Marking Time

By Elizabeth Jane Howard

Beautifully and poignantly told, Marking Time is the second novel in Elizabeth Jane Howard’s bestselling family saga The Cazalet Chronicles, set during the onset of World War II.

'Compelling, moving, unputdownable . . . Maybe my favourite books ever' - Marian Keyes, bestselling author of My Favourite Mistake

Home Place, Sussex, 1939. As the shadows of the Second World War roll in, banishing the sun-drenched days of childish games and trips to the coast, a new generation of Cazalets takes up the family’s story.

Louise, who dreams of becoming a great actress, finds herself facing the harsh reality that her parents have their own lives with secrets, passions and yearnings. Clary, an aspiring writer, learns that her beloved father, Rupert, is now missing somewhere on the shores of France. And sensitive, imaginative Polly feels stuck, haunted by her nightmares about the war.

‘She helps us to do the necessary thing – open our eyes and our hearts’ – Hilary Mantel, bestselling author of The Mirror and the Light

Marking Time is the second volume of the extraordinary Cazalet Chronicles and a perfect addition to your collection. Marking Time is followed by Confusion, the third book in the series.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pan Macmillan
• Release date: Feb 28, 2011
• ISBN: 9780330527088

Elizabeth Jane Howard

Elizabeth Jane Howard was the author of fifteen highly acclaimed novels. The Cazalet Chronicles – The Light Years, Marking Time, Confusion, Casting Off and All Change – have become established as modern classics and have been adapted for a major BBC television series and for BBC Radio 4. In 2002 Macmillan published Elizabeth Jane Howard's autobiography, Slipstream. In that same year she was awarded a CBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours List. She died, aged 90, at home in Suffolk on 2 January 2014.

Reviews for Marking Time

[northern_light-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is book two in the Cazalet chronicles and WWII is now changing life for all the inhabitants of Home Place. This book mainly features the older children as they mark time and work out where they fit in the world and the family.As in book one it can be hard at times to remember the relationships between the characters so I was very grateful for the family tree at the begining which was needed many times.Although set during the war it doesn't feature the war itself but concentrates on the home front where everything is changing and nothing will ever be the same again. Louise, Polly and Clary in their own ways face dilemmas and feel that they don't belong either with the youngerchildren or indeed with the adults.The sections are on the whole too long and would be better broken up into chapters though as I found myself having to back track when reading.Although probably most of the readers will not be upper-class so will never have the problems to face such as servant issues the story never the less manages to convey the hardships which were faced by everyone during the war. From a lack of petrol meaning they use a wheelbarrow to fetch water to constantly eating potatoes in many forms.Along with the war come normal issues of loss and ill-health with the older members of the family. The family firm is booming due to the war and the elder brothers struggle to cope although infidelity still rears its head at times.A great read and I look forward to the next in the saga.

[mahallett · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

so many characters but now i know them. very good.

[annejacinta · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Volume 2 of Cazelet chronicles. Now we are at war. Relationships are under pressure, life is very different. Well written, it picks up some links and develops new ones

[starbox_2 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

"A family saga of the best kind"By sally tarbox on 1 March 2018Format: Kindle EditionSecond in the series of 5 Cazalet Chronicles.Following the fortunes of the well-to-do Cazalet family as World War 2 takes hold. The luxurious lifestyle of the previous volume is breaking down as the War causes problems in business; bombings of the docks, brother Rupert missing in France; rationing; evacuees ...all go to make life much harsher.As Louise moves off to pursue an acting career, the younger family members often feel they're just 'marking time' - too young to do anything worthwhile, and sidelined by the adults, who have issues of their own.Unputdownable writing.

