Really wanted to like this book but found the main characters a little woolly and annoying. The idea for the story was quite interesting but it didn't really hang together as it should.

A novel set in different places and times. Confusing at times but thought provoking and lyrical too.

Literary fiction and I have a somewhat uneasy relationship. I love elegant prose when it fits with the story being told, although I dislike the pretension that a book is either literary (and therefore ‘superior’ or ‘worthy’) or genre (and therefore of lesser value and not of interest to discerning readers). Themes explored in both literary and genre fiction can be remarkably similar, and sometimes genre fiction does a better job of immersing the reader in a time and a place than does the literary fiction equivalent. All that said, how does this particular literary interpretation of the dual-era historical novel stand up to examination?

Our story begins in the latter half of the seventeenth century, not long after the restoration of the monarchy; a time when those nobles who followed Charles II into exile are returning to their former homes and attempting to both get along with those who stayed behind – supporters of the Parliamentary faction for the most part – and show off the tastes they acquired while living abroad by remodelling their houses and estates in the latest fashionable styles.

One man making a name for himself amongst all those employed in ‘improving’ the countryside is John Norris, a landscaper who begins work on the estate at Wychwood and soon finds himself drawn into the complex tangle of familial and romantic relationships of its inhabitants: at the big house from which the estate draws its name, at the adjacent manor house – home to non-conformists who occupied the main house during the time of Oliver Cromwell – and in the surrounding villages. In particular, Norris is drawn to Cecily, the young woman living at Wood Manor with her mother. When the plague decimates London, those leaving the city for the safety of surrounding counties are accused of bringing infection to Wychwood and refused help from all but Cecily and her allies. Norris’ world is turned upside down once again by the consequences of these actions.

In a parallel story, we see the late twentieth century inhabitants of Wychwood and its environs through a series of house parties and other gatherings, and watch as external events both shape the guests and are affected in small parts by the involvement of some of those whose lives we are observing. The two stories are linked both by the roles played by walls that divide communities: that built around Wychwood in the 1660s and that built across Berlin in the 1960s, and by the parts of the landscape created in Norris’ time that are still recognisable 300 years later.

This novel had a lot of potential and some intriguing plot ideas. Sadly, however, the characters – particularly those in the twentieth century story – failed to hold my attention. This was definitely a case where genre fiction might have done better at exploring the same themes and subplots. Others’ impressions may vary: it certainly gets more stars on average on GoodReads than I’ve awarded it there.

This is one of only a hand full of books that I DNF this year.
The story is slow and seems extremely pointless.
Please do not bother with this.

I really could not get into this book. The writing was OK, but the characters just weren't interesting enough for me to want to find out what happened to them. And the huge jump in time with no apparent link didn't help either. Sorry, not for me.

A Wonderfully written and slightly confusing book. It's wonderful to see how the characters grow and change around the big house and how all paths interact with each other. An intriguing book.

I really enjoyed the parts set in the 17th century, I found it very atmospheric, loved the characters, felt fully immersed. I wasn't so much engaged with the parts written in the 1960s. Wychwood is an Oxfordshire country house that is being landscaped and made into a perfect Arcadia, a closed world for those behind the walls. But secrets abound and there is witchcraft and sorcery. Very distinctive book, lovely writing but would have preferred to keep in the 17th century.

I had been really looking forward to reading this book but I found the plot hard to follow and difficult to keep track of the characters.

