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Now and Then
Now. Christopher Metcalfe returns to his family home in Kent after the death of his father. Sorting through a box of memorabilia from his days at public school, Chris is suddenly confronted by the face that has haunted him for thirty years. Then, as a callow fifth former enduring the excesses of a school system designed to run an Empire that no longer existed, a most extraordinary thing happened amid the thrashings, and cross-country he was seduced by Stephen Walker, a prefect two years his senior with whom he went on to share a brief but intensely passionate affair. Now, again, alone, approaching the age of fifty, Christopher is painfully aware of the price he paid for letting go, and resolves to find Stephen, and discover what became of the only person he has ever loved. Delicately revealing the layers of both past and present as it alternates between now and then. William Corlett's moving debut novel illuminates the vacuity of Christopher's emotional life with subtle power and poignancy, exploring a multitude of themes in his exposition of his search for identity.
352 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1995
About the author
William Corlett
36 books29 followersWilliam Corlett (8 October 1938 - 16 August 2005), was an English children's writer, best known for his quartet of novels, The Magician's House, published between 1990 and 1992.
Corlett was born in Darlington, County Durham. He was educated at Fettes College, Edinburgh, then trained as an actor at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. He worked as an actor while embarking on a literary career during the 1960s, and wrote plays and adult novels as well as the children's novels for which he is particularly remembered. Several of his works were adapted for the screen.
Later in life he came out as gay, and it was from his partner, Bryn Ellis, that he gained some of his inspiration for The Magician's House. Corlett died of cancer at Sarlat in France.
Corlett was born in Darlington, County Durham. He was educated at Fettes College, Edinburgh, then trained as an actor at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. He worked as an actor while embarking on a literary career during the 1960s, and wrote plays and adult novels as well as the children's novels for which he is particularly remembered. Several of his works were adapted for the screen.
Later in life he came out as gay, and it was from his partner, Bryn Ellis, that he gained some of his inspiration for The Magician's House. Corlett died of cancer at Sarlat in France.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 75 reviews
February 5, 2024
A beautifully realised story of the heady joys of first love, and the fallout of it too. Christopher Metcalfe narrates chapters of his life that alternate between Now, while he's in his late 40s, living a buttoned-up, closet life following the death of his father, and Then, as a 16 year old at a boys' boarding school, where his relationship with Stephen Walker blossoms. While reading this book I gasped audibly at the achingly truthful depictions of love, infatuation and first youthful forays into sex. A gorgeous work.
March 9, 2015
This is an utterly fantastic novel. Beautifully written and skillfully arranged (interleaving past and present), it's a deeply satisfying story with a funny, snarky, and flawed main character. It doesn't do the plot justice to simply say that it covers the pain of thwarted first love, the desert of repressed emotion at midlife, and the challenge of coming to terms with the past. I truly wish author Corlett were still alive and writing more novels like this one.
February 7, 2014
One of my most favourite books, easy to read and eloquently written. I think it's hands down the best portrayal of heartache and heartbreak that I've read in literature. I've read it three times now, and if it had have been longer I couldn't have been happier!
Basically a story of two boys who fall in love with each other at an English boarding school; one whose love is strong and sincere, while the other's is more a passing expression of a romantic and sexual ideal.
The heartbreak and deception have a deep impact of the subsequent life of the sincere boy, Christopher, as he avoids relationships well into his mid-life. The book then explores how Christopher the man is forced to come to terms with his past.
It's also quite funny too in parts, especially Christopher's terse relationship to his intrusive and annoying sister, which includes tipping her into a cake stall when he's a boy, and emptying a glass of wine over her head as a man!
Basically a story of two boys who fall in love with each other at an English boarding school; one whose love is strong and sincere, while the other's is more a passing expression of a romantic and sexual ideal.
The heartbreak and deception have a deep impact of the subsequent life of the sincere boy, Christopher, as he avoids relationships well into his mid-life. The book then explores how Christopher the man is forced to come to terms with his past.
It's also quite funny too in parts, especially Christopher's terse relationship to his intrusive and annoying sister, which includes tipping her into a cake stall when he's a boy, and emptying a glass of wine over her head as a man!
September 16, 2014
This must have been the fastest I ever read a book. Corlettt, the author, does a fantastic job at sculpting his characters so they jump from the pages of the book with ease and excitement. His telling of a love that was found then lost is truly heartfelt and poetic. And the array of characters he creates in present time is so tangible the reader can actually envision their foibles being played out on a stage. This book was irresistibly addicting and does a wonderful job conveying love's first kiss and heartbreak.
February 21, 2021
Another rediscovered book off of my shelves and it's been 14 years since I read this.
Previously I rememered a tortured soul, whose first love abandoned him and left him bereft.
This time I found a man who failed to get over a brief love affair. Who then proceeds to basically stalk his once lover! (all before Facebook and the Internet)
Odd plot, terrible characters (as in their mannerisms) but brilliantly written and completely captivating still.
Solid storytelling.
