Due settimane in settembre

by R.C. Sherriff, Silvia Castoldi (Translator)

Ecco a voi la famiglia Stevens, intenta a prepararsi per la consueta vacanza annuale sulla costa inglese. I coniugi Stevens hanno visitato Bognor Regis per la prima volta durante la luna di miele e, da allora, questo viaggio è tradizione: ogni anno, accompagnati dai tre figli, alloggiano nella stessa pensione e seguono lo stesso programma accuratamente affinato. La pensione Vistamare è sempre più dimessa, ma che felicità prenotare una cabina in spiaggia un po’ più grande del solito e riscoprire dei luoghi tanto cari! Il signor Stevens torna riposato dalle passeggiate solitarie in cui riflette sulla propria vita, non priva di delusioni e rimpianti; la signora Stevens fa tesoro di un’ora trascorsa seduta in silenzio con il suo bicchiere di porto; la ventenne Mary assaggia il romanticismo per la prima volta; il giovane Dick evade dal malessere in cui è sprofondato con l’ingresso nel mondo del lavoro; il piccolo Ernie ha l’occasione di coltivare la sua passione: i treni e le stazioni. Ognuno, in famiglia, si gode questo breve idillio assaporando la vacanza momento per momento, consapevole che le cose potrebbero non essere le stesse, il prossimo anno.

Nella sua prima traduzione italiana, Due settimane in settembre è un vero e proprio toccasana: una lettura in grado di sollevare lo spirito, dalla quale non si può che uscire con il sorriso sulle labbra. Bestseller all’epoca della pubblicazione, oggi riscoperto ed elogiato a livello internazionale, è un romanzo straordinario che celebra i piccoli piaceri della vita ordinaria.

Genres: Fiction, Classics, Historical Fiction, British Literature, Summer, Audiobook, Novels

352 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 1, 1931

About the author

Robert Cedric Sherriff was an English writer best known for his play Journey's End which was based on his experiences as a Captain in World War I. He wrote several plays, novels, and screenplays, and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay) and two British Academy of Film and Television Arts.

Reviews

[Candi · Rating 5 out of 5]

This first chilly weekend of autumn has forced me to drag out the super soft blanket a dear friend gave me for my birthday last year. That fleecy throw wasn’t needed while reading The Fortnight in September earlier this month, yet the novel offered all the same snug comforts of that prized possession. I haven’t been to the beach in five years, but I feel I’ve been there for a short while through the sublime writing of R.C. Sherriff. With clear, uncomplicated prose, he vividly evokes the feelings one has while anticipating, preparing for, traveling towards, and arriving at one’s longed-for destination.

“The night before they left home for their holidays was always one of family celebration. When Dick and Mary had been children it was a night that rose almost to the height of Christmas Eve: a night voted sometimes as the best of all the holiday, although it was spent at home and the sea was still sixty miles away.”

Everything in this novel literally happens in one fortnight, exactly as the title promises. There are no showy devices, no clever tricks and no complicated jumps in time. Occasionally a character will quietly reflect on a happening in the past – the first meeting with a spouse, a time spent in a boy’s school, a former trip to the sea – but Sherriff does this with a skill that manages to keep the reader firmly planted in his story. The Stevenses are everyday people: a middle-aged, unassuming mother and father, their two young adult children, and a school-age son. I could easily understand them, if not often relate to them, in some fashion. We spend a little bit of private time with each one, understanding their hopes, worries, disappointments, dilemmas and revelations.

“… over all lay a spirit of joyful, unrestrained freedom. They were no servants – no masters: no clerks – no managers – just men and women whose common profession was Holidaymaker.”

Vacations can be tricky things with families. How can everyone agree on the best place to visit? Where to stay? How much to splurge on the little luxuries? Someone is bound to be let down by the choices made. This book doesn’t harp on those things in a depressing way, however. I enjoyed hearing each person’s secret thoughts. This book was written in 1931, so I’m certain Mrs. Stevens is a product of her time. She’s accustomed to toiling away in the home, making her children and husband as comfortable as possible, likely neglecting her own needs and passions. No one really considered asking her opinion of returning to Seaview in Bognor each year for two decades, and she never contemplated expressing her deep hesitations. She’s a trooper who does it all in the spirit of making her family happy. I’m grateful that I was a mother in the 2000s and never hesitated once to declare my objections if a vacation spot didn’t manage to entirely please me as well. I could never return year after tireless year to the same spot if I didn’t reap a bit of joy from it myself. I’m sure Mrs. Stevens would gasp at my bad manners!

“The sea had frightened Mrs. Stevens, and she had never conquered her fear. It frightened her most when it was dead calm. Something within her shuddered at the great smooth, slimy surface, stretching into a nothingness that made her giddy.”

Sherriff handles the passage of time with a great deal of perception and wisdom. The passing of the days while on the holiday, the speeding up of time as the two weeks progress, and also the changes in people and places as time advances. Seaview isn’t the same as it used to be, the children are growing, and Mr. and Mrs. Stevens, while aging themselves, feel all of this with the same acute awareness I’ve been forced to admit myself just recently. Yet, I’m hopeful of the future as is Mary Stevens. Things don’t have to come to a bitter end. Things change yet new adventures are within our grasp if we allow ourselves the opportunities.

“She had thought of life as something that just began, before you knew, and went quietly on, until you died: she had never known that it could end – and begin again so wonderfully.”

The reading of this charming novel proved even more enriching by sharing insights with my wonderfully thoughtful buddies, Jennifer (Review Here) and Violeta (Review Here).

