Winter Garden

Listed as a library copy so price was o.k. but did not state that D/W was glued to the outer boards and not removable.

Dark, eccentric and very funny - Probably not everyone’s cup of tea, but I love Beryl Bainbridge’s style of writing, so I really enjoyed it.

Very readable

I am a huge Bainbridge fan but have only just discovered Winter Garden, which people have tended to dismiss as a minor work. I strongly disagree, and would place it among her best novels. It's only 150 pages long which is slight even for Bainbridge. The first hundred or so pages are hilariously funny, I laughed out loud time after time and even had to stop reading to catch my breath. Then in the last third the atmosphere thickens and the tone gets more somber, until you reach a conclusion that reminds you that for all the hilarity, the setting is still the Cold War. This is all masterfully managed by Bainbridge. It is flawed, not least in the premise that its protagonist could hold down a responsible job working for the admiralty (he comes across as prosaic, even a bit simple), but remains a terrifically entertaining read.

I love Beryl Bainbridge's books. They're short and to the point and her writing is never less than sharp and witty -- and very dark.The setting is the old Soviet Union: Moscow, Leningrad (as was) and Tbilisi in Georgia. The 1970s hotels are gloomily ominous, the characters all verging on sinister, and madness isn't far away.To say too much would be to give it away, but everything is here: infatuation, infidelity, drunkenness, death, kidnapping and, of course, espionage.

So far I have really appreciated the dark humour Beryl Bainbridge winds through the previous novels I’ve read; An Awfully Big Adventure, Sweet William and Harriet Said, but sadly any such flashes of brilliance in Winter Garden were overshadowed by either a weak plot or one that I simply didn’t ‘get’.Douglas Ashburner is a lawyer, married or many years with two adult children when he is persuaded by Nina, who he is conducting a clandestine affair with, to join her on a trip to Moscow with the Soviet’s Artist Union. Douglas duly tells his wife he is off to the Highlands fishing, and arrives at Heathrow to meet his fellow travellers at the airport complete with his fishing rod.The other members of the party are Bernard a minor celebrity in the world of art, and Enid a less well-known artist. Having to indulge in a certain amount of subterfuge regarding their true relationship Douglas finds himself sat apart from Nina during the flight, the book being set in the 1980s air travel was not the regimented affair it is today. Nina had asked Douglas to put her medication in her suitcase which doesn’t arrive in Moscow with the rest of the party. The failure to track down his case causes Douglas more than a bit of worry as he is going to have a devil of a job explaining why it got lost at an airport when it should be with him in Scotland.If I’m honest after we reach this part of the book, I struggled to make much sense of anything further. Nina mysteriously disappears from the entourage with various excuses and explanations being given for where she is, mainly led by Olga, their translator for the trip. The weird occurrences keep happening with a particularly odd nocturnal encounter on a train trip to Leningrad, none of which are furnished with any real resolution that makes proper sense although I think I know what we are supposed to believe, the problem is I’m not sure!What I did find interesting is the descriptions of Soviet Russia which come complete with the biting cold weather, not good news for Douglas as he misplaced his hat along the way although he does carry a pink scarf of Nina’s to keep the cold out of his ears. These descriptions of various engagements, viewing of graveyards and paintings include Beryl Bainbridge’s legendary wit, I was particularly fond of the visit to Stalin’s birthplace and the Russian characters we met. I’m really not so sure about Douglas who seemed incredibly naïve, and not just about his affair, particularly considering he’s supposed to be a lawyer. As Nina was off page she was fairly insubstantial although this aspect was nicely balanced by Enid who had some real depth. The trouble is interesting people only take you so far when these are pretty much disconnected from a plot.

Occasional moments of genuine hilarity but mainly a rather pointless meander around with no discernible plot. Very weak ending - made me wonder why I'd bothered.

Beryl Bainbridge's 'Winter Garden' focuses on Douglas Ashburner, a seemingly reliable and respectable lawyer, married to his wife for twenty-six years. But Douglas is not quite as reliable, or as predictable as others might think, for he is having an extra-marital affair with the lovely Nina, a rather capricious artist who causes Douglas to suffer from a number of sleepless nights. When Nina asks Douglas to join her on a trip to Moscow, where she has been invited as a guest of the Soviet Artists' Union, Douglas agrees, but tells his wife he is going fishing in Scotland. However, no sooner has he made the decision to go, then Douglas almost wishes something would happen to prevent him going and when he arrives at the airport, having surrendered his luggage and all of fishing paraphernalia, and meets Nina's artist friends, Bernard and Enid, Douglas begins to wonder whether he is doing the right thing - especially when he learns that Bernard is a minor celebrity who, on his first appearance on television, called the interviewer a pr*ck for confusing an etching with an engraving. When he arrives in Moscow, Douglas's misgivings increase even further when his suitcase goes missing, and he becomes terrified that instead of being reunited with his luggage in Russia, his suitcase will be returned home to his wife. A missing suitcase, however, is not all that Douglas has to worry about, because very soon Nina also goes missing, but I shall say no more as this is a very slim novel and I should like to leave the rest of Douglas's Russian adventure for prospective readers to discover for themselves.'Winter Garden' is, like many of Beryl Bainbridge's novels, a darkly amusing tale written by an author whose has a sharp and very perceptive eye. It is true, that in a book of this brief length, we cannot really get to know very much about the characters or their motivations and, in consequence I felt I was not as concerned about their dilemmas as perhaps I would have liked to have been - however, that said, although this is not my favourite of the author's many novels, I nevertheless enjoyed the story and found it an entertaining and undemanding read .3.5 Stars.