Previously I rememered a tortured soul, whose first love abandoned him and left him bereft.
This time I found a man who failed to get over a brief love affair. Who then proceeds to basically stalk his once lover! (all before Facebook and the Internet)
Odd plot, terrible characters (as in their mannerisms) but brilliantly written and completely captivating still.
Solid storytelling.
February 14, 2009
Loved it. My all time favourite book!
August 2, 2022
I was reading Austen's Persuasion this morning, and a passage leapt out at me; a perfect synopsis for William Corlett's Now & Then. Austen – writing about her heroine Anne, notes that "[h]er attachment and regrets had, for a long time, clouded every enjoyment of youth; and an early loss of bloom and spirits had been their lasting effect."
An early loss of bloom. Oh, that struck a mark inside me. I can remember, as a child, being a wholly confident creature. I didn't care what anything thought of me; I played happily in my pearlescent bubble. Yet, as is often the case with closeted adolescents, the bubble pops. Realising that you are different, an alien creature distinct from those around you – stimulates a self-loathing so unbearable you begin to retreat within yourself, building up fortifications. You start to bereave yourself of any attachments, any people who may try and peer behind the wall.
The lasting effect of this bereavement is debilitating loneliness. You become cynical, angry at those who appear to have rich social lives; you belittle those good-natured enough to try and help you. The barricades can lead to complacency; you resign yourself to a self-imposed purgatory – believing that that is all you deserve. Regret and anger cohabitate comfortably in your repressed mind, feeding on open wounds always neglected and never remedied.
Corlett weaves and knots these themes throughout his tale of youthful naivety and first love. Corlett's dual narrative, alternating between the past and the present, perfectly articulates how seeds of self-denial can be sewn into our beings as children and live within us as we grow, denying us nutrients until we eventually succumb to their grip – believing their lies.
Christopher, the story's protagonist, is a conduit for this analogy. When another boy shows him an ounce of affection – attention he isn't used to, he offers his heart on a silver platter. First love can be a torrid experience, all-consuming and unbelievable. Add in that it's the 1950s and a gay affair, and complications arise on every front. Nevertheless, Christopher blooms in the arms of his first love. And its lasting effect alters him forever.
An early loss of bloom. Oh, that struck a mark inside me. I can remember, as a child, being a wholly confident creature. I didn't care what anything thought of me; I played happily in my pearlescent bubble. Yet, as is often the case with closeted adolescents, the bubble pops. Realising that you are different, an alien creature distinct from those around you – stimulates a self-loathing so unbearable you begin to retreat within yourself, building up fortifications. You start to bereave yourself of any attachments, any people who may try and peer behind the wall.
The lasting effect of this bereavement is debilitating loneliness. You become cynical, angry at those who appear to have rich social lives; you belittle those good-natured enough to try and help you. The barricades can lead to complacency; you resign yourself to a self-imposed purgatory – believing that that is all you deserve. Regret and anger cohabitate comfortably in your repressed mind, feeding on open wounds always neglected and never remedied.
Corlett weaves and knots these themes throughout his tale of youthful naivety and first love. Corlett's dual narrative, alternating between the past and the present, perfectly articulates how seeds of self-denial can be sewn into our beings as children and live within us as we grow, denying us nutrients until we eventually succumb to their grip – believing their lies.
Christopher, the story's protagonist, is a conduit for this analogy. When another boy shows him an ounce of affection – attention he isn't used to, he offers his heart on a silver platter. First love can be a torrid experience, all-consuming and unbelievable. Add in that it's the 1950s and a gay affair, and complications arise on every front. Nevertheless, Christopher blooms in the arms of his first love. And its lasting effect alters him forever.
July 4, 2013
Beautifully written story of assumed constancy and heartbreak. The depth of devotion of one character compared to the insincerity of the other is stark and heartbreaking. An emotional entanglement from boyhood reaches throughout a man's entire life, affecting his existence for decades. Certainly a bittersweet read, I felt most for the main character, but adored his mother as well. This book has no sit-com characters, all are flawed. The story left me sad as one character is so hurt and deceived, devoted to his boyhood love. Then, I thought, how beautiful for that depth of love to exist at all.
February 16, 2015
Absolutely loved this book. Just one of those books that I really connected to and couldn't put it down. Synopsis makes this book sound more melodramatic or sad then it actually is. Although its theme is sad, the writing style is quick and full of dry British wit.
February 21, 2015
This is such a wonderful book. I felt like I was taking this journey with Christopher, sharing his heartbreak and his happier moments with him. Once I started reading I desperately needed to know how it ended.
November 4, 2023
Now and Then by William Corlett is one of the 'lost' queer classics. I stumbled upon it by accident, I don't even remember where and how anymore. In the book, Christopher Metcalfe, the narrator in his late forties, reminisces back to his first love, a queer love, and its eventual end. These memories haunt him in a way that stops him from having any authentic relationships with his family, friends or a potential lover.
