The Beginning of Spring
 Cover to first edition hardback | |
| Author | Penelope Fitzgerald |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Published | 1988 (Collins) |
| Media type | Print (Hardback) |
The Beginning of Spring is a novel by British author Penelope Fitzgerald. Set in Moscow in 1913, it tells the story of a Moscow-born son of a British emigre manufacturer whose Britain-born wife has suddenly abandoned him and their three children.
Background
Fitzgerald had a strong interest in Russian literature, and starting in the 1960s took courses in Russian language. She toured Moscow and environs in 1975, which included a visit to Tolstoy's house and a dacha in a birch forest.[1]
In the early 1970s, as part of her research on Edward Burne-Jones, Fitzgerald became friends with a Swiss art curator, Mary Chamot, who had been brought up in pre-Revolution Russia. Chamot's family had had a greenhouse business in Moscow since the mid-1800s, and they had stayed on for a few years after the Revolution. The original title of the novel was The Greenhouse.[2]
Character summary
- Frank Albertovich Reid
- Russian-born of English parents, educated in England, runs a Moscow printing shop he inherited from his father. He is conflicted about returning to England.
- Elena Karlovna "Nellie" Reid
- Frank's English-born wife, she has abandoned Frank and their three children without leaving a forwarding address, but presumably back in England.
- Dolly, Ben, Annushka
- Their three children.
- Charlie Cooper
- Nellie's brother, a widower.
- Selwyn Osipych Crane
- English-born assistant to Frank. Acolyte of Tolstoy and his ascetic philosophy. Poet, author of Birch Tree Thoughts.
- Toma
- Servant at the Reid house.
- Vladimir "Volodya Vasilych" Semyonovich Gregoriev
- A student who breaks into Reid's print shop. State security uses him as a pawn to put pressure on Reid.
- Lisa Ivanovna
- Peasant girl hired to watch over the children in Nellie's absence.
- Egor, Matryona
- Couple who were negligent caretakers of the dacha in the forest.
- Arkady Kuriatin
- Muscovite businessman, filled with wild peasant gusto.
- Matryona Osipovna Kuriatin
- Arkady's wife.[Note 1]
- Muriel Kinsman
- An English governess in Russia.
- Cecil/Edwin Graham[Note 2]
- Chaplain of Moscow's English Church.
- Mrs. Graham
- The chaplain's wife, she knows all that goes on in the British expatriate community.
Reception
"Its greatest virtue is perhaps the most old-fashioned of all. It is a lovely novel."
BBC Radio 4 Extra broadcast a radio adaptation in 2015.[4]
Critical review
The novel has a chapter of its own in Peter Wolfe Understanding Penelope Fitzgerald[5] and Hermione Lee Penelope Fitzgerald: A Life.[6]
Notes
- ↑ Wolfe 2004, p. 244 speculates she is Selwyn's sister, since "Osip" (that is, "Joseph") is uncommon.
- ↑ He is named Cecil Graham in Chapter 2, and Edwin Graham in Chapter 9.
References
Further reading
- Wolfe, Peter (2004). "Degrees of Exile". Understanding Penelope Fitzgerald. University of South Carolina Press.
- Lee, Hermione (2014). "The Beginning of Spring". Penelope Fitzgerald: A Life. Alfred A. Knopf.