The Stranger's Child

Summary (from the publisher): From the Man Booker Prize-winning author of The Line of Beauty: a magnificent, century-spanning saga about a love triangle that spawns a myth, and a family mystery, across generations.

In the summer of 1913, George Sawle brings his Cambridge schoolmate—a handsome, aristocratic young poet named Cecil Valance—to his family’s home outside London. George is enthralled by Cecil, and soon his sister, Daphne, is equally besotted by him. That weekend, Cecil writes a poem that, after he is killed in the Great War and his reputation burnished, will become a touchstone for a generation, a work recited by every schoolchild in England. Over time, a tragic love story is spun, even as other secrets lie buried—until, decades later, an ambitious biographer threatens to unearth them.

 

Review: This novel begins in 1913, when George Sawle bring his schoolmate (and lover) Cecil Valance home for the weekend. Soon, George's sister Daphne is also besotted with Cecil. After Cecil's death, a poem he wrote at the Sawle's home that weekend becomes famous. This novel is told in five sections, spanning the years between 1913 and 2008, and follow the story and legacy of Cecil after his death in World War I.

 

In many ways, this novel seemed to be about the unknowable quality of others - of the myriad and overlapping relationships that link a group of individuals and how one's impression and perspective is never necessarily the whole or real truth. This theme is most evident in the sections that deal with Paul Bryant, who is undertaking the writing of a biography of Cecil Valence, despite the apparent distaste of anyone who knew Cecil. The title seems to allude to this as well, although it's unclear who exactly it is referring to; perhaps the title refers to all individuals as being essentially separate and unknown.

 

Of course the irony is that despite the great national fuss over Cecil's poetry and the lifelong questioning and attention that those who knew him get because of their association with Cecil, for most of them, Cecil felt like a brief episode at best. Daphne bluntly says, "Really Cecil means nothing to me - I was potty about him for five minutes sixty years ago" (385). And George privately reflects similarly, "He himself felt sick of the poem, though still wearily pleased by his connection with it; bored and embarrassed by its popularity, therefore amused by its having a secret, and sadly reassured by the fact that it could never be told" (124). In this, George is also once again emphasizing the novel's insistence on the complexity of every interaction, the critical ability of differing perspectives to alter the story altogether.

 

I did enjoy the intentionally undefined way each subsequent section of the book begins. The reader must determine who the narrator is and how this perspective is linked to previous sections. For example, after seeing George, Cecil, and Daphne as teenagers, we quickly jump to the perspective of a young boy named Wilfrid. The reader slowly gleans who Wilfrid is and what has happened to Cecil; "and the man he had learned to call Uncle Cecil was a cold white statue in the chapel downstairs, because of a German sniper with a gun" (94). Additionally, I enjoyed seeing the progression of Daphne from multiple perspectives and in multiple guises - a young teenager, a frustrated wife, an eccentric grandmother, a very elderly, clever old lady.  

 

I kept noticing endless references to the "jelly-mould domes" in the ceiling of Corley, Cecil's family home (267). Over and over throughout the novel, this feature is repeatedly referenced; "A dispiriting odour, of false piety and dutiful suppression, seemed to rise from the table and hang like cabbage-smells in the jelly-mould domes of the ceiling" (115). Cecil tells Daphne that the domes are "perfectly extraordinary" eliciting her sigh and response of "I wish we had jelly-mould domes" (16). Later, they're referred to as "absolutely marvelous jelly-mould domes" (267). This repeated image seems to tie into the book's emphasis on class and social distinction; the jelly-mould domes of Corley are a visible reminder of the family's status and standing.

 

Although there's much to be said for this novel, I'm afraid I slogged through it. Although syntactically superb and filled with rich details to discuss and ponder, I did not enjoy reading it. Although of course it was the whole point, I found the separate sections disjointed - I wanted to keep reading about Daphne, George, and Cecil, not about the fumbling attempts of Paul Bryant to ingratiate himself with the family in order to write his book.

 

Stars: 3.5