This is about yearning and desire, grieving and healing, hope and lack thereof. All of this is conveyed through a prose that seeps between your skin yet somehow so simple. There are times when this book gets overly sentimental, maybe even slightly clichéd, but something about its raw honesty got to me. It made me mourn for what we, in the Indian queer community, have lost recently with the disappointing marriage equality judgment, just one of many disappointments. Marriage has never been for me, but just the fact that it could have been possible gave me hope for the larger community. I understood the narrator's constant questioning of himself and the society. It's something that I constantly did when I think back to trying to be heterosexual right until my 20s, and it's only now I am out at work, out to family, out to friends. And I understand that as queer people, our pasts haunt us so intensely while we still try to move forward and redefine ourselves as not what the society expects, but as something that gives us joy or even just peace.
Now and Then is such a simple book but one that will remain with me.
This is about yearning and desire, grieving and healing, hope and lack thereof. All of this is conveyed through a prose that seeps between your skin yet somehow so simple. There are times when this book gets overly sentimental, maybe even slightly clichéd, but something about its raw honesty got to me. It made me mourn for what we, in the Indian queer community, have lost recently with the disappointing marriage equality judgment, just one of many disappointments. Marriage has never been for me, but just the fact that it could have been possible gave me hope for the larger community. I understood the narrator's constant questioning of himself and the society. It's something that I constantly did when I think back to trying to be heterosexual right until my 20s, and it's only now I am out at work, out to family, out to friends. And I understand that as queer people, our pasts haunt us so intensely while we still try to move forward and redefine ourselves as not what the society expects, but as something that gives us joy or even just peace.
Now and Then is such a simple book but one that will remain with me.
May 26, 2012
Oh the anguished pain of a broken heart! It seems to me after 60 years that there are some who have it in their nature to "keep it light", a bauble from Mills and Boon; there are however, others who have that peculiar vulnerability to open to the primal wound that marks the soul so deeply, a stiletto that can be twisted by the faintest echo of that moment when the blade first struck home. Chris is one of those (or should I say us). A wound like that becomes the fulcrum of a person's life, and like him, many close off the space in which it is held and kid themselves that they can hide from it and all the lesser wounds that follow. They establish a kind of disconnect between consciousness and the experience of pain, they often flatten their emotions, and dull their passions. A controlled life is sometimes the form, a constant flight at others.
Whatever, there are many who live in that tight world their entire life. There are others who like Chris have the witches brew begin to boil in a way that is beyond their control. That is often brought about, as it was in this book by something small, a photograph, a chance meeting, the sight of a particular face. Once it starts there must be the dive back into the pain, into the flow that was cut off then because it was just too much to bear. That happens, always a kind of spiritual unraveling, the grit of it all sticking in the throat while the heart heaves in the light of flashing memories.
Corlett captures all this so succinctly and lays it all out in a way that approximates closely its happening form for many people, Now (the ordinariness of life today) and Then (the agony in of it all in full). I found this book very powerful, I know it takes a kind of archetypical form for gay literature, but it truly put me back there and then. What more could a reader ask, it was a catalyst for some things in me, time now to let that dust settle.
Whatever, there are many who live in that tight world their entire life. There are others who like Chris have the witches brew begin to boil in a way that is beyond their control. That is often brought about, as it was in this book by something small, a photograph, a chance meeting, the sight of a particular face. Once it starts there must be the dive back into the pain, into the flow that was cut off then because it was just too much to bear. That happens, always a kind of spiritual unraveling, the grit of it all sticking in the throat while the heart heaves in the light of flashing memories.
Corlett captures all this so succinctly and lays it all out in a way that approximates closely its happening form for many people, Now (the ordinariness of life today) and Then (the agony in of it all in full). I found this book very powerful, I know it takes a kind of archetypical form for gay literature, but it truly put me back there and then. What more could a reader ask, it was a catalyst for some things in me, time now to let that dust settle.
June 19, 2016
I'm sure in the heart of every gay Englishman is a desire to have gone to public school. As snobby, elitist, barbaric and backward it is, there's also something both erotic and romantic about it.
For many gay men too (and I don't know if it's true anymore), if they've found happiness and permanence with somebody, there's always the ghost of the lonely life they thought they might have had instead - or perhaps that's just me. I still don't quite believe my luck that I survived childhood, school, my 20s, with enough self esteem still intact to be able to form a functioning, stable, happy relationship. I think my parallel life with haunt me forever, which admittedly is much better than being on the other side of that parallel.
Chris Metcalfe, the wonderfully engaging main character and narrator of this wonderfully engaging novel, experienced a love so strong at school that he has never allowed himself to love again. Now nearly 50, the death of his father sets him on a path to examining his feelings and his memories.
The novel throbs with a sense of the passion he felt for Stephen, the ache of their parting and the emptiness of his life since. The people around him - his family, his friend Catherine, the people he reconnects with as he tries to find Stephen again - are distinctly drawn and the author has an amazing lightness of touch and insight.
This is one of those rare books that you inhabit as you read - I loved it, it was gorgeous.
