The Beginning of Spring

The Beginning of Spring
Cover to first edition hardback
Author Penelope Fitzgerald
Country United Kingdom
Language English
Published 1988 (Collins)
Media type Print (Hardback)

The Beginning of Spring is a novel by British author Penelope Fitzgerald. Set in Moscow in 1913, it tells the story of a Moscow-born son of a British emigre manufacturer whose Britain-born wife has suddenly abandoned him and their three children.

Background

Fitzgerald had a strong interest in Russian literature, and starting in the 1960s took courses in Russian language. She toured Moscow and environs in 1975, which included a visit to Tolstoy's house and a dacha in a birch forest.[1]

In the early 1970s, as part of her research on Edward Burne-Jones, Fitzgerald became friends with a Swiss art curator, Mary Chamot, who had been brought up in pre-Revolution Russia. Chamot's family had had a greenhouse business in Moscow since the mid-1800s, and they had stayed on for a few years after the Revolution. The original title of the novel was The Greenhouse.[2]

Content

Plot Summary

Moscow, 1913. Frank Reid, an English expat running a printing shop in Moskau, has just been left by his wife without warning or explanation and needs to find someone to look after his three kids. The Kuratins, the family of a business partner, prove unsuitable - the first visit already ends in disaster, when the bear cub gifted to the son of the family for his birthday, is made drunk, wreaks havoc and has to be shot. Miss Kinsman, the english governess recommended by the caplan’s wife, also fails to meet Frank’s requirements.

Lisa Ivanova, a young shopgirl from the countryside, suggested by Frank’s chief accountant Selwyn Crane, is more to Frank’s taste - much to his own discomfort. Unsettled by her artless beauty, he ask her to cut off her braids. His children however immediately warm up their new nanny, and Frank too quickly gets used to her serene and calming presence.

Lisa’s charms don’t escape other men’s notice either. The student Volodya breaks into Frank’s printing shop, purportedly to print revolutionary pamphlets. Later he confesses his true motivation: jealousy of Frank, who he suspects of courting Lisa. Another potential suitor is Nelly’s brother Charly, who comes to Moskau to support his brother in law. He offers to take Lisa and the children back to England, so Frank can focus on the business. Much to Frank’s relief however, the children prefer to stay in Moskau. At this point Frank’s feelings for Lisa can no longer be denied and seem to be reciprocated.

The next day, Lisa takes the children to family dacha, while Frank stays behind for work. When Dolly catches her nanny leaving the datcha at night, Lisa decides to take the child along to her meeting with mysterious figures at a birch wood clearing. No longer able to maintain her cover as harmless peasant’s daughter, she puts the children on a train to Moskau and escapes to Berlin.

Meanwhile, Selwyn has finally admitted his own part in Nelly’s sudden departure. Bonding over their shared love for Tolstoi during a stay at the dacha last summer, he and Nelly made plans to run away together and start a new life in harmony with nature. Last minute scruples however prevented Selwyn from going through with the plan. He’s been staying in touch with Miss Kinsmann, who has found shelter in a community of Tolstoi-fans in England and told him that she has met Nelly there.

Frank picks up his children from the train station. Spring has finally arrived in Moskau. The servants have just completed the ritual spring cleaning of the household – just in time for Nelly’s return.

Characters

Frank Albertovich Reid
Russian-born of English parents, educated in England, runs a Moscow printing shop he inherited from his father. He is conflicted about returning to England.
Elena Karlovna "Nellie" Reid
Frank's English-born wife, she has abandoned Frank and their three children without leaving a forwarding address, but presumably back in England.
Dolly, Ben, Annushka
Their three children.
Charlie Cooper
Nellie's brother, a widower.
Selwyn Osipych Crane
English-born assistant to Frank. Acolyte of Tolstoy and his ascetic philosophy. Poet, author of Birch Tree Thoughts.
Toma
Servant at the Reid house.
Vladimir "Volodya Vasilych" Semyonovich Gregoriev
A student who breaks into Reid's print shop. State security uses him as a pawn to put pressure on Reid.
Lisa Ivanovna
Peasant girl hired to watch over the children in Nellie's absence.
Egor, Matryona
Couple who were negligent caretakers of the dacha in the forest.
Arkady Kuriatin
Muscovite businessman, filled with wild peasant gusto.
Matryona Osipovna Kuriatin
Arkady's wife.[Note 1]
Muriel Kinsman
An English governess in Russia.
Cecil/Edwin Graham[Note 2]
Chaplain of Moscow's English Church.
Mrs. Graham
The chaplain's wife, she knows all that goes on in the British expatriate community.

