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Lovers of Their Time and Other Stories
Stories set in England and Ireland during the last forty years focus on the beauties and pleasures of the commonplace
288 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1978
154 people want to read
About the author
William Trevor
185 books778 followersWilliam Trevor, KBE grew up in various provincial towns and attended a number of schools, graduating from Trinity College, in Dublin, with a degree in history. He first exercised his artistry as a sculptor, working as a teacher in Northern Ireland and then emigrated to England in search of work when the school went bankrupt. He could have returned to Ireland once he became a successful writer, he said, "but by then I had become a wanderer, and one way and another, I just stayed in England ... I hated leaving Ireland. I was very bitter at the time. But, had it not happened, I think I might never have written at all."
In 1958 Trevor published his first novel, A Standard of Behaviour, to little critical success. Two years later, he abandoned sculpting completely, feeling his work had become too abstract, and found a job writing copy for a London advertising agency. 'This was absurd,' he said. 'They would give me four lines or so to write and four or five days to write it in. It was so boring. But they had given me this typewriter to work on, so I just started writing stories. I sometimes think all the people who were missing in my sculpture gushed out into the stories.' He published several short stories, then his second and third novels, which both won the Hawthornden Prize (established in 1919 by Alice Warrender and named after William Drummond of Hawthornden, the Hawthornden Prize is one of the UK's oldest literary awards). A number of other prizes followed, and Trevor began working full-time as a writer in 1965.
Since then, Trevor has published nearly 40 novels, short story collections, plays, and collections of nonfiction. He has won three Whitbread Awards, a PEN/Macmillan Silver Pen Award, and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. In 1977 Trevor was appointed an honorary (he holds Irish, not British, citizenship) Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE) for his services to literature and in 2002 he was elevated to honorary Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (KBE). Since he began writing, William Trevor regularly spends half the year in Italy or Switzerland, often visiting Ireland in the other half. He lived in Devon, in South West England, on an old mill surrounded by 40 acres of land.
In 1958 Trevor published his first novel, A Standard of Behaviour, to little critical success. Two years later, he abandoned sculpting completely, feeling his work had become too abstract, and found a job writing copy for a London advertising agency. 'This was absurd,' he said. 'They would give me four lines or so to write and four or five days to write it in. It was so boring. But they had given me this typewriter to work on, so I just started writing stories. I sometimes think all the people who were missing in my sculpture gushed out into the stories.' He published several short stories, then his second and third novels, which both won the Hawthornden Prize (established in 1919 by Alice Warrender and named after William Drummond of Hawthornden, the Hawthornden Prize is one of the UK's oldest literary awards). A number of other prizes followed, and Trevor began working full-time as a writer in 1965.
Since then, Trevor has published nearly 40 novels, short story collections, plays, and collections of nonfiction. He has won three Whitbread Awards, a PEN/Macmillan Silver Pen Award, and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. In 1977 Trevor was appointed an honorary (he holds Irish, not British, citizenship) Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE) for his services to literature and in 2002 he was elevated to honorary Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (KBE). Since he began writing, William Trevor regularly spends half the year in Italy or Switzerland, often visiting Ireland in the other half. He lived in Devon, in South West England, on an old mill surrounded by 40 acres of land.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
November 12, 2021
William Trevor and John Updike were born only four years apart, but you wouldn't likely lump them together, would you?
They are both, in my opinion, two of the best writers of the twentieth century, on any continent, in any language. Stylistically, they are quite different.
When I finish a work of Updike's, I have these terribly inappropriate fantasies. Suddenly, I'm his intern, seated on his knee. . . his cigarette drops, my skirt lifts, there's a groan, and. . . okay, let's just stop right there.
When I finish a work of Trevor's, I have these terribly wholesome fantasies. Suddenly, I'm his intern, seated across from him. . . my milky tea is tepid, my tweed skirt is scratchy, my pen races across the page, in the silence between my questions.
With Mr. Updike I'm all: Oh, John, oh, John, oh, John. . . the tension!
With Mr. Trevor I'm all: Sir. Mr. Trevor. . . how do you create such tension in your prose?
