35 years ago when I was 5 can make me recal very exact detailed memories of that day. I have taken so many didgital photos since smart phiones were introduced but never stored them anywhere so when the phone eventualy breaks (or is occasionaly lost) those photos all disapear with it. Its a case of me procrastinating and never actualy doing what I know I should and will regret in years to come.

[@donnyetta]

@@grantlovesbooks Maybe it is time to let go of the past if some of it is distressing you rather than de-stressing you as you read your diaries. it is true that our pasts have made us the person we are now, but, honestly, live in the now and appreciate what a fine fellow you have become, rather than beating yourself up for foolish things that we all do when we are learning 💖

[@grantlovesbooks]

@@donnyetta Yes, I suppose so. I think a lot of stress comes from being back in Canada and having a very difficult time coming to terms with my home country. I will be moving to Japan in a year, and I think that will be a better place for me to live a fuller life.

[@MrUnconvinced]

Why the ridiculous and irrelevant digression about Venice, Budapest and Prague? There’s so much more to say about the novel.

[@grantlovesbooks]

Thanks Andrew Hind, why don't you send me one of your books and I will be critical and dismissive of it? Maybe I will make a review of it. It will be a nice example of how people who are utterly boring can also be so deluded in thinking they have the talent to write interesting books.