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The Light Years (Cazalet Chronicles #1)

4.07 of 5 stars 4.07 · rating details · 683 ratings · 78 reviews

In 1937, the coming war is only a distant cloud on Britain's horizon. As the Cazalet households prepare for their summer pilgrimage to the family estate in Sussex, readers meet Edward, in love with but by no means faithful to his wife Villy; Hugh, wounded in the Great War; Rupert, who worships his lovely child-bride Zoe; and Rachel, the spinster sister.

Paperback, 448 pages

Published July 1st 1995 by Washington Square Press (first published January 1st 1990)

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The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer

Good Night, Mr. Tom by Michelle Magorian

The Light Years by Elizabeth Jane Howard

World War II England

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Jan 11, 2013 Laura rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Bettie, Carey

Recommended to Laura by: Komet

Shelves: between-wars, audio-books, british-literature, family-saga, fiction-20th-century, hf-world-war-ii, read-2013

From BBC Radio 4:
Elizabeth Jane Howard's family saga set in the run up to WWII, dramatised by Sarah Daniels

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May 09, 2013 Brian rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The first book in a saga that explores the impact of the changes that overtook Britain in the late twentieth century, The Light Years focuses on an extended upper-middle class family just before the outbreak of World War Two. Elizabeth Jane Howard has an unusual narrative technique in that the point of view is distributed more or less evenly over more than a dozen characters so that the story is brought to us in a series of snippets.

I found this unsatisfying in that no character had ownership o...more The first book in a saga that explores the impact of the changes that overtook Britain in the late twentieth century, The Light Years focuses on an extended upper-middle class family just before the outbreak of World War Two. Elizabeth Jane Howard has an unusual narrative technique in that the point of view is distributed more or less evenly over more than a dozen characters so that the story is brought to us in a series of snippets.

I found this unsatisfying in that no character had ownership of the story and there was no-one to identify with. I imagine, however, that it enables the author to create a richly layered tapestry of plot as the series extends. What I did like about this technique is the opportunity it affords of including the thoughts of the children alongside those of the adults, giving us a more complete picture of the family under her fictional micropscope.

The quality of the writing struck me as uneven. There are parts that seem really rather clunky, almost like formulaic genre-fiction, all tell and no show, but then there are other moments of real insight.

The characters are difficult. I found it hard to really like any of them, except for the lonely, impoverished old governess whose fiancé was killed in the First World War. They are depicted warts-and-all and there are so many warts.

What really makes this book work for me is the sense of period and in particular the evocative description that summons up with such filmic quality a picture of England before the war:

As she opened the front door and stepped into what had been the old cottage garden she was assailed by the heat, by the sound of bees and the motor mower, by honeysuckle and lavender and the nameless old-fashioned climbing rose of ivory peach colour that was thickly wreathed round the porch. The Duchy’s rockery, her latest pride and joy, was blazing with little mats and cushions and sparks of flowers. She turned right and followed the path round the house. On the west side was a steep bank that ended in the tennis court that McAlpine was mowing. He wore his straw hat with a black band, trousers as round as drainpipes, and, in spite of the heat, his jacket. This was because he was in view of the house; he took it off in the vegetable garden. He saw her and stopped, in case she wanted to say anything to him. ‘Lovely day,’ she called and he touched his forehead in acknowledgement.

But alongside such idyllic rural scenes the author doesn't flinch from laying bare the stultifying narrowwness of so many of these middle-class lives, protected as they are by wealth and deference - the women obsessed with their appearance and the men with their importance, all of them so uninformed about the rest of the world. It made me very glad to be alive now.(less)

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Mar 14, 2013 John rated it 1 of 5 stars

This is the first of a three volume series about the large, upper middle class Cazalet family and their throng of servants, friends, retainers, mistresses and others. You literally need a scorecard to keep track of everyone. The setting is London and rural Sussex in 1937 and 1938. World War II is looming large on the horizon. Normally, I love sagas of this ilk, such as Brideshead Revisited. But Howard, alas, is no Evelyn Waugh or E.M. Forster. She does do a good job of re-creating the vanished w...more

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Feb 20, 2013 Bettie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: winter-20122013, radio-4, published-1990, sussex, library-in-norway, historical-fiction, fradio, epic-proportions, under-500-ratings, wwii

The Light Years (Cazalet Chronicles #1) by Elizabeth Jane Howard

fradio> R4
Dramatisation
Series> #1 of 4
Winter 2013
under 500 ratings
pub 1990
Hist Fic>WWII
Sussex
Families
Epic

1/10 The Cazalet family gather for their annual summer holiday as war looms.
2/10 Edward escapes the family holiday to meet his mistress.
3/10 Sibyl goes into labour early, and Rachel is drafted in to help.
4/10 Louise's image of her father Edward is about to be shattered for good.
5/10 As Sid worries about the situ...more

