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‘House of Trelawney’ Review: The Weight of the Estate

A Cornish manor becomes a symbol of long-held illusions in a comic tale of aristocracy’s end.

By Moira Hodgson

Jan. 1, 2021 11:08 am ET

In a song of 1938, Noël Coward wrote:

“The stately homes of England / How beautiful they stand, /

To prove the upper classes / Have still the upper hand. /

Though the fact that they have to be rebuilt / And frequently mortgaged to the hilt /

Is inclined to take the gilt / Off the gingerbread . . .”

 

Hannah Rothschild’s new comic novel “House of Trelawney” is about an ancestral home in Cornwall where the gilt has definitely come off. Trelawney Castle, situated on a bluff overlooking the ocean, has belonged to the same noble family for 800 years. “The castle was their three-dimensional calling card, the physical embodiment of their wealth and influence,” writes Ms. Rothschild. “Each Earl added an extension until it was declared the grandest, if not the finest, stately home in the county of Cornwall.”

It sounds wonderful. It’s not. The novel opens in 2008, and the castle has fallen into “chaos and decrepitude.” The bungling and ineptitude of the last eight dissolute earls, “along with two world wars, the Wall Street Crash, three divorces and inheritance taxes” has eaten up the estate. There were once medieval oak woods, meadows and waterfalls on the 500,000 acres known as “Trelawneyshire.” Now ponds have silted up, hedges are bedraggled, and arches are covered with vines. Inside the castle, which has a room for each day of the year, empty squares discolor walls where great paintings once hung. In the rooms “the huge side tables were covered in a layer of dust and detritus, and a grand piano sat in a pool of water.” And the decay is accelerating: “Occasionally a great crash of avalanching plaster could be heard falling like a tree in a faraway wood.”
In 1988 the 24th Earl of Trelawney, now aged 85, handed the pile to his feckless son and heir, Kitto. His oldest and smartest child, Blaze, couldn’t inherit because she was female. Such were Britain’s archaic rules of primogeniture. With no funds left for its upkeep Kitto, like many an earl or duke before him, was forced to marry for money. Jane, his dowdy bride, possessed a fortune. But, inevitably, Jane’s money ran out. So did the heating and hot water. Now she is martyr to the cause, the house “skivvy,” feeding her aging parents-in-law and three teenage children cut-price mince (ground beef). She delivers pots of hot water to the freezing elderly earl and countess who reside upstairs in a fantasy world peopled with imaginary housemaids and butlers. They still change into formal clothes (now rather shabby) for dinner.

Meanwhile, in London, the estranged Blaze is living in a different world. There are no drip-filled buckets or creeping mold in the modern white-and-beige apartment, complete with four-person Jacuzzi, she has bought near Tower Bridge. A financial wizard, Blaze is a senior partner at the highly successful firm of Kerkyra Capital, where she has been riding out the turbulence of the 2008 crash. Her life and Jane’s are reconnected when a long-lost, wildly beautiful friend who married a maharaja 20 years before writes from India that she is dying of dengue fever seriously.
She asks Blaze and Jane to take in her daugher, Ayesha.
Of course, when the 19 year old arrives she brings a new layer of chaos.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 블라 블라 블라

♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡

take the gilt  off the gingerbread  매력을 반감시키다. 흥을 깨다.

mortgaged to the hilt 최대한도로 담보대출을 받다. 저당잡히다.

Have still the upper hand 유리하다.

come off the gilt 돈을 뜯기다.

The stately homes of England 영국의 위풍당당한 집들.

embodiment 형상화, 전형

Cornwall 영국 남서부의 주

Earl 백작 (Countess 백작부인)

bluff 절벽

chaos and decrepitude 혼란과 노후 노쇠

The bungling and ineptitude 서투른 솜씨와 기량부족

dissolute earls 방종한 백작

 inheritance taxes 상속세

medieval oak woods 중세 참나무 숲

Trelawneyshire 트렐로니셔 주

silted up           to become blocked with silt

 bedraggled (비,흙탕물에) 젖은, 후줄그레한

discolor  변색(퇴색)시키다, 빛깔을 더럽히다, 빛깔이 바래다.