Themes

Fitzgerald’s historical novel is set in Moscow in 1913, but also reflects the cultural climate of 1988, the year of its publication. In 1913 as well as in 1988 Russia was on the verge of a new age - the bolshevik revolution and perestroika respectively. Often torn between competing desires, more or less restlessly seeking a deeper meaning, Fitzgerald’s characters embody the excitement as well as the uncertainty of such historic moments.

One of these characters is an anthropomorphized city of Moscow. Fitzgerald’s portrayal of Moscow is characterized by ambivalence, showing corrupt bureaucracy, dilapidated buildings, and a climate that is cold and grey throughout the better part of the year. But there is also something pittoresque about the ramshackle wooden houses and their overgrown gardens; the city is filled with testaments to a glorious past and the population meets the banality of everyday life with humour and passion. Just like Moscow, Fitzgerald’s characters are full of contradictions - rebellious, yet submissive, lecherous yet ascetic, corrupt, yet profoundly moral.[3]

Thus Fitzgerald plays into common stereotypes about Russia, some of which can look back on a long tradition. The portrayal of the Russian mentality as particularly soulful, passionate and melancholy dates back to 19th century Russian literature. At that time, access to higher education was finally no longer reserved for aristocrats. New middle class members of the emerging Russian intelligentsia opposed the social snobbery of the upper class often demonstrated by a preference for (western-) european culture and lifestyle by making the very lack of such cosmopolitan aspirations a badge of honour and testament to Russian authenticity. The mystic spirituality of the Russian orthodox church was juxtaposed with western-European ideals of rationality and enlightenment, and cited as evidence for the moral superiority of the common people. [3]

Religious themes and symbols pervade the novel. The plot is set during Lent and reaches its climax at Easter. While Frank Reid supports the maintenance of religious customs in his sphere of influence, such as saying grace at dinner or blessing the company icon, he does so without much emotional involvement. When Dolly tells him about one of her teacher denying the existence of God, and declaring religion to be meaningless, he is mainly unsettled by the break with convention, although he himself more or less shares these opinions. Just like love, religion is one of the topics, Frank prefers not to investigate too deeply. (“[...] he had fallen into the habit of not asking himself what he thought”.) His polar opposite is Selwyn Crane, whose practiced spirituality and yearning for a return to nature strongly appeals to Frank’s wife Nelly. Frank too eventually develops a need for higher meaning and chooses a similar strategy as his wife to satisfy it - romancing the mysterious child of nature Lisa Ivanova, who, just like Selwyn Crane, represents a counterpoint to Frank’s soulless materialism and whose portrayal in the novel is charged with religious symbolism. The scene, in which Lisa washes Dolly’s feet with her shawl after the nightly meeting in the birk wood, for instance shows parallels to the description of the Last Supper, when Jesus washes the apostles’ feet. Lisa’s words about Dolly (“If she remembers it, she’ll understand what she has seen”, p. 174) echoes Jesus’ words to Peter: What I do thou knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter (Joh. 13, 7). Just like Jesus and Lisa, Fitzgerald withholds immediate resolution of all secrets and requires faith in a deeper meaning revealing itself in time. [4]

Form

In her novel The Beginning of Spring Fitzgerald uses third person narration. Frank Reid is the only character, whose thoughts are conveyed. Events he is not present for are usually relayed by an omniscient narrator. The only exception is the chapter set at the dacha, which is written from Dolly’s point of view.

Stylistic devices typical for Fitzgerald are understatement and a generally economical use of language. This also applies to The Beginning of Spring. What is truly essential often remains left unsaid, merely hinted at, unheard or misunderstood. This becomes apparent for instance when Frank uses English to confess his love to Lisa, a peasant girl without access to higher education who is highly likely to speak Russian only. He does so in passing, in a manner that does not even allow him to be sure that she has actually heard him. There won’t be another opportunity to get more explicit. The failure of communication heightens the tragedy of his eventual loss.[5]

This minimalism extends to explaining the causality of events and characters’ motivation. Since neither the central point-of-view-character Frank nor the occasionally assisting omniscient narrator are inclined to speculate about people’s motives or pass judgement, such speculations and judgements are mostly left to the reader. Although certain revelations in the final chapters hint at possible explanations for various events hitherto clouded in mystery, the roman ultimately raises more questions than it answers.[5]

