A Spell of Winter: WINNER OF THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION

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I ought to have made sure I knew more. He’d had a past, a geography of silence. None of us had ever mapped it. The author makes great use of closed spaces: the ‘snow-house” where the first incestuous union occurs (p. 99); the little “cottage” where the abortion takes place (p. 185); the tiny “clearing” where Miss Gallagher dies (p. 203). What relation do these physical landscapes have to the country estate? How do they correspond to the emotional landscape of the characters? Can you think of other enclosed spaces to which the author might be alluding? Wonderful descriptions too. The environment really comes to life. That's definitely one of the things I loved about the book...but it was the story itself that kept me reading. Shortlist announced". Walter Scott Prize. 24 March 2015. Archived from the original on 26 March 2015 . Retrieved 24 March 2015. I wonder sometimes if it’s the people themselves who keep you company, or the idea of them. The idea you have of them.”

This book is something very unusual. The title is fitting for an often chilling story that casts a spell on the willing reader. Dunmore’s] voice is distinctive”wild yet controlled”and its incantatory music does suggest “a spell.” . . . This is an erotic pastoral, the rhythms of the land contending with those of the body itself. . . . In the hands of an author less assured, this might be romantic melodrama or mere period piece; in Dunmore’s authoritative tell A Spell of Winter haunts.”” The Washington Post Book WorldI was born in December 1952, in Yorkshire, the second of four children. My father was the eldest of twelve, and this extended family has no doubt had a strong influence on my life, as have my own children. In a large family you hear a great many stories. You also come to understand very early that stories hold quite different meanings for different listeners, and can be recast from many viewpoints. Although I was expecting more plot, and more revelation, this is more a study of sadness or an exploration of family. The entire extent of their secrets never was revealed to me, and my nose for scandal was never fully rewarded. The scandal I did see, however, was enough to ensure my nose returned pointing firmly at my feet, and I’m sure my eyes and ears tried to close themselves at certain points also.

When Rob breaks his leg, Cathy firmly confronts her grandfather: "I saw what he saw: my set, sullen face, my big hands. I was capable and I knew I was. I could inflict my will on him" (p. 164). Much is made of Cathy's physical attributes in this passage. Does her stature affect her personality? Discuss the role her physicality plays later in life, when only she and her grandfather are left on the farm. What's the significance of Grandfather shouting they should "CHERISH...one another"? (p. 265) Nadine, a sixteen-year-old runaway new to London, is set up in a decaying Georgian house by her Finnish lover, Kai. Slowly, she begins to suspect that Kai's plans for her have little to do with love. 'Be Careful,' warns Enid, the elderly sitting tenant in the house, who knows all about survival and secrets. And when Nadine discovers Kai's true intentions, Enid's warning takes on a terrible and prophetic quality. The novel takes place at the turn-of-the-century, when modernization is beginning to sweep across Europe. Confronted with new comforts like indoor heating at Ash Court, Cathy thinks: "I wondered if I would miss our alternations of roasting and shivering, which were as natural to us as the squeeze and swell of our hearts" (p. 80). How does this call into question the very idea of what is "natural"? Consider how modernization has changed, and sanitized, our subjection to bodily functions. Do you think this displacement makes it difficult for characters in a modern setting to have the same Gothic sensibilities as those of characters in A Spell of Winter?The novel takes place at the turn-of-the-century, when modernization is beginning to sweep across Europe. Confronted with new comforts like indoor heating at Ash Court, Cathy thinks: “I wondered if I would miss our alternations of roasting and shivering, which were as natural to us as the squeeze and swell of our hearts’ (p. 80). How does this call into question the very idea of what is “natural”? Consider how modernization has changed, and sanitized, our subjection to bodily functions. Do you think this displacement makes it difficult for characters in a modern setting to have the same Gothic sensibilities as those of characters in A Spell of Winter?