[paradiseporch · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Cazalet Chronicles #2 covering Fall 1939- winter 1941. The family "circles wagons" and gather more or less permanently in Sussex. Rupert is MIA at Dunkirk but Clary refuses to believe he's dead; Sybil is dying of cancer but neither she nor Hugh will admit to the other that they know; Louise rebuffs her father and falls in love with painter Michael Hadleigh; Polly – well, Polly – I love her!So say my notes, which cannot begin to capture the nuances of this story.Some bits that might:(Hugh of Sybil) Suddenly he was overcome by a longing for her—to hold her in his arms, to watch her breathing, to hear her small soft voice, to reminisce, to chat, to gossip with her of nothing important, except that it had been shared, that their knowledge was equal, their responses sometimes delightfully different . . . . (Does that not describe a happy marriage?)Or Clary in her journal:She wouldn’t tell me. “You’re too young,” she said. There must, thank God, be a diminishing number of things I’m too young for, but then, I suppose, before you can turn around there start to be an increasing number of things you are too old for. You can’t win. I’m looking forward to being thirty, which I should think would be the brief interval between those horns of dilemma.Oh, if you have not read this gentle saga, I encourage you to start it with The Light Years.Thanks again to Joules at Northern Reader who alerted me to this!

[brenzi_3 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The author really ramped up the interest in this second volume and I could hardly put it down. The Cazalet family certainly has their share of tragedy and drama but it makes for delightful reading. This volume takes place mostly in 1940-41 so the Blitz plays a large role and the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor has set the stage for the U.S. to enter and thereby prolong what everyone had hoped would be a short war.For a book with so many characters I have no trouble keeping them sorted and following the stories, most of which are told through the eyes of the youngest members of the family. The writing is excellent but that’s not what this series is about. It’s the story, through and through. A large family, caught up in WWII and its effect on everyone dominates the narrative, with different love stories playing out. So good. And highly recommended

[pokarekareana · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The second of the Cazalet chronicles; it is 1939 and war has just broken out. The Cazalet family are variously struggling to deal with the tension of the so-called Phony War, and all the pressures and worries that this brings to the surface. I only discovered this series by chance when my mum borrowed the first one from the library and I read it in a single sitting. I feel this is a good example of writing from a shifting perspective that works very well, and it moves quickly without being confusing. I like the characterisation very much, and think I’d quite like to go to tea with this lot because they’re so frightfully British about everything, darling. Definitely worth a read, particularly if you’re into the social aspects of wartime Britain.

[rosalita_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The second book in the Cazalet Family Chronicles focuses on the younger generation of Cazalets as World War II gets underway. At the end of The Light Years, the prospect of war with Germany was temporarily averted but as this volume opens a year later in 1940, hostilities have officially begun. While the older generations — patriarch The Brig and his wife The Duchy, their sons and daughters-in-law Hugh (Sybil), Edward (Viola), and Rupert (Zoë), their unmarried daughter Rachel — grapple with making sure the family lumber business survives and enlisting in the military, they don't have much time for the teenagers who are caught between childhood and adulthood.Most of the story this time is focused on cousins Louise, Clary and Polly. Louise, daughter of Edward and Viola, longs to be an actress, an idea her entire family finds ludicrous. Polly has an overwhelming fear of the war, which isn't helped by her mother's mysterious illness, and as the days pass she wonders what is the point of her life when she has no skills and no passions. Clary has to cope with the fear of being orphaned when her father Rupert joins the Navy and leaves her at home with her stepmother Zoë and younger brother and sister. The girl who once burned to be a famous author is left writing a desultory journal, the medium through which we see much of the events of a year both eventful and boring.There are a lot of characters here, as befits a Family Chronicle, but I found it much easier to keep them all straight in this second book, as the children develop unique personalities and come into their own. The three girls — and their parents, for that matter — couldn't be more different from each other ion some ways, even as they experience very similar upbringings. And they are all, in their own ways, both sympathetic and infuriating by turns, as Howard refuses to create two-dimensional characters. Even the slow-motion "romance" between the cook and the chauffeur is given depth even as it is also played for humor.I'm looking forward to seeing what comes next for the Cazalet family in Confusion.