First volume of five, the Cazalet Chronicles. Enjoying it very much so far. Excellent control of shifiting points of view of all members of the Cazalet clan - and the hired help. Little daunted by the fact that there are four more, but only halfway through.
Finished this, 8/4/2026 - really like it, looking forward to the second volume. WWII appeasement has just been sought by Chamberlain at end of volume 1, Cazalet family mostly relieved. Vol 2 starts with appeasement not working. Howard's touch is really very deft - no character left behind.
pp.26-27: ... and at weekends she [Miss Millicent, 73-year old governess] looked at pictures. Looked! She stared, stayed, revisited a picture until it was absorbed into those secret parts of her bulky being that made memory, which digested into spiritual nourishment. Truth - the beauty of it, the way that it could sometimes transcend the ordinary appearance of things - moved and excited her; inside, she was a paradise of appreciation.
p. 42 - He [Edward] didn't read at all, as a matter of fact, but luckily she didn't ask him, and so it became one more little grain in the molehill of her ignorance about him. The longer they knew each, the more things there were like that.
p. 156 - He thought, but did not say these things; his deepest adoration of her could not be shared; somewhere he knew that her image and herself were not the same, and he could only cling to the image through secrecy.
p. 258-9 - As he put his arms around her and drew her into bed, he discovered, with a sad but grateful amazement, that loving her did not depend - as he had been afraid it did - upon his admiration. Later, lying awake while she slept, I married her, he thought, and she has always given me all of herself. It was I who invented some other part of her that she would not give. But I was wrong: there was nothing to withhold. The discovery was painful and astonishing: then it occurred to him that if he loved her enough, she might change. He was not yet able or willing to accept that this was unlikely, or even impossible; he clung to the more welcome idea that though a person might be transformed by love they could not be transformed without it.
p. 311 - All I want is for him to love me, she thought. I don't care about anything else. She was not aware that the secret lies are the ones that endure.
p.323 - She [Evie] was perfectly determined in this, as in her emotional life, never to learn from experience. She is a monster, thought Sid, but she thought it protectively. Since Evie's birth, when Sid was four, she had been conditioned to feeling that Evie was up against circumstances rather than her own nature - she had always been subject to ailments, and an early and bad attack of measles, acute appendicitis and peritonitis had enfeebled her frame and strengthened her powers of manipulation to the point where she could be certain of special consideration for whatever she did or didn't do and resulting circumstances kept her steadfast in her discontent.
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