At the end of the day, it is all very fitting. I believe that Mr. Trevor and Mr. Updike (who died seven years apart) achieved the results in their readers that they set out to create.
You may wonder why I'm blathering on about their differences, when this is, in fact, a reading response to a short story collection by Mr. Trevor, but I recently finished a novel by Mr. Updike from the same time period, and I couldn't help but make some curious comparisons in my mind. Meaning: why are they both so great at what they do, and how do they go about it so differently?
As far as I can tell, both men took a different sized lens to the subject of life, but the biggest difference I see in their work is in their approach to sex. Where Mr. Updike is almost obsessed with the topic of infidelity and how his protagonists grapple with the terror of monogamy, Mr. Trevor is almost obsessed with the topics of sexual abuse and self-imposed celibacy.
How can a reader not be fascinated? Not be fascinated by what makes us rowdy, subdued, panicked, and pleasured, when it comes to our sexual identity? What factors came into play to make these writers what they became, and what factors influence our own experience of what goes on between the sheets, behind closed doors?
Both William Trevor and John Updike make me NUTTY with a desire to learn from both of them, as writers. Seriously—I wish I could raise them each from the dead and talk to them for the rest of my life.
Every character in this collection of one novella, “Matilda's England”, and nine short stories were worthy of my time. It's not about whether I liked them or not, or whether I liked the topics or not (I often didn't), it's about believing that every one of these “people” existed and that they had a story worthy to share with me.
“Oh, darling,” she whispered one October evening at Paddington, huddling herself against him. It was foggy and cold. The fog was in her pale hair, tiny droplets that only he, being close to her, could see. People hurried through the lit-up station, weary faces anxious to be home.
“I know,” he said, feeling as inadequate as he always did at the station.
“I lie awake and think of you,” she whispered. . .
She was gone before she finished speaking, swinging into the train as it moved away, her bulky red handbag the last thing he saw. It would be eighteen hours before they'd meet again.
They are both, in my opinion, two of the best writers of the twentieth century, on any continent, in any language. Stylistically, they are quite different.
When I finish a work of Updike's, I have these terribly inappropriate fantasies. Suddenly, I'm his intern, seated on his knee. . . his cigarette drops, my skirt lifts, there's a groan, and. . . okay, let's just stop right there.
When I finish a work of Trevor's, I have these terribly wholesome fantasies. Suddenly, I'm his intern, seated across from him. . . my milky tea is tepid, my tweed skirt is scratchy, my pen races across the page, in the silence between my questions.
With Mr. Updike I'm all: Oh, John, oh, John, oh, John. . . the tension!
With Mr. Trevor I'm all: Sir. Mr. Trevor. . . how do you create such tension in your prose?
At the end of the day, it is all very fitting. I believe that Mr. Trevor and Mr. Updike (who died seven years apart) achieved the results in their readers that they set out to create.
You may wonder why I'm blathering on about their differences, when this is, in fact, a reading response to a short story collection by Mr. Trevor, but I recently finished a novel by Mr. Updike from the same time period, and I couldn't help but make some curious comparisons in my mind. Meaning: why are they both so great at what they do, and how do they go about it so differently?
As far as I can tell, both men took a different sized lens to the subject of life, but the biggest difference I see in their work is in their approach to sex. Where Mr. Updike is almost obsessed with the topic of infidelity and how his protagonists grapple with the terror of monogamy, Mr. Trevor is almost obsessed with the topics of sexual abuse and self-imposed celibacy.
How can a reader not be fascinated? Not be fascinated by what makes us rowdy, subdued, panicked, and pleasured, when it comes to our sexual identity? What factors came into play to make these writers what they became, and what factors influence our own experience of what goes on between the sheets, behind closed doors?
Both William Trevor and John Updike make me NUTTY with a desire to learn from both of them, as writers. Seriously—I wish I could raise them each from the dead and talk to them for the rest of my life.
Every character in this collection of one novella, “Matilda's England”, and nine short stories were worthy of my time. It's not about whether I liked them or not, or whether I liked the topics or not (I often didn't), it's about believing that every one of these “people” existed and that they had a story worthy to share with me.
