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Shooting Party Isabel Colegate 9780241104736 Books

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Shooting Party Isabel Colegate 9780241104736 Books

It is the autumn of 1913, and Sir Randolph Nettleby, Baronet, is hosting yet another shooting party at his Oxfordshire estate. His guests include some family members and some titled friends. The days are filled with pheasant shoots, luncheons al fresco, elaborate dinners back at Nettleby Park, and idle flirtations and lovemaking. An army of servants looks after the Nettlebys and their guests. It's all very pleasant and comfortable, symbolic of a way of life that has been going on for centuries.

But all is not as it seems. Troubles are brewing at home and abroad, and there's talk of war, strikes, suffragette outrages, and economic difficulties. Some of the ladies and gentlemen are having trouble making ends meet, and cracks in the elaborately constructed facade of civilized life spread and grow deeper. The shooting is interrupted, first by an eccentric intellectual wanderer, and then by a tragedy in which one of the beaters driving pheasants is shot by a guest who isn't quite as gentlemanly as he appears.

Isabel Colegate's exquisite novel is less than 200 pages long, but it deftly depicts the vanished world of the Nettlebys and their servants and guests. Her wriiting reminds me of Jane Austen in some ways, and of Henry James in others. I finally read it after many viewings of the movie adaptation, and I like it even better.


Tags : Shooting Party [Isabel Colegate] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. <DIV>It is the autumn of 1913, and Sir Randolph Nettleby has assembled a brilliant array of guests at his Oxfordshire estate for the biggest shoot of the season. An army of servants and gamekeepers has rehearsed the intricate age-old ritual of the house and hunt. The gentlemen are falling into the prescribed mode of fellowship and good-humored sporting rivalry. The fashionable ladies are exchanging the latest gossip. Everything about this splendid weekend would seem a perfect affirmation of the privileges and certainties of Edwardian country life.<BR>And yet,Isabel Colegate,Shooting Party,Hamish Hamilton Ltd,0241104734

Shooting Party Isabel Colegate 9780241104736 Books Reviews

What did the English upper class do for fun before the "Great War"? They shot anything that moved, gossiped and had affairs. It is unbelievable how many birds they shot in just one day, even though they raised the pheasants for this purpose and also shot any ducks that got in their way. Shooting parties were called a sport which hardly seems to apply when they had men to load the guns and drive the game their way. It was not considered sporting to keep score and when two men did the consequences were fatal. The ladies occasionaly joined in by watching, but mostly they shared an elegant luncheon and gossip and talked of their love life. All this changed after the war.
It is October 1913. A handful of sportsmen, including two of the best shots in the land, have gathered at Nettleby Park in Oxfordshire for the big shooting party of the season. They will bag hundreds of pheasants, as well as the odd woodcocks and hares, all flushed from the woods by an army of beaters under the command of the head gamekeeper. Joining the men for meals and drinks, as well as for some of the shooting drives, are their wives. And for each aristocrat there seemingly are three or four servants.

This world of English country society is being battered by all sorts of forces, including "industrial workers, screaming suffragettes, Irish terrorists, scandals on the Stock Exchange, universal suffrage." Sir Randolph Nettleby, host of the hunting party, worries that an era is coming to an end, similar to the decline of feudalism. "If the hierarchy to which he belonged were to be swept away by absolute democracy what could his son * * * expect to inherit?"

As the group ends its lunch in the field of lobster vol-au-vents, chicken mayonnaise with boiled potatoes, and champagne or lemonade, and as the beaters move off to begin the afternoon's drives with the hunters and their gun-loaders following, one of the ladies, Olivia Lilburn, observes that "it's like an army, * * * we have bivouacked and are moving off now to the front line." She wonders to herself, "Are we really all so beautiful and brave, * * * or do we just think we are?"

We readers know, of course, that those questions prefigure the Great War, which will break out in less than a year and over the next few years will shatter the world of the landed gentry.

