I who usually hang around with degenerates (murderers, religious maniacs, Hitler) found myself enfolded within the bosom of a shabby-genteel family, the Aubreys, who were - only just - scraping by somewhere between 1900 and 1910 in south London on what the father forgot to gamble away on the stock exchange (not once but many times) and the mother’s fixed purpose that her two middle daughters will become concert pianists. The mother says things likeIt must have the strict value of a quaver, oth [...]

Do you feel like you've walked into the edges when you catch someone crying? What if they want you watching them cry? The edges could melt and lines blur. The them with just them, the them with you, you with them and you with just you. Rebecca West's fountain overflowed, all right. Too many people. I guess the lines did too, like one of those chalk drawings from the film of Mary Poppins. Lines on a page from trying to get it all down and figure everyone's place to make your expected move. I had [...]

‘The Fountain Overflows’ was Rebecca West’s first book in twenty years; and it was to have been the first volume of a trilogy that would tell the story of her century. She didn’t live quite long enough to complete that story, but after reading this book I am eager to read the next book and to read the final, unfinished work. This is a story that draws on the authors own life, without being entirely autobiographical; and it tells of growing up in a creative, musical family, from the persp [...]

On completion: What did I think? Ughhhhh! This was not for me, and honestly I would not recommend this to anyone. I found it childish and boring and long and drawn-out. It is basically a coming of age story, but it is too outdated to give to today's kids. It throws in some satire on Edwardian society and tries to cover disparate topics from feminism, to the essence of music, to clairvoyance and the wisdom of kids / stupidity of adults. It does none of this well. Except for an occasional sentence [...]

È il primo volume di una trilogia che racconta la storia di una famiglia e di tre sorelle. Primissimo novecento: quando tutto deve ancora accadere, nella storia del secolo e delle tre ragazze (che poi in realtà diventano quattro e la quarta è un gioiello di personaggio).Quel che succede nel primo libro è la storia di un'infanzia collettiva, raccontata da una delle tre cinquant'anni dopo: le difficoltà economiche, i riti domestici, le dinamiche quotidiane, la figura contraddittoria eppure mi [...]

"The Fountain Overflows" is a beautiful story about four siblings who live together with their mother in England; three sisters and one brother. Their father is in the picture, but he's very distraught and seldom present in the house. We then follow these four siblings' lives together with their mother as they grow up and become more and more independent. This is also a story about music and talent and how that can affect your life in positive and negative ways. Based on this synopsis, it is ver [...]

(I hate reviewing books like this one! It's impossible. If I say everything rushing around in my head, no one will benefit. If I am brief, it is like an insult both to the book itself and to my feelings about it. I'm just going to grit my teeth and get it over with.)This is a weird book. Irritating and even disturbing at first, I found myself getting very tense and anxious about the family's situation, and angry with the father for his neglect. I was sure I wasn't going to like the book, but by [...]

I so enjoyed this book. The way the story was told through the eyes of a child was wonderful, I loved Rose's personality. I really enjoyed the way the children spoke and looking into their make believe world I remembered that I had had imaginary animals too, but had completely forgotten about them until I read this ! If you are a musician or love music this book will have appeal for you.

This is the first book of the Saga of the Century (Aubrey) trilogy and I really liked it.What can I say about this book? It's another little gem of the literature.This is an auto-biographical novel set in early twentieth-century London, is narrated by a twelve-year-old girl who, along with her twin sister, is a piano prodigy. The girls’ mother--eccentric in her own way and their father is a controversial journalist. By the end of the book, he decides to take another turn on their lives.Its seq [...]

two pages into this realized i'd come across a sublimely intelligent and aware narrative voice -- that of a 12-yr-old girl in turn-of-the-century London -- and from that point on eat it up fast enough. pure delight. a fictionalized account of west's real family, the story follows the lives of the narrator, rose aubrey and her twin sister mary (both of whom are prodigies on the piano), their older sister cordelia, who apparently stinks at the piano, but doesn't realize it (much to the chagrine of [...]

