THE SWIMMING POOL SEASON by Rose Tremain

I do like Rose Tremain. Somehow she is able to unzip and gently peel back the multi layered bits of her characters' psyches, revealing the complexities and moral quandaries faced by us mere humans in our daily lives and carry ons. This is an early novel of hers, published in 1985, although she had already published 9 previous novels by then plus a bunch of other stuff. In reading a novel of hers written long before the wonderful and immersive likes of Music and Silence, The Road Home, and Merviel, you can see how her writing has become more masterful, more enigmatic, her characters richer and more complex. 

In this novel, her observations are focussed on a small group of people at that ghastly stage of being known as middle age. With its associated crises. We reach 50, we just know that half our life has been done, and we better get a wriggle on to make the next 50 as good as it can be. Miriam and Larry have moved to the small community of Pomerac in the Dordogne region of France. Larry is ashamed at how his life has turned out, from being a successful swimming pool installer in England - a somewhat dubious unreliable way to get rich I would have thought - to losing everything and moving to France to lick his wounds and think about what to do next. Miriam is an artist, sort of of forced to accompany him, look after him but neglecting herself in the process. Gervaise lives next door to Larry and Miriam, a tough resourceful, enormously kind woman who farms the land, milks the cows. Her unpleasant husband with whom she has two sons, lives with her, as does her younger adorable lover Klaus. There is also a doctor, Herve; an elderly man Marechal; and a delightful Polish woman Nadia, also middle aged, who has recently put her husband Claude into care. All this sets up most of these characters to go through some form of mid life crisis, find a form of resolution, and move on. 

Miriam has an elderly mother, Leni, who has become very unwell, requiring Miriam to travel back to Oxford to look after her, manage the affairs there. Miriam decides this is the perfect time to resurrect her artist path, and possibly dally with a local bookseller who has always been in love with Leni. Larry in turn decides to build the most amazing swimming pool he can, wanting to surprise Miriam with it on her eventual return. At the same time a potential dalliance with the young bethrothed niece of Herve is enticing.  Nadia drowns her sorrows with vodka, Gervaise continues milking cows, agonising over her directionless son, her husband takes matters into his own hands, and steady lovely Klaus refuses to leave. 

Not a lot happens really, but the writing is mesmerizing in the ordinariness of these lives, the day to day goings-on, the shall I/shan't I decisions they make. It only felt dated because there are no cell phones, no internet, no social media. None of that stuff. Just letters, the phone, telegrams. But aside from the physical differences, this tale, its characters, the conundrums they face, the unfolding of it all is as perfect for now as it was 35 years ago. Just perfect. This has to be a sign of good writing, that it continues to hold relevance.