poliphilo

There's a wonderfully engaging 17 year old narrator. She lives in a falling-down castle in Suffolk with her father, a modernist genius with a chronic case of writer's block, her silvery, professional muse of a mother-in-law, her more worldly sister Rose, her schoolboy brother and the adopted brother-cum-servant whose earnings keep them all from starving. Then the Americans arrive.

This is another of those 20th century artworks about what we English have left to fall back on after ceasing to be top nation. It's a wonder Powell and Pressburger didn't film it. It has just their blend of ruralism, mysticism and deep but non-militaristic love of country. It's also very funny. The only snag is I couldn't see what any of the young women saw in any of the young men- but perhaps that's what Dodie intended.