DNF at 65%40 days with this book and my reader's enthusiasm is now officially dead. I might as well even write a review a bit later because the book is not bad per se, it's just excruciatingly still (and presumptuous).

This is the second Rebecca West novel I've read. My first was her unfinished novel Sunflower. Oddly enough, I preferred that one to this, her most famous work. Though unfinished, Sunflower had a much tighter narrative, in my opinion.Here, it seems West had so much to say, it came out all in a rush: anecdotes within anecdotes, text arbitrarily divided into paragraphs and chapters. It felt almost manic. It was frustrating, at times, because I craved something more linear. Nevertheless, one can't d [...]

THE FOUNTAIN OVERFLOWS. (1956). Rebecca West. ****. Rebecca West (1892-1983) was the pen name of Cicely Isabel Fairfield, an English writer and critic who, unfortunately, has faded from the public’s awareness in recent years. In her early years, she was an ardent feminist and essayist, and ran in social circles active in political issues. Her most famous book was, “Black Lamb and Grey Falcon” (1941), a travelogue and history of Yugoslavia. I’ve put off reading it for years; it runs to ov [...]

I originally read this brilliant book by Rebecca West when I was in my teens. Two of her themes rang so true that they clarified the way I thought and still think. First, she brought to life how much children are at the mercy of their parents. The children's father is a charming, intelligent man who is also self-centered, intolerant, ungrateful, and incapable of keeping a job. West's own father deserted the family and her portrait of the fictional father captures the aching love and mistrust the [...]

Her conversation consisted of comments on our circumstances too bluff and too indelicate to be called sympathetic, though if they were not that they could have no purpose, and when she could think of no more she used to turn her pouches and her jowls on us children, and inquire whether we realized we must earn our livings as soon as possible, adding, “And there’ll have to be no nonsense about it either.” This phrase was surely as destitute of meaning as the baying of a dog Concordance Unde [...]

The Fountain Overflows is possibly one of Rebecca West’s most famous works – the first novel in a projected trilogy – the third of the trilogy not quite finished when Rebecca West died. The Real Night and Cousin Rosamund complete the trilogy and both these novels were published posthumously, – and while I am not keen on unfinished works – I do now very much want to read them both.The story is that of an Edwardian family in the years before the First World War. Our narrator is Rose, one [...]

If you're looking for a book driven by plot, this isn't the choice for you.The Aubrey family is strange, but talented; Mr. Aubrey's specific talent lies in keeping the family in debt, but Mrs. Aubrey and twin daughters, Mary and Rose, have a talent in music rivaled by few. The youngest son, Richard Quin, doesn't care about music so much, but is beloved by all who set eyes on him. The eldest daughter, Cordelia, isn't talented in music at all, looks different than the rest of the family, and is on [...]

pre wwi one scotland, london a quirky novel that can totally absorb the reader in the childish and deadly serious world of art, writing, class war, sudden death, and even poltergeists of all things. rebecca west most famous novel of "black lamb and grey falcon" has nothing on this frightening, funny, and damn weird novel (in search of an editor, oh why didn't she have an editor?) that reminds me much of a certain pirate ship crewed by children in this story A High Wind in Jamaica. please see oth [...]

Wonderful book!The first of a trilogy.Utterly compelling writing.The Aubrey family live in Edwardian London.The father loves his children and makes them beautiful things but even so he struggles to keep them to the standard they are used to as he constantly speculates and leaves them in penury.It is the Mother that keeps the family together even when the Husband leaves.All is not lost though as the pictures they thought were just copies were in fact real.I loved it and can't wait to read the nex [...]

esther, clare, laura 5*My copy is 1958 hardback To my sisterLETITIA FAIRFIELDThe cistern contains:th fountain overflows- William BlakeOpening: THERE was such a long pause that I wondered whether my Mamma and my Papa were ever going to speak to one another again. Not that I feared they had quarrelled, only we children had quarrels, but they had fallen into a dream. Then Papa said hesitantly, "You know, I am very sorry about all this, my dear."

Rebecca West likes to hear herself talk. That isn't necessarily bad--her writing is gorgeous. But in saying a lot, she sometimes repeats herself or says a lot of nothing. Nothing much happened in this book--it's more like a peek, through the limited perspective of a very astute, eloquent child--into the life of a family that continues to remain a mystery even though we spend 400-plus pages with them.Forty percent into this book, nothing continues to happen, so the plot does not pick up until alm [...]

This is a lovely lovely book. Set in the early 1900's, it's an excellently and most skillfully written story of an extraordinary family that finds itself in extraordinary circumstances again and again. Beautiful wondrous prose. I am so enchanted. I borrowed this one from the library but since they didn't have the next one, This Real Night, I hastily ordered myself a copy. I regret the lag that has occurred between them but how was I to know this book would be such a pleasure? I haven't read anyt [...]

Well, I gave up on this book, but maybe I should give it a second chance after reading all the glowing reviews. I didn't like how Cordelia was treated by the rest of the family and for the longest time, I thought she actually was probably a good violinist and that Rose and Mary were mediocre pianists but couldn't accept that Cordelia was better than they were. I probably wouldn't have read the book at all had I known that Constance's home was going to be haunted by poltergeists because that's ju [...]

My enjoyment of this was so thorough that while it was underway, I remained convinced it was the best book I've ever read, an impression I knew I was unlikely to sustain once it ended, but still delighted me.A jacket blurb proclaims West " of great masters of the English prose sentence" which is one those quintessentially dreary book jacket things to say, the kind of praise John Updike is often called on to provide for somewhat forgotten writers. I don't even know how to summarize the brilliance [...]

What do you do do when your parents are brilliant but eccentric? Keith Clare a brilliant pianist married to the brilliant writer Piers Aubrey, both eccentric. Piers however, shows a touch of malevolence, he cares for none of his four children. An inveterate gambler, leaves his family in utter poverty, although he shows touches of love and creativity during Christmas, when he constructs elaborate wooden castles for them. Clare Keith, just goes through the utter misery of poverty, duns at the door [...]

I consider Rebecca West's brilliant, idiosyncratic, fifteen hundred page pseudo-travelogue Black Lamb and Gray Falcon to be one of the great works of 20th century literature, a book of abiding genius, one which inspired me as a youth and continues to do so to the present day. Despite this reverence I have never actually gotten around to reading anything else by the Dame, in part because she is not particularly well read any longer (to the shame of the modern literary establishment) and thus it i [...]

From the description of the story, you'd expect this book to be a decent, but very ordinary, story something along the lines of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. In fact, this book is anything but one of those novels- it is as whimsical and darkly humorous as a Roald Dahl story, but with themes and characters as complex as something you'd find in Dostoevsky. I lost a substantial amount of sleep this past week, partly because I stayed up too late to read, and partly because after reading my mind wouldn't [...]

West writes beautifully on music and I would have preferred that alone. Some wonderful social history on artistic London life in the early twentieth century.But very poor pacing, at times molasses-thick for me, and the same old scenes played out on a loop (im thinking of Cordelia's struggles with the violin) with a titbit of something wonderful every fifty pages.A family saga in which I wished to be the occasional visitor, but felt like the person who comes for a cup of tea and never gets to lea [...]

A charming story, beautifully told.

“You must always believe that life is as extraordinary as music says it is.”Music is from which the vessel of one′s soul is stirred to unimaginable heights of feeling as it is soothed by the glorious harmony of its sound, which congruence of perfection eliminates any notion that separates joy from sorrow as both are eternally conjoined in unison, linked together on a platform for a single Universal purpose---a symphony of creation that represents the divine language of the gods.Music by it [...]