“Oh, darling,” she whispered one October evening at Paddington, huddling herself against him. It was foggy and cold. The fog was in her pale hair, tiny droplets that only he, being close to her, could see. People hurried through the lit-up station, weary faces anxious to be home.
“I know,” he said, feeling as inadequate as he always did at the station.
“I lie awake and think of you,” she whispered. . .
She was gone before she finished speaking, swinging into the train as it moved away, her bulky red handbag the last thing he saw. It would be eighteen hours before they'd meet again.
February 26, 2017
He does not neglect the wallpaper, nor that spot an old man may have missed in his shaving. He takes pains to describe the exact color of a young girl's hair. Old women look around the present with eyes that have seen tragedies; children see the tragedies, too, but in whispered pieces of conversations overheard, their vision yet uncorrected.
Twelve stories here, published around 1979. Even the slightest of them is well-told. Some are searing. Searing, I tell you. Trying to give you twelve plots, though, would be a fool's errand. Allow me, instead, to let the late Master make some introductions:
Mrs Malby, 86: Mrs Malby was wearing a blue dress with a pattern of darker blue flowers on it. She was a woman who had been tall but had shrunk a little with age and had become slightly bent. Scant white hair crowned a face that was touched with elderly freckling. Large brown eyes, once her most striking feature, were quieter than they had been, tired behind spectacles now.
Norah: She was middle-aged now, with touches of grey in her fluffy jet-black hair, a woman known for her cheerfulness, running a bit to fat. Her husband was the opposite: thin and seeming ascetic, with more than a hint of the priest in him, a good man. 'Will we get married, Norah?' he'd said one night in the Tara Ballroom in Waterford, November 6th, 1953. The proposal had astonished her: it was his brother Ned, bulky and fresh-faced, a different kettle of fish altogether, whom she'd been expecting to make it.
Norman Britt: His name was Norman Britt. It said so on a small name-plate in front of his position in the travel agency where he worked. Marie a badge on her light-blue shop-coat announced. His wife, who worked at home, assembling jewellery for a firm that paid her on a production basis, was called Hilda.
Sarah Machaen: At forty-seven Sarah Machaen was reconciled to the fact that her plainness wasn't going to go away. As a child she had believed that growing up would put paid to the face she couldn't care for, that it would develop prettily in girlhood, as the ugly ducking had developed. 'Oh, it's quite common,' she heard a woman say to her mother. 'Many a beauty was as plain as a pikestaff to begin with.' But no beauty dawned in Sarah's face.
Mrs Ashburton: At the time she'd hated the Germans and she was ashamed of that, too, because the Germans were just people like other people. But when she talked about them the remains of the hatred were still in her voice, and I imagined the Germans from what she told me about them: people who ate black bread and didn't laugh much, who ate raw bacon, who were dour, grey and steely.
Torridge: Torridge at thirteen had a face with a pudding look, matching the sound of his name. He had small eyes and short hair like a mouse's. Within the collar of his grey regulation shirt the knot of his House tie was formed with care, a maroon triangle of just the right shape and bulk. His black shoes were always shiny.
Hugh and Emily Mansour: They were the same age, fifty-two, not yet grandparents but soon to be. He dealt in property; she'd once been a teacher of Latin and Greek. She was small and given to putting on weight if she wasn't careful: dumpy, she considered herself.
Attracta: Her own fair hair, pinned up under her green-brimmed hat, was what stood out between the two of them. The color of good corn, Mr Devereux used to say, and she always considered that a compliment, coming from a grain merchant.
Archdeacon Flower's successor: He ate more biscuits and a slice of cake. He laughed and even made a joke. He retailed a little harmless gossip.
Twelve stories here, published around 1979. Even the slightest of them is well-told. Some are searing. Searing, I tell you. Trying to give you twelve plots, though, would be a fool's errand. Allow me, instead, to let the late Master make some introductions:
Mrs Malby, 86: Mrs Malby was wearing a blue dress with a pattern of darker blue flowers on it. She was a woman who had been tall but had shrunk a little with age and had become slightly bent. Scant white hair crowned a face that was touched with elderly freckling. Large brown eyes, once her most striking feature, were quieter than they had been, tired behind spectacles now.
