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Available
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Publication
Penguin Books Ltd (1998), Paperback, 256 pages
Description
At all times wonderfully evocative and poignant,Cider With Rosieis a charming memoir of Laurie Lee's childhood in a remote Cotswold village, a world that is tangibly real and yet reminiscent of a now distant past. In this idyllic pastoral setting, unencumbered by the callous father who so quickly abandoned his family responsibilities, Laurie's adoring mother becomes the centre of his world as she struggles to raise a growing family against the backdrop of the Great War. The sophisticated adult author's retrospective commentary on events is endearingly juxtaposed with that of the innocent, spotty youth, permanently prone to tears and self-absorption. Rosie's identity from the novelCider with Rosiewas kept secret for 25 years. She was Rose Buckland, Lee's cousin by marriage. From the Paperback edition.… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member PilgrimJess
"Never to be forgotten, that first long secret drink of golden fire,juice of these valleys and of that time,wine of wild orchards,of russet summer,of plump red apples,and Rosie's burning cheeks.Never to be forgotten, or ever tasted agin........."
Firstly let me admit that I'm a fan of history and
'Cider With Rosie' is a tale of the author's early life growing up within a large family, without a real father figure influence,in a Cotswold village in and around the 1920s and is told from the standpoint of a child. However, in many respects it is a tale told in a series of short stories as it concentrates on differing elements of a simple and insular village life before the arrival of the motor car. Now I personally loved the chapter about the 'Grannies in the Wainscot' in particlar. Two old ladies, so differing in their characters who despite living as neighbours never once spoke to one another yet whose lives were regulated by each others very presence. It is not a story told with any real angst or through rose tinted glasses it is just told as it was, plainly and matter of factly just as is the rest of the book. We see a life set around the family kitchen, early school years,family and friends but in particular the various seasons.
Laurie Lee was a poet and a screen-writer as well as a novelist and this shines through in his choice of language. It starts when the author is but a toddler recalling some of his earliest memories. Here his world is large, scary, cosy and baffling, a world dominated by females and the language reflects this. Lee's real skill is that as the child grows so does his vocabulary as in normal life but never does the child's voice leave it. The language is always beautiful and so suggestive it takes you in and wraps about you like a blanket.
In many ways it is a book of nostalgia, a book of a by-gone time but it is also an illustration of writing about what you know. It is seen by many as a modern classic and rightly so IMHO.
Firstly let me admit that I'm a fan of history and
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not just battles, Kings, Queens, dates etc but socila history as well. This is a book of a slice social history.We see a life set around the family kitchen, early school years,family and friends but in particular the various seasons of nature.'Cider With Rosie' is a tale of the author's early life growing up within a large family, without a real father figure influence,in a Cotswold village in and around the 1920s and is told from the standpoint of a child. However, in many respects it is a tale told in a series of short stories as it concentrates on differing elements of a simple and insular village life before the arrival of the motor car. Now I personally loved the chapter about the 'Grannies in the Wainscot' in particlar. Two old ladies, so differing in their characters who despite living as neighbours never once spoke to one another yet whose lives were regulated by each others very presence. It is not a story told with any real angst or through rose tinted glasses it is just told as it was, plainly and matter of factly just as is the rest of the book. We see a life set around the family kitchen, early school years,family and friends but in particular the various seasons.
Laurie Lee was a poet and a screen-writer as well as a novelist and this shines through in his choice of language. It starts when the author is but a toddler recalling some of his earliest memories. Here his world is large, scary, cosy and baffling, a world dominated by females and the language reflects this. Lee's real skill is that as the child grows so does his vocabulary as in normal life but never does the child's voice leave it. The language is always beautiful and so suggestive it takes you in and wraps about you like a blanket.
In many ways it is a book of nostalgia, a book of a by-gone time but it is also an illustration of writing about what you know. It is seen by many as a modern classic and rightly so IMHO.
