The Fortnight in September by R.C. Sherriff

Due to the encouragement of Kazuo Ishiguro, author of such contemporary works as The Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go, I spent some days in August reading R.C. Sherriff's lovely novel, The Fortnight in September (2021).

Mind you, Ishiguro didn't suggest the book to me personally. Instead, he kept mentioning it during the many interviews he conducted after his most recent publication, Klara and the Sun, saying The Fortnight in September is “the most uplifting, life-affirming novel I can think of...the beautiful dignity to be found in everyday living has rarely been captured more delicately." From this description, I realized I was hungry for a story like this; I just hadn't known where to find it.

At first, The Fortnight in September seemed a simple story to me, too simple, in fact, as the plot seemed to drag along. Here's the gist: it's England, the orderly, dowdy 1950s to be specific, and a typical family is preparing to go on their annual vacation to the same old, same old house by the seaside they've visited in years past. Under the direction of the stodgy father and the twittering mother, they're hoping to catch an early train to their destination. 

Initially, this is the most apparent conflict. The family might not make that train. Alas, the concern didn't quite capture my interest.

But about a quarter of the way into the book, I understood the important precedent set by that seemingly facile tension. Their desire to catch a certain train is a stand-in for their deeper desire to let loose a little, to slow down and cherish each other, to bask in the small details erased by the highly scheduled busyness of workaday life, the demands of correctness that go hand-in-hand with 'civilized' society. In going to the seaside, each member of this family will take a particular risk and find themselves subtly and believably transformed.

Gradually, I realized that the novel was a great comfort to me. I found myself thinking of the rich store of literature I read in my younger days, of authors like A. A. Milne and E. Nesbit, Frances Hodgson Burnett and L.M. Montgomery. These authors invited me to escape to relatively exotic, safe places, where I might find strife or sadness, but any troubles proved manageable by the end. Like R.C. Sherriff, their authorial voices were crystalline clear down to the level of the sentence, yet just enough different from the language of my world that I had to work a bit to keep up. Clever and witty, these authors also kept me thinking, occasionally laughing too. R.C Sherriff did the same, only more so.

If you need a meaningful and moving escape story, then I highly recommend The Fortnight in September by R.C. Sherriff. If you're anything like me, you might find yourself reading it again, for sheer pleasure.