The first novel by award-winning writer Lucy Hughes-Hallett is a wide-reaching, ambitious, epic of a book.
As a cultural historian and biographer her previous works were of non-fiction: her biography of the Italian writer Gabriele D’Annunzio The Pike won the Samuel Johnson Prize, the Duff Cooper Prize, the Political Book Awards Political Biography of the Year and the Costa Biography Award.
Her erudition and enthusiasm shine through in this first foray into fiction – a work which was very close to her heart.
The book is centred on the Wychwood Estate – based on Oxfordshire’s Cornbury Park, where Lucy grew up as daughter of the estate’s agent: “When I was writing it, I had Cornbury in my mind’s eye,” says Hughes-Hallett.
Peculiar Ground begins in the 17th century, when a wall is being built around the great house, its ornamental lakes and majestic avenues planned by Mr Norris, landscape-maker. It’s a world where everyone has something to hide after decades of civil war.
Three centuries later, another wall goes up overnight, dividing Berlin, while at Wychwood, over one hot, languorous weekend, erotic entanglements are shadowed by news of historic change.
A little girl, Nell – daughter of the estate’s agent – observes all.
Nell grows up and Wychwood is invaded: there is a pop festival by the lake, a TV crew in the dining room and a Great Storm brewing.
As the Berlin Wall comes down, a fatwa signals a different ideological faultline and a refugee seeks safety in Wychwood.
Hughes-Hallett writes with great intelligence – and doesn’t underestimate that of her readers. The sprawl of historic events – such as the Aids epidemic and the furore over Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses – are signposted but not directly spelled out.
And she’s a cracking story-teller too.
Peculiar Ground by Lucy Hughes-Hallett, Fourth Estate, £16.99

An ambitious and well-executed novel, Peculiar Ground is a reading experience to remember. Not a quick, easy read, but one that delves into darker, lesser known times of history, their lives, their fears, their rituals, yet highlights elements that are just as important in today's society.

In my head I tend to break this novel into two parts (although the reading order is more complex). The 17th century Wychwood, and the 1970s onwards. At its heart, amongst the beauty and heartache of first love, and the magic of nature, this is a story about walls, and how the building up and tearing down of walls both separates and brings people together, and it was fantastic to see how well these stories reflected the same issues society faces today.

The story is beautifully written, Lucy Hughes-Hallett is a master of storytelling, and her way with words is stunning. However, I struggled with this book, and it was only at the end, when we returned to the 17th century that I began to enjoy it again. My problem was that, without the theme of walls being built between people (metaphorically and physically) I couldn't see how the two stories from different times melded to make one. Each was wonderful in its own way, but the pace and feel of the novel changed so much that I felt I was reading two different books.

For its beautiful and honest depiction of human life in closeted communities and the way that barring people from you can have devastating impacts, this is definitely a book to read as you'll get whisked away into Hughes-Hallett's magical world of nature, where the rituals of the past have long-lasting consequences for the future.

3 Stars!

What an unusual book.. I enjoyed the way it went from one time frame to another and yet there was a thread weaving through all of the characters stories. Refreshingly different. I would recommend this book as an entertaining read.

Peculiar Ground by Lucy Hughes-Hallett

4 stars

In the 17th Century, a wall was built around a deer park of a great house. Wychwood is a world of ornamental lakes and majestic avenues. After decades of Civil war everyone has something to hide or fear.

Three centuries later, there is a house party. Over that weekend the Berlin wall and a new world is being born, but the same fears and secrets are at Wychwood.

This book is very long but the descriptions of the house and gardens as well as the characters, help the book run smoothly. A haunting and ambitious novel, which the author has pulled off beautifully.

I found it a little too intense at times but that detracts little from this lovely book. This is my only criticism which is why only 4 stars.

Three centuries are tough over which to maintain the interest of the reader and keep the story going but this book certainly manages it.

Helen

Breakaway Reviewers received a copy of the book to review.

Wonderfully written with great detail of different times and attitudes, a slow burner but well worth reading.

This is a peculiar novel, to match the peculiar ground of the title.

The whole book is set on a fictional country estate in Oxfordshire – posh house, big gardens and grounds and estate, village nearby. The first section starts out in 1661, and is entrancing: it is reported by John Norris, a man who has come to design the gardens and landscape (landskip, it seemed to be called then). 

England is in a strange state, as the monarchy has recently been restored after the Civil War, the beheading of Charles I, and the Commonwealth. The Earl of Woldingham has returned to his house. Norris describes what he sees, and wonders what secrets are being revealed, what strange religious practices and old country ways he is coming across. And he makes elaborate plans for the estate. In the opening pages, his Lordship organizes a kind of horse obstacle race in the lines of trees Norris has planted:
I took delight in the performance of this morning. He incorporated my avenue, vegetable and ponderous, into a spectacle of daring grace. But it is true that I find him careless. To him a tree is a thing, which can be replaced by another thing like it. Is it lunacy in me to feel that this is not so?
Marvellous images, and then a wonderful way of telling the reader so much about the characters in some short lovely sentences.