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LibraryThing member Vivl
A little gem: lyrical, funny, gentle and honest, sometimes shockingly so. To my shame, I had never heard of Cider with Rosie until a friend lent me it, based on a mutual taste in books and my recent adoration of Cold Comfort Farm. There are shades of Arthur Ransome's 'Swallows and Amazons' series
p.50
The June air infected us with primitive hungers, grass-seed and thistle-down idled through the windows, we smelt the fields and were tormented by cuckoos, while every out-of-door sound that came drifting in was a sharp nudge in the solar plexus.
p. 125
When she (Mother) tired of this (walking to the shops), she'd borrow Dorothy's bicycle, though she never quite mastered the machine. Happy enough when the thing was in motion, it was stopping and starting that puzzled her. She had to be launched on her way by running parties of villagers; and to stop she road into a hedge. With the Stroud Co-op Stores, where she was a registered customer, she had come to a special arrangement. This depended for its success upon a quick ear and timing, and was a beautiful operation to watch. As she coasted downhill towards the shop's main entrance she would let out one of her screams; an assistant, specially briefed, would tear through the shop, out the side door, and catch her in his arms. He had to be both young and nimble, for if he missed her she piled up by the police-station.
p. 63
His curious, crooked, suffering face had at times the radiance of a saint, at others the blank watchfulness of an insect. He could walk by himself or keep very still, get lost or appear at wrong moments. He drew like an artist, wouldn't read or write, swallowed beads by the boxfull, sang and danced, was quite without fear, had secret friends, and was prey to terrible nightmares. Tony was the one true visionary amongst us, the tiny hermit no one quite understood...
p. 130
She grew them (plants) with rough, almost slap-dash love, but her hands possessed such an understanding of their needs they seemed to turn to her like another sun. She could snatch a dry root from field or hedgerow, dab it into the garden, give it a shake -- and almost immediately it flowered. One felt she could grow roses from a stick or chair-leg, so remarkable was this gift.
I rest my case!
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as well as Edith Nesbit's various books (both authors firm favourites of mine whose works I regularly reread in adulthood), but this is more personal, a tad grittier, and shows life in rural England in the early decades of the 20th century from a lower socio-economic point of view, a little less middle class (although the Lee family seem in ways to straddle social boundaries.) I particularly have to mention the gorgeousness of the language and imagery, and the quality of character studies. Stunning. I'm convinced that I could open the book at any page and give an example of said excellence, and/or of the humour that permeates much of the text. Let's see...p.50
The June air infected us with primitive hungers, grass-seed and thistle-down idled through the windows, we smelt the fields and were tormented by cuckoos, while every out-of-door sound that came drifting in was a sharp nudge in the solar plexus.
p. 125
When she (Mother) tired of this (walking to the shops), she'd borrow Dorothy's bicycle, though she never quite mastered the machine. Happy enough when the thing was in motion, it was stopping and starting that puzzled her. She had to be launched on her way by running parties of villagers; and to stop she road into a hedge. With the Stroud Co-op Stores, where she was a registered customer, she had come to a special arrangement. This depended for its success upon a quick ear and timing, and was a beautiful operation to watch. As she coasted downhill towards the shop's main entrance she would let out one of her screams; an assistant, specially briefed, would tear through the shop, out the side door, and catch her in his arms. He had to be both young and nimble, for if he missed her she piled up by the police-station.
p. 63
His curious, crooked, suffering face had at times the radiance of a saint, at others the blank watchfulness of an insect. He could walk by himself or keep very still, get lost or appear at wrong moments. He drew like an artist, wouldn't read or write, swallowed beads by the boxfull, sang and danced, was quite without fear, had secret friends, and was prey to terrible nightmares. Tony was the one true visionary amongst us, the tiny hermit no one quite understood...
p. 130
She grew them (plants) with rough, almost slap-dash love, but her hands possessed such an understanding of their needs they seemed to turn to her like another sun. She could snatch a dry root from field or hedgerow, dab it into the garden, give it a shake -- and almost immediately it flowered. One felt she could grow roses from a stick or chair-leg, so remarkable was this gift.
I rest my case!
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LibraryThing member JudyL
One of the most loved books of the 20th century, this tell us of a Cotswold childhood in the early part of the century, when country life had remained unchanged for hundreds of years. Told in a lyrical prose, with humour and tragedy, and unforgetable characters in this small village. The auther was
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born during the first world war, and it's shadow enters into a way of life that would soon change forever. Show Less
LibraryThing member DeltaQueen50
Cider With Rosie by Laurie Lee is the first book in a trilogy of the authors memoirs. It is followed by As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning and A Moment of War. This first volume deals with the author’s boyhood in a rural English village, and it’s gentle descriptive draws the reader into a
There are some darker matters in the book, such as the father being noticeably absent having basically abandoned his family and the brutal beating of a stranger to the village, but mostly this is a fondly told memoir of growing up in a large, loving family with lots of light and laughter. The author often uses humor in his descriptions of both the local characters and of the day-to-day activities of his family. This is definitely not a book for action lovers but it is a lovely ready with some absolutely spellbinding descriptive passages.
