The Holiday
Subtitle: A Novel
Publisher: Pinnacle Books
Published: October 1982
Language: eng
Format: Paperback
Number of pages: 192
ISBN-13: 9780523416847
Subjects: General; Fiction - General; Fiction
First sentence: I WAS working over some figures with Tiny at the Ministry; it was a figure code.
Description: Celia lives in a London suburb with her beloved aunt in the post-war England of 1949. Witty, fragile, and quixotic, Celia is preoccupied with love{u2014}for her friends, her colleagues, her relatives, and especially for her adored cousin Casmilus, with whom she goes on holiday to visit Uncle Heber, the vicar. There they talk endlessly, argue, eat, tell stories, love, and hate. Wild humor alternates with waves of melancholy as Celia obsessively ponders the inevitable anguish of love. In this entrancing autobiographical tale, Stevie Smith captures the paradox of pain in all human affections.