[Emily May · Rating 4 out of 5]

“But he knew that time only moved evenly upon the hands of clocks: to men it can linger and almost stop dead, race on, leap chasms and linger again. He knew, with a little sadness, that it always made up its distance in the end. To-day it had travelled gropingly, like an engine in a fog, but now, with each passing hour of the holiday it would gather speed, and the days would flash by like little wayside stations. In a fortnight he would be sitting in this room on the last evening, thinking how the first night of the holiday seemed like yesterday—full of regrets at wasted time.…”

I'm not surprised this lovely but melancholy story is one of Persephone's most popular books. As promised by the editors, this is one of those quiet stories that seems to be about nothing much at all-- yet, underneath the mundane surface of the novel, there is a lot of feeling. When it ended, I felt the same bittersweet sadness one feels after enjoying a beautiful holiday.

The Fortnight in September captures a brief moment in time— a seaside holiday with the family. The intense planning to make it happen, secure the house, make sure the pets are fed and the tickets booked; financial constraints; the feeling it is flying by too fast; the sense that you are vacationing in another reality set apart from your “real life”.

It is the depiction of vacationing for the 1930s lower middle class / upper working class in Britain. In fact, class and wealth are themes throughout their stay in Bognor Regis. The Stevens count every penny, trimming costs in one corner so they might indulge in another, always quietly aware—at the periphery—of those who can afford more.

We move through the perspectives of the family. Mr Stevens, whose mind constantly works overtime planning and weighing and scrimping; Mrs Stevens, a much misunderstood mother who seems to bear the holiday for her family rather than enjoying it; Dick, a young man who works himself, who experiences a growing understanding of both his father and class limitations; Mary, who meets exciting new friends and has her first intoxicating flirtations; and Ernie, the youngest, who offers a child's perspective on the trip.

While the events of the novel are not much in themselves, I experienced anxiety, happiness, frustration, sadness, disappointment and envy right alongside the characters. I'm excited to check out Sheriff's other Persephone titles.

[Jennifer nyc · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novel is elegant. The sentences are beautiful in their precision, and often filled with wisdom. The atmosphere goes from a fresh filling of lungs, to a dusty, peeling interior in which a middle-class family has lived good days. The action is to forge onward and create these good days again, despite erosion, or a drifting away. It is a celebration of life, this novel, in all of its ordinariness.

Our dance with life is encapsulated here within the framework of an annual family vacation in the early 20th century at the English Seaside. There’s nothing like tradition to measure the passage of time, both reliable in its regularity and separate enough from the daily grind to compare the choices we’ve made with what lies ahead. There’s also the ritual itself in all of its ceremony, and how we improve our preparation and navigation of it each time. This story moves us into those moments when we teeter on that line between the desire for known comforts and for that of something new. Since it is the father, Mr. Stevens, who is central, it is in his middle-aged rhythm with its small shifts that we mostly experience our read. The journeys of the two eldest children come later, breaking the rhythm and sweeping us into more dramatic change. But even those are the ordinary dramas of first times.

There is both pain and joy in the things we all go through, some tests greater than others, some stakes low and others high. Sherriff captures the simplest parts of what we all have in common: the details may be different - the class, the color, the culture, the degree of privilege or poverty - but we all feel jealous, we all feel proud, we all have a first love and a first job, we all wonder how we can best use ourselves here on borrowed time.

At the end of the story, I was left wondering if we were seeing this family tradition for the last time, with lost luster fighting built loyalties fighting the desire to expand. And then I realized that it didn’t matter - it might be the last fortnight at Seaview for the Stevens, and it might not - for eventually, it will end. We can never really know what moment will be our last. Sherriff reminds us to make the best of our time.

At the end of the book, an author’s note providing insight into his writing process came as a surprise topping to this reading experience. It felt like the vacation in the novel was also a metaphor for the process of creating this story.

I read this book with two lovely, insightful women, Violeta and Candi.
Violeta’s review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Candi's review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Violeta · Rating 5 out of 5]

On this lovely September morning I’m sitting in the backyard of the beach house my family has been renting for the past two decades and I’m thinking what a perfect read this was for this particular time of the year, the end-of-summer blues just around the corner. Another bright season coming to an end, a difficult winter ahead, given the circumstances in Europe right now…

Mr Stevens, the most prominent figure in this novel, consoles himself at the end of the fortnight of his family’s holiday with counting the months until next year, and by pondering on the things to look forward to until then: Christmas, evenings in the garden while the weather is still warm, catching up a half hour of daylight after work in the spring. I find myself fending off the Melancolie in Settembre (old Italian song of Peppino Di Capri) in pretty much the same way, so it seems that self-defense mechanisms remain unchanged throughout time.

But I’m getting ahead of myself… So, this book: It was published in 1931. The setting is a beach town in the south of England. A family of five (middle aged parents, a son and daughter in early adulthood and a boy still in childhood) set out on their annual September fortnight by the sea. Meticulous preparations, the train trip, the excitement of the carefree days ahead, the joy of arrival, the holiday itself. They have their rest, they rejoice in the familiarity of places and rituals that have bound them together and have served as the props of their very own family history. Everything goes pretty much as planned, with a couple of small surprises to spice it all up a tad. On the last day they bid farewell to their landlady and they head back home. That’s it. Really!