Then we move to the same estate, 20th Century, and three different dates – 1961, 1973 and 1989. Events at Wychwood are described – country house weekend, filming, music festival – and then (a long way on) the book goes back to 1665 for a final section.

The extract above is from 1961, and combined many things I liked about the book: good clothes, and the words ‘The weekend I’m remembering was the last of the summer…’ will always pull me in. Various famous people turn up at Wychwood, such as Andy Warhol (unnamed but unmistakeable). Undergraduates come out from Oxford.

There is contrast between the rich and those who are poor, or – even worse – don’t have the right connections. Jobs are being handed out, or are possibilities: broadsheet editors are present. An internship in New York? There is a brief moment where the author seems to understand that not everyone has these opportunities: that one young student has to get a job as soon as he finishes. But he is one of the less nice characters, and soon we sweep on.

The book has shades of many others, sometimes deliberately so as in a mention of Swinbrooke, which means Mitfords to some of us. It resembles both Ian McEwan’s Atonement, and the oeuvre of Alan Hollinghurst. Despite being an unreconstructed old Lefty, I love books about the privileged few, but am also always ready to criticize them, and am always considering whether I feel excluded. This one teetered on the edge: I was impatient that the bolshy villagers needed just to be brought into the fold, to realize that they too could share the wonders of the estate. And perhaps there were too many characters, and a determination to squash everything in, including spying, the Berlin Wall, AIDS. 

I could’ve done without the final section – the return to the 1660s – I was ready to be finished before the author was. 

But despite all these minor criticisms, it was an intriguing and well-thought-out book. I loved the way the landscape of the estate, the water and the rivers, the avenues and the trees became such a part of the story - not in a nature-loving way, in a structural way. Something very unusual to find in a book. 

Peculiar Ground was a very interesting and brave experiment: Lucy Hughes-Hallett is a prize-winning biographer, and she has produced this, her first novel, at the splendid age of 65. I can only approve.

Thanks HarperCollins UK, 4th Estate and netgalley for this ARC.

Back and forth from the past to now- this book feels surreal, trippy, and unique.

Wow. What a book. Incredibly ambitious., A hodge-potch of ideas, colourful characters, fantasy and magic. Can't even think of a book that matches it in style. From two different timelines both in a state of flux, Lucy describes what it's like to live in both eras. The first staring in 1663, the second 1961. Both centre around a mansion in Wychwood with its magical gardens set inside a wall that protects the house from the outside world. Or does it? A rollicking read.

Oxfordshire in 1663 and the exiled Lord Woldingham has returned to claim the family estate Wychwood. As part of this he commissions Mr Norris to design and implement grandiose grounds including a wall surrounding the estate. The state itself is home to aristocracy and servants, dissenters and people who believe in witchcraft and the wall tries to isolate them from the Plague. Three hundred years later and Wychwood is still isolated from an increasingly fraught world, as the inhabitants live their lives they become aware that in Germany another wall has been built to isolate a community. Later, as the Berlin Wall falls, a journalist is given refuge from those who preach hate.

For most of this book I struggled to engage with the intertwining stories but for the last third I was completely enthralled. The narrative is sandwiched by the seventeenth century events and the final section explained so much of the initial section. The twentieth century episodes were harder to follow, simply because of the large cast of characters and the intertwining storylines, but the metaphors were exceptionally strong. This is a very different sort of novel and extremely hard to categorise but that is its strength.

Peculiar Ground is a clever and beautifully written book spanning the century's.The book is about a wonderful house called Wychwood ,what a fabulous place to live and when you enter you won't want to leave .It is a story of secrets ,rumours of witches and ghosts and intrigue .I loved the fact the book started in 1660 and went right through to 1989.Very intriguing book .

Again a well written book that I just didn't connect with, it's themes are very of the moment. I will go back to this and see if my mood decided to effect my enjoyment. Having read a few reviews it clearly found an audience but I'm not sure it's a place I normally sit!