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Jun 06, 2012 Ivonne Rovira rated it 4 of 5 stars

The dust jacket of The Light Years, the first in the Cazalet series, compares the book to the Upstairs, Downstairs television series from the BBC. And there is a certain resemblance, of course, as there would be with any upper-class English family of the early 20th century. However, Elizabeth Jane Howard's book is more like Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited or Jane Austen's Emma -- a leisurely stroll of a novel where the character development is much more important than any plot line. You'll f...more

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Feb 12, 2011 Beth Bonini rated it 4 of 5 stars

If you are fascinated by England between the wars, and I am, this book is an essential read.
My friend Jenni has been recommending it to me for many years -- it is a sentimental favourite of hers -- and I finally got around to reading it.

Elizabeth Jane Howard has such a fine eye for detail -- and such a wonderful ear for voice. You feel, utterly, that you can imagine what it was like to be in that time and place. The book is set during subsequent summers just before WWII breaks out. Even though...more

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Aug 02, 2009 Jane rated it 3 of 5 stars

what a strange book this was. Lent to me by a friend, it wasn't something I'd ever have stumbled across by myself. Bursting at the seams with characters in an almost Dickensian way, there's no one in this big fat novel that doesn't get at least three or four lines told from their own point-of-view. So much of 'The Light Years' is a low-grade period piece - well told and all, but with really nothing special going on. But then every now and then there are flashes of incredible intensity, where you...more

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Apr 13, 2013 Virginia rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: reviewed, 1990-2010

I enjoyed this novel. I saw it described in one review as a ‘cozy book’ (India Knight’s term) and that just about nails it. I read it at home in London in a cold April, but I felt I should really be reading it on a hammock somewhere warm, with some species of 1930s cocktail at my side.

I was inspired to embark on the Cazalet saga by an interesting profile I read of Howard ('Guardian, 7 April 2013). Two things struck me in the interview: that she hardly wrote at all for the 18 years she was marri...more I enjoyed this novel. I saw it described in one review as a ‘cozy book’ (India Knight’s term) and that just about nails it. I read it at home in London in a cold April, but I felt I should really be reading it on a hammock somewhere warm, with some species of 1930s cocktail at my side.

I was inspired to embark on the Cazalet saga by an interesting profile I read of Howard ('Guardian, 7 April 2013). Two things struck me in the interview: that she hardly wrote at all for the 18 years she was married to Kingsley Amis (‘I had a very large household to keep up and Kingsley wasn't one to boil an egg, if you know what I mean’), and that she wrote the first four of the Cazalet novels—she has just written a fifth—in a five-year period in the late 80s/early 90s, after she left him. I was intrigued to see what she had been bottling up all that time.

'The Light Years' meanders through the story of a family in the years immediately leading up to the start of WWII. It has an almost dauntingly large cast. I was doing pretty well with the three Cazalet brothers and their wives, children, and assorted servants, and coped fine with the parents, unmarried sister, and further assorted servants and rustics who showed up about a third of the way through when the brothers and their families decamped to Kent for the summer, but I have to admit to a secret groan when one of the wives’ sisters then showed up with another four children. Basta! Howard thoughtfully supplies family trees and lists of characters, but in the (Ibooks) edition I was reading, they came at the end and I discovered them too late.

Howard does an impressive job on characterization, given the extent of the cast-list. The children are very lovingly realized, especially the young adolescents, but the couples are also sharply observed and believable. The novel is very attentive to the way in which society at that time privileged men over women and boys over girls (‘injustice permeated their lives’—women’s—‘like words through a stick of seaside rock’), but Howard is not doctrinaire about it, and she treats the male characters with great empathy as well (with one deserving exception).

Howard writes very well. She has an easy, elegant style, which reads completely seamlessly, although I felt sometimes her sheer fluency led her to write more than was necessary in certain vein. She is wonderful at children’s voices, for example, but it does mean you spend possibly a little too much time in the novel (for my taste) inhabiting twelve-year-old, or six-year-old, minds.

Howard takes a high-risk strategy where point of view is concerned. I don’t think I’ve ever read a more multi-perspectival novel. Just about everyone introduced gets a first-person moment, even a farmer from whom the family patriarch plans to buy a couple of cottages late in the novel. You almost feel outraged on behalf of the odd bus conductor or shop assistant who misses out. Most of the ‘upstairs’ characters in the book are very well done, as is the engaging, ‘upper servant’ governess figure in whose voice the book ends (I don’t think that’s a spoiler). Anyone more definitely ‘downstairs’ gets much more of a raw deal; in fact, the poor dears’ mental world rarely seems to extend much beyond their material circumstances, except for the occasional thought about how nice/fanciable one or other of their employers are. In my view, this is a decided weakness of the novel. We’re not in Gosford Park here.