Norah: She was middle-aged now, with touches of grey in her fluffy jet-black hair, a woman known for her cheerfulness, running a bit to fat. Her husband was the opposite: thin and seeming ascetic, with more than a hint of the priest in him, a good man. 'Will we get married, Norah?' he'd said one night in the Tara Ballroom in Waterford, November 6th, 1953. The proposal had astonished her: it was his brother Ned, bulky and fresh-faced, a different kettle of fish altogether, whom she'd been expecting to make it.
Norman Britt: His name was Norman Britt. It said so on a small name-plate in front of his position in the travel agency where he worked. Marie a badge on her light-blue shop-coat announced. His wife, who worked at home, assembling jewellery for a firm that paid her on a production basis, was called Hilda.
Sarah Machaen: At forty-seven Sarah Machaen was reconciled to the fact that her plainness wasn't going to go away. As a child she had believed that growing up would put paid to the face she couldn't care for, that it would develop prettily in girlhood, as the ugly ducking had developed. 'Oh, it's quite common,' she heard a woman say to her mother. 'Many a beauty was as plain as a pikestaff to begin with.' But no beauty dawned in Sarah's face.
Mrs Ashburton: At the time she'd hated the Germans and she was ashamed of that, too, because the Germans were just people like other people. But when she talked about them the remains of the hatred were still in her voice, and I imagined the Germans from what she told me about them: people who ate black bread and didn't laugh much, who ate raw bacon, who were dour, grey and steely.
Torridge: Torridge at thirteen had a face with a pudding look, matching the sound of his name. He had small eyes and short hair like a mouse's. Within the collar of his grey regulation shirt the knot of his House tie was formed with care, a maroon triangle of just the right shape and bulk. His black shoes were always shiny.
Hugh and Emily Mansour: They were the same age, fifty-two, not yet grandparents but soon to be. He dealt in property; she'd once been a teacher of Latin and Greek. She was small and given to putting on weight if she wasn't careful: dumpy, she considered herself.
Attracta: Her own fair hair, pinned up under her green-brimmed hat, was what stood out between the two of them. The color of good corn, Mr Devereux used to say, and she always considered that a compliment, coming from a grain merchant.
Archdeacon Flower's successor: He ate more biscuits and a slice of cake. He laughed and even made a joke. He retailed a little harmless gossip.
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February 11, 2022Sorry but - this is another I cannot force myself to continue with.
Many readers seem to think Trevor is a master storyteller - yes if you like being emotionally wrung to pulp!
It's not the first Trevor I've had to give up, because of the sensation of being overwrought. His style is Dated!
Many readers seem to think Trevor is a master storyteller - yes if you like being emotionally wrung to pulp!
It's not the first Trevor I've had to give up, because of the sensation of being overwrought. His style is Dated!
June 23, 2014
After each story in this collection, I had to set the book aside for a while. I had to be still, savor it, make it last. This is a strange thing to say since the lingering mood of "Attracta" or "Torridge" or "Matilda's England" is pathos, but it's pathos of the most complicated and sanctifying kind, the pathos of an entire life called into question, upended by an inevitable and yet unforeseen consequence. The way that Trevor handles multiple points of view in a single story is so deft that I can hardly believe these are some of his early stories, published in the late 1970's. Stunning in the literal sense of the word.
November 1, 2017
Starts off with a bang. Stories make you empathize with the elderly, makes you fear getting old. At least you'll have these stories to remind you that you aren't alone.
February 13, 2022
William Trevor, I'm in love with you.
November 21, 2018
I decided to read some William Trevor because he was recommended by author, lecturer and YouTuber vlogger Scott Bradfield. I read "Laughter In The Dark" by Vladimir Nabokov based on his advice and loved it so I figured that based on that I would like Trevor. I really enjoyed these stories. Trevor covers a wide range of emotions and experiences and the stories are incredibly well crafted. His sensibilities as a sculptor were definitely translated across to his writing. This is a great collection for any lover of good writing but especially for anyone considering putting pen to paper themselves. I am definitely going to read more of Trevor's work.
July 16, 2019
A solid 4.3. A good read.
August 14, 2024
The stories were of a consistent standard.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews