Mottram, like Richard Aldington (already reviewed on this blog) served in France during the First World War. These three novels, The Spanish Farm, Ninety-Four, and The Crime at Vanderlynden's were published separately but are available as an omnibus from Penguin. They were all critically acclaimed at the time, the first of them winning a major prize in 1924.
Mottram was a Norfolk man, and though he also spent some time living in Lausanne, he remained in Norfolk for most of his life, being awarded an honorary Doctorate by the UEA in 1966, five years before his death. Again like Aldington he was also a war poet, though I have not so far been able to locate any of his verse. He wrote approximately sixty books, so it is strange that he should be unrecognised today.
The trilogy is innovative in design, telling various stories which all feature around the Spanish Farm of the title, which is a battlefield landmark in Flanders. Thus there is very much a feel of different storylines featuring different characters streaming through time and swirling around this one fixed geographic point in the process.
Though these books are nearly eighty years old, they do not feel particularly dated. The prose style is probably somewhere between Maugham and Bennett, which is, after all, high praise.
2 comments:
I became a huge fan of Mottram after reading the three books. I highly recommend his other stuff.
I became a huge fan of Mottram after reading the three books. I highly recommend his other stuff.
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