Literary Influences

Important literary influences for Fitzgerald are Victorian writers such Edward Brune Jones, William Morris, William de Morgan and Gerald Manley Hopkins. Fitzgerald liked to set her novels in the past, particularly in the years before World War I; social pressures faced by the individual were one of her preferred topics, and she felt such themes could be more easily explored in the context of a less permissive society. Christopher Knight sees an echo of the Victorian mindset in the portrayal of the Reids’ marriage and compares Nelly Reid to Ibsen’s Nora Helm. Both characters share a desire for escape from the constraints of marriage, but while Nora ultimately tries her luck with autonomy, Nelly returns to her husband.[4]

Fitzgerald’s writing is marked by her lifelong passion for Russian literature. Hermione Lee draws parallels to Turgenev regarding the inclusion of supernatural elements and mythological references.[5] In her novel The Beginning of Spring, Fitzgerald makes no effort to provide a comprehensive explanation for all events - Lisa’s mystery remains unresolved. The mysterious figures she meets up with in the birk wood can be interpreted just as easily as spirits of nature, Doukhobors, or Bolsheviks.

A central intertextual element of The Beginning of Spring is the repeated reference to Tolstoi, mainly in the shape of Selwyn Crane, a passionate admirer of Tolstoi, but also in the form of allusions to Tolstoi’s novel Resurrection. Just like Resurrection, The Beginnung of Spring features a man from the upper class whose encounter with a young woman from a humble background in the days before Easter makes him question his entire life.[4]

Robert Plunkett compares Fitzgerald to E.M. Forster due to her ability to credibly portray characters from different cultural backgrounds, but perceives her attitude towards the possibility of intercultural exchange on equal footing to be more optimistic. While in Forster’s novels, attempts at breaking cultural barriers usually lead to initially comical, ultimately disastrous results, Fitzgerald’s characters seem largely successful when it comes to cultural integration. [6]

Reception

"Its greatest virtue is perhaps the most old-fashioned of all. It is a lovely novel."

— Robert Plunket, New York Times Book Review[7]

BBC Radio 4 Extra broadcast a radio adaptation in 2015.[8]

The Beginning of Spring has largely received positive reviews, among others by Daily Telegraph, Times Literary Supplement and the Guardian. In the London Review of Books, Jan Morris praises the detailed description of everyday in Russia, as well as the virtuous narrative technique illuminating a largely implicit plot by moments of comedy.[9]

Fitzgerald, who received the Man Booker Price in 1979 for Offshore, was shortlisted again für The Beginning of Spring, but lost to Peter Carey’s Oscar and Lucinda.[9]

In 2014, the novel was chosen by Robert McCrum for his List of the 100 best English Novels, assembled for The Guardian.[9]

Critical review

The novel has a chapter of its own in Peter Wolfe Understanding Penelope Fitzgerald[10] and Hermione Lee Penelope Fitzgerald: A Life.[11]

Notes

  1. ↑ Wolfe 2004, p. 244 speculates she is Selwyn's sister, since "Osip" (that is, "Joseph") is uncommon.
  2. ↑ He is named Cecil Graham in Chapter 2, and Edwin Graham in Chapter 9.

References

  1. ↑ Lee 2014, p. 330.
  2. ↑ Lee 2014, p. 329.
  3. 1 2 Alexander Martin (2011), "Review of Moscow as City and Metaphor", Reviews in History (review no. 1178), http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/review/1178
  4. 1 2 3 Christopher J. Knight (2016), Penelope Fitzgerald and the Consolation of Fiction, Taylor & Francis, p. 195
  5. 1 2 3 David Deavel (2016), "The Power of Words Unspoken", National Review (January 25, 2016, Issue), https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2016/01/25/power-words-unspoken/
  6. ↑ Robert Plunket (1989-05-07), "Dear, Slovenly Mother Moscow", The New York Times, https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/97/09/07/reviews/fitzgerald-spring.html?_r=1
  7. ↑ Plunket, John (1989-05-07). "Dear, Slovenly Mother Moscow". New York Times Book Review: 15.
  8. ↑ "The Beginning of Spring Omnibus". www.bbc.co.uk. BBC. Retrieved 10 May 2015.
  9. 1 2 3 Robert McCrum (2015-07-13), "The 100 best novels: No 95 – The Beginning of Spring by Penelope Fitzgerald (1988)", The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jul/13/100-best-novels-penelope-fitzgerald-beginning-spring-robert-mccrum
  10. ↑ Wolfe 2004, pp. 212–45.
  11. ↑ Lee 2014, pp. 317–46.

Further reading

  • Wolfe, Peter (2004). "Degrees of Exile". Understanding Penelope Fitzgerald. University of South Carolina Press.
  • Lee, Hermione (2014). "The Beginning of Spring". Penelope Fitzgerald: A Life. Alfred A. Knopf.
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