Watercolour Sky

by William Rivière

Under the open skies of north Norfolk, the Dobell family seems to lead an idyllic life, the countryside and its sporting pursuits closely interwoven with the very fabric of existence. Yet happiness eludes two generations; only the natural world remains a passion which sustains expectations in this haunting tale of loss and deep but ill-fated emotions.

Genres: Fiction

208 pages, Paperback

First published January 18, 1990

About the author

Born in 1954.

Reviews

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer · Rating 4 out of 5]

No rye in Norfolk and no oats to speak of. Just a lot of wheat and barley and sugarbeet. And fresh marsh and salt marsh. This coast of low muddy cliffs and longshore-drift , beaches and estuaries. A flint church every mile or two ….. Samphire, windmills, migratory birds, wide North Sea skies

I came to this book from the “Literary Norfolk: An Illustrated Companion” which lead to me buying a number of second hand literary fiction books set in Norfolk.

This one was published in 1990 by an author born in Norfolk in 1954 although then moving to Japan (where this was written) and Italy.

The book is I think best described as a melancholic almost tragic tale of the lives, loves and unfulfilled yeanings of a family of minor gentry in North East Norfolk, set among a both unchanging and altering world of sailing, horse riding and shooting.

The main family is that of Benedict Dobbell who owns a manor in Morston on the North Norfolk coast and a country house near Tunstead (near the Broads). He is married to Emma (the widower of a Free French fighter pilot Gilles de Nérac killed in the 1950s in the Vietnam war) – the marriage seeming little more than one of convenience for the emotionally and mentally distant Emma. Emma has two daughters – Thérèse (from her first marriage) and Alice (from her second). Thérèse trains in medicine – firstly going to France and then to Asia. Emma deteriorates into alcoholism, then cancer and eventually kills herself by crashing her car.

Alice – desperate for a long time for her father’s affection - falls for Kit Marsh, the college friend of Robert Clabburn the son of the neighbouring farmer to the Dobbell’s. Although Kit is initially lost among the country pursuits and traditions of the Clabburns and overawed by Alice and Thérèse, he is eventually seen by Alice as the more adventurous option and the two move to Italy together (although both seem to love the other more than they love being a couple). When Kit splits with Alice, she returns to Norfolk and drifts into a marriage (with a baby) with Robert who has inherited the family farm. But when Kit returns and Robert sees how much the two still feel for each other he decides to stage a sailing accident to leave Alice to live her own life.

The book itself is set in Norfolk in a series of almost set piece chapters which describe in detail such pursuits as muck-boat racing in Morston Creek, walking out on the mudflats near Wells, shooting of the grounds of farms, horse riding on both the East Coast beaches and in a race at Fakenham

And all of this is imbued with descriptions of the Norfolk countryside, weather and skies (rendered as the title implies in painter like detail) and of the life around crumbling country family properties (complete with dogs, horses, peacocks, small rowing lakes, decaying outbuildings and dusty rooms)

Raw daybreak at the beginning of year. Blood-orange sun clearing lifeless alder carr, glinting on waterlogged field and lawn. Lane fouled by sugarbeet lorries. Winter wheat sprouting green, a covey of partridges feeding.

Overall I found this a very evocative book – perhaps slightly overwritten and also one whose characters I think will have limited appeal to most readers (both due to their lifestyles and their sense of ennui); the best character for me was the Norfolk countryside.

Here the farm land came to an end, joined almost flush against scalloped summer sea. No more wheatfields, woods, villages. No more rivers snaking through water-meadows past headless windmills, down cascades of watermills where decayed wheels hadn't turned for years, past rushy banks over which sails apparently without hulls dragged themselves across lowlands apparently without water. No more churches standing over fens where grebe and bittern breed, where marsh harriers tilt over reed beds, where old vessels along dykes sink at their moorings. No more churches secluded in oaks and alders by their staithes. Here churches were gaunt fortresses against gales; they reared exposed from the last salt-bitten acres.

[Karen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not my usual preference. Unusual story set over several generations of privileged family from Norfolk. Enjoyed comparing the changes in the house to those in the family. Descriptions beautifully written but found a lot of the characters too complicated to identify with.

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favourite books ever
Beautiful