It takes a lot of talent to pull off a narrative like this with no dramatic scenes, plot twists, bigger than life characters. R C Sherriff had it and he made something out of nothing. In the autobiographical piece that serves as an introduction he admits that he took up writing this while on holiday on a similar town without an eye to publication; more as a writing exercise in the observation of the ordinary. In the process he dissected even the most trivial sentiments and thoughts of each member of the family, some admittedly more than others. Apart from a bunch of last century’s favorite pastimes while on holiday, we find out about the father’s self reflections on his life course and modest achievements, the mother’s uneasiness while away from home and how well she hides it lest she spoils everybody’s fun. The oldest son’s disillusionment at the start of his professional career, the daughter’s enthrallment in her first fling with a charming man, and the younger son’s…well, there’s not much about him really, young boys’ psychology not being the author’s strong point, apparently. Although I didn’t singly identify with anyone I found myself nodding in recognition of common ground with everyone.

An old-world British novel, steeped in old-world British atmosphere. Since it was read in the week leading to Queen Elizabeth’s funeral, I’m tempted to make a connection between the two: I read in an article that “…her character reflected much of what Britons like to think as the best of themselves; modest, uncomplaining, thrifty, intelligent if not intellectual, sensible, feet-on-the ground, unfussy, a dry sense of humour with a great big laugh, slow to anger and always well-mannered.” These words, in turn, very much reflect the natures of these fictional characters. They are good people, decent and benevolent and they made this a soothing read, much needed these days. Maybe because we need to be reminded of basic human goodness every now and then in order to go on and face the upcoming winters.

The golden hours of life leave no sharp outlines to which the memory can cling: no spoken words remain – nor even little gestures and thoughts; only a deep gratitude that lingers on impervious to time.

P.S. This was a buddy read with Jennifer and Candi. Their heartfelt, thoughtful comments and the comfort of simultaneously reading this with them only enhanced the experience.

Here's Jennifer's review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

And here's Candi's: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Carolyn Marie · Rating 5 out of 5]

"No one cared who their fellows were: if they smiled, you smiled—if they spoke, you spoke of the things around you and not of the things that lay behind or ahead. It may have been a tax collector who helped up that child and gathered its seaweed back into its bucket: the father who thanked him may have been in the courts a week ago, because he could not pay. But who cares?—at the sea."

This story is following the five lives of the Stevens family as they go on their annual holiday to the seaside. The plot isn't grand, the writing is simple, the characters aren't exuberant...and I loved it!!!
The Fortnight In September is following real people leading ordinary lives. It has a somewhat mundane normality, which almost makes it feel like a non-fiction account. This quaintness and simplistic are what I loved about it!

I started this book at the beginning of my own family's annual holiday, and have now finished it on our last full day! (Traveling back home tomorrow)
I can't imagine reading this book any other way! I read about the characters excitement for the holiday ahead, as I was excited for my own. I finished it as the characters were saying goodbye to their seaside town, as I'm saying goodbye to my own!
This books was a type of obscure looking glass for me, and it was an absolute joy!

[Julie G · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is not a mysterious story, but it was written by a mysterious man. If you go poking about, even now, trying to figure out some of R.C. Sherriff's life story, you're not going to learn much more than he was a decorated soldier in WWI and he suffered terrible injuries at Ypres. His bio indicates that he was never married and he never had children.

So. . . he didn't go on to be a family man himself, but I suppose we can assume, as readers, that he was once part of a family.

He writes, in a 1968 autobiography: One day an idea for a novel came out of the blue. It happened on a seaside holiday at Bognor, when we used to go down and sit on the front and watch the crowds go by.

It appears he was once part of a “we,” and perhaps that was it, that was enough inspiration for him to go on to write what was, for me, one of the most intimate, accurate, captivating portraits of family life.

This is a good reminder, particularly for those of us who declare that women can't write men's stories and men can't write women's stories and Black writers can't write white stories and white writers can't write Black stories. . .

If a writer can write, then a lifelong bachelor can hand us the story of this one family, the Stevens family, on their two week vacation in Bognor, and he can make them one of the most memorable families in all of literature.

The author explains, in the short excerpt from his memoir, that he always encountered mental struggles when he thought of himself as writing for other people (me, too). He also explains the pitfalls of writing such a story:

If you got too simple you slipped into bathos, and the writing took on a sort of inverted pretentiousness. If you overdid the business of making your characters simple they got small and you began to patronise them. It took time to get the story on a level keel. I began by looking down on the people I was writing about: then I went too far in the other direction and found myself looking up at them. It wasn't until I'd really got to know them that I could walk with them easily, side by side.

Excellent advice, all around, for all writers.

Pretentiousness is a disaster, and most of us, as readers, can feel it immediately in a story. Mr. Sherriff made sure he wrote this for himself, and stayed true to his characters, yet he was still shocked when he sent it to a formidable publisher and he wrote back “This is delightful.”

It was published without any further editing! Published “as is.”

And, oh, wow, is it delightful. It is truly delightful.

(Special thanks to Jennifer in NY and Lisa in MD for my copy).

[Andy Marr · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another ripping novel from 1930s hero R C Sherriff. His books really are jolly good.

[Elyse Walters · Rating 5 out of 5]

Many thanks to Antoinette for first bringing this quiet book — a family story - to my attention.

Ernest and Flossie Stevens and their three children:
Mary 20, Dick 17, Ernie, the youngest, were traveling to the Bognor seaside—in England … for their annual two week vacation. Twenty years of returning to the same beach resort.
Ernest and Flossie spent their honeymoon there.

From packing preparations—worries of missing their train connection - ( but they never had in any prior years) - to boiling the beef for sandwiches— to finally arriving at their destination for summer beach fun of swimming sunbathing, sewing, sandcastle building for the youngest child — restless minds from the older teen/young adults — with Mr. and Mrs. Steven’s (working class folks) managing their own quiet anxieties (a little medicinal port)— for the greater good: the well-being of their immediate family.

