Absolutely and Forever

"Yes, Rose Tremain always offers the reader so much! Absolutely and Forever is the coming-of-age story of a girl, Marianne, from a well-to-do family—boarding school, tennis courts, ponies—who, aged 15, falls ‘absolutely and forever’ in love with a boy. It doesn’t work out. The story may not be unusual in itself but in Rose Tremain’s hands it’s so ‘funny, piercing, singular’, as one critic described it, that it turns into a small masterpiece. Marianne may be as naïve and guileless as girls of her age in the 1960s were, but her sense of herself completely bewitches the reader. And Rose Tremain keeps a tight hold of her story. The book is short and may, to some, seem slight, but every word, every detail, is carefully chosen. It’s a book you can read a second and a third time and still find new aspects to admire. Charming, and indeed sad, this isn’t a tragic book. Amongst other things, it’s a book about recognising what things actually are, which, and this is so bitter-sweet, Marianne never quite does with her ‘absolutely and forever’ love. Yes, it is. In I Capture the Castle , the girls’ lives are constrained by their education and upbringing. They dream, but they don’t really know what they’re dreaming about. I think we all remember—particularly women—dreams you’ve had and never wanted to abandon. Absolutely and Forever is a beautiful evocation of just that."

"I just loved its ironies, which are of the sort that people often describe as ‘delicious’. Again I suppose it is the gap between perception and reality, and not just the narrator’s misunderstandings, but the readers’ expectations that are being constantly upended. I thought the ending was just perfect, too, although lots of people felt short-changed. It could be her tone of voice perhaps. It is narrated in the first person, like God Knows , and I can’t help thinking that Rose Tremain is probably exactly like that to talk to. Scatty, perhaps, but very honest and absolutely hilarious."