For many gay men too (and I don't know if it's true anymore), if they've found happiness and permanence with somebody, there's always the ghost of the lonely life they thought they might have had instead - or perhaps that's just me. I still don't quite believe my luck that I survived childhood, school, my 20s, with enough self esteem still intact to be able to form a functioning, stable, happy relationship. I think my parallel life with haunt me forever, which admittedly is much better than being on the other side of that parallel.
Chris Metcalfe, the wonderfully engaging main character and narrator of this wonderfully engaging novel, experienced a love so strong at school that he has never allowed himself to love again. Now nearly 50, the death of his father sets him on a path to examining his feelings and his memories.
The novel throbs with a sense of the passion he felt for Stephen, the ache of their parting and the emptiness of his life since. The people around him - his family, his friend Catherine, the people he reconnects with as he tries to find Stephen again - are distinctly drawn and the author has an amazing lightness of touch and insight.
This is one of those rare books that you inhabit as you read - I loved it, it was gorgeous.
November 2, 2010
A most wonderful diary of 'past' and 'present'...
I loved this book. It's simply a journal of the past (THEN) & the present (NOW) that keeps you interested all the way through. It got me all hyped up to the end...the meeting--sorry, I can't give away the story. Quite a page-turner!
It made me want to write my own story in a similar venue....perhaps one day...I will.
I loved this book. It's simply a journal of the past (THEN) & the present (NOW) that keeps you interested all the way through. It got me all hyped up to the end...the meeting--sorry, I can't give away the story. Quite a page-turner!
It made me want to write my own story in a similar venue....perhaps one day...I will.
March 10, 2024
For me this is one of those novels that I would give double the stars to if I could. It's a beautifully told story of first love and also of having your heart broken, how you can cope or not cope with a crushing disappointment at a young age and finally about finding your way back. I've reread that sentence and it sounds like I am describing a self help book! It is not. There are lots of ways the novel may be described - english boarding school, older boy younger boy love story but none of those really tell the story and will give a wrong idea of the book.
So much of the story's impact comes from its absolute faithfulness to behaviour, emotions, actions appropriate to the time and place of its setting. So many novels will set themselves in an earlier time but then import attitudes, ideas and emotional responses alien to the setting. This novel doesn't and exercises a much more powerful and true affect because. When I first read the novel I was moved close to tears by certain events and passages. It is a wonderful novel.
So much of the story's impact comes from its absolute faithfulness to behaviour, emotions, actions appropriate to the time and place of its setting. So many novels will set themselves in an earlier time but then import attitudes, ideas and emotional responses alien to the setting. This novel doesn't and exercises a much more powerful and true affect because. When I first read the novel I was moved close to tears by certain events and passages. It is a wonderful novel.
October 26, 2011
This book was recommended to me by a good friend after I spotted it on his bookshelf. I often don't have time to read everything that my friends recommend, but I am so glad that I made the time for this one.
It's beautifully written. The story of a boy seduced by a prefect at his all-boy's public school. The problem being: he fell in love. Now, all these years later, he has spent his life alone, wondering what happened to the love of his life. The death of his father provides the opportunity to answer that question.
Such a wonderful story in its ability to connect with anybody who has ever fallen in love. Such a human story with great attention to emotional detail.
It saddened me greatly to discover that the man himself, William Corlett, a renowned children's author and playwright, died from cancer in 2005. This is a modern classic by any standard.
It's beautifully written. The story of a boy seduced by a prefect at his all-boy's public school. The problem being: he fell in love. Now, all these years later, he has spent his life alone, wondering what happened to the love of his life. The death of his father provides the opportunity to answer that question.
Such a wonderful story in its ability to connect with anybody who has ever fallen in love. Such a human story with great attention to emotional detail.
It saddened me greatly to discover that the man himself, William Corlett, a renowned children's author and playwright, died from cancer in 2005. This is a modern classic by any standard.
January 7, 2014
This was a very good book that I really enjoyed. Actually, I could not put it down and I missed some sleep two night because I kept turning the pages. The characters are wonderful and intriguing. I loved everyone the protagonist loves and hated everyone he hated. I don't know whether that was just because I identified with him or because it was damn good writing. No matter the cause, I still appreciated the book for it's illuminating narrative and subtle twists.
April 2, 2017
I have so many books at home that my wife alleges that the ceiling in the kitchen is showing cracks, although I cannot see them (but I am short-sighted). I recently got myself to throw away two books. This is a big deal for me because I am loathe to throw anything away, least of all books. In the cellar I have a few hundred books, read and not easily sellable and which I should perhaps throw out to make way for the steady inflow of books. To make it clear how bad I am at throwing away books: the two books (out of the four to five thousand I have at home) which I did not without difficulty bring myself to discarding last week, were too out-of-date tourist guides to India and Sweden. Unsuccessfully checking through books to be fated to the oblivion of the wheely bin a second time, I came across William Corlett's “Then and Now”, an “Abacus Book”. I had no memory of reading or even buying this book. It is unusual for a novel to be on my bibliographical "death's row", anyway, but one I knew nothing about? The few novels which I really consider awful are instantly trashed, no reprieve for them and the majority I keep. I flipped through the pages of this book, and was puzzled. Where had I bought it? What was the story? It, must, I thought, be extremely bad to have ended as a novel in the cellar. I flipped through the pages, casually at first. I Had I ever read this? Curious, I began to read, I read on. I put aside the so-so novel I am currently reading ( André Fraigneau's L'Amour Vagabonde) and finished "now and then" in a weekend.