detritus  (생물체 등에 의한 자연발생적인) 쓰레기,  폐기물

decay  부패, 부식, 쇠퇴, 부패하다, 썩다

avalanching plaster  녹인 석고

feckless 무기력한, 무책임한

 archaic  낡은, 폐물이 된, 구식인, 태곳적의 , 고대의

primogeniture (집안의) 초생자 맏이, 장자 상속제

upkeep (건물등의) 유지비, (아동등의) 양육비

dowdy 볼품없는, 촌스러운, 단조로운, 촌스러운, 시대에 뒤진

martyr 순교자

estranged 별거중인, 멀어진, 상관이 없어진

riding out the turbulence of the 2008 crash  (2008년 불안정기를 잘 이겨내다, 잘 참고 견디다.

maharaja 마하라자(과거 인도 왕국중 한 곳을 다스리던 군주) 인도의 대왕

dengue 뎅기열(모기를 통해 감염되는 열대 전염병의 하나) (관절, 근육 따위가 아픈 열대성 전염병)

aristocracy 귀족(계층)

Estate (한 개인의, 특히 유산으로 남겨진) 재산

long-held illusions 오래 간직한 환상

manor  (넓은 영지 안에 들어서 있는) 영주의 저택, (속어) 경찰의 관할지역

Cornish 콘월어(잉글랜드 콘월 지방에서 사용했던 켈트어)

Editorial Reviews

Review

“The idea of eccentric British aristocrats in a crumbling mansion is at the heart of some of literature’s greatest works . . . . Rothschild’s book is the latest in a long line of novels by the likes of Jane Austen and Evelyn Waugh.”
—Adam Rathe, Town & Country (“How one new novel gets British money exactly right”)

“Irresistible . . . . Rothschild’s tale is lively and entertaining.”
--Amanda Craig, The Guardian

"Part comedy of manners, part serious meditation on money and gender roles, House of Trelawney is both deeply thought-provoking and thoroughly fun."
—BookPage

“A real page turner . . . sparklingly acerbic social satire . . . . Funny and absorbing, House of Trelawney is the perfect antidote to a grey, Scottish winter’s day.”
—John Badenhorst, The Courier & Advertiser

“Evelyn Waugh meets the love child of Richard Curtis and the brilliant Joanna Trollope.”
—Geordie Greig, The Daily Mail

“Rothschild is a witty, stylish storyteller and her overall message feels timely.”
—Lucy Atkins, The Sunday Times

“Snappy and sexy.”
—Lionel Barber, Former Editor of The Financial Times

“This canny comedy of manners straddles the worlds of high finance and the crumbling aristocracy, braiding love, revenge and market meltdown . . . generous-hearted, it delights from start to finish.”
—Hephzibah Anderson, The Daily Mail

“Rothschild is a writer of high intelligence . . . . House of Trelawney says a lot about the dangers of dwelling on past entitlement and the importance of unsentimental realism.”
—Kate Saunders, The Times

“A gripping saga about a once grand, now decaying, family in Cornwall whose house is literally falling down around their ears.”
—Lynn Barber, The Telegraph

“Rothschild is a mischievous narrator and this story is pure pleasure from the word go.”
—Stylist Online (Best Books of 2020)

“Rothschild’s engaging tale House of Trelawney cleverly satirizes an unconventional aristocratic clan who have run into money troubles.”
—Martin Chilton, The Independent Online

“This slyly comic novel is a great dissection of class and privilege.”
—Red

“Curl up and lose yourself in this hugely entertaining satire of a deeply dysfunctional family of aristocrats desperate to save their crumbling Cornwall home.”
—i paper

“[Rothschild] paces [her novel] perfectly, laying out the history of the Trelawneys and their castle vividly, and timing the orchestration of characters and events at a brisk tempo . . . when current times seem full of intractable problems and short on answers perhaps a bit of escapism tinged with schadenfreude, seen here by a sharp eye and seasoned with a tart tongue, may be just what’s needed.”
--Claire Hopley, The Washington Times

“[A] rollicking tale . . . . Jilly Cooper fans (and who isn’t?) will love the unashamedly upmarket settings and posh characters. A romcom to beat the winter blues: funny, sharply-observed and boho-chic glamorous.”
--Wendy Holden, Scottish Daily Mail

“Rothschild’s style has been compared to comic writers such as Waugh and Mitford, which are apt in terms of both style and milieu, but comparisons can also be made to Austen and Dickens, as she shares their ability to create comic characters and to then put those characters in situations that allows the author to make satirical/social commentary . . . . an intelligent and entertaining romp.”
--Caroline Percy, The Nerd Daily --This text refers to the hardcover edition.