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Mar 30, 2011 Rowena rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Stumbled across this book at a used bookstore in NY. The second I saw the descriptors "upstairs, downstairs," I was hooked. Ever since Gosford Park, I've been fascinated by early 20th century landed gentry British customs. The calm, cultured, faintly ridiculous atmosphere of the "upstairs" where you dress for dinner, and the frenzied pace of the "downstairs," where cooks plan elaborate meals well in advance; maids scurry around the rooms before dawn to light fires, prepare tea, set out clothing;...more

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Mar 05, 2013 Sarah rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2013, historical, i-own-in-treeless-form, around-the-world

It took me a while to get into this novel - there's a slow set up as the characters and families are gradually introduced. At first it seemed to be about nothing in particular but I think the author has consciously given space and time for the novel and the characters to breathe, which suited the kind of life and story she is writing about.

I loved Howard's writing, in particular the way she shifted the narrative voice between characters, which meant that you really got to intimately know the ch...more

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Apr 16, 2013 Brunhilde rated it 4 of 5 stars

Richly satisfying first instalment of Elizabeth Jane Howard's Cazalet family saga, beginning just before WWII. Brimming with unobtrusive details of life in big houses of the time - the amount of food that had to be prepared, the cost and style of the clothes, contraception etc. etc. and best of all, full of Howard's psychological acuity, each of the (many) characters brought to life with a sureness of touch. I particularly admired the development of Zoe, child bride and unwilling stepmother, bro...more

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Nov 01, 2012 Jen rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book reminds me of a soap opera for several reasons. There are a lot of characters - each has their own role to play but I spent the first half of the book flipping back to the family tree at the beginning. Some of the characters were lovely, and others did and said things so ridiculous I wanted to hit them with the book. Howard is very good at creating tension, which is happily resolved in the end, but anyone with an ounce of historical knowledge knows that this is bound to be short-lived....more

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Mar 12, 2012 Jane rated it 3 of 5 stars

This was the chosen book group read for this month's review. It is not a book that I would have bought. I found it slow getting into the story and rather muddling at first working out who was who. Once the first half of Part One was over the story took off and I found the book a pleasant read. A light, holiday read. The story was simply told and I found in Part Two the impending war was well referenced. Good characterisations, and most of the characters quite likeable. My favourite of the brothe...more

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Apr 01, 2010 Leigh rated it 5 of 5 stars

My absolute favorite series of books (The Cazalet Chronicles) begins with The Light Years...it's 1937 and the story opens with many branches of the wealthy Cazalet family is headed to the grandparents' home in Sussex, in the country, for the summer. WWII is on the horizon but not yet a real worry. The Cazalet children consist of three brothers: Edward, who is a completely faithless husband to his wife Villy; Hugh, who was wounded in WW I and is devoted to his wife, Sybil; Rupert, who was widowe...more

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Mar 07, 2013 Jina Howell-Forbes rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: british-historical-fiction, great-series

This is WWII era historical family saga. "The Light Years" is the first book in the Cazlet Family Trilogy. This book covers the two summers before the war. Three generations of the Cazlet family, along with servants and assorted friends of the family habitually spend summers together at the Patriarchal country estate in the English countryside. This book covers the family dynamics, the politics and the English public sentiments of that time period. Much of it is seen through the eyes of the youn...more

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Apr 22, 2009 Beth rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: everybody

Recommended to Beth by: Found it in Barnes and Noble

I read this book nine years ago, and have re-read it several times, and I also have the audio books (abridged and unabridged). This series is my absolute favorite of all time.

The author has done an exceptional job of capturing the atmosphere of an upper-income household in the 1930's and 1940's. The descriptions of the houses, areas, clothes, food, and events are superb. The character development is fantastic.

I can't recommend this series enough. My mother finally read the series, and was also t...more

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May 19, 2011 Lucy rated it 5 of 5 stars

I loved this book. I loved the indulgence of the upper classes in the pre-war period and the idea of the family dynasty. I loved the way each character was important and had their own issues that were pressing to them. I loved the way that childish innocence, awkward teenager and adult responsibility were all explored seamlessly without any detraction from the progress of the novel. It is a book to be savoured and is delightfully English. I didn't want the book to finish and am all set to start...more

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Jan 27, 2013 Girl with her Head in a Book rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites

The Cazalet Chronicles are currently being serialised on Radio 4, which got me to thinking about how I had listed them in my top 10. I had every intention of reviewing each of those in full but somehow time has rather got away from me ... anyway, listening to them on the radio has made me remember quite why I loved them so much in the first place so I decided that since I appear to be having a lazy Saturday, why not write it down. So here we are.

