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A bittersweet description of an ancient family house in an enchanted setting, and of growing up with a damaged brother.
To paraphrase Shirley Jackson, William Fiennes has always lived in the castle. With a lineage stretching back to the 14th century, the Fienneses have been the guardians and occupants of Broughton Castle in Oxfordshire. William -- a second cousin of the explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes and a third cousin of the actors Ralph and Joseph Fiennes -- grew up surrounded by all the trappings of a fairy tale: a 700-year-old Tudor-style mansion encircled by a moat and fortressed with a gatehouse tower above a stone bridge. His mother spent her days polishing suits of armor while his father scooped algae out of the moat.
| Price | Condition | Delivery | Seller | Action |
| $99.99 | Digital |
| WonderClub |
John Smith
reviewed The Music Room: A Memoir on June 24, 2017 The Music Room: A Memoir
When you read stories of people's childhood in the first person it's difficult not to feel echoes of your own. I think that's one of the things that gives this book such a magical quality. William writes beautifully about his enchanted childhood growing up at Broughton Castle where his ancestors have lived since 1447. William had an elder brother, Rich, who suffered from epilepsy and brain damage which made him emotionally volatile - both warm and generous and then threatening and difficult. One of the wonders of this book is his demonstration of how his family loved Rich.
At one point William writes,
'I couldn't think of his character as a manifestation of disease. That would have implied the existence of an ideal healthy Richard my brother was an imperfection of, a dream-Richard this actual person couldn't measure up against. But there wasn't any other Richard.'
This sentence struck me as I thought, at first, that this wasn't true and that this book was an expression of longing not for the brother he had - but for the brother that he could have had. Of all the kindness without all the difficulty and the threat of violence.
But as the book progressed I saw that this was not so. As children we take things as they are - we don't know any other reality than the one we have and so we are accepting of it. And, if we are lucky, we know the miracle even then. So as the book progressed I realised that I had been wrong. This really was an offering to the brother that he had known -with all the problems - an offering of love to that man. And I admired William all the more for that. In reality he had a double loss - a loss of the brother he could have had and a loss of the brother that he did have.
But he was also greatly blessed and he knew that too. I remember clearly when I was 16 years old, coming across the words of Wordsworth (written as an old man) 'Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive but to be young was very heaven.' And they showed me what I had. I wrote out in a journal, 'Bliss is it in this dawn to be alive and to be young is very heaven.'
William's blessing was that he also saw this. The presence of the dead ancestors whispered it to him - and he heard them.
A Paenan of love to his brother and his parents. Sad and beautiful all at once. 5*s.
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