Cider With Rosie captures a precise moment in time, one that is on the verge of change and the author’s nostalgic imagery is both atmospheric and haunting. Poetic and charming, this coming-of-age story was the perfect read to curl up with on a long winter’s day.
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long forgotten time and place. The author obviously had fond memories of both the place and his family as they are portrayed with affection in this chronicle. There are some darker matters in the book, such as the father being noticeably absent having basically abandoned his family and the brutal beating of a stranger to the village, but mostly this is a fondly told memoir of growing up in a large, loving family with lots of light and laughter. The author often uses humor in his descriptions of both the local characters and of the day-to-day activities of his family. This is definitely not a book for action lovers but it is a lovely ready with some absolutely spellbinding descriptive passages.
Cider With Rosie captures a precise moment in time, one that is on the verge of change and the author’s nostalgic imagery is both atmospheric and haunting. Poetic and charming, this coming-of-age story was the perfect read to curl up with on a long winter’s day.
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LibraryThing member Stbalbach
Cider With Rosie is a series of sketches about the author's childhood in the Gloucestershire village of Slad. I've never been to England but Laurie Lee's amazing poetry/prose makes it seem real. It's heavy with sentimentality and romanticism, a dangerous trap for many writers, but it seems to work
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in this case, like Jello-mold with Turkey dinner. Lee was among the first generation of what we call "modern", he is an ambassador to a time and traditions now gone, old enough to see its passing but young enough to adapt to the new world. I was fortunate to listen to the unabridged reading by Lee himself, which gives the added dimension of hearing to an old man happily recounting the days of his youth. A remarkable work all the more so since it was published in 1959, it could have been published at any time, and will no doubt continue to be read for generations to come. Show Less
LibraryThing member shanklinmike
wonderfully written book. Laurie Lee is an artist with words. His ability to draw the scenes for you and to bring the characters to life is amazing. A child's eye view of growing up in a remote village (Slad), his interactions with the people around him and his experiences. Lee is a poet. The
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chapter on the two old folks who have lived together almost all their lives and then fall ill and are separated is one of the most perfect chapters I have read in any book. Show Less
LibraryThing member Clurb
Marvellous. Makes me want to go scrumping and keep a slice of buttered bread in my pocket. A deeply moving book, comic and upsetting in turns.
LibraryThing member evilmoose
Loved it :) I listened to this as an audiobook, and Laurie Lee read the book himself - it was just like listening to a collection of wonderful stories from my grandfather. The book tells the autobiographical tale of his early years growing up outside a rural village in the Cotswolds. When it first
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began, I had to pause the book to find out who on earth Laurie Lee actually was - and everything made sense when I discovered he was a poet (as well as screen-writer and novelist). The language was wonderfully rich and evocative, yet life goes on in a matter of fact way. When it ended I was terribly sad, as I could happily listen to Laurie telling me about his childhood for hours and hours. Show Less
LibraryThing member cayzers
Absolutely spell binding. I reread it as an adult and got so much more out of it than I did as a teenager. Wonderfully evocative (but not overly sentimental) view of a lost way of life (circa 1920)
LibraryThing member debnance
Laurie Lee grew up in a rural part of England during thetime just after the Great War. His father abandoned his mother witheight children to raise. Lee was almost always hungry and cold. Butlife never seemed hard; somehow it seemed joyous and delightful.I was especially taken with the chapter about
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the devilments childrenand young people got into during Lee's time. Back in Lee's day, astoday, terrible things happened. But somehow the village and itspeople just seemed to deal with them, not making them into events ofenormous evil as we seem to do today.I loved reading about the day to day living of Lee during hischildhood. Everything seemed so much more alive then, with things totaste and touch and smell. Lee revels in his life. The stories hetells makes the time seem glorious. Show Less
LibraryThing member LovingLit
Laurie is the nearly youngest of a large brood of kids growing up in a village in 1920s England. He has an, inexcusably imo, absent father and a mother understandably flustered and consumed by the task of living. Laurie charts his childhood so well. His memories are described in depth and colour
The freedoms of his childhood, roaming the village and the fields and woods, the matronly mollycoddling from his older sisters, school, scrapes, girls, church and growing up are all told with a lovely turn of phrase. The village he has known, and how it was for a thousand years before him, changes forever with the motor car. The close of his childhood coincides with this technological and social shake-up, and it leaves you with a sadness for the loss of a simpler time.