The Cazalet Chronicles are a quartet of novels; Th...more

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Jan 21, 2010 Linda C rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites

I read this series sometime in the 1990s and LOVED it. Noticed that the reviews were mixed-- agreed, I started "The Light Years" (Book 1) a couple of times before I really got into it. Then I thought it was great and read all the books in the series as they came out. If you like or love books set in pre-WWII England, you will like this series. Think "Brideshead Revisited" etc. I'm totally an Anglophile, and love the period from 1900 through WWII, so this series totally captured my favorite time...more

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Sep 20, 2009 Ann rated it 4 of 5 stars

Recommended to Ann by: Amy Hirschkron

Shelves: novel

I've read 3 of the four books in the series now. Marking Time and Confusion follow this one, and Casting Off is the last.

These books are extremely well-written, very engrossing and quite entertaining. (Usually the words "multi-generational saga" are enough to make me set the book aside, unless specifically recommended to me.)

This is the story of the three grown children and their children who all retreat to the parent's large country home to get through WWII. In addition to the family, other ch...more

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Jun 18, 2012 Betty rated it 4 of 5 stars

Recommended to Betty by: referenced by Sylvia Nasar in Grand Pursuit

Shelves: england

I ran across the author's name in an unlikely source (Sylvia Naser's "Grand Pursuit: The Story of Economic Genius"). Set in 1938 in England, you cannot read this book without an overlay dread, knowing what is coming in 1939. Now it reads as a historical novel, but it was written by a woman who lived through those years (she was born in 1923). It's a sprawling work, with dozens of characters, and this is the first of a series of four. I found it to be a compelling read, perfect for a leisurely da...more

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May 01, 2009 Ellen Bertone rated it 4 of 5 stars

This series (which was also a PBS series) was wonderful. The books may be hard to find in the US and used copies can be very expensive. They can be obtained reasonably inexpensively from English booksellers.
The series follows a extended family of upper middle class English from a period before WWII through the war. The earlier books are stronger but you will want to read all four to find out what happens to the younger generation.

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May 16, 2013 Ginni Brinkley rated it 2 of 5 stars

Everyone seems to love the Cazalet Chronicles, but I found it quite slow going, and I'm just not that keen on sex scenes in books. I didn't really like the characters that much, so I couldn't make myself care about what happened. Even with mediocre series' I often read on, but I won't be bothering with this one. Lots of people love it though, it's just not for me,

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Apr 02, 2013 Mary Lou rated it 4 of 5 stars

Volume I of a family saga starting just before WWII. This is comfort reading of very high quality- just the thing for Easter Hols with snow still thick on the ground. Clever and entertaining with so many characters, all interesting, adults and children alike. Interesting that the one character who is not that likeable (male)is the one we know least about- in this volume anyways.

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Jun 23, 2011 Claire rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I picked this up in a charity shop and loved the story and characters. I continued to read all four books in the series. These are novels about a very specific middle class family, (based very much on EJH's own family, I believe)during the pre-second world war years. I found this un-put-downable, and searched out and read the next books over a couple of years!

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Aug 05, 2012 Linera rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites

First volume in Howard's quartet of novels about WWII England. Why isn't this more famous? Certainly as good as Anthony Powell's "Dance to the Music of Time" and for me at least, much more enjoyable. Elizabeth Jane Howard is now known mostly for having married and survived marriage to Kingsley Amis. I'm enjoying this quartet so very much.

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Apr 22, 2012 Kathy rated it 5 of 5 stars

I enjoyed this series of books so much! Historical novels are such a treat for me, expecially when they carry a romantic line to them. These books were right on the mark, in my opinion, of how the English deal with tragedy and challenges. The books are set before, during and after WW2. I highly recommed them!

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Apr 14, 2010 Mary Robinson rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: historical-fiction

Becky sold me on this intergenerational story of an upper-class English family told right before WWII breaks out. Slowly paced with a lot of everyday life detail about food, clothes, household work that I enjoyed but others might find boring! Wonderful variety of characters of all ages portrayed realistically.

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Jan 20, 2013 Kate rated it 3 of 5 stars

I read these books years ago - as a huge fan of Rosamunde Pilcher these were recommended to me as a stand in. I didn't feel the same pull I did when I read Ms. Pilcher's works but enjoyed them sufficently enough to read all the novels in the series (three, I believe?)

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Oct 13, 2009 Jane rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: anyone

Recommended to Jane by: first saw the BBC production

The Cazalets - a marvelous series of books about an English family in the late 1930s and 1940s. The numerous family members live through WWII each involved in their own way. I could hardly wait to get to the next book and hated for the series to end.

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About Elizabeth Jane Howard

Elizabeth Jane Howard, CBE is an English novelist. She was an actress and a model before becoming a novelist. In 1951, she won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize for her first novel, The Beautiful Visit. Six further novels followed, before she embarked on her best known work, a four novel family saga set in wartime England. The Light Years, Marking Time, Confusion, and Casting Off were serialised by Ci...more

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