I enjoyed this tender novel—getting to know the family —their ordinary days & ordinary lives.
It was slow brewing but lovely and unassuming.

I was reminded of our of family traditional -2 week December vacations.
For the first 22 years of my marriage—we never missed a year of going to the same destination—Calistoga..
Those winter-break vacations remain some of the best family memories [great quality time] for both our daughters and Paul and I.

‘A Fortnight in September’ is
….a little melancholy—
….a little nostalgic—
….sweet family-time love connecting.

4.5

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

A story about a family of five.. the Steven’s family, as they prepare to head to the coast of England for their annual holiday in September.
They have two sons and one daughter and two of the children are older, and have jobs now.. who knows how much longer this tradition will last.
They arrive in Bognor and stay at a seaside home that they are guests at every year.
It’s a delightful book, not any big momentous moments, but such a feeling of nostalgia for days gone by when I was young and my family prepared to go “up north” to spend a week at a cottage on the lake here in Michigan!

[Umut · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was literally a slice of life of a family going on holidays to seaside.
It was so cute & well written. Almost nothing happens in terms of plot. But, I felt I was invited to the ordinary life of a family, and it was very relaxing.
If you're a person who likes heavy plot driven books, maybe this isn't for you.
Otherwise, I really enjoyed it for what it is.

[Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 stars

"...Stevens and his children loved the sea in all its moods: they loved it when it lay quietly at its ebb, murmuring in its sleep—and when it awoke, and came rippling over the sands: at its full on a peaceful evening, lazily slapping at the shingle. But best of all they loved it as it was today—roaring wildly round the groins, booming and sighing in the cavernous places beneath the pier, crashing against the seawall and showering them with spray. Every one of its thousand calls had a different note—every sound was wild with freedom."

The Fortnight in September is a beautifully written gem of a novel. I finished it about one hour ago and am still awash in the feelings of the ending. Not that the ending was dramatic or anything unexpected. There is nothing dramatic or unexpected in the whole book. This story, on its face, is very simple. A lower-middle class family goes on their yearly 2 week vacation to the beach. At the beginning of the novel the family is in the rush and anxiety of closing up their house and doing their final packing for the trip. At the end of the novel they leave for home. That's it. That's the plot. How could such a book deserve 5 stars and a place on my favorites shelf? Because Sherriff was a master of writing about the exquisite details of everyday life. I was nodding my head (inside) while read recognizing the feelings of each member of the Stevens family. Excitement, anxiety, joy, sadness, jealousy, disappointment and surprise are a few of the feelings elicited by this quiet story. Then there is the somewhat old and dingy rooming house in which the family stayed. If you have ever stayed in such a place while on vacation this book will bring memory of those experiences to mind. Sherriff's descriptions of the family on the beach will also remind you of times when you went to the beach and will make you long for a beach vacation.

This book was published in 1931 but every bit of it is relatable for readers today. This is one of those forgotten novels which deserves to be found and appreciated. I am so looking forward to reading my next Sherriff novel.

[Antoinette · Rating 5 out of 5]

Can you remember your anticipation for an upcoming holiday, whether as a child or an adult? This book will help you relive those moments.

It was lovely meeting the Stevens’ family as they prepare to go for their yearly sea holiday. I got to spend two relaxing weeks with them, watching them reflect on their lives and expectations.

In a book in which so little happens, it was outstanding. Full of nostalgia and melancholy, of moments spent together as a family and moments spent alone soaking in the beauty and the peace of being away.

“They had been lovely times, these holidays at Bognor, but they could not have gone on forever: they could never have gone on, year after year, feebly trying to fan the dying sparks of childhood…there would always be the memories…and the splendour of its wonderful ending….”

I loved this book!

Published: 1931

[Jane · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Fortnight In September. The two weeks when the Stevens family left their South London home for their annual holiday, by the sea in Bognor.

It sounds simple, and yes it is, but it is also lovely.

One summer, between the wars, R C Sherriff visited Bognor. As he sat on the seafront, watching streams of visitors pass by, he realised what he wanted to write.

“I began to feel the itch to take one of those families at random and build up an imaginary story of their annual holiday by the sea.

It couldn’t be a play. It wasn’t the sort of story for the theatre, and in any case plays were done with.

It would have to be a novel …”

And so a novel it was. A very successful novel.

And so I was able to watch two weeks in the lives of the Stevens family. Mr and Mrs Stevens and their three children: Mary, who was twenty and at work for a seamstress; Dick, aged seventeen, who had just left school and found a job in a local business; and Ernie, who at ten years old was still young to believe that anything was possible.

Preparations are, of course an important part of any holiday. Lists must be made. Packing must be well organised. Arrangements with the neighbour, for minding the family pets and keeping an eye on the pets, must be finalised. Everything must be ready for departure day.

I was reminded of holiday planning when I was a child, and I still have lists that I made and journals that my mother encouraged me to keep tucked away.

Mr Stevens was in his element, organising things exactly as he had for the past twenty years.

He had the journey organised too. There was luggage to be sent on. Connections to organise. A compartment to secure. And familiar sights – including their own street – to watched out for.

I thought we were never going to reach our destination, but of course we got there in the end. Bognor!

The guest house was a little shabby, but it was as familiar as home. The Stevens had stayed with the Huggetts every year when the came to Bognor, but this year things would be a little different. Mr Huggett had died and Mrs Huggett was having to manage things on her own. So, even though they noticed that things were a little shabbier than usual, the family would not dream of saying a word.