The novel is compulsive reading, at least for anyone who has been through The British Public School system as it then was, for today they are changed; public schools now call themselves independent schools and are nearly all co-educational. (When I and William Corlett went to school, they were with few exceptions singelsex educational and known colloquially as "pubic schools.") Correction, it is compulsive reading for anyone who went to such an establishment and fell in love there.
"now and then" by William Corlett is a sensitively told tale of love in the old school. True to its title, it contrasts the "now" of the bachelor narrator's life working in a book publishing company and his "then" in a public school after the war. I do not know exactly what I was expecting when I began to read this book but I did not expect a book which would resonate with me the way this book does. Not only is the experience of the narrator, someone at once sympathetic but not entirely sympathetic,a character flawed as we all are (and not the least of this book's qualities is the honesty the candidness of the writer/narrator's presentation of himself with unawareness of his own foibles) someone I could immediately associate with, so strongly, so frighteningly strongly! And his life there too. Oh memories returned when I read this book. “I've been there” I told myself. “I am there, I never escape.” The writer cannot escape the power of first love, that first love, which wise men tell us we should forget and shrug off. In addition to being a story of love, this novel is superb social documentary, a biographical novel and a social portrayal, fair, intelligent and vivid. It is all that, but first and most importantly it is a tale of love. Love is the theme of this book. Our narrator has among his foibles and failings a special tragic flaw, which at the risk of sounding hyperbolic I would call Shakespearian, and it is this; he takes his first love at school seriously.
How often do we here of "puppy love" "the school pash" "the silly infatuation" and the like, those easy terms to dismiss first love, categorise it, put it in emotional quarantine. For the narrator, Charles Metcalfe, this is not possible. This is more than "the first cut is the deepest", this is someone for whom there can only be one love. This book is almost unbearably sad. Charles Metcalfe is scarred for life, hurt for life by his first love and his first rejection. Most people are able to put those experiences behind them and what distinguishes Metcalfe (Kit his first lover and first and only love, calls him) from the other characters in the book, who are by the way, extremely well and convincingly portrayed, is that he cannot "laugh it off" he cannot get over with it. It was love, love everlasting, amen.
Love at school was so intense that it weighs heavily on the rest of a life. The novel skilfully interweaves past and present. For someone who has experienced first love at school, there is the added poignancy, how can it be otherwise, of the change which time works on us, especially if the first love was for a boy, for the alternation of boy to man is more marked and dramatic even than the change of girl to woman. Common sense insists that we must move on but if it love how can we?
I am not sure that this story can be categorised as "gay" even though the love here is "gay". If it must be described as a story of gay love, then at least with the stress on the second word. The boy he loves has a way of flicking his hair which marks him for ever as that special person, a gesture which reminds me of Percival in Virginia Woolf's The Waves. That is the kind of thing which makes one fall in love, the small unique feature or gesture, a way of laughing, a kind of smile, the way someone flicks the hair out of their eyes...
I have one quibble with this poignant and skillful novel: occasionally the narrator easily, even glibly "takes his revenge" on characters whom he dislikes, the school sadist and suppressed homosexual, the bigoted taxi driver, the suburban (in every sense of the word) older sister. I was also annoyed with the narrator (and I think the writer is the narrator here) at the failure to appreciate the positive aspects of the old housemaster's character. When Metcalfe goes to visit him thirty years on, the old house master is portrayed as a tiresome, self-centred and tedious old man but it is he who managed to “cover up” the misdeeds of the boy whom Metcalfe loved, saving a career which turns out to be hugely successful. I have an instinctive hunch that the portrayal of the master and what he did is draw form the writer's life and that Corlett does not fully appreciate what a hypocritical (how does anyone survive in society, any society, without a degree of hypocrisy?) master did to save the boy he loves. If Corlett does not like someone, he puts them firmly down as “bad uns” , a little too easily reduced to their vices, I felt. But who pretends the narrator is infallible or faultless? Not William Corlett, not Charles Metcalfe.
I wanted to contact the writer after I finished this novel, which at times had me close to tears. But it is, I have learned, too late for that. It had surprised me that to my knowledge no novel had been written about love in the public school which took that love seriously. There is "Lord Dismiss us" of course, but that book is more comedy and romp than a tribute to love. Now I have found one. This tale is a tribute to love, a love too close for comfort. It has been moved to a place among my favourite novels.
