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A Long Way from Verona
by
‘I ought to tell you at the beginning that I am not quite normal having had a violent experience at the age of nine'
Jessica Vye's 'violent experience' colours her schooldays and her reaction to the world around her- a confining world of Order Marks, wartime restrictions, viyella dresses, nicely-restrained essays and dusty tea shops. For Jessica she has been told that she ...more
Jessica Vye's 'violent experience' colours her schooldays and her reaction to the world around her- a confining world of Order Marks, wartime restrictions, viyella dresses, nicely-restrained essays and dusty tea shops. For Jessica she has been told that she ...more
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Paperback, 208 pages
Published
November 5th 2013
by Europa Editions
(first published 1971)
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This book is about Jessica, almost thirteen and living in England. We follow her several months in 1940 and 1941. We see the war as a child saw it then – the bombing, the evacuees and food shortages. The war is the background; the central focus is a preteen coming of age, a budding writer and an avid reader. She makes a great role-model for other young to-be writers. She is strong and determined, but also grapples with right and wrong, her own aspirations and worth.
I particularly liked what this ...more
I particularly liked what this ...more
This book was written in 1971, narrated by a 12 going on 13 year old girl in 1940. Guess what? 1940, 1971, or 2018, nothing changes when it comes to navigating school, boys, and family. Humiliations, embarrassment, fear, parents and teachers who just don't get it, it's all the same. Fortunately for us, Jessica Vye is smart and funny, and Jane Gardam's first novel is a lot of fun to read.
Apr 29, 2017
Eleanor
rated it
really liked it
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
literary-fiction,
2017-books
A beautifully observed portrait of a girl who is declared to be a born writer, living in the north of England during World War Two. No doubt she is to some extent a portrait of the young Jane Gardam.
A book written for teenage children, and full of wisdom. Jessica must learn to cope with everyday difficulties at school and home, but then comes face to face with death and destruction during a bombing raid. Over the course of a year, her life changes as she learns to cope with fear and loss.
This w ...more
A book written for teenage children, and full of wisdom. Jessica must learn to cope with everyday difficulties at school and home, but then comes face to face with death and destruction during a bombing raid. Over the course of a year, her life changes as she learns to cope with fear and loss.
This w ...more
When she was nine, Jessica Vye was told by an author visiting her school that she WAS AN AUTHOR INDEED." This was after she had run home, gotten everything she had written and caught up with the author before he boarded thetrain. He sent her back that message in the mail, several months later. She of course never forgot it and it shaped her life.
World War ll and the world of ration cards, air raid shelters and gas masks had become part of everyday life in England. Jessica is quirky, she is very ...more
World War ll and the world of ration cards, air raid shelters and gas masks had become part of everyday life in England. Jessica is quirky, she is very ...more
A Long Way from Verona, first published in the early Seventies, is a timeless story narrated by a precocious and melodramatic yet traumatized girl whose childhood has been shaped by the harrowing experience of war. This book is short but incredible, and really one worth reading.
Every single time I begin a novel by Jane Gardam, I find myself saying the same thing to myself; "This is exactly the sort of book I like." Within pages of A Long Road from Verona I once again found this idea flitting through my brain. I suppose Gardam will fail me someday, perhaps.
I did read other Goodread reviews before beginning mine. I don't often do that. Here are two things I found by doing so. The novel was written for children! Middle grade children. Well, I'll be! The oblique narrative ...more
I did read other Goodread reviews before beginning mine. I don't often do that. Here are two things I found by doing so. The novel was written for children! Middle grade children. Well, I'll be! The oblique narrative ...more
Oh my goodness. I’ve just finished a book that has rocketed to the top of my list, and toppled all the other books nearby. It’s my new Favorite Book of All. And you simply must read it, too. It’s an amazing read, with amazing characters and an amazing little story. It’s very odd, but you’ve probably never heard of it and---even odder---you’ve probably even heard of the author. I just came across it by the unlikeliest of chances. It’s on the 1001 Children’s Books You Must Read list, so somebody e
...more
Aug 11, 2008
Susann
rated it
really liked it
·
review of another edition
Recommended to Susann by:
Nicole F. and Constance
"I don't know if you've noticed but if you want to become one of the English Classics it's a good idea to be up in the top half of the alphabet. There are a tremendous lot of As and Bs and Ds and - down to about H."
