August Folly

A great example of her enduring stories. Loveable and a cheerful read. Got me through whooping cough!

It was through this delightful book that I discovered Angela Thirkell. Since then, I have gone through several Barsetshire periods, during which I read nothing else. Thirkell's Barsetshire books are addictive both because of their delightful humor and because the reader meets the same characters again and again. Much as I enjoy Thirkell's work, however, few of her other novels measure up to the standard set by August Folly. (The Brandons is my other favorite, and Wild Strawberries and Before Lunch come close.) I have found that August Folly is excellent for reading aloud as well, with no overly long passages to obscure the wit and light-hearted plot.

August Folly, one of Angela Thirkell's early titles in her Barsetshire series, is an engaging and affectionately satiric look at English "County" life in the 1930's. Thirkell's strength lies in her acutely observed characters, and amusing plotting. The fictitious locale of the novel is taken from the series of novels by Anthony Trollope known as the Barsetshire novels or chronicles, starting with The Warden and Barchester Towers, two classics of English literature of the 19th century. Although Thirkell's writing and depth of characterization don't compare with Trollope's, her novels are witty and amusing in their own right, a sort of minor 20th century Jane Austen. This is the countryside of P.G. Wodehouse and of Agatha Christie from a different perspective. One of the great pleasures of reading Thirkell's novels, however, lies not just in the work at hand, but in encountering characters one met in prior novels and following their changing lives, in seeing a character with whom one became acquainted in a novel from a different perspective, and in seeing the characters of her novels face the real challenges of life in England as it went through World War II, and in the years following. To some degree, the Thirkell novels about Barsetshire life in the 20th century are addictive, and one is always on the look out for further titles in the series, which are currently being published in the U.S. by a small New England press, Moyer Bell. I highly recommend this novel, and the entire series.