The Summer Before the War, by Helen Simonson

Characters
Rye Prominent Families	Rye Citizens	Others
Agatha Kent John Kent – Senior Official in Foreign Office Hugh Grange – nephew, medical student Daniel Bookham – nephew, poet   Mayor Fothergill Bettina Fothergill Charles Poot – nephew   Lady Emily Wheaton Colonel Wheaton Harry – son Eleanor – daughter, married to German Baron   Mr. Tillingham – writer   Dr. Lawton - doctor	Beatrice Nash – Latin teacher Joseph – father, writer, deceased   Mrs. Turber – landlady Abigail – servant   School boys: Richard Sidley “Snout” – Abigail’s brother Jack Heathly Arty Pike   School: Headmaster Mr. Dobbins – math Mr. Dimbly – science and gymnastics Miss Clauvert – French Miss Devon – English, history, sewing   Alice Finch - Suffragette Minnie Buttles – Suffragette, Vicar’s daughter   Algernon Firth – writer Amberleigh de Witte – writer under name of A. A. de Witte	Lady Merbely – Beatrice’s aunt, guardian   Refugees: Professor Celeste – daughter, raped by Germans   Maria Stokes – gypsy, Snout’s great-grandmother   London: Sir Alex Ramsey – surgeon Lucy - daughter   Lord and Lady North Craigmore – son, Daniel’s friend

For Discussion:

NOTE: Page numbers are from hardback edition.

 

1. Did you think the author gave an accurate depiction of education during that time period?  On page 51 she wrote that Beatrice’s father had the opinion that “…education in general, and Latin in particular, should not be kept for the few, that it was wrong to divide the world and keep all success and distinction in the hands of a small elite.”  Do you think this was a common belief?   What about today?
2. When the refugees arrived, the town was disappointed with the people who came, they were hoping for children. Does this disappointment tamper their good intentions?
3. When Beatrice was talking with Abigail about getting married, Abagail said that her prospects for a husband, “likely won’t take kindly to a wife with airs of reading books and such” (page 164).   Beatrice replied, “I think you’ll find most women in pursuit of a husband share an interest in appearing less educated than they really are…It’s why I have a low opinion of them [husbands]” (page 164).  Do you understand how the times might have made this a true statement?   Is it any different today?
4. On page 183 Hugh, when thinking about Snout, said, “But I’ve found that intelligence is often no match for the circumstances of life.”   Do you think this is a true statement?    Can we overcome our circumstances or are there times when they are just too influential?
5. When Cook was telling Agatha about her son-in-law going off to war and her worries about her crippled granddaughter, the author wrote that, “Agatha was forced to consider whether her sympathetic interest in her staff’s families might have more to do with appearing generous than with any willingness to be inconvenienced by their actual problems” (page 186).   Was she being too hard on herself?  Is this a natural thought process?
6. On page 187 the author wrote that Agatha took off her mobcap before talking on the telephone, “as a nod to the importance of maintaining standards.”  How importance was standards in that time period?  What about today? 
7. Discuss the view of women in that time:
1. When talking with Beatrice about the prospect of writing an essay promoting the war to American’s Mr. Tillingham said, “Always tricky to be embraced by the ladies…The risk of dismissal by serious minds” and “on the other hand, it is the ladies who seem able to whip up a frenzy for some idea” (page 202). 
2. Both Beatrice and Celeste were betrayed by their fathers; Beatrice’s by telling her she was independent and then putting her money in a trust and Celeste’s father sacrificing her to the German’s to save some books.
3. When her husband did not tell Agatha that Daniel had left for the war until he was gone, she said, “Why do men presume to know what is best for us?” (page 286).
8. Agatha offered to be secretary of the Belgian Relief Committee because she felt that position gave her, “complete control over the committee” (page 208).  Does the secretary wield the most control in many organizations?
9. In the Acknowledgements, the author wrote that “writers and poets are at the heart of my novel.”  But Mr. Tillingham is not depicted in a positive light.  When he was at the war cemetery with Beatrice, she observed him looking “as greedy as that of a glutton before the feast” and that “it seemed to her that all of his novels were filled with people he knew and betrayed” (page 473).   How were writers and poets portrayed as positive?
10. Do you think Beatrice would have liked Mr. Tillingham if he were not a famous writer?
11. Lady Emily refused to talk on the phone and always had someone relay her messages.  She said, “Terrible thing, the telephone, I refuse to be a slave to it.”  Has that changed?
12. What was your reading experience at the end of the novel compared to the beginning?

*****
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