Book Tamers| book reviews

How about if we all have our own attic where we keep letters, diaries or some other memories from our childhood? Or from our teenage years or from our youth?

Of course, for me this is not possible, because of my age and the timing. But for the main character in The Go-Between by L. P. Hartley, Leo Colston, the past becomes present simply by discovering a diary from 1900.

In a very Proustesque kind of way, in a single afternoon, the old Leonard Colston meets young Leo, passionate about the signs of the zodiac and magic. Thus, the reason for introspection becomes remembering the lost time, in that summer of 1900 when he was a child of 12 and was invited by his classmate Marcus Maudsley to Brandham Hall, the summer residence of Marcus’ parents. Everything seems absolutely natural considering the children’s age, and they pass their time playing, walking or drinking tea.

The motley people that go through Brandham Hall is vividly described by the little magician. I have one tiny observation to make: the adults seem to be part of an amorphous mass, preoccupied only by teas and tennis and endless discussions that are pointless to Leo.

In the middle of these people, Leo feels for the first tie the class difference, and the suit he will receive from Miriam, Marcus’s sister, will be seen as a seal that the 12 year old will wear with a lot of pride; this will be the difference between Leo from home and Leo from Brandham Hall.

The old Leonard recognizes his feelings as a young man and the little “betrayals” next to his mother, forgetting to write or not recognizing anymore what he knew before his arrival to Brandham Hall.
Marcus will get down with measles and this will be the unhappy event that will make the boys grow apart. Thus, Leo will find himself alone between people who don’t care about him and who joke on his behalf. But through all of this, he grows fonder and fonder with Miriam, and he will become her postman, delivering love letters for her and Ted Burgess, an farmer from the neighbourhood.

Once Leo discovers the letters’ content, all passion and the secret games will melt. This is because he feels for the first time the buds of love for a girl who showed him interest and kindness. Thanks to this feeling, Leo continues to deliver the letters, even though he faces tough consciousness problems and even if he doesn’t know whether to be friends or reject Ted Burgess.

While the plot is pretty simple, Hartley made it through writing a special novel by concentrating in such a young person all the feelings he’s going through. It is quite interesting seeing Leo’s transformation, and the twisted feelings he’s experimenting.

More than that, The Go-Between manages to reunite a typical British middle-class life from the beginning of the 20th century, and the critical eye is a 12 year old boy from a different class.
What happens next? Will the two lovers be discovered or will Leo betray them? Well, that’s what you’re gonna find out reading The Go-between by L. P. Hartley.

Written by Cristina