They settled into their holiday routine. Mr Stevens secured a beach hut, and they would bathe, play ball on the sand, watch the world go by. They would visit familiar attractions too. And journey out into the surrounding countryside.

There was time and space to think too. Mr Stevens worried about his position in the world. Dick wondered where he was going in life, what possibilities were open to him.

Mary fell in love. And Mrs Stevens broke with convention to sit down with he landlady, to offer a sympathetic ear when she spoke of her concerns about the future.

Lives were changing, and the world was changing.

And so, while the Stevens assured themselves they would be back again next year, that things would be just as they had always be, a question hung in the air. Would they?

Every detail, every emotion, that makes up a holiday is here, perfectly realised.

The time and the place came to life.

And a family so very well drawn, whose the story catches so much that is important in life: home, family, friendship, love, the passing of the years, disappointment, acceptance … with wonderful subtlety and honesty.

My fortnight with the Stevens ended when they set out on their homeward journey. I wondered for a while what their future held, but they quickly faded.

Back into the anonymous crowd where the author had found them.

Their world was so completely realised that I could only watch, I couldn’t step inside

But I have to say that R C Sherriff did exactly what he set out to do, and he did Bognor and the Stevens family proud.

[Tania · Rating 5 out of 5]

Utterly charming.

This is a quiet, rather wistful story of the Stevens family's annual holiday in Bognor. Not a lot really happens, the first third of the book is spent getting ready, making lists and travelling. Finally they get to the seaside and what a joy it is, (for most of them, anyway). Dick and Mary, two of the three children, are now grown up and working, so there is an underlying realisation that this may be the last holiday they all spend together adding a touch of poignancy to the holiday.
It is a very compelling novel that just seemed to flow easily. Before I knew it, it was 1am and I'd read half of it. I finished the next day.

*I have upped my rating on my re-read. Just delightful.

Re-read 1/10/23.

[Nigeyb · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Fortnight in September (1931) by R.C. Sheriff is a gem of a book. An utter delight from start to finish.

It reminds me of London Belongs To Me, Angel Pavement, To Serve Them All My Days, and Craven House, amongst others.

Like those novels, it powerfully and touchingly evokes a sense of time and place, whilst shining a light into the lives of ordinary people living unexceptional lives. In this instance a lower middle class London family on their annual Summer holiday to Bognor Regis. Nothing particularly dramatic happens and yet it is magical, totally engrossing and memorable. I’d love to know what happened next but alas the family disappears back into the crowd the moment their holiday ends.

The Fortnight in September was a huge international hit when it was published. In the introduction R.C. Sherriff explains how it came about which is both instructive and interesting. Prior to this he was best known for Journeys End, the wonderful play about World War One.

5/5

[Sara · Rating 5 out of 5]

In many ways, The Fortnight in September is a book about time: about slowing it down, savoring it, living and then losing it. It is a soft, languid book that follows a typical middle-class family on a September vacation to the sea at Bognor. The descriptions of both the vacation and the travel and preparation for it are scintillating, they sparkle like the sun on the sea the Stevenses are going to visit.

Mr. Stevens is a hard-working man who is just beginning to realize he has probably reached the pinnacle at his job, and Mrs. Stevens is a competent housewife who hides a lot of her own desires and feelings so as to keep the other family members from any anxiety. The daughter, Mary, is just twenty and blossoming from girlhood to a rudimentary understanding of what it is to be a woman, while brother, Dick, is no longer a boy and not quite a man and in many ways the most interesting character for me because he is stumbling upon awareness around almost every corner. Finally there is Ernie who is still a child and sees the world, particularly Bognor, in the carefree way only a child can.

The style is as easy and breezy as the vacation it depicts, but there are moments of truth and those reveal all the important growth going on beneath the surface. None of these people leaves the sea the same person they were before they came, with the exception of Ernie, who is allowed to be a child a bit longer.

Through every shred of his father's cheap ready-made clothes he could see a finer man than the fat giant on the hearthrug with his expensive grey suit and silk shirt. ... Salt from the sea lay under his father's skin, under that shiny blue serge coat ... He would not exchange his father for a thousand fat Montgomeries, or the things his father thought and did for a million jars of Butter Nuts.

What struck me the most about the novel was how genuine it felt. Sherriff gets inside the skins of each of these characters and, I believe, nails them perfectly. They are imperfect, sometimes mistaken, but almost always loveable and kind; and life hovers before them, but there is also the sense of time racing and much of life already lying behind. There is the constant feeling that everything must be savored, NOW, because this stage of life is closing and without warning it will be gone.

But he knew that time only moved evenly upon the hands of clocks: to men it can linger and almost stop dead, race on, leap chasms, and linger again. He knew, with a little sadness, that it always made up its distance in the end.

At the close of the novel the family is looking toward the next vacation, but I could not put away the feeling that this would be the last of this kind for them. So many possibilities ahead that would, perhaps, find one or more of them missing at the end of the next year, or the B&B where they have spent so many holidays no longer there. But there is also the hope and assurance that this is a family that cares and will cling–this is a family with a home, not just a house.

It was good to have a home that called you: a home that made you feel a little unhappy when you went up to sleep in a strange bed on the first night away--that lay restfully in the background of your holiday, then called you again when it was time to return.

A huge thank you to Terris for insisting that this must be read this year. A perfect pic for the “recommended” spot on my bingo card.

[Beth Bonini · Rating 4 out of 5]

This seemingly simple book has a quiet sort of genius to it.

