{"id":7273,"date":"2017-12-14T05:31:25","date_gmt":"2017-12-14T05:31:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/?p=7273"},"modified":"2017-12-18T12:12:20","modified_gmt":"2017-12-18T12:12:20","slug":"the-valentine-house-by-emma-henderson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/?p=7273","title":{"rendered":"The Valentine House by Emma Henderson"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Published by Sceptre 6 April 2017<\/strong><\/p>\n

352pp, hardback, \u00a316.99<\/strong><\/p>\n

Reviewed by Alison Burns<\/strong><\/p>\n

Click here to buy this book<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Emma Henderson\u2019s unusual, tender (Independent on Sunday<\/em>) and exuberant (Daily Express)<\/em> first novel, Grace Williams Says It Loud<\/em> (2010), was acclaimed for many reasons, not least for its \u2018sure command of a singular voice\u2019 (Boyd Tonkin, Independent<\/em> Books of the Year).\u00a0 It was the story of an inner life.<\/p>\n

Her second novel, The Valentine House<\/em>, again gives us strongly-sensed characters, each of which (although two in particular) has her or his own passionate inner life which Henderson revels in revealing.\u00a0 Inspired by the six years Henderson spent in a remote valley in the French Alps, The Valentine House<\/em> takes its vantage point from a chalet she came across high in the mountains\u00a0 –\u00a0 built in 1858 by Sir Alfred Wills, British mountaineer and judge\u00a0 –\u00a0 and draws on the owner\u2019s writings. \u00a0The first of Henderson\u2019s main characters – Anthony Valentine, scholarly patriarch of the family\u2019s adored chalet, Arete – grew from these experiences and discoveries.\u00a0 The second, his servant Mathilde, is entirely Henderson\u2019s creation, and into her the author seems to have poured everything she knows and feels about this magical region and its real-life occupants.<\/p>\n

This is a long book, with a large cast, covering a long span of years, with much movement back and forth in time.\u00a0 It is intricately plotted.\u00a0 It is also utterly disarming.<\/p>\n

The narrative starts with a bang, as Anthony Valentine gives vent to his erotic passion for the landscape.\u00a0 He writes in his library, in private, expressing an almost laughable obsession (certainly his descendants find it funny).\u00a0 From here, we are introduced to a family story full of secrets and scandals, spanning more than a hundred years of history.<\/p>\n

Mathilde is the same age as the century.\u00a0 It is 1914 when she first enters Arete as a member of the household\u2019s summer staff.\u00a0 She has seen it before several times, as a child, when, with her schoolfriend and champion Benoit and his father Tall Paul, she took produce from her father\u2019s farm to the chalet kitchen.\u00a0 Cross-eyed, hunchbacked, short, she is known as one of the local \u2018uglies\u2019.\u00a0 Mathilde may be odd-looking but she has a fierce intelligence, which is nurtured by her other lifelong champion, the schoolmistress Mme Tissot.<\/p>\n

The scene is set for an entrancing story of life in two worlds, across decades of change from the 1860s to the 1970s.\u00a0 In one world, privileged visitors spend glorious summers mountaineering, playing games, dancing and having affairs.\u00a0 In the other, the arduous farming year rolls through its seasons.\u00a0 Each world has its share of hardship and heartbreak, and in both worlds there is a profound intimacy with the landscape for those who are alert to its charms.<\/p>\n

Alliances are made between the two social strata, despite their differences.\u00a0 For example, Mathilde is adopted for a long while as her best friend by the bored and wayward young Daisy Valentine.\u00a0 In the previous century, it was Daisy\u2019s grandfather who was particularly devoted to Xavier, the mountain guide. \u00a0In both time-frames, a great deal more turns out to have been going on than at first meets the eye.\u00a0 World wars, the Jazz Age, electrification and tourism bring profound change and eventually some people leave the valley – but not Mathilde.<\/p>\n

Henderson\u2019s novel captures impeccably the process whereby a loved physical world creeps under the skin and stays there.\u00a0 Anyone who has experienced this will recognize especially Mathilde\u2019s relationship with the land.\u00a0 It also pays out the rope of explanation in tantalizing stages, as observant Mathilde, over a period of seventy years, pieces together the confusing pieces of the Valentine world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

* A 2017 Notable Book<\/p>\n

Reviewed by Alison Burns<\/p>\n

Inspired by the six years Henderson spent in a remote valley in the French Alps, The Valentine House<\/em> takes its vantage point from a chalet she came across high in the mountains – built in 1858 by Sir Alfred Wills, British mountaineer and judge – and draws on the owner\u2019s writings. The first of Henderson\u2019s main characters – Anthony Valentine, scholarly patriarch of the family\u2019s adored chalet, Arete – grew from these experiences and discoveries. The second, his servant Mathilde, is entirely Henderson\u2019s creation, and into her the author seems to have poured everything she knows and feels about this magical region and its real-life occupants […] in Reviews<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,19,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-fiction-and-non-fiction","category-notable-books","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7273"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7273\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7697,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7273\/revisions\/7697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}