The novel is compulsive reading, at least for anyone who has been through The British Public School system as it then was, for today they are changed; public schools now call themselves independent schools and are nearly all co-educational. (When I and William Corlett went to school, they were with few exceptions singelsex educational and known colloquially as "pubic schools.") Correction, it is compulsive reading for anyone who went to such an establishment and fell in love there.
"now and then" by William Corlett is a sensitively told tale of love in the old school. True to its title, it contrasts the "now" of the bachelor narrator's life working in a book publishing company and his "then" in a public school after the war. I do not know exactly what I was expecting when I began to read this book but I did not expect a book which would resonate with me the way this book does. Not only is the experience of the narrator, someone at once sympathetic but not entirely sympathetic,a character flawed as we all are (and not the least of this book's qualities is the honesty the candidness of the writer/narrator's presentation of himself with unawareness of his own foibles) someone I could immediately associate with, so strongly, so frighteningly strongly! And his life there too. Oh memories returned when I read this book. “I've been there” I told myself. “I am there, I never escape.” The writer cannot escape the power of first love, that first love, which wise men tell us we should forget and shrug off. In addition to being a story of love, this novel is superb social documentary, a biographical novel and a social portrayal, fair, intelligent and vivid. It is all that, but first and most importantly it is a tale of love. Love is the theme of this book. Our narrator has among his foibles and failings a special tragic flaw, which at the risk of sounding hyperbolic I would call Shakespearian, and it is this; he takes his first love at school seriously.
How often do we here of "puppy love" "the school pash" "the silly infatuation" and the like, those easy terms to dismiss first love, categorise it, put it in emotional quarantine. For the narrator, Charles Metcalfe, this is not possible. This is more than "the first cut is the deepest", this is someone for whom there can only be one love. This book is almost unbearably sad. Charles Metcalfe is scarred for life, hurt for life by his first love and his first rejection. Most people are able to put those experiences behind them and what distinguishes Metcalfe (Kit his first lover and first and only love, calls him) from the other characters in the book, who are by the way, extremely well and convincingly portrayed, is that he cannot "laugh it off" he cannot get over with it. It was love, love everlasting, amen.
Love at school was so intense that it weighs heavily on the rest of a life. The novel skilfully interweaves past and present. For someone who has experienced first love at school, there is the added poignancy, how can it be otherwise, of the change which time works on us, especially if the first love was for a boy, for the alternation of boy to man is more marked and dramatic even than the change of girl to woman. Common sense insists that we must move on but if it love how can we?
I am not sure that this story can be categorised as "gay" even though the love here is "gay". If it must be described as a story of gay love, then at least with the stress on the second word. The boy he loves has a way of flicking his hair which marks him for ever as that special person, a gesture which reminds me of Percival in Virginia Woolf's The Waves. That is the kind of thing which makes one fall in love, the small unique feature or gesture, a way of laughing, a kind of smile, the way someone flicks the hair out of their eyes...
I have one quibble with this poignant and skillful novel: occasionally the narrator easily, even glibly "takes his revenge" on characters whom he dislikes, the school sadist and suppressed homosexual, the bigoted taxi driver, the suburban (in every sense of the word) older sister. I was also annoyed with the narrator (and I think the writer is the narrator here) at the failure to appreciate the positive aspects of the old housemaster's character. When Metcalfe goes to visit him thirty years on, the old house master is portrayed as a tiresome, self-centred and tedious old man but it is he who managed to “cover up” the misdeeds of the boy whom Metcalfe loved, saving a career which turns out to be hugely successful. I have an instinctive hunch that the portrayal of the master and what he did is draw form the writer's life and that Corlett does not fully appreciate what a hypocritical (how does anyone survive in society, any society, without a degree of hypocrisy?) master did to save the boy he loves. If Corlett does not like someone, he puts them firmly down as “bad uns” , a little too easily reduced to their vices, I felt. But who pretends the narrator is infallible or faultless? Not William Corlett, not Charles Metcalfe.
I wanted to contact the writer after I finished this novel, which at times had me close to tears. But it is, I have learned, too late for that. It had surprised me that to my knowledge no novel had been written about love in the public school which took that love seriously. There is "Lord Dismiss us" of course, but that book is more comedy and romp than a tribute to love. Now I have found one. This tale is a tribute to love, a love too close for comfort. It has been moved to a place among my favourite novels.
June 9, 2020
I LOVED THIS BOOK!
William Corlett has written an amazing story beautifully capturing the love one person can feel for another, heartbreak, and ultimately the transcendence of the human spirit. He writes in the first person and the story begins with the narrator, a closeted gay middle aged man, dealing with the death of his estranged father, his homophobic and dominating younger sister, and his strong, but needy mother. In the course of going through his father's things, he comes across class photos of his time in adolescence when he was sent to an all male boarding school and falls in love for the first time with a boy two years his senior.
