The Beginning of Spring (Flamingo): An evocative portrayal of life, love, and social complexities in turn-of-the-century Moscow - Softcover

Fitzgerald, Penelope

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0006543707 ISBN 13: 9780006543701

Publisher: Fourth Estate Ltd, 1989

Synopsis

Shortlisted for the Booker Prize.

It is March 1913, and the grand old city of Moscow is stirring herself to meet the beginning of spring. Change is in the air, and nowhere more so than at 22 Lipka Street, the home of English printer Frank Reid.

One day Frank’s wife Nellie takes the train back to England, with no explanation, leaving him with their three young children. Into his life comes Lisa Ivanovna, a country girl, untroubled to the point of seeming simple. But is she? And why has Frank’s accountant Selwyn, gone to such lengths to bring them together? And who is the passionate Volodya, who breaks into the press at night?

Frank sees, but only dimly, that he is a rational man in Moscow, a city where love, and friendship, power and politics, are at their most unfathomable.

About this title

Review

‘Reading a Penelope Fitzgerald novel is like being taken for a ride in a peculiar kind of car. Everything is of top quality – the engine, the coachwork and the interior all fill you with confidence. Then, after a mile or so, someone throws the steering-wheel out of the window.’ Sebastian Faulks

‘Wise and ironic, funny and humane, Fitzgerald is a wonderful, wonderful writer.’ David Nicholls

‘For the life of me I can’t decide how properly to respond to this book. Whether it contains a latent moral or allegorical message, or whether it is simply a tour de force of craft and imagination I have not the faintest idea. I only know that it is one of the most skilful and utterly fascinating novels I have read for years. I cannot imagine any kind of reader who would not get a thrill from this gloriously peculiar book.’ Jan Morris, Independent

‘Penelope Fitzgerald has produced a real Russian comedy, at once crafty and scatty. She has mastered a city, a landscape and a vanished time. She has written something remarkable, part novel, part evocation, and done so in prose that never puts a foot wrong. She is so unostentatious a writer that she needs to be read several times. What is impressive is the calm confidence behind the apparent simplicity of utterance. “The Beginning of Spring” is her best novel to date.’ Anita Arookner, Spectator

From the Back Cover

Fitzgerald was the author of several slim, perfect novels. The Blue Flower and The Beginning of Spring both had me abuzz for days the first time I read them. She was curiously perfect. Teju Cole, author of Open City

March 1913. Moscow is stirring herself to meet the beginning of spring. English painter Frank Reid returns from work one night to find that his wife has gone away; no one knows where or why, or whether she ll ever come back. All Frank knows for sure is that he is now alone and must find someone to care for his three young children.
Into Frank s life comes Lisa Ivanovna, a quiet, calming beauty from the country, untroubled to the point of seeming simple. But is she? And why has Frank s bookkeeper, Selwyn Crane, gone to such lengths to bring these two together?

Writing so precise and lilting it can make you shiver. Los Angeles Times

A singular achievement. Boston Globe

PENELOPE FITZGERALD (1916 2000) was one of the most elegant and distinctive voices in British fiction. She won the National Book Critics Circle Award in fiction for The Blue Flower, the Booker Prize for Offshore, and three of her novels The Bookshop, The Gate of Angels, and The Beginning of Spring were short-listed for the Booker Prize."

Edition details

• Publisher: Fourth Estate Ltd
• Publication date: 1989
• ISBN 10: 0006543707
• ISBN 13: 9780006543701
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 258