Winter Journey

Rating:
Summary: "You have the illusion that it matters."
Review: "Winter Journey" by Isabel Colegate is the story of a brother and sister who are both in late middle-age. Alfred, a photographer, leads a solitary--one might think lonely life--at the old family home in the country. His sister. Edith, in complete contrast, has had a very full life--two marriages (and divorces), children, and a successful political career. Edith and Alfred, are in many ways, complete opposites. They share an odd sort of relationship. Edith periodically visits Alfred, but they avoid personal discussions, and so when the novel begins Edith and Alfred have an amicable relationship, but they have grown apart over the years, and one would hardly describe their relationship as close.

Edith is the sort of person who is ready to create the next phase in her life, and Alfred, of course, has always contented himself with letting life just happen. Their lives collide when Edith hatches a hare-brained scheme which requires Alfred's consent. Wounds that were created decades before are opened-- regrets erupt, and a rather uncomfortable state of affairs exists.

This is my third Colegate novel, and it won't be my last. Colegate captured the uniqueness of the brother-sister relationship perfectly well with her ordered prose. This is a quiet, gentle novel which moves rather slowly to its poignant ending. Edith and Albert--the main characters in the novel--are ordinary, believable siblings who share a past, and parents but remain two unique individuals who often do not understand each other. I think the brother/sister relationship is perhaps one of the most difficult to understand--and hence extremely difficult to portray in any sort of sensible fashion within the confines of a novel. I wasn't wild about the novel, and no doubt this shows with my lack of enthusiasm. The main fault I had with the novel was that none of the characters really grabbed my interest, or my imagination, but it was enjoyable, nonetheless--displacedhuman

Rating:
Summary: So very British, it seems
Review: Alfred, 60, lives quietly in the English countryside. His sister Edith, 62, comes from London to visit him and to actively take charge of Alfred's life, of his neighbors and his property. The story circles around past husbands, wives and lovers, each shown in sharply etched profile. How do they interact with each other? Fairly well on the surface, being ever so polite and forgiving to each other. The fight goes on underground.

The author does a marvellous job of language and description. The landscape is absolutely still, frozen in winter. The people glide along effortless. But then they step on a landmine and quickly their stories blow up in their faces - just to remind us that there are deep secrets in dark corners.

Rating:
Summary: Less really is more!
Review: Anyone who has ever questioned whether less is more in terms of writing excellence will find the question answered completely in this impeccable, precise novel. With a care for the exact word which one usually finds only in short stories, Colegate's Winter Journey tells of a brother and sister in the winter of their lives, rejoining each other at the family farm in rural England, and finding that the memories which surface lead each on a personal journey toward new understandings. Every word counts here, and as the lives of Edith and Alfred unfold and their relationships with past lovers, acquaintances, and each other become clear, a picture of their completely different lifestyles and attitudes emerges.

This is not an action novel, in terms of plot. Most of the excitement here is generated by the unfolding of events from the past, the revelations of which Colegate delays through carefully dropped "hints" and prolongs, tantalizingly, throughout the novel. A couple of subplots involving present efforts to change the farm and affect its future, provide a context for these revelations and an impetus for the interior journeys of Edith and Alfred. Those who think that great writing needs long, lush, descriptive passages, complicated syntax, and convoluted dialogue will find Colegate a refreshing change. Her scenes and images are of such startling clarity and simplicity that she creates whole worlds in just two hundred pages here. With her jewel-like precision, she speaks directly to the heart and makes Edith and Alfred live.