Book Review: “The Fortnight in September” by R. C. Sherriff
A book, in which nothing happens, and that’s great
Title: The Fortnight in September. First Published: 1931. Genre: Classic, Historical Fiction. Publisher: Scribner. Pages: 304.
It is, of course, an exaggeration to say that nothing happens in the novel “The Fortnight in September.” This impression can be formed if you start retelling the plot to a someone who is in a rush. Fortunately, we are not, so let’s take our time.
First, I would like to talk a bit about R. C. Sherriff himself. He was born at the very end of the 19th century in Great Britain and lived until 1975. At the beginning of the First World War, he was just 18 years old and, like many of his generation, went to war. He was wounded in the infamous Battle of Ypres.
Sherriff is part of the lost generation, like Hemingway, Remarque, Sassoon, and many others.
At the very beginning of “The Fortnight in September,” Sherriff explains why he wrote a book like this, in which not much happens. He wanted to capture the history of an ordinary family, which does not stand out from the rest. How often ordinary people pass by, we don’t notice them, and they don’t notice us, but each of them (and us) has their own unique story that is worth telling.
The Stevenses are, indeed, an average family in all respects: composition, income, lifestyle. There are five of them: Mr. Stevens, Mrs. Stevens, and three children — Mary, Dick, and Ernie. Every year for many years, they go on vacation at the same time, to the same place. And when I say “place,” not only do I mean the resort town, but also the hotel in which they stay. A hotel is a big word for a small house in which the owner receives guests. But even this change in their lives is very dear to the Stevenses, especially Mrs. Stevens.
First, Sherriff describes how the Stevenses are getting ready: packing their suitcases, discussing the route, giving various instructions to good neighbors. Then the family actually goes on vacation. And then spends there two weeks. That is it.
But, of course, it is not. Some things are not the same. Take, for instance, Dick, who came here last year as a college student, and now he works in an office. And Mary begins to look at the guys with completely different eyes, and they also notice something new and attractive about her. Mr. Stevens also experienced both visible (for example, his hair became a little thinner) and invisible changes. Mrs. Stevens, silent and exemplary, begins to notice what she has not seen before. It seems that only the youngest son, Ernie, remains the child of the family.
All these small metamorphoses, as well as secret thoughts that inadvertently start up in the heads of every member of a large and friendly family, suggest that there is nothing permanent in the world. Even if at first glance everything remains the same, when the time is rewound a bit, it becomes obvious that a lot has changed and the road back is slowly but surely overgrown.
This book is very quiet in its progress, like a leisurely train that runs along the rails and cannot turn anywhere. It is almost therapeutic in its “nothingness.” And it’s not for nothing that, at the very beginning, I dedicated an entire paragraph to the author himself. It seems so understandable and natural that in the 1930s, when one war was still not forgotten and the second, it seemed, was already brewing, to create something calm and uneventful, to remind the readers what real life is all about.
And yet, reading it in 2024, somewhere in the subconscious there is always an unpleasant scratch of the thought that everything cannot be like this until the end, something terrible must happen. Whether it did or not, I won’t tell you.