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and with all the significance attached, just like how we remember feeling things as a child. The freedoms of his childhood, roaming the village and the fields and woods, the matronly mollycoddling from his older sisters, school, scrapes, girls, church and growing up are all told with a lovely turn of phrase. The village he has known, and how it was for a thousand years before him, changes forever with the motor car. The close of his childhood coincides with this technological and social shake-up, and it leaves you with a sadness for the loss of a simpler time.
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LibraryThing member ritaer
Interesting view of life in very rural England before modern life destroyed the old ways. Hunger, cold, festive occasions. Very interesting.
LibraryThing member infjsarah
This was a reading group book and it is unfortunately all the things that turn me off books - autobiography, lots and lots of description of nature et al and nothing actually happens.
I can see why many people love it but it did nothing for me.
I can see why many people love it but it did nothing for me.
LibraryThing member emleemay
This is not a fast-paced adventure book but it does create a beautiful picture of quiet country lanes, honeysuckle on the breeze and both the wonders and tragedies of living so far out in a world controlled solely by the forces of nature.
It's a lovely portrait of childhood innocence and growing up,
Did you ever make a secret den in the countryside when you were a child? If so, imagine crawling into it to discover that it led to a secret world that kept to itself and the outside didn't know about... that's the feeling you get about the setting of the novel, like you've crawled into a secret world. And what's more, it's completely real. A beautiful story.
So why did it only get three stars? Because as much as I marveled at this beautiful world that the author told of so wonderfully, nothing much happened. It's a very sweet and subtle story but it could lead to boredom at times. I don't regret reading it though.
It's a lovely portrait of childhood innocence and growing up,
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after reading it I got a desperate urge to visit the Cotswolds. The world of childhood is a very small bubble and this takes that alongside the equally small world in which this novel is set and it creates the idea of a place quite apart from the rest of the world, almost secretive. Did you ever make a secret den in the countryside when you were a child? If so, imagine crawling into it to discover that it led to a secret world that kept to itself and the outside didn't know about... that's the feeling you get about the setting of the novel, like you've crawled into a secret world. And what's more, it's completely real. A beautiful story.
So why did it only get three stars? Because as much as I marveled at this beautiful world that the author told of so wonderfully, nothing much happened. It's a very sweet and subtle story but it could lead to boredom at times. I don't regret reading it though.
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LibraryThing member MrsLee
This is an autobiography of Laurie Lee. It takes place in the 1920's and 1930's, in a small village in England. The author has a masterful way with words. You walk alongside of him in the village, see the people as he saw them and feel the drama of his youth. It is not a polished rosy view of a
The story makes you think. I'm not sure I agree with the author's conclusions, some of the stories are downright horrifying to me, but it did leave me pondering life and what we mean to each other.
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small village, but an honest look at the warts and bumps which people carry with them throughout life. The story makes you think. I'm not sure I agree with the author's conclusions, some of the stories are downright horrifying to me, but it did leave me pondering life and what we mean to each other.
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LibraryThing member jessicariddoch
book club book
This is the type of book that I think that I Ought to like lots of description and atmosphere. But I didn't like it
I can see that it is well written and some of the book club members thought it was brilliant, but I was bored - waiting for something to happen that never did. I did liek
I think that this bok has taught me that althoug I hate book without descrition, I need a narative to hold my interest
This is the type of book that I think that I Ought to like lots of description and atmosphere. But I didn't like it
I can see that it is well written and some of the book club members thought it was brilliant, but I was bored - waiting for something to happen that never did. I did liek
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some of the descriptive peaser - like when the water came into the house and they were all out with the brushes getting it out - but it led nowhere.I think that this bok has taught me that althoug I hate book without descrition, I need a narative to hold my interest
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LibraryThing member Banbury
Somehow Cider With Rosie fails in its obvious intention to be an elegy to an ancient world now irretrievably lost, and feels more like vague nostalgia. It is not that it is over-sweet; there is plenty of the violence and ambiguity of life to disturb one, it is more that the author sees cosmic
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importance in what he happens to remember, and allows the vagaries of his memory, rather than the inherent interest, to dictate the importance of any particular event in the narrative. The author was not quite able to make the connecting leap between the intensely personal and the universal. Show Less
LibraryThing member Prop2gether
Charming remembrance of a time gone bye.
LibraryThing member firebird013
A wonderful evocation of an entirely vanished world. Magical.
