God Is an Englishman: 1 (Swann Family Saga)

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Ronald Frederick Delderfield was a popular English novelist and dramatist, many of whose works have been adapted for television and are still widely read. But yet it has a tone and style completely its own, easy to read, and more direct in dealing with issues of intimacy in marriage or women’s roles, for example, than you get in the classics. Adam founds a national network of wagoners, and the stories of his workers, some of whom rise from the ghetto, are fascinating. His late 60’s dissection of English politics culture and economics during the last two or three centuries, from the height of the Empire to its decline and Britain’s nod toward Europe is highly critical of high-brow, stuck up England (the south), finds English yeomanry (the north) praise-worthy, though strangely passive and mimicking concerning the south and is spot on when he suggests its flirtation with Europe will ultimately be rejected. There are quite long parts that dragged on where they get all introspective about how they learn from each other and go to other levels, etc.

Discover the joy of reading with us, your trusted source for affordable books that do not compromise on quality. There is a big age gap between them, so Henrietta has a lot of growing to do in the novel to become an adult. Surprised by how much of the book continues to be relevant to contemporary Britain and am glad I only read this one year into my London residency. it follows Adam Swann and his inimitable wife, Henrietta, starting from their (a little too) serendipitous meeting to their joint management of business, home and family. Adam went to meet Deborah and brought her home for the Christmas holidays and she was accepted by Henrietta and the children.The popular stereotype of Runcie, not helped by his Spitting Image puppet, was as weak, vacillating and none-too-religious. The hero, Adam Swann, a former soldier, founds a haulage firm after a railroad employee explains there is a need for wagons to carry merchandise from cities and small towns to the railroad.

Adam showed her around his business because she had an aversion to his being in a trade rather than in the military. Even its treatment of women is open-minded; Edith remarks that women could rule companies very easily, were they given a chance, and then Henrietta actually does take the reins of leadership and proves herself an astonishingly capable woman both at home and at work. The Swann family saga is only one of several important English family sagas written by Delderfield, including The Horseman Riding By and To Serve Them All Our Days, both of which became popular BBC mini-series. This is Henrietta Rawlinson, daughter of a cotton giant, fleeing from an arranged marriage that makes her feel ill.What I really wanted was to be a novelist," he told one interviewer, "to project the English way of life in the tradition of Hardy and Galsworthy.