R. C. Sherriff (1896–1975)

Easily one of my favourite books from the get to, this is a story of individual and collective reactions to a mass disaster. It is also one of the funniest books that I've ever read. It is science fiction (of the type heavily based in reality), it is socio-political commentary, and it is small English village life. I love everything about the book and the story: how I got the book, where I read the book, the cover, the backgrounding of the imminent threat to the more pressing issues of everyday life and comfort, to the presaged resolution. Impossible for me to rate this experience higher.… (altro)

Not as captivating as A Fortnight in September, but in the same category, and from a slightly different angle. While Fortnight was a charming evocation of the power of simple, everyday pleasures, Greengates takes a sly look at the power of commonplace irritations, annoyances, and anxieties - and things.

Tom Baldwin, after forty years as a mid-level clerk in a London insurance company, is retiring. There is a farewell ritual to be observed: a gathering of staff, a formal speech of thanks and good wishes, and the bestowal of a communally-funded, handsome new clock. With his parcel stowed beneath his hat on the commuter train luggage rack, Baldwin falls to musing about the things he'll do now that he is retired, when his eye catches a paragraph in the lower corner of the newspaper: TRAGEDY OF RETIREMENT. A man has hanged himself in his garage, depressed and feeling useless. In a spell of panic, Baldwin urgently conjures up the gardening he'll do, the reading he'll get to, the historical explorations he'll set out on. Because he won't end up like that, no, sir! Sherriff is so good at people's fluctuations of pride, anxiety, depression, determination, ego, hope, and weakness, all during one commuter ride home to his rather dowdy suburban semi-detached where his gentle wife Edith awaits. She is nothing if not supportive, loving, and admiring, but she too is anxious about this new phase of their lives, and wondering how best to sustain it.

Sherriff deploys a gift for the personalities of objects. In the office, a telephone rings "like a spoiled child, annoyed at being left alone," and "someone hurries to soothe it." The introduction of the "little quick-ticking newcomer" clock ("so neat and simple," says Edith) causes the incumbent pendulum clock on the mantel to "[stare] in mild curiosity... [reassure] itself and [continue] its placid beat without further interest." The new clock is placed in the bedroom, where - in the wee hours - its rapid cheap ticking causes it to be bundled into the closet wrapped in a towel.

And yes, indeed, within a very short time, they are driving each other crazy. Baldwin's plans crumble as he falls asleep over his pretentious historical tomes - in Edith's preferred chair. The garden is dried up, slovenly, and unresponsive and he doesn't really know what he's doing anyway. They bicker. They even shout at each other - and again, Sherriff is deft at making us nod in recognition at the details of the irritations and suppressions of such intimate little spats. In a desperate attempt to bring back some peace to their marriage, Edith suggests they travel out to a village where they used to enjoy a certain forested walk in the hills. Restless and grumpy, Baldwin agrees, and they start out having a nice time - until they emerge into a favorite valley view to find... a subdivision! An atrocity! How terrible! But a rather fetching young man says hello, inveigles them into having a look at a model home.. and hooks them.

There follow the highs and lows, the worries and thrills, the despair and recovery of deciding to sell up and move, into an entirely new place, a new home. The Baldwins are the perfect mark: trusting, naive, and the reader swallows hard and hopes that the salesman's oh-so-obvious spiel won't end in disaster and swindle. The prices slyly inflate, construction takes much longer than they thought, the pressure of "oh, these are selling so fast" works its trickery, the "I'm only doing this for you because you are so obviously the right kind of people" seals the deal. It can be hard to tell sometimes where Sherriff comes down on this last issue of caste: ultimately it works on the Baldwins because they are demonstrably not "the right sort," but while they don't realize it, they desperately want to be thought so. They cope, they second-guess, their hopes soar again. But note: one of the first decisions they make in arranging their new home is that they now can each have their own bedrooms.

Social drama ensues: who are the neighbors? Who's going to be in charge of a pretentious proposed social club? Tom Baldwin finds his feet, gains support, and wins the day by ensuring that the club will be privately managed so residents are able to select membership themselves, according to their own standards of suitability and not just open to anyone... a club for which membership is "jealously guarded and not something merely thrown in by a builder with a plot of land!" Sherriff seems to feel this is heroic and admirable... but I'm not totally sure about his opinion. There is an obvious snobbery readily visible in the depiction of the former rubber plantation manager as a vulgarian... who boasts about needing to "hang a few" [racist expletive] workers from time to time... which is appalling. Yet Baldwin (admittedly drunk) has a certain admiration for someone capable of such feats - does Sherriff share his ambivalence? He (and Baldwin) seem more offended by the man's tasteless clothes, heavy drinking, and smarmy manner than they are by his racist brutality, but Tom clearly has his own flaws of judgment.

You may not even like Tom and Edith Baldwin. They may be silly, superficial, slightly ridiculous people. But they are very human indeed, trudging through daily fusses and tribulations, entertaining foolish ideas, failing themselves and each other, and perhaps they only succeed in trivial, selfish endeavors. But they mean well, and as human beings go, there are far worse.… (altro)