Cultural Dessert

'Bournville' by Jonathan Coe

27 January 2023

Regular readers will know I am a big fan of the books of Jonathan Coe. When I wrote about his 2019 novel 'Middle England' (reviewed here in January 2019), the third in the series he began in 2001 with ‘The Rotters Club’, I said it felt like he was writing specially for me. The new Jonathan Coe novel ‘Bournville’, which I have just read as an unabridged audio book, narrated by Peter Caulfield and Cara Horgan, is similarly on my wavelength. It’s a moving family saga, starting on VE Day in 1945 and following Mary Lamb and her relatives through to the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. Set in and around Bournville in Birmingham, there is a lot of chocolate in this book. It will keep Jonathan Coe fans happy as it reprises all his favourite themes - from Birmingham to Brussels to some great writing about classical music: there is a whole section of the book themed around Messiaen’s ‘Quartet for the End of Time’. The story of generations within the same family set against the backdrop of key historic moments (the Coronation, the 1966 World Cup final etc) reminded me of Kate Atkinson’s ‘Behind the Scenes at the Museum’. Showing the lives of the main characters against the backdrop of real political events across the latter half of the 20th century also reminded me of Peter Flannery's ‘Our Friends in the North’ (reviewed here in April 2006), particularly in the poignant final chapters. While not strictly part of the series, ‘Bournville’ is a novel clearly set in the Rotters Club universe - with links to, and appearances by, members of the Trotter family. We also re-encounter Thomas Foley, the protagonist of another Jonathan Coe novel ‘Expo 58’ (reviewed here in September 2013). Like the Rotters Club books, there are cameos by some real figures - including Boris Johnson (though Jonathan Coe’s Author’s Note points out that “Whether he's a fictional character or not remains hard to determine”). And the sections about the pandemic are a valuable record of the peculiar period of lockdown that is already fast receding in the memory. Like ‘Middle England’, ‘Bournville’ is a comic tale about our recent history with a melancholic feel.

Labels: Books

posted by Robin Simpson @ 6:02 pm