On the surface, it is a painstakingly (and somewhat painfully) detailed account of a family’s annual fortnight holiday at the ‘Seaview’ boarding house in Bognor Regis (a seaside resort in West Sussex). But for all of its lower-middle class, 1930s British specificity, it does have these illuminating universal moments that give the story a poignant depth. And like the season, with summer edging inexorably into autumn, the book is also about the passage of time in a family’s life. The older two children, Dick and Mary, have both left school for the world of work, and the days of family routines and rituals are certainly numbered. Likewise, their long loyalty to Seaview is being sorely tested; sadly, the old boarding house can no longer keep up standards and it, too, has reached a critical moment of decline.

The author has a clever way of probing into the minds of the Stevens family: mother and father, sister and two brothers. The reader is given some access to each character’s point-of-view, and the mood shifts and glimpses into the family’s past provide emotional layering for the otherwise prosaic storyline. This is no glamorous upstairs/downstairs world, but rather the claustrophobic and careful lowest rung on the middle class ladder. The characters’ fears, joys and small triumphs will not be to every reader’s taste, but by the end of the book, I felt much sympathy for the Stevens family and their long-vanished way of life.

”A holiday is like that. The first days linger almost endlessly.
. . . But gradually, relentlessly - time gathers speed. At night you sleep so soundly that you scarcely notice the darkness that flicks across to reveal the picture of another day. The hours go racing by - impossible to check - “

[Ingrid · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ik heb het met moeite uit kunnen lezen. Ik had een fascinatie voor de alledaagsheid van het verhaal, terwijl die alledaagsheid me tegelijkertijd irriteerde. Want zijn onze levens echt zo banaal? Want dat is wat de schrijver feitelijk zegt: mensen kijk maar eens, dit zijn doorsnee levens, het zou net zo goed van jullie leven kunnen zijn.

I was able to read it with difficulty. I was fascinated by the ordinariness of the story, while at the same time that ordinariness irritated me. Because are our lives really that commonplace? Because that's what the writer is actually saying: folks, look at this, these are average lives, it might as well be your life.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have spent the last 2 1/2 days exiled (due to Covid) in our bedroom and simultaneously with the Stevens family preparing for and then vacationing at the beach in Bagnor.

Though the premise of the novel is simple, R. C. Sherriff shares the ordinary dramas of this family with me and fully immerses me in this story. I feel the excitement and anticipation as they pack and the feelings as they travel to the train station. Will they get there on time? Will the family be able to sit together? Did they leave a window open or the stove on back at home? Is their traveling trunk loaded onto the right train? There's the drama of their first glimpse of the sea. Then the "huge" decision over whether or not to splurge on a larger bathing hut than the usual or to spend the money on multiple smaller luxuries.

Sherriff's simple, direct prose captures these moments and conveys empathy with his characters; the events feel exigent rather than trivial.

I am led to consider vacation, "an extended period of leisure and/or recreation, usually spent in time away from home." Vacation can serve many purposes. One is family bonding over shared activities and from concentrated time together. Another is relaxation and rejuvenation. I related to Mrs. Stevens reflections:

"No washing up! No breakfast to set!--No shoes to clean!--Nothing to do but sit down and rest: nothing even to think about if you didn't want to think. It was a lovely hour: the hour that did her more good than anything else on the holiday. Her thoughts, when they came, . . . were memories really, mingled with the pleasant happenings of each passing day, flecked sometimes with stray chinks of light that crept in from the future."

Vacation can be used to gain a new perspective on one's life and for looking ahead to the future. Both Mr. Stevens and Dick take long walks to consider how they want to change and move forward in life.
And sometimes a little adventure can be found such as Mary's short summertime romance.

I have had vacations which embody all of these aspects.

Ernie, the youngest, provides some levity to the story. For example, he sees the Railroad people as killjoys and their DANGER and DO NOT ENTER signs as "a goldmine of thrills and excitements and fun" and wonders about the man selling tickets: “how they got the man through that tiny opening from which he served the tickets. Was he pushed in as a baby—or built in at a later period of his life?”

Sherriff provides the backstories and inner lives of his characters through their internal monologues which are effectively woven through his tale. He shares their concerns about their pasts, their hopes and dreams, their fears and dissatisfactions. I can relate to their situations and they seem real and true to me.

Though this novel was written almost a century ago, it is still relevant today. If you are a reader who relishes a quiet introspective read, this might be what you're looking for.

Thank you, dear Jennifer, for the gift of this beautiful print book.


Publication 1931

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Published in 1931, this was deservedly a best-seller in its day and merits being re-discovered by more readers. On paper, it sounds fairly dull - a family setting off on their one holiday of the year to the seaside resort of Bognor Regis. However, it encompasses all of the excitement of 'getting away from things,' of the family removing themselves from the everyday, having time to think and be together and to create new relationships as well as reacquaint themselves with 'Seaview,' the rather run down boarding house the family always stay at.

There is Mr Ernie Stevens, who enjoys organising things. Mr Stevens has suffering various slights and disappointments, but is adept at dealing with the more challenging aspects of the holiday, such as changing trains at Clapham Junction. Mrs Flossie Stevens, scared of the sea and not really enjoying the holiday as much as her family, but disliking to say so. Mary, nineteen, who works for a seamstress and will discover love, Dick, seventeen, resentful, self-pitying, and bored of his job, may discover new horizons and ambitions, while Ernie, still only ten, is happy with bathing and playing with his yacht.

This novel encompasses everything that happens to the family during the week and cleverly looks at deeper issues, such as class, as the author allows the various members of the family to recall previous events or have chance meetings. Sadly, we never follow the family beyond these two weeks, but I like to think that all went well with them on their return to London...

[zed · Rating 4 out of 5]

The lower middle class Stevens family have made the trek from London to Bognor for 20 years to have a family holiday; it is always the best fortnight of the year as a family unit. This one though might possibly be the final. The eldest children are at that point in their life when they move on to other things; there is a sense of an ending, as the regular holiday lodgings that they stay at are getting a little too shabby. Things stay the same to many of us, but change is inevitable in the end. The author hints hard at this and lets the reader be the judge.

The Fortnight in September is a gentle read, almost plotless and written with a charm that gives a view to a very placid English holiday between the two world wars. From 100 odd year later it feels like the author, R C Sherriff, had a sense that all was not well for the future. Yes the Great War had finished. It was the one that was to end all wars but was it? Maybe even in 1931 on this books release, bright sunny days, cricket on the beach and a stroll down the prom to watch the brass band play were all too good to be true.

The setting is strangely affecting, Bognor on the south coast of England in West Sussex, a county that has the rolling and beautiful south downs, an area that I have made visit to and would be the very emphasis of bucolic when thinking of my early teen memories of living in not far away, Bognor. My parents were born there and returned from Australia to live again for a little while in the early 1970s. “Bognor for health and sunshine” a poster joyfully announced to the family while on their way to their little bit of the seaside via the railway station at Clapham Junction. Maybe to the likes of the Stevens Family in the 1920s, but in my early teens it never felt like that. The nights seemed dark and long and sunny days far apart. The pier that the Stevens family so enjoyed was but a shell of its former glory, in my time and still today a smashed relic of a past age. Later in the book as the holiday nears its end, the family think of Bognor as a “...friendly old town”. Something tells me it may not be that place it once was when Londoners flocked to it for their fortnights by the seaside.

Oh! I do like to be beside the seaside! I do like to be beside the sea! Oh I do like to stroll along the Prom, Prom, Prom! Where the brass bands play, "Tiddely-om-pom-pom!"
So just let me be beside the seaside! I'll be beside myself with glee and there's lots of girls beside, I should like to be beside, beside the seaside, beside the sea!

[Gretchen Rubin]

A quiet, thoughtful, beautiful book about two weeks in the life of a loving family of five, as they go on their annual holiday to the seaside.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well, this was delightful! The beautiful cover is what made me stop and read the summary of this book. I didn't realize when I requested it that itnwas a re-release from 1931, but once I did I felt that almost added an extra charm to it. Kind of like the feeling I get when I watch Downton Abbey. Things are very much different, but then some things are still exactly the same. Human beings worry about what we are wearing, what we are going to have for dinner, about our jobs and our families...so I thought why not? Let's see what life was like for the Stevens family as they prepare for their two week vacation (annual holiday) to Bognor in September.

It was almost comical reading this at times because having recently gone on vacation myself with my family, reading how the Stevens family prepared, made lists, anticipated their holiday, traveled to their location, etc. showed just how much we still worry about the same things even though there is so much time that separates us. There is the assigning of tasks to make sure items like who will watch the family bird (in our case both of our golden retreivers), who will pick the extra vegetables in the garden (who will water our flowers/the indoor plants), who will take in the mail, what trains are used to connect to Bognor and making sure the luggage follows along with you (Mrs. Stevens would have a real anxiety attack if she saw travel in 2021 particularly if she were to fly) and the lodging accommodations with its own quirks and issues.

I enjoyed this story immensely because it brought so much comfort in the normal and routine. There was nothing pretentious about this family at all and watching them deal with every day anxieties (an unexpected and chance meeting with an important client of Mr. Stephens prompted the entire family to go to dinner in the last few days of the holiday and collectively the whole family whined because there were only a few days left and they didn't want to waste it dining at a strangers house, but they knew it was important for their father's work so they put on a happy face anyway). There was even a little holiday romance for one of the family members!

This makes for a perfect summer read and in my instance; an end to summer read. I particularly enjoyed the author's note at the end where the author was quoted from an earlier publication on where he received his inspiration for writing the story. Many thanks to Scribner books for the gifted paperback copy in exchange for an honest review.

Review Date: 08/29/21
Publication Date: 09/07/2021

[❀⊱RoryReads⊰❀ · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 Stars

If you enjoy character driven fiction with an avalanche of detail, you'll love this book.

Half charming family story, half melancholy nostalgia trip, the first part of the book is slow, but picks up once they arrive at Bognor. It's interesting to see what a holiday at the English seaside had to offer a middle class family in 1930. The descriptions of the people they meet, sea bathing, games, and entertainments are wonderful.

I did feel sorry for Mrs Stevens, Dick, and Mary, as their lives were so narrow and suffocating. Mr Stevens, though largely benevolent, makes decisions for his wife and children without asking them what they want. Son Dick is trapped in a miserable job chosen for him by his father, desperate to find a way out, and Mrs Stevens hates the sea; she wishes they could go somewhere else instead. Daughter Mary especially, seems doomed to spend the rest of her life in small, pokey rooms with no view. If only I could send Mary a letter telling her to make a break for it and prepare for huge challenges when she's twenty-nine years old.