While in the first chapter the narrator informs us of "now" describing his relationships with his family and one close female friend. In the following chapter, he takes us back to "then," where we hear him during his teenage years at school. Corlett then proceeds to alternate chapters between the present and his schoolboy past. We quickly discover that his love affair thirty years ago has had a profound impact on who he is now.
This story in essence deals with love and by definition, is accessible to anyone. However, it is particularly relatable to gay men born before Stonewall who grew to adulthood during the age of AIDS. Our protagonist is stunted by his internalized self-loathing. He choose lies and half-truths to hide who he is. The stress of which has negative consequences. Contemporaries of the narrator (and I include myself) clearly identify with his angst. Corlett is brilliant in his development of this character and indeed, all the characters in his narrative. His prose is wonderfully descriptive and places us squarely in the narrator's world. The author is British and the novel is set in England. Corlett's dry sense of humor clearly shows through the voice of the narrator and (quite fun to read), becomes more and more acerbic as the story progresses.
To write anything about the ending would reveal too much. Suffice to say Corlett delivers a surprise that ultimately conveys human behavior in a less than noble light. It is, in part, what makes this story so brilliant. We see all his characters both with their strengths and their flaws. We see bits of ourselves. We recognize in his characters what it is to be human. This story will stay with me for a long time.
William Corlett has written an amazing story beautifully capturing the love one person can feel for another, heartbreak, and ultimately the transcendence of the human spirit. He writes in the first person and the story begins with the narrator, a closeted gay middle aged man, dealing with the death of his estranged father, his homophobic and dominating younger sister, and his strong, but needy mother. In the course of going through his father's things, he comes across class photos of his time in adolescence when he was sent to an all male boarding school and falls in love for the first time with a boy two years his senior.
While in the first chapter the narrator informs us of "now" describing his relationships with his family and one close female friend. In the following chapter, he takes us back to "then," where we hear him during his teenage years at school. Corlett then proceeds to alternate chapters between the present and his schoolboy past. We quickly discover that his love affair thirty years ago has had a profound impact on who he is now.
This story in essence deals with love and by definition, is accessible to anyone. However, it is particularly relatable to gay men born before Stonewall who grew to adulthood during the age of AIDS. Our protagonist is stunted by his internalized self-loathing. He choose lies and half-truths to hide who he is. The stress of which has negative consequences. Contemporaries of the narrator (and I include myself) clearly identify with his angst. Corlett is brilliant in his development of this character and indeed, all the characters in his narrative. His prose is wonderfully descriptive and places us squarely in the narrator's world. The author is British and the novel is set in England. Corlett's dry sense of humor clearly shows through the voice of the narrator and (quite fun to read), becomes more and more acerbic as the story progresses.
To write anything about the ending would reveal too much. Suffice to say Corlett delivers a surprise that ultimately conveys human behavior in a less than noble light. It is, in part, what makes this story so brilliant. We see all his characters both with their strengths and their flaws. We see bits of ourselves. We recognize in his characters what it is to be human. This story will stay with me for a long time.
February 9, 2015
From a recommendation I picked this book up in a charity shop quite a while ago and put off reading it because "backwards and forwards in time" books I usually find difficult. However, I must admit once I started reading this beautifully written novel I was loathe to put it down. The story deals with Christopher, a nearly 50 year old man whose father has just died and while sorting out his desk Chris finds a sealed box with school reports, memorabilia and photographs from the time he was at Blandfords (a boarding school). In the photos he sees Stephen, another pupil with whom he had a fraught relationship but who was Chris's first love and obviously he had not managed to get over Stephen during the 30 subsequent years.
I can not do justice to this book in a review but I can honestly say that it the best novel I have read in a long time and no doubt it will be re-read because it is so good. For me the main theme running through this book is the complex relationships people develop over time not only with lovers but with friends and family and how those relationships affect our futures. William Corlett must have had great insight into how people interact with one another and when coupled with his terrific writing I can only agree with other readers that this should be regarded as a modern classic. I am making it sound quite a "dry" read but far from it, I laughed out loud several times, was mystified by Stephen's behaviour at times and sometimes got angry and sad because the writing is so good. You are drawn quickly into Chris's world both as a teenager and as a grown man, so no problems at all with the "time travelling" because the story just flows perfectly.
I can thoroughly recommend this 5 star read.
I can not do justice to this book in a review but I can honestly say that it the best novel I have read in a long time and no doubt it will be re-read because it is so good. For me the main theme running through this book is the complex relationships people develop over time not only with lovers but with friends and family and how those relationships affect our futures. William Corlett must have had great insight into how people interact with one another and when coupled with his terrific writing I can only agree with other readers that this should be regarded as a modern classic. I am making it sound quite a "dry" read but far from it, I laughed out loud several times, was mystified by Stephen's behaviour at times and sometimes got angry and sad because the writing is so good. You are drawn quickly into Chris's world both as a teenager and as a grown man, so no problems at all with the "time travelling" because the story just flows perfectly.
I can thoroughly recommend this 5 star read.
