The House at Tyneford

Summary (from the publisher): It's the spring of 1938 and no longer safe to be a Jew in Vienna. Nineteen-year-old Elise Landau is forced to leave her glittering life of parties and champagne to become a parlor maid in England. She arrives at Tyneford, the great house on the bay, where servants polish silver and serve drinks on the lawn. But war is coming, and the world is changing. When the master of Tyneford's young son, Kit, returns home, he and Elise strike up an unlikely friendship that will transform Tyneford—and Elise—forever.

 

Review: Elise Landau is the younger daughter of a novelist and a singer and has lived a relatively carefree life with her family in Vienna. However, with the onset of World War II, her parents know that it's not safe for their two daughters to remain in Vienna as known Jews. Elise, although accustomed to being served by the family housekeeper herself, advertises for a maid position in England as a route out of Austria. She is hired to work at the great house in Tyneford for the Rivers family. Tyneford is a vestige of a prior era; already its difficult to keep the house clean with a reduced staff and there's little money to keep the once great home up. The heir, Kit, is expected to marry a wealthy heiress to provide for the estate's future. Yet World War II and growing love between Elise and Kit irrevocably alter Tyneford's future.

 

I loved this story, which has rightly been compared to Downton Abbey. It beautifully captures a world in flux - both the social life of Tyneford, of a Europe at war, but also the radically altered life of Elise, who must deal with the loss of her family, country, and identity.

 

Elise is narrating this story from the perspective of age, retelling the story as an older woman. Early on, she contemplates time and how memory allows time to stand still. "I am still standing in the kitchen holding the letter, watching the others - and waiting - and knowing that everything must change" (12). The reliability of Elise's account must be questioned, based on what she herself reveals and her memory falters; "I have to remind myself that the pictures had vanished before that night, and then, with a blink, the walls are empty once again" (25). Occasionally, Elise will describe what happened, only to reveal that in fact, it happened an alternate way and she merely imagines what might have been. "It is the storyteller's prerogative to try to write, every now and then, the ending she might wish for. Even if it exists only on the white page" (144).

 

In addition, distance in time has given her a new perspective on her youthful self. For example, early in the novel, Elise is quite clearly jealous of her older sister Margot who she views as beautiful and talented, skinnier and more alluring. Yet looking back at the last photo taken of her family, Elise says, "I only realized when I looked at the picture how alike Margot and I were. Her hair is pale, and mine dark, but our eyes are the same, and except for a slight babyish roundness to my face, we are mirror sisters" (30).

 

Although I don't question the drastically altered social norms of life during the war, I had a hard time believing that Mr. Rivers would embrace his son's decision to marry a household maid. Before war breaks out, Elise's social status within the household changes, as she is recognized as Kit's future wife. I had a hard time believing this would have been so relatively effortlessly accepted by the family and staff. Furthermore, I never saw the love that Elise claims to feel for Kit. Even when he announces he will be joining the military, his father grows upset, but Elise says nothing in protest and watches him leave in silence. Although she continually seems to grieve for her family, I didn't see the same emotion for Kit. In fact, when he leaves for war, she again references her missing family rather than pain over his departure, saying, "I remembered Anna, Julian, and Hildegard waving good-bye on the station platform, all resolutely not crying" (203).

 

In many ways, Elise seems like a voyeur in this novel, watching the end of Tyneford and hearing from afar of the hostilities in her home of Vienna. Little happens to her at Tyneford, but rather to those she cares about. She witnesses the end of the period of England of large country estates. The great house is left, requisitioned by the army, but as Elise says, "I decided that it was better we left - a sharp good-bye - rather than watch the slow decay increase each year; the guttering fall off the west gable and not be replaced, the damp steal up from the cellar into the great hall. We could remember the house as she had been, luminous and proud" (332). This "sharp good-bye" in many ways is mirrored in the many endings Elise experiences throughout the book.

 

I found it interesting that this novel is based on the true story of the village of Tyneham on the Dorset coast that was requisitioned during WWII. "At the end of the war, Churchill reneged on his promise: the village was not returned, but instead requisitioned permanently" (358). Thus ended the life of a remote village that had been occupied for more than a thousand years.

 

Stars: 4