Marking Time - Elizabeth Jane Howard

This is the second of the five books in The Cazalet Chronicles.  I read the first one a little while ago.  I enjoyed that one so much that I started right in on volume two.  I feel more comfortable with the Cazalets now.  I was overwhelmed by meeting the three Cazalet sons and their wives and children and Villy's sister Jessica and her family.  I had trouble keeping everyone straight:  who was married to whom, which children belonged to which families.  There's a family tree at the beginning of each book and I made a copy to have at hand while I was reading.  I'm starting to know them better.

In Marking Time, several of the characters get their own chapters.  Clary has her own chapter, as do Louise and Polly.  Thinking back, the book is mostly about these girls growing up under difficult conditions, both personal and historical.  It's hard enough growing up under normal conditions.  Growing up with bombs falling around and shortages of all kinds must have been horrid.

Clary's father goes off to war and disappears.  She refuses to believe that he's dead, although the rest of the family believes that he must be.  She and Zoe, her stepmother, become closer.  Zoe has a baby and between that and her husband being MIA, she matures and becomes more compassionate.

Polly is faced with her mother, Sybil's illness.  She's outraged that her father and mother don't talk about it to her or to each other.

Louise is pursuing her acting career.  She meets an older artist who falls in love with her.

The book is full of the sorts of things that happen in all families.  People get older, people get sick, people fall in and out of love.  I'm still enjoying the series and plan to get on to the next one  -  as soon as I finish several library books that I have or have on hold.  You could do much worse than to befriend the Cazalets.

Katrina has just read this, too, so you might want to check her blog to see what she has to say about it.  I think she'll be posting her thoughts soon.

The Light Years - Elizabeth Jane Howard

After reading different bloggers post about this series, The Cazalet Chronicles, I decided I wanted to read them, too.  Thank you to Harriet for her recent post, which reminded me that I shouldn't forget to try these books.  I splurged on all five books in the series, only spending about $20 for used copies.

The Light Years isn't a page turner, but it drew me in.  I wanted to spend time with the Cazalets at their country estate, with occasional trips to their London homes.

This volume begins in 1937 and ends in 1938.  War seems to be imminent.  But perhaps it's not.  We, of course, know what will happen.  Toward the end of the book, there is what I think is a very clear explanation for how and why Hitler came to power and managed to do what he did.

Most of the book is about the Brig and the Duchy, their three sons, Hugh, Edward, and Rupert, and their sons' families.  They're all spending the summer at the Cazalet country homes, Mill  Farm and Home Place, just down the road from each other.  The men go back and forth to London to run the family lumber business.  Except for Rupert, who is a teacher and an artist.

The dramas run the gamut from a lost cat, a child planning to run away, chicken pox, a clandestine affair, unwelcome guests, an unwelcome pregnancy, and the unexpectedly early and complicated birth of twins.  Parts made me smile, others made me sad.

It's not an exciting book, but it is an engrossing book.  I would love to have spent the summer with the Cazalets.  I plan to move right on into the next volume, Marking Time.