Jessica Vye is the English equivalent of Harriet M. Welsh. Smart, blunt, and confident, until she's faced with social situations that she can't quite get a handle on. She's far from perfect, but always true to herself. Gardam's writing is so honest and her characters are so true-to-li ...more
Jessica Vye is the English equivalent of Harriet M. Welsh. Smart, blunt, and confident, until she's faced with social situations that she can't quite get a handle on. She's far from perfect, but always true to herself. Gardam's writing is so honest and her characters are so true-to-li ...more
May 02, 2019
Claire Fuller
rated it
really liked it
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
read-in-2019,
country-england,
journal-diary-letters,
1940s,
audio-books,
novellas,
historical
I listened to all of this on a long car journey, and it was really enjoyable (I really liked the narration). I absolutely loved Jessica's voice. She's 13 in 1940 / 41 and looking back first to when she was 9 and met a famous writer. Then we follow her through school where she writes a poem and has various escapades, and is finally disillusioned about the famous writer, but finds her own way. It's charming and sweet, but the story meanders. If you like I Capture the Castle you'll love this.
3.5 s ...more
3.5 s ...more
Detailed and curious, this book is really more amazing than four stars. How I got sucked into reading about a 12 year old girl during the war in England would normally be a mystery but the character and writing are so compelling it just happened and now I'm sad the book is over.
Jane Gardam's first novel, published in 1971. Charming, warm and witty.
The sad thing is that this is my very first Gardam novel. I guess we shall see, but this has left me with a less than ideal first impression. Jessica Vye, our "heroine"/narrator is not likable at all to me. I saw her as pretentious, trying all the while to seem the exact opposite. Not that she is not a good, kind, intelligent person. But she is only eleven to thirteen, trying to operate much like in her early twenties. She states that she can only ever be honest, that she can read what people ar
...more
Written in 1971, “A Long Way from Verona” is Jane Gardam’s first novel (of over 20 novels.) While her audience was intended to be middle school readers, the novel can certainly be appreciated by adults. Jessica Vye, the central character, is a thirteen year old aspiring wrier in a small, coastal English town during World War II. At the age of nine, a visiting author at her otherwise boring, never-anything-happening-out-of-the-ordinary school excites her author’s heart…”to hell with school. Engli ...more
Good fun. The world through the eyes of a thirteen year old girl living on the north coast of England during WWII. It's a sweet story, often very funny, and full of eccentricities which is what I love about Jane Gardam. It took me a while to figure out the title but that's part of the experience. I don't think this is a children's or a young adult's novel (re other reviewers). I think it was written for adults to remind them of the torture of being in your early teens. Or is that just me?
A Writer Beyond All Possible Doubt
I ought to tell you at the beginning that I am not quite normal, having had a violent experience at the age of nine. I will make this clear at once because I have noticed that if things seep out slowly through a book the reader is apt to feel let down or tricked in some way when he eventually gets the point.What a marvelous opening! Jessica Vye is only twelve or thirteen while she is writing, but it is clear that she has read enough books to have formed firm ide ...more
A Long Way From Verona, by Jane Gardam, is a treasure. It’s told from the POV of a 12-13 year old girl, not much younger than Juliet (14) in Romeo & Juliet. The young protagonist, a born writer, as she is told by a published novelist who reads her work, is a feisty, fascinating, and compelling figure who falls in (and quickly out) of love with a boy about her age. He’s handsome, smart and principled, but his ethics allow him to abandon her when they’re in a pinch. She makes her way” back home to
...more
What a pleasant surprise! Thank you, public library! This was on their new books shelf, but it turns out this is a re-issue of a novel published about 40 years ago. It's about a girl growing up in a town by the North Sea during World War II. She has a very distinct personality and voice, and she begins by telling you that she would have been normal except for something terrible that happened to you, which was that an author told her she is a writer. Plus she said she has the ability to know what
...more
This is the first of the very many books(1971)Jane Gardam has written. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. I discovered to my surprise on Wikipedia that it is actually a "children's book," stuff I never read. Could have fooled me....it's just a pretty good story very well told.
I am always impressed with the meticulousness of Gardam's prose. First, settings are so well rendered that you feel you are there. Second, and even better, she has a gift for writing dialogue which makes her characters jump o ...more
I am always impressed with the meticulousness of Gardam's prose. First, settings are so well rendered that you feel you are there. Second, and even better, she has a gift for writing dialogue which makes her characters jump o ...more
Kind of funny...this book has three things that could make it a difficult read. It takes place in England, which I love, but is filled with slang and sometimes tough to decode vocabulary. Then, not only England, but England during the early 1940s...a time period I really like but it truly adds level of difficulty points to the vocabulary. But the icing on the cake is the third thing: it's written in a stream of consciousness style from the point of view of a 12 year old girl.
So yes, there were ...more
So yes, there were ...more
I am a sucker for a book about authors -- even one who is only 13-years-old. A charming yet profound short novel about what makes a writer. They tell me this is a children's book -- could've fooled me. Set during World War II, it must be somewhat autobiographical. The author, Jane Gardam, was born in 1928 and must have been the same age as the main character,
Jan 24, 2014
Sonia Gensler
added it
This was considered a historical when it came out in 1971, and 40+ years later it still perfectly captures the passionate insanity of early teenhood. Such a charming and arresting story. I only just finished the book and already I desperately miss Jessica Vye.
