A way through the wood

by Nigel Balchin

James Manning is perfectly content. He has a busy and successful life as a magistrate in the city, a bright young thing of a wife, Jill, and an idyllic home in the countryside. The only fly in the ointment as far as he can see is the 'HonBule' - the Honourable William Stephen Fitzharding Bule, very much the country gentleman with too much time on his hands. When a young man is knocked off his bicycle and subsequently dies, James is sure that the culprit is Bule - after all, he saw a scratch on the car the day of the accident AND the car matches the description to a T. But events take an unexpected turn when he discovers that the person driving the car that night was his own wife, Jill. It takes only a short leap of imagination to realise that Jill's friendship with the HonBule is not just platonic. This puts James in a quandary - should he lie to protect his wife, and what about his marriage? Like GOSFORD PARK and SNOBS, one of the main themes of this book is the mores and ethics of the upper classes. James's feelings about his wife are complicated by 'what is expected', and in the cover-up of the young man's death there is a clash between class loyalty and justice.

Genres: Fiction, British Literature

251 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1951

About the author

Trained originally as an industrial psychologist, in which capacity he helped Rowntree’s to successfully launch Black Magic chocolates in 1933, Nigel Balchin first received critical acclaim as a novelist during the Second World War when he wrote Darkness Falls From the Air. It was the first of three evocative novels (including the smash-hit The Small Back Room) that made good use of his wartime employment experiences at the Ministry of Food and later in the army. This trio was followed by a stream of other fine novels, such as A Sort of Traitors, Sundry Creditors and The Fall of the Sparrow. Balchin diversified into film scriptwriting after the war, winning a BAFTA for his work on The Man Who Never Was and penning what he whimsically described as “the first folio edition of Cleopatra”, being his original (unused) script for the Richard Burton/Elizabeth Taylor epic. When Balchin died in 1970, at the age of 61, the Guardian anointed him “the novelist of men at work”, a fitting epithet for one of the best fiction writers of the twentieth century.

Reviews

[Ben Bergonzi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lying in bed with flu and wanting some immediate Balchin I was lucky to find this available for Kindle (as very few of his books are). It was new to me though I had seen the film Separate Lies. The book puts marital breakdown under the microscope - an accident to a friend's car opens up a crack in the outwardly-solid relationship of Jim and Jill Manning. They live in a prosperous Sussex village, he is a magistrate and company director. She seems loving and is a good hostess, but doubts emerge, get covered up, creep through again... Told from Jim's point of view, the story progresses via the usual formula of long dialogue scenes with very few 'stage directions'. The arc of the story is not just the usual marital to and fro; the couple are caught on the horns of an unusually sharp dilemma - a innocent man has died and one of them needs to own up to causing it. Like so many other Balchin protagonists, Jim Manning continues to worry away scabs in his untidy situation, ultimately making his life still more uncomfortable. The ending is harsh but feels utterly truthful. Apart from some slightly embarrassing 'forelock tugging' behaviour from working class characters, the story is hardly dated at all. Compared to the film, there is a lot more incident (travels to Paris and Venice and a madcap drive from London to Sussex, car racing train) and you find yourself turning the pages very rapidly. A book immense psychological perception, grace and style.

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

This forgotten British novel from the 1950s is amazing. A traffic mishap in a small village sets off a cascading chain of events that makes the main character question everything about his life. Short, funny, and brutal.

[Herry · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favourite book for many years

[Theresa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I LOVE this book! It was engaging and very true to life experiences. It showed what it really means to love someone. Not a sad story, just an eye opener!

[Emma Sporton · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this kind of despite myself.

I like that it's centered so heavily around men's philosophies of marriage and honour, and yet it is so heavily imperfect in a modern context. A female character as significant to a plot as Jill can't possibly be the cog in the man's world that her husband and lover seem to think she is. The fault in the narrator's understanding of what occurs is that women are simply not given credit for any of their actions which, not according to the book, must play a big role in the various misunderstandings that take place.

I also found the vague hint of impending doom as to the discovery of the crime as it happened, very satisfying. It managed to be intriguing, even while the crime itself was not mentioned for long periods of time.

I would say that as a woman, it is hard to read this book and not be offended on the behalf of all the female characters within, whether that is your cup of tea, I don't know. As it stands, the narrator is inevitably unreliable, but acts as a delightful insight into attitudes of the 50s.

There are no woods in this book. My autism is very sad about it, I was told there were woods, and if there were, they weren't very good because I missed it.

[Mary Beth · Rating 5 out of 5]

You know you have done something when Julian Fellowes writes a foreward for your novel. I realize Mr. Balchin is dead, but why have I not run across him before now? I want to read his entire oeuvre as this book was so, so amazingly good!

Manors and manners with tears and recriminations, intentions all glaringly set amidst the fallout of car wreck. A lawyer thinks he has a tolerably good marriage until he knows he hasn't: he can't ignore the fact that his sweet young wife has gone and taken a lover. What's more she is in love with the man, but she's in love with her husband too. Who is responsible for the mess? Will justice and either relationship be served? Read and find out!

A motion picture called Separate Lies starring Tom Wilkinson was based off this book. This movie changed a few things and left some things out, but still was very well done. Of the two, I enjoyed the book more.

Fun fact: A Way Through the Wood was published in 1951, the same year as Graham Greene's The End of the Affair. Wow!

[Liz · Rating 1 out of 5]

The opening chapters held my attention because the story moved along well. Set and written in the early 1950s, the plot concerns a well-off married couple who seem happy enough before they become involved in a hit-and-run accident.
I began to struggle with the wife - a shallow and selfish adulteress and liar with no redeeming features as far as I could see - but hung on in there because I thought it was a crime novel.
When I reached an incredibly boring chapter set in Paris I realised it was actually a relationship novel and as I couldn't stand the wife anyway and didn't care what happened to her I gave it up.

[Sophie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rather an odd story. It was hard for me to imagine an actual person behaving as the protagonist in this story did. But then his choices probably grew from his general attitude to his wife—amused condescension meets disapproving schoolmaster—which no doubt explains my total lack of sympathy for him. Never less than interesting though.

[Joey Talbot · Rating 2 out of 5]

The interactions and inner dialogues of the main characters paint a most unflattering picture of the mores and prejucides of 1950s society, especially when it comes to gender and class. Reading it makes me aware of quite how thoroughly feminism and social change has transformed how we live, and I am thankful of it.

[CQM · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 and a half might be a better mark but definitely not 4. A Way Through the Wood isn't in the same class as The Small Back Room or Darkness Falls From the Air but that's not to say it's poor. There are great moments and some lovely sections and Balchin's writing occasionally equals that illustrious pair but sometimes seems old fashioned and dated. If, as I have heard, this is a fictionalized account of Balchin's own marriage breakup then it's no wonder he turned to booze. Good stuff but not the one to convert non fans.

[Nigel · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a quite nicely written, though not terribly exciting, tale, set in a time were there was still the death penalty, a nauseating class system and plenty of misogyny. Written in the fifties it reads, almost, like a script from an old black and white film that has catered for an audience expecting a spiffing tale of upper class cads and bounders, I mean, did people really talk like that?
The main problem is the characters, supposedly the cream and intellectual elite of upper class society, are all a bit pathetic.

[Annie Jones · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is very dated but it was fascinating to see the difference in the status of women then and now. I thought I would not finish the book but was surprised to find myself drawn in by the psychological drama of it and waiting to know the outcome. It was better than I thought it would be.

[Rach · Rating 2 out of 5]

Frustratingly bland

[Henry · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book of 1951 - how it was.

[Debbie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Rather dated in its attitude to marriage.