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The Fox in The Attic by Richard Hughes – chosen by Caroline Av Score 4.9
8/10 Caroline: These brief notes do no justice whatsoever to Caroline’s lucid exposition.
I remember reading this a long time ago. A very strong novel
Augustine is a lost young man
Liked the historical/political perspective
English viewpoint on WWI – War to end Wars but for Germans the reality was national humiliation.
Various strands can be picked out – what it is to be human – how do we know what others are thinking? Augustine’s view of Mitzi is completely at odds as to how she sees herself.
4/10 Sheila
Found Augustine irritating and arrogant. How can he just live for himself?
Liked the perspective of the young Germans who felt humiliated by the war.
3/10 Matt
Enthusiastic about the opening – the finding of the body of the dead young girl but where then was the story?
Some interesting bits but it was mainly history and not telling a story.
Felt Augustine was respectful to Mitzi, though deluded.
Not a stand out book – very little remains in my head
3/10 David
Didn’t particularly enjoy. Found Augustine very naïve. I read a lot of history books and did not find this convincing
6/10 Rob
Read 5 years ago and enjoyed the re-read. Loved the book, the way it was written – a beautiful style. Typical of between-the-wars British novels eg. Brideshead or something by C P Snow
5/10 John
Did not like the division into different settings. The mystery of the dead body and the Dickensian villagers seemed the beginning of a mystery story but then we end up with a semi-historical take on the rise of Nazism. I did find the last section an interesting take on the history of the time. Augustine could not see the true nature of what was happening in Germany or the true nature of Mitzi’s indifference to him. Her physical blindness perhaps a metaphor for Augustine’s lack of awareness.
5/10 Ceri (by email)
I enjoyed the opening of the book (which is set in west Wales) with its rich descriptions, Welsh names and conversations reminiscent of ‘Under Milk Wood’ by Dylan Thomas. Some of the characters in this section had a Dickensian feel, especially Dr Brinley, the coroner in Flemton. Augustine is concerned with class- he uses words like ‘beastly’; low-grade ‘sweeper’ caste; ‘not an upper-class child’ referring to Rachel, who died. This narrow thinking was conveyed very well.
However, the book did not follow the path that I was expecting it to take! It moves from the comedy of small-town gossip to analysing and philosophising the after-effects of the first world war over several chapters, in quite a different style to its opening.
In the middle section, ‘The White Crow’, we are given a German perspective of the war years, where Otto is working to rebuild the German army, even while Augustine is under the same roof, and thinks that ‘the lost war had ended too soon’. He pities Augustine. The author refers to Augustine as a ‘simpleton’. The heavy military and political wrangling in Book 2 were not easy to fully absorb without the reader having a pretty good knowledge beforehand of the names of various sectors vying with each other in Germany in 1923 e.g. Freikorps, triumvir etc. I had to go off and so some research on Weimar Germany.
Somehow, the description of the Beer Hall Putsch, which is a climactic part of the book, is written in a dry, turgid way, and I could not understand why. It was at this point that I felt that this book is worth re-reading, and indeed, I had time to go back and re-read the first quarter of it and to gain a better understanding of the historical context and the author’s references to foxes/ hunting. On re-reading it, I feel that the title refers to the character ‘Wolff’ who is hiding in the attic and is planning his attack on the residents below, while ‘Fox’ also refers to the rise of Nazism.
I did feel that many times the author threw out one-liners that leave the reader puzzling, before he moves on, e.g. “not till at last knew they almost loved Rathenau that they had heard that final categorical imperative to kill him”.
I was not sure what the structure of the book was- but it felt unbalanced: Wales 1/3rd, Germany 2/3rds with a section in England in the middle. The author is clearly very knowledgeable and analytical but I did not get a lot of satisfaction or emotional involvement with this book. E.g. Augustine- does he actually change or develop?
8/10 Caroline: These brief notes do no justice whatsoever to Caroline’s lucid exposition.
I remember reading this a long time ago. A very strong novel
Augustine is a lost young man
Liked the historical/political perspective
English viewpoint on WWI – War to end Wars but for Germans the reality was national humiliation.
Various strands can be picked out – what it is to be human – how do we know what others are thinking? Augustine’s view of Mitzi is completely at odds as to how she sees herself.
4/10 Sheila
Found Augustine irritating and arrogant. How can he just live for himself?
Liked the perspective of the young Germans who felt humiliated by the war.
3/10 Matt
Enthusiastic about the opening – the finding of the body of the dead young girl but where then was the story?
Some interesting bits but it was mainly history and not telling a story.
Felt Augustine was respectful to Mitzi, though deluded.
Not a stand out book – very little remains in my head
3/10 David
Didn’t particularly enjoy. Found Augustine very naïve. I read a lot of history books and did not find this convincing
6/10 Rob
Read 5 years ago and enjoyed the re-read. Loved the book, the way it was written – a beautiful style. Typical of between-the-wars British novels eg. Brideshead or something by C P Snow
5/10 John
Did not like the division into different settings. The mystery of the dead body and the Dickensian villagers seemed the beginning of a mystery story but then we end up with a semi-historical take on the rise of Nazism. I did find the last section an interesting take on the history of the time. Augustine could not see the true nature of what was happening in Germany or the true nature of Mitzi’s indifference to him. Her physical blindness perhaps a metaphor for Augustine’s lack of awareness.
5/10 Ceri (by email)
I enjoyed the opening of the book (which is set in west Wales) with its rich descriptions, Welsh names and conversations reminiscent of ‘Under Milk Wood’ by Dylan Thomas. Some of the characters in this section had a Dickensian feel, especially Dr Brinley, the coroner in Flemton. Augustine is concerned with class- he uses words like ‘beastly’; low-grade ‘sweeper’ caste; ‘not an upper-class child’ referring to Rachel, who died. This narrow thinking was conveyed very well.
However, the book did not follow the path that I was expecting it to take! It moves from the comedy of small-town gossip to analysing and philosophising the after-effects of the first world war over several chapters, in quite a different style to its opening.
In the middle section, ‘The White Crow’, we are given a German perspective of the war years, where Otto is working to rebuild the German army, even while Augustine is under the same roof, and thinks that ‘the lost war had ended too soon’. He pities Augustine. The author refers to Augustine as a ‘simpleton’. The heavy military and political wrangling in Book 2 were not easy to fully absorb without the reader having a pretty good knowledge beforehand of the names of various sectors vying with each other in Germany in 1923 e.g. Freikorps, triumvir etc. I had to go off and so some research on Weimar Germany.
Somehow, the description of the Beer Hall Putsch, which is a climactic part of the book, is written in a dry, turgid way, and I could not understand why. It was at this point that I felt that this book is worth re-reading, and indeed, I had time to go back and re-read the first quarter of it and to gain a better understanding of the historical context and the author’s references to foxes/ hunting. On re-reading it, I feel that the title refers to the character ‘Wolff’ who is hiding in the attic and is planning his attack on the residents below, while ‘Fox’ also refers to the rise of Nazism.
I did feel that many times the author threw out one-liners that leave the reader puzzling, before he moves on, e.g. “not till at last knew they almost loved Rathenau that they had heard that final categorical imperative to kill him”.
I was not sure what the structure of the book was- but it felt unbalanced: Wales 1/3rd, Germany 2/3rds with a section in England in the middle. The author is clearly very knowledgeable and analytical but I did not get a lot of satisfaction or emotional involvement with this book. E.g. Augustine- does he actually change or develop?