Love for Lydia

Beautifully written classic. It's nice to see a novel like this reissued. The story remains timeless. Lydia is engaging, the descriptions of the countryside are lovely, and the plot has enough zing to keep you reading. Try this one if you enjoy British novels set between the wars. THanks to Netgalley for the ARC.

Love for Lydia was first published in 1952 and it is still an extremely poignant novel. This is by far one of the greatest love stories of the twentieth century. It is a beautifully written, classic love story. The prose is exquisite and the descriptions of the outdoors and countryside scenery are a delight. I’m very glad a gave this novel a chance. A timeless, steamy love story that I highly recommend.

Enjoyed this book very much!  I love reading books from this time period (post 1920's).

Reading this book, I did not make the connection to the t.v. series in the 70's although I vaguely remember some of it. My favorite aspect of the this beautiful, coming of age story was that it was part autobiographical.I don't know why I am only just reading it, I am so very glad I did.

 I loved that Edward Richardson, a kind, humble young writer in-training was somewhat fashioned after Bates. There was for me an instant when I thought of Great Expectations. Dickens wrote about the extremes of poverty and wealth better than anyone of course. While Dickens novels have an element of darkness,  'Love for Lydia 'is  beautiful,romantic and stunning in fact. The era lends itself to flashy parties, glamor, gorgeous dresses and subtle jewellery. The visual backdrop of the sophisticated 20's is breathtaking.  I thought briefly of Downton Abbey, remembering the costumes and how the upper class  lived their lives, as they embraced changes after the war and more than anything, I thought of the relationship between Tom Branson and Sybil.
Richardson with his gentle demeanor, always present, with a kindness that came from his humble beginnings is such a great character. My heart went out to him  as Lydia, a shy, wealthy young woman from an upper class -and out of touch with the world- family bedazzles not just this sweet young man, but three others as she discovers herself, her place as a woman, using Richardson as her first kiss to open up a new world of sensuality and glamor, with dances, sophisticated clothes and  plenty of male attention. Lydia does not slow down. As she craves center stage, it is Richardson who watches and waits, hoping she will come back to him. Lydia who later sees her true nature, wonders if it is too late for her to be with the one person who loves her but isn't certain he wants Lydia for himself.

I'm still not sure how I felt about this book.  I'm glad I read it.  I like books that make me think and feel strongly.
Pros.. Very well written.  The characters were well developed and the scenery described so well that it was easy to picture.
Cons..  Went very slowly for me.  I didn't have any love for Lydia as a character and felt so sorry for all the people in the story who were unfortunate enough to.  The new cover made me think it would be a happy book and I found it utterly depressing.  Real and depressing which life can be sometimes I guess.
I'm glad I read it but not sure I would suggest it to friends.

I really enjoyed this book.  It was beautifully written with detailed descriptions of the people and the places of Evensford.  The best part of the book for me was the main character, Richardson.  I love when a character is fully developed and we see the good and the bad, and we find both in Richardson as he deals with his love for Lydia.

The book gives a great look into the lives of young people trying to find their way in the world, dealing with first loves and loves lost.  It shows these characters growing up and maturing into people capable of real love and understanding.  I loved it and would highly recommend it.

I was gripped from start to finish. Throughly enjoyed it.

5★

A glorious, slowly evolving story told by a young man about his dull, drab industrial village of leather tanneries and the changes to his life when he meets Lydia Aspen. Richardson (the only name we know him by) and Lydia are both nineteen, innocent children by today’s teen-aged standards. Apparently orphaned, she has been brought to live with her two elderly aunts, the aristocratic Aspen sisters, and their unsavoury brother, in their imposing house surrounded by expanses of land and avenues of trees. 

Richardson, a reluctant newspaper reporter, is summonsed to the house by the aunts and asked to provide some companionship for their young charge. They want her to meet people and not be isolated and stuffy as they are. Lydia is lovely but awkward, and the two young people come to know each other, bonding over ice skating, dancing and walks. She’s a flirt and a tease, delighting in her growing power over him but fretting that it won’t last.

The narrator is a sensitive, nature-loving fellow who seems out of his depth with this budding femme fatale. Someone has said this is reminiscent of The Great Gatsby, and I can see why. There's pain and tragedy amidst the partying.

The first half of the book is about their growing attachment to each other, but as they begin to socialise more with others, we meet a number of interesting characters, some of whom are rivals for Lydia’s attention. And the large, blonde, blue-eyed Holland family, is worth waiting for. Sixteen people sat down to Sunday dinner, including the newest generation.

“. . . already a generation of fair, chaste-looking Holland was springing up, all alike, all clean and fresh as sheaves in a wheat field. You were never expected to hold conversations at Busketts; meals had the pleasant discordance of a disorganized and hungry choir. Brown arms passed and exchanged and repassed across the table buttery masses of scones and bread and currant loaf, plates of ham and watercress and pork-pie and in winter toasted crumpets and apples baked and stuffed to a sugary glitter with walnuts and figs. Tarts of lemon curd and Mrs Holland’s speciality, cheese-curd, a tart of greenish melting softness with fat brown plums in it, were wolfed down by mouths that seemed to be laughing whenever they were not eating.”

The writing is exquisite. If I have a complaint, it’s only that in this dry, grey, drab place there are also so many flowers, cultivated and wild, that Richardson feels the need to tell us about every blossom he spies. 

They walked in the garden after tea past “long stone pergolas of dripping rambler rose, hot crimson above urns of pale blue agapanthus lilies on paths of sun-baked stone. . . opulence and amplitude and calm loveliness spread with lushness everywhere about long lawns broken by cedar-shade pools of intense blackness.”

And that pretty much describes Lydia as well. A contrast of colour and lushness and dark shadows. The characters are wonderfully real, and the weather is almost another character itself.

Through the seasons, we are moved from bitter cold where a chapel has “frozen steps like a waterfall of chipped glass” to extreme heat. “There was no rain and by August the tips of the elms on the high clay-land were scorched yellow, then brown and dry. Corn began to catch fire by railway tracks. . . in bean-fields you could hear the splintering crack of exploding pods, burnt black by heat. . . “

H.E. Bates is well known still for Darling Buds Of May and the series that followed, and I have long loved the Larkin family. This is not so light-hearted, and there are some dark times ahead for Richardson and his friends. 

I am so pleased this has been reissued or I might never have discovered it. Thanks to NetGalley and Bloomsbury for a copy for review.

I really enjoyed this love story. Some of the writing reminds me of Fitzgerald, more floral than sparkling, but it gave me the same sort of reaction. I will certainly be looking for more of Bates' books to read if they're anything like this one.

Exquisite prose from one of the Masters of English Literature

Love for Lydia ranks as one of the best of H E Bates Novels.  Written in the early 50s, it tells the story of young Lydia who is brought to live with two Aunts at a big estate in Evensford in the rural Midlands.  She attracts the attention of a group of friends who love to take her out dancing or ice skating.  Four of the friends are young men who vie for her affections and although Lydia is naïve, she knows how to lead them on and play them off against each other.  Lydia is a spoilt brat who almost stamps her foot if she doesn’t get her own way but the men don’t seem to see beyond the lure of her beauty.

The story moves gently through the seasons with the usual Bates woven tapestries of such vivid depictions of our quintessential English countryside at a time when it was good to be alive.  Some might say that Bates writes with style over substance but in my opinion, it would be hard to find many authors who write with the same influence as Bates and in my mind his books never date.

loved this novel - fret with love, jealousy and the awareness of Lydia and her womanly powers