Jessica Vye is a wonderful 13 year old character, smart, outspoken and an individual. I couldn't put the book down I'd finished.
"Jessica Vye yearns to become a writer -- but war time, a curate's cramped and chaotic household, and a strict, down-to-earth school are a comically disheartening setting."
~~back cover
I've not been a big reader of school stories and for me this book seemed to fall squarely in that category. Only it also felt amorphous: the party, Christian, the slum excursion, the picture Jessica bought -- I suppose that was the device to draw the reader into Jessica's teenage uncertainty, but it threw me off: I ...more
~~back cover
I've not been a big reader of school stories and for me this book seemed to fall squarely in that category. Only it also felt amorphous: the party, Christian, the slum excursion, the picture Jessica bought -- I suppose that was the device to draw the reader into Jessica's teenage uncertainty, but it threw me off: I ...more
What a stunning work this is. Backlisted podcast brought me here and by crikey they were right.
I am on a Jane Gardam kick. I was happy to find this older book. The voice is similar to the last one of hers I read, another girl coming of age story, but that didn't detract.
I find it surprising that this book, anchored solidly in the stodgy milieu of backwater England during WWII, was published in 1971, and was very likely written during “the summer of love” (1969), a time of great turmoil and social upheaval. Perhaps the author was escaping to the kinder, gentler days of her youth? There’s no telling to what extent Jane Gardam’s story is autobiographical, but she would’ve been roughly the same age as her protagonist, Jessica Vye, during the war.
The life and outloo ...more
The life and outloo ...more
Having had the great luck to discover Jane Gardam earlier this year, I was happy to pick up this book, which I've learned was her first novel. What a talent! Gardam's ear for the thoughts, emotions and speech patterns of a 13 to 14 year old is quite remarkable. Jessica Vye, our delicious heroine, narrates the book. We learn she is destined to be a writer, has a very quirky family, lives in the years of WWII in England and goes to a very mediocre school with tiresome teachers and silly arbitrary
...more
1971. I couldn't put this little book down! Riveting.
The reader is transported to a town near Teesside [NE Yorkshire coast] in about 1940, anyway soon after Britain 'joined' WW II. Since Gardam lived near there when she was about the age of the first-person narrator [13 years old], one assumes she draws somewhat on her own experiences.
The dialog is wonderful - seems to reflect the way schoolgirls talked at that time and place. Sure, there were many words and expressions new to me, but I could st ...more
The reader is transported to a town near Teesside [NE Yorkshire coast] in about 1940, anyway soon after Britain 'joined' WW II. Since Gardam lived near there when she was about the age of the first-person narrator [13 years old], one assumes she draws somewhat on her own experiences.
The dialog is wonderful - seems to reflect the way schoolgirls talked at that time and place. Sure, there were many words and expressions new to me, but I could st ...more
I just finished A long way from Verona. Truly, I am not sure if I liked it or not. Mostly I enjoy Jane Gardam;s writing. It read like I was reading about a confused thirteen year old and I suppose it was meant to be. But I think I am too old to read about thirteen year olds especially as I don't have any around that I can help with the knowledge that Jessica's confusion is offering. When I was thirteen I was going through a very close family death and I have no idea if my confusion was from bein
...more
Aug 21, 2016
Colin
rated it
it was amazing
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
colin-read,
colin-read-2016
Like Jane Gardam’s other early novels Bilgewater and The Summer After the Funeral (written originally for young adults – although nobody in publishing had coined the term in the early seventies), A Long Way From Verona features a funny and highly articulate young woman as a narrator. From the book’s first sentence, ‘I ought to tell you at the beginning that I am not quite normal, having had a violent experience at the age of nine’, you know that you are in for a wry, witty and warmly observed st
...more
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Jane Mary Gardam OBE is a British author of children's and adult fiction. She also reviews for the Spectator and the Telegraph, and writes for BBC radio. She lives in Kent, Wimbledon and Yorkshire. She has won numerous literary awards including the Whitbread Award, twice. She is mother of Tim Gardam, Principal of St Anne's College, Oxford. Jane has been awarded the Heywood Hill Literary Prize for
...more
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“Thank you," he said. "I'm glad you enjoyed it. If there is anyone here this afternoon whom I have convinced that books are meant to be enjoyed, that English is nothing to do with duty, that it has nothing to do with school - with exercises and homework and ticks and crosses - then I am a happy man." He turned away but then he turned back again and he suddenly simply shouted, he bellowed "To hell with school," he cried. "To hell with school. English is what matters. ENGLISH IS LIFE." The Head grabbed him and led him off to her sitting-room for tea, not looking too thrilled, and we were let out and I went flying home.”
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