The Watercress Girl

Thank you Net Galley.  A beautiful, lyrical collection. A look at life through the eyes of children.

I am just loving these rereleases of H.E. Bates work.  I read most of it when I was in my twenties, and it's wonderful to rediscover the beauty of his prose.  Very thrilled to have received this copy.  Recommended for anyone who wants to enjoy his work for the first time or have the pleasure of rediscovering.

Herbert Ernest Bates is an author that most people have heard of because of the TV series ‘The Darling Buds of May’ and they may have read the books that the series was based on, but I have found that for a lot of people that has been it.  Now this could be about to change as Bloomsbury start releasing his works onto the Kindle.  Here we are presented with this collection which was originally published back in 1959, and shows the elegance and skill of Bates’ short story writing.

All the stories here focus on childhood, either as settings with children, or on looking back over the years to an earlier time as the narrator is now older.  All the stories have a rural setting harking back to where Bates came from himself.

What you immediately notice in all these tales is how the scenes as well as the characters really come to life in your imagination, and the way that the children, their playing and the situations they find themselves in as well as their impressions seem so authentic.  Definitely with an eye to detail the children are fun to read about, with words pronounced wrongly, the type of things that they say about their parents, and the fact that they don’t really always grasp the complexity of what they are talking about. 

As you will see if you download this, Bates gave us stories about children, but for adults, where we can read about situations we encountered and can remember ourselves.  For instance there are themes such as the first budding of sexuality, and the mysteries of who is related to us, and why we shouldn’t talk to some people, and more.

In all this is still a wonderful book to read and re-reading again now after many years I found this to be even more powerful and poignant than I remembered.  This really is something to relish and reminds us all that we were once young.

I was kindly provided with a review copy of this by the publisher via NetGalley.

The stories depict activities and the mind set of children in different environments but they are not stories for children. Make believe, fantasy and the play of children show how adults believe in circumstances which are different.

Told in a very child like tone, the stories may not appeal to all. Sometimes a bit harsh and brutal they are telling of the times the stories were set.