March 21, 2017
This book really spoke to me, and I recommend it highly if you are a fan of same sex coming of age stories, particularly those set in all male environments, like British boarding schools. William Corlett did a great job of capturing the power of first love and how overwhelming in youth it can be and how haunting it can be even 30 years later. It took a few chapters to pull me in. Once it did, I could not put it down and read the bulk of it over the weekend.
NOW AND THEN tells the story of Chris Metcalfe, who is a single man in his late 40s and lives in London. He is fumbling through life with an utter lack of passion for both his ho-hum career in publishing and his non-existent romantic life. The story flips back and forth between the present (the "Now") and his boarding school past (the "Then") when he fell deeply and crushingly in love with the older Stephen Walker. Other reviews here have gone into detail on the contents and progression of the story, so I won't do that here other than to say the structure of the "Now" and "Then" parts of the story were well-executed and well-balanced. I ached at the memory of my own "Then" and even had a vivid, powerful dream about the object of my "Then" over the weekend that I was buried in the book. Yes, I loved him with the same ache that Chris loved Stephen and, like Chris, still think of him 30 years later, albeit without the pain.
It really was a 5 star read for me, but fell a bit short of that because of a few unnecessary coincidences towards the end of the book which felt jarring and unrealistic, and the ending felt a bit rushed to me. That said, I very much recommend it overall. It's been several days since I have finished it, and it has still stayed with me.
NOW AND THEN tells the story of Chris Metcalfe, who is a single man in his late 40s and lives in London. He is fumbling through life with an utter lack of passion for both his ho-hum career in publishing and his non-existent romantic life. The story flips back and forth between the present (the "Now") and his boarding school past (the "Then") when he fell deeply and crushingly in love with the older Stephen Walker. Other reviews here have gone into detail on the contents and progression of the story, so I won't do that here other than to say the structure of the "Now" and "Then" parts of the story were well-executed and well-balanced. I ached at the memory of my own "Then" and even had a vivid, powerful dream about the object of my "Then" over the weekend that I was buried in the book. Yes, I loved him with the same ache that Chris loved Stephen and, like Chris, still think of him 30 years later, albeit without the pain.
It really was a 5 star read for me, but fell a bit short of that because of a few unnecessary coincidences towards the end of the book which felt jarring and unrealistic, and the ending felt a bit rushed to me. That said, I very much recommend it overall. It's been several days since I have finished it, and it has still stayed with me.
September 2, 2015
I enjoyed this book because it was set in an English boarding school. The book is the look back from adulthood by one student. It deals with his falling in love with an upperclassman as his first venture into same sex attraction. As a middle aged adult he is still very arrested in his romanic experience. The Then & Now makes for a kind of frame for getting the versions of events at school as they carry over into the actions of daily life. Life now helps to get non school folk into the tale. It is a tale the usual mixed motives, misunderstandings,lies & coverups. Along the way UK bias and class presumption give a lot of opportunity for humor and horror. I find Corlett writes with a flare that made me keep reading as there was a promise of mysteries revealed in the next chapter.
September 21, 2012
I enjoyed this diary of looking at life as it is now and relating it back to hugely significant events that occurred in the past. For me this wasn't just a love story between two young boys but also between a mother and son rediscovering one another as adults.
At the end of the book I felt like I wanted to learn more about what would happen to Chris now he had the opportunity to live his life more openly and honestly whilst also wondering whether Stephen would get the ending he'd been looking for.
At the end of the book I felt like I wanted to learn more about what would happen to Chris now he had the opportunity to live his life more openly and honestly whilst also wondering whether Stephen would get the ending he'd been looking for.
June 20, 2016
In a story so intensely personal, it's amazing how much tension is built as it unfolds. The single POV is incredibly effective at controlling how we unpack the character information and how the story is paced. I was somehow far more moved than I expected to be, and by the time I neared the end of the story I found myself wanting very different things for the characters than when I started. Which is, in fact, a very similar journey to the one Chris went on.
December 17, 2020
I tried to drag it out as much as I could but you can’t really put it down once you start it. Again, it’s the simplicity of life that is compelling, the good old challenges faced by non-heterosexual people.
Excited to hear they will be making a movie out of this, it does feel timeless!
I particularly appreciated the crude language used by Christopher at times; it feels so ahead of its time somehow. And I do wish I could give him a hug right about now.
Excited to hear they will be making a movie out of this, it does feel timeless!
I particularly appreciated the crude language used by Christopher at times; it feels so ahead of its time somehow. And I do wish I could give him a hug right about now.
March 8, 2008
What a love story...
November 6, 2019
3.5 stars.
A bit cliche, but sweet and heartwarming.
A bit cliche, but sweet and heartwarming.
February 27, 2024
the storytelling was superb, I really enjoyed it (p.s. to kit metcalfe - I love you & I hope you found your person)
September 10, 2022
there were moments where the characters felt more like they were in a sitcom than a novel, but this was largely very moving!
October 25, 2020
No puedo hacer una reseña. Solo comentar que ha sido una de las novelas más bellas que he leído este año.
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