Testament of Friendship – Vera Brittain

Testament of Friendship sits between Vera Brittain’s other two Testaments – of Youth, and of Experience – and was read to complete the trilogy as part of my ‘book-et list’.

This volume differs from the other two by charting not her own life but that of her dear friend Winifred Holtby, who died prematurely in 1935 aged thirty-seven. Holtby is best known now as the author of South Riding, a novel completed the year she died, which paints a vivid picture of the people and landscape of the part of Yorkshire she came from and knew well.

But, as the biography makes clear, there was much more to her than that. She went up to Oxford shortly after the First World War and there met the like-minded Vera Brittain. Their experiences of the war, and the losses sustained, fuelled their passion for peace and reconciliation. Social justice was another driver and, now based in London, they found voice for their causes in their journalism, politics, and public speaking.

Following a visit to South Africa, Winifred Holtby found an additional cause to champion, becoming a life-long campaigner against segregation and subjugation of the native races.

Brittain’s admiration for Holtby shines through. Her only criticism of her friend is her willingness to be put upon, to help others, to lend support to causes, to accept responsibilities, that all conspired to limit her creative writing. She was also bedevilled with an unrequited love for a man she could not get over.

The contemporaneous account of the lives, struggles, and successes of aspiring female writers in the 1920s and 1930s is interesting, as are the insights into early feminism and the beginnings of the anti-apartheid movement. Underlying it all is the rarely told account of feminine friendship between equals, both trying to juggle a professional career with family responsibilities (children in Brittain’s case and for Holtby aging relatives back in Yorkshire).

Brittain tells it articulately with tenderness and such objectivity as possible given the closeness of their friendship.

They Were Found Wanting – Miklos Banffy

This is Banffy’s continuing tale of Transylvanian folk – not the vampires, nor the little furry toy animals, but the aristocratic class of Hungary circa 1900. It picks up a year or so after volume one (They Were Counted, reviewed October 2015) and again concentrates on the lives and loves of the Counts Balint Abady and Laszlo Gyeroffy. More the former than the latter.

Balint is now a member of the Hungarian Parliament. Unaffiliated to any party, he looks on with cool detachment at the machinations of Austro-Hungarian politics. These get a good airing and may have had relevance and satirical impact in its own time and place, but in the here and now are obscure and just have to be ploughed through.

When not politically engaged, Balint remains obsessed with Adrienne Miloth, now married to the half-crazed Pal Uzdy. She reciprocates Balint’s passion, and together they plot, meet, make love, and plan to one day marry. Balint’s mother, the Countess Roza, disapproves, and tension builds between mother and son.

Meanwhile, Laszlo Gyeroffy continues his decline, selling off what remains of the family fortune to finance his drinking and gambling. His friend Balint, his wider family, and the wealthy lady farmer, Sara Bogdan Lazar, all try to save him from himself.

The plot inches forward giving plenty of time to appreciate the lovingly described Transylvanian landscape, and the stately homes set therein. There is a fin de siècle feel to the lifestyle of the aristocracy as the foreshadow of the First World War begins to impinge.

However, nothing much happens of any note. Perchance it all kicks off in volume three, although I won’t be picking that up any time soon.

You Are Here – David Nicholls

Cleo Fraser knows what people need, particularly those friends whose lives fall short of her own standards of happiness. Like Michael, her colleague at a north country school who teaches geography and who, since splitting up from his wife, has retreated into a solitary life. And like Marnie, a friend from her youth, several years divorced, who as a home-working self-employed proofreader in London, also spends too much time alone.

Cleo decides to take them out of their humdrum existence for a few days hiking on the Coast to Coast path. She also invites fellow northerner Tessa, who she thinks may click with Michael, and Londoner Conrad, who she hopes may take an interest in Marnie.

They gather in St Bees, already a couple down as Cleo’s husband has baled, and Tessa is a no-show. They set off regardless. Cleo, energetic and mothering; Michael, grizzled and experienced walker who intends to carry on solo when the others depart; Marnie; a novice newly kitted out and resigned to her two-day ordeal; and Conrad, ill-prepared for the walk but ready to hit on Marnie.

How far will Conrad last? Will Michael go on to the bitter end? Will Marnie find any conversational common ground between Conrad’s metropolitan chatlines and Michael’s field trip nuggets?

Few authors do fluent internal monologues and socially awkward interactions as well as David Nicholls. The walk gives an unusual but authentic context within which the walkers get to know each other and their back stories. There are comic moments, tragi-comedic misunderstandings, and an endearing plot line that does not quite end as expected.

Great fun but more besides – depth of character, empathy, and scenery!