LibraryThing member leslie.98
A look at English village life in the 1920s. Quite charming but I think that I preferred Flora Thompson's trilogy Lark Rise to Candleford which I found similar.
LibraryThing member cbl_tn
The village...was like a deep-running cave still linked to its antic past, a cave whose shadows were cluttered by spirits and by laws still vaguely ancestral. This cave that we inhabited looked backwards through chambers that led to our ghostly beginnings; and had not, as yet, been tidied up, or
It was something we just had time to inherit, to inherit and dimly know – the blood and beliefs of generations who had been in the valley since the Stone Age. That continuous contact has at last been broken, the deeper caves sealed off forever. But arriving, as I did, at the end of that age, I caught whiffs of something old as the glaciers.
In this memoir, Laurie Lee recalls with nostalgia his childhood in a Gloucestershire village from the tail end of the First World War into the 1920s. Lee gives the impression that he was compelled to preserve his memories because his was the last generation to experience village life in the pattern it had followed for centuries. The technological advances following World War I irrevocably changed this pattern.
The oversized illustrated edition wasn't the read I expected it to be. The photographs are too small to easily make out details, and many of the reproductions of paintings are blurry. The book is too large to hold comfortably, so I could only read a chapter or two at a time. The book just didn't flow for me. I wouldn't recommend the illustrated edition to other first-time readers.
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scrubbed clean by electric light, or suburbanized by a Victorian church or papered by cinema screens.It was something we just had time to inherit, to inherit and dimly know – the blood and beliefs of generations who had been in the valley since the Stone Age. That continuous contact has at last been broken, the deeper caves sealed off forever. But arriving, as I did, at the end of that age, I caught whiffs of something old as the glaciers.
In this memoir, Laurie Lee recalls with nostalgia his childhood in a Gloucestershire village from the tail end of the First World War into the 1920s. Lee gives the impression that he was compelled to preserve his memories because his was the last generation to experience village life in the pattern it had followed for centuries. The technological advances following World War I irrevocably changed this pattern.
The oversized illustrated edition wasn't the read I expected it to be. The photographs are too small to easily make out details, and many of the reproductions of paintings are blurry. The book is too large to hold comfortably, so I could only read a chapter or two at a time. The book just didn't flow for me. I wouldn't recommend the illustrated edition to other first-time readers.
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LibraryThing member Matke
There’s some beautiful writing in this (fictionalized) memoir. of a much slower, simpler time. Lee was a poet who knew how to perfectly convey a sense of time and especially place.
The author takes us through his poverty-stricken childhood and youth in rural England in the first decades of the
I did enjoy this one, but was disturbed by parts of it.
The author takes us through his poverty-stricken childhood and youth in rural England in the first decades of the
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last century. While the book is quite endearing, the author is a little too accepting of some very seamy, indeed criminal, behavior. I did enjoy this one, but was disturbed by parts of it.
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LibraryThing member SeriousGrace
Cider with Rosie begins when Lee is just three years old. He belongs to a family of eight. Lee's father had eight children with his first wife (who died in childbirth) and four more with his housekeeper who became his second wife. Of the twelve children total, only eight survived. Lee's father may
Cider with Rosie is a study in innocence. Lee sees the world as a place of discovery. Even when he was thought to be on death's door he analyzed all that was around him. I won't spoil what the title means except to say it's the end of innocence.
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have left the family when Laurie was only three but his memories of childhood are simply magical regardless. I think he was raised with the expectation that his father would be back. Here is one memory about sleeping with his mother as a toddler: "They were deep and jealous, those wordless nights, as we curled and muttered together, like a secret I held through the waking day which set me above all others" (p 22).Cider with Rosie is a study in innocence. Lee sees the world as a place of discovery. Even when he was thought to be on death's door he analyzed all that was around him. I won't spoil what the title means except to say it's the end of innocence.
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LibraryThing member Bagpuss
What a delightful, charming book which, despite being old-fashioned still entertains today. His prose is wonderful and it has some really chuckle-out-loud moments in it.
LibraryThing member Steve38
A deserved classic. A personal history of disappearing English village life as the automobile and mechanisation changed rural life. Heavy on romanticism with great splashes and dollops of words dropped onto the page. It went on just long enough.
Subjects
Awards
WH Smith Literary Award (Winner — 1960)
Waterstones Books of the Century (56 — 1997)
Language
Original publication date
1959
Physical description
256 p.; 7.64 inches
ISBN
0141180579 / 9780141180571