Not everyone is as reflective as Sir Nettleby or Lady Lilburn. Most of the shooting party are preoccupied by such things as pursuing a discrete affair, identifying appropriate matches for their children, shooting the most pheasants over the course of the two-day hunt, dodging their creditors, and observing the proprieties attendant to being a gentleman or a lady. Meanwhile the servants and retainers have other concerns, and a few of them harbor rather bitter resentments.

Just as the world of the landed gentry of 1913 ended in death in the Great War, so too does the Nettleby Park shooting party of October 1913 end in death. That fact is announced on the first page of the novel, and the suspense over whose death it will be propels the novel. But THE SHOOTING PARTY is much, much more than a mystery. It is an extraordinarily keen and sensitive portrayal of a society on the brink of its rapid demise. And I cannot praise Isabel Colegate's prose highly enough; it is superb in its precision and poise.

I have not seen the 1985 movie that was made of the book, starring among others James Mason and John Gielgud. I understand the movie was much truer to the novel than usually is the case. But even if you have seen the movie, I urge you to read the novel, because it is first-rate literature. [Addendum I have now seen the movie while it is good, the novel is far better.]

This was my introduction to Isabel Colegate. I will make a point of seeking out other novels by her. She was born in 1931, making her yet another of the remarkable generation of accomplished British women writers born between 1913 and 1933. Others are Anita Brookner, Penelope Fitgerald, Penelope Lively, Iris Murdoch, Barbara Pym, Muriel Spark, and Elizabeth Taylor. And then there also is Doris Lessing, who, having been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, is the most famous of the bunch - though, in my experience, the least enjoyable.
I consider this book to be a classic, and very well written, and a special delight for those who are Anglophiles and love the manor house. Even more amazing is the fact that the movie, which is based on this novel and shares the same title, is as good as the book. The film is quite true to the book. It is a feast for the eyes, is perfectly casted, and very well acted by James Mason and the entire cast! Book and Film make a great duet.
Isabel Colgate has given us both a graceful and wonderfully written book about a way of English life (1913) that was on the verge of disappearing due to the coming of World War I. From a modern perspective, if a person wanted to know how England became the way it is presently, one must go back to that time between the Boer War and WWI and then take in the monumental changes caused by the First World War. What Isabel Colgate has accomplished so admirably in this modest sized book is to give us an insight into the social thinking and values that existed in the book's 1913 setting -- a shooting party at a country estate. A first-rate piece of writing and insight by an award winning author. Highly recommended.

(Also, this book was turned into a solid screenplay in 1983 and a first rate motion picture was produced of the same title. It had a stellar British cast and was, sadly, actor James Mason's last film. After seeing the finished movie in early 1985, Mr. Mason said it was one of the finest films he had the privilege of working on in his long career. The film is currently available on DVD in a nicely restored version. But do read the book!)
It is the autumn of 1913, and Sir Randolph Nettleby, Baronet, is hosting yet another shooting party at his Oxfordshire estate. His guests include some family members and some titled friends. The days are filled with pheasant shoots, luncheons al fresco, elaborate dinners back at Nettleby Park, and idle flirtations and lovemaking. An army of servants looks after the Nettlebys and their guests. It's all very pleasant and comfortable, symbolic of a way of life that has been going on for centuries.

But all is not as it seems. Troubles are brewing at home and abroad, and there's talk of war, strikes, suffragette outrages, and economic difficulties. Some of the ladies and gentlemen are having trouble making ends meet, and cracks in the elaborately constructed facade of civilized life spread and grow deeper. The shooting is interrupted, first by an eccentric intellectual wanderer, and then by a tragedy in which one of the beaters driving pheasants is shot by a guest who isn't quite as gentlemanly as he appears.

Isabel Colegate's exquisite novel is less than 200 pages long, but it deftly depicts the vanished world of the Nettlebys and their servants and guests. Her wriiting reminds me of Jane Austen in some ways, and of Henry James in others. I finally read it after many viewings of the movie adaptation, and I like it even better.