[Lili Bammens · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dit boek gaf me een warm gevoel omdat ik het zo herkenbaar vond.
Het verscheen in 1931 in het Engels maar werd pas vrij recent in het Nederlands vertaald.
Ernest en Flossie Stevens en hun drie kinderen Dick, Mary en Ernie zijn een gezin dat in de omgeving van Londen woont. Vader Ernest heeft zich opgewerkt van arbeider tot kantoorbediende. Moeder Flossie is huisvrouw. De twee oudste kinderen, Dick en Mary werken net en Ernie is nog een schooljongen. Elk jaar gaan ze in september twee weken naar Bognor aan zee, telkens in hetzelfde pensionnetje met de naam Zeezicht (omdat je vanuit het wc-raampje een stukje van de kust ziet).
De reis naar Bognor en de voorbereidingen hierop zijn een hele onderneming. Alles moet nauwkeurig gepland worden. Er mag niets mislopen.
Het deed me erg denken aan de jaarlijkse daguitstappen van ons gezin, meer dan 25 jaar na het verschijnen van dit boek, toen er in de meeste arbeidersgezinnen als het onze zelfs nog geen sprake was van twee weken op vakantie gaan. Wij gingen elk jaar achtereenvolgens met bus, trein en dan weer bus naar Scherpenheuvel, vader, moeder en de 5 kinderen. Het idee dat we de trein zouden kunnen missen maakte mij elke keer weer bang en nerveus. De opluchting als we eindelijk samen in de trein zaten!
Sommige recensenten spraken over kneuterigheid en ik begrijp dat wel,  maar ik vond er niets kneuterig aan. Dat was gewoon zo. Gewone mensen hadden niet meer, kenden geen grote luxe en er was nog veel sociale controle zodat de mening van anderen wel vaak een rol speelde, zoals bij Ernest Stevens ook het geval was.
Mooi vond ik de manier waarop de gedachten van al de gezinsleden, op de jonge Ernie na, werden beschreven. Zij zien allemaal wel de beperkingen van hun leven, maar ze trachten er toch het beste van te maken, zonder zelfmedelijden of dramatische gevoelens.
Het was voor mij allemaal zo "echt", zo menselijk, soms best grappig en helemaal niet gedateerd.

[Julie Durnell · Rating 3 out of 5]

A book written in the 30's and definitely a product of it's time. I found it interesting enough to complete the book, but oh my, it was way too long. Everything about this two-week holiday to Bogner was described in infinite detail. And yet, I didn't feel like I really knew Mrs. Stevens, she is almost a nonentity. To give the author credit, he did mention in the notes at the end of the book, that he'd written it for himself.

[Margitte · Rating 4 out of 5]

A laid back delight. Just loved it.

[Claire Fuller · Rating 4 out of 5]

Such an odd and wonderful book. Nothing really happens - In 1930 Mr and Mrs Stevens go on holiday to Bognor on the south coast of England with their three children to the same boarding house that they've been going to for seventeen years. They (mostly) have a lovely time and then they go home. It's the detail that makes it fascinating, and the observations of the feelings of the family: the huge disappointment when they realise they can't get the beach hut they want on the day they arrive, and the joy when they find out it's available the following Tuesday. Even though it's a very quiet book, in its quiet way the tension is huge: what will happen when Mr Stevens goes to the pub on his own, what will happen when Mary sneaks away to meet an actor after dark, will Dick change his career and be happy, will the whole family come back to the down-at-heel boarding house and lumpy beds next year?
I could easy have given this book five stars: the languid style of writing and the observations are so wonderful:
"[Mr Montgomery's] eyes, nose and mouth were crowded very close and rather meanly together considering the large amount of unused face that lay around them, and as they followed him into the house, Ernie saw that there was ample room for another face on the back of his neck."
But...perhaps this is only because it is a book of its time (published in 1931), and written by a man, but I found how R.C.Sherriff handled the interior life of his wife very poor. The book is mostly from Mr Stevens' point of view, while we are let into the heads of the other characters now and again, but all Mrs Stevens is allowed to think about is how her husband's resignation as secretary of the football club was accepted, whether the buns she's bought for the family are too stale, how scary it is changing trains at Clapham Junction, and so on. Towards the end there's a tiny glimpse about how she is happy to have an hour on her own in the evenings without anyone, but I really think there would have been more going on inside Mrs Stevens' head than buns and trains. But, that issue aside, I still loved this book.
www.clairefuller.co.uk

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really loved this book, and when I first started it I wasn't sure that I would, despite rave reviews from some of my friends. It is a seemingly very simple book, about one family taking their annual seaside holiday, and I was afraid that its very simplicity would make it dull. But the story grows and grows on you as you read, and somehow Sherriff manages to devote enough time to each character so that you begin to care about them very much, and wonder what will happen to them on the next day of their holiday. And things do happen to them, in the way that things really do happen to people on holiday most of the time--not huge startling changes, but small events and experiences that still leave their mark.

Sherriff also manages to convey the feeling of being on holiday so well--the start of it, with everything still to come, the way the days go by faster and faster, until the end is upon you before you know it. He writes in the introduction that he didn't know what would happen to the characters next when he stopped writing for the day, just as they wouldn't know exactly what would happen on the next day of their holiday, and this comes through very clearly in the book.

[Brenda · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is delightful. Will write more later.

I want to comment on two aspects of this story. The first is the perceptiveness (is that a word?) of R. C Sherriff. He seems to be able to observe people and pare away their self protective shields regarding both their physical appearance and their emotions. The second is his ability to write about these people in such a way that the reader knows exactly who they are. I've met the lonely neighbor, encountered the annoying one, and dealt with the various other people that are introduced along the way. There were times that I felt melancholy while reading this story and other times that I felt a joie de vivre at the simple pleasures that the family experienced. I now know this family and care about them. I wonder what the Marching Orders will be for the holiday next year?

I also noticed a theme of planning versus allowing the whimsy of life to happen. When you read the book you will see what I mean.

I recommend this book.