In the dying years of the past century there was a seemingly endless appetite for this sort of novel ... This is Jilly Cooper territory, with a whiff of Joanna Trollope; a lavish saga about privileged people behaving badly ... Rothschild is a writer of high intelligence, however, and she shakes these dear old tropes up into something more akin to John Lanchester’s blistering contemporary satire Capital ... Rothschild teases out the green shoots with skill and humour...Her characters make unexpected discoveries about themselves — hidden talents that could lead to money, or at least fulfilment. In the present century, the dilapidation of their ancestral home might be a bigger asset than its historical splendour ... If we take House of Trelawney as a light-hearted state-of-the-nation novel, it says a lot about the dangers of dwelling on past entitlement and the importance of unsentimental realism. Nobody gets anything for nothing — certain members of the royal family could learn something here.
Rothschild does a wonderful job weaving the ornate past of Trelawney into the complicated now. The eccentric family members interact with the space on their own unique terms, and every Trelawney player gets their moment in the story. The overall affect is a charmingly discordant family coping with their resplendent past and wholly muddled future. Rothschild effectively weaves an engaging tale of redemption and family bonds that comes off as both utterly untranslatable, but emotionally connective to the reader at the same time. It is a delightful escape and will leave you mentally roaming the halls of the house of Trelawney long after the last page has turned.
Hannah Rothschild...is brilliant at unhinged aristos. The poisonous, deluded old matriarch Clarissa, who still puts on silks and furs for dinner, even though the servants are long gone and it’s a Chinese takeaway, is particularly good ... House of Trelawney is...an oddly uneven novel. There are coups de foudre, galloping horses, erotic cornfield romps and scheming beauties that might not be out of place in a Mills & Boon romance ... And yet this is also a charming satire that, save a few stodgy passages about money, is never dull ... Rothschild — a member of the banking dynasty and presumably no stranger to warped families and staggering wealth — is a witty, stylish storyteller and her overall message definitely feels timely.
...bittersweet, comic ... Elinor Lipman fans will recognize this latter-day comedy-of-manners territory, which has the additional pleasure of letting us watch privileged, clueless aristocrats squirm.
This is a fascinating and fun romp of aristocracy hitting hard times and creatively working through the financial crash of 2008 ... This modern-day Downton Abbey, full of family dysfunction and love, is just as addictive as the TV series.
[Rothschild's] understanding of the eccentric world of English aristocrats shines throughout this remarkably entertaining novel. Her writing is whimsical yet poignant as she examines how privilege can become a burden, and how an inheritance system so focused on men impacts the women drawn into it ... Part comedy of manners, part serious meditation on money and gender roles, House of Trelawney is both deeply thought-provoking and thoroughly fun.
You know that effect they use in the film Titanic, where the images on screen morph from current wreckage to past splendour? Undersea rot turns into polished staircases and sumptuous ballrooms. I see a similar distortion as I read the opening pages of Hannah Rothschild’s second novel ... The madcap nature of the story; the clichés, and clever way they are rendered, make this a thoroughly enjoyable read – or, to use the correct terminology, a jolly good show. Yet the larger issues this satire plays on are equally fascinating ... That central tension between what the reader knows and what the characters know is a powerful tool for making fun of wealth and wealthy institutions ... Yet it is never clear, even by the end, what exactly we are being asked to look at: the institutions which fall, or the ones that rise again. For, among all the revolution, modernization, and recalibration of wealth and power, there are always some who, fortunes intact, manage to sneak away in a lifeboat.
[Rothschild's] style has been compared to comic writers such as Waugh and Mitford, which are apt in terms of both style and milieu, but comparisons can also be made to Austen and Dickens, as she shares their ability to create comic characters and to then put those characters in situations that allows the author to make satirical/social commentary ... Some [characters] do come across more like caricature...But it can be argued that this enhances the comedy and, though they may be lacking comparatively lacking in complexity, they’re rarely dull. Tonally, her writing is light but not lightweight: witty but sincere when a moment needs to be played straight. She deploys her knowledge with deft touch but uses the arcane incomprehensibleness of financial jargon to her advantage, adding to the comedic tone ... Your mileage may vary when it comes to privileged characters, the subject of finance and all the money talk that goes with it, but House of Trelawney is an intelligent and entertaining romp.
Rothschild takes us once again to a sphere of vulgar greed and tasteful snobbery ... The dialogue and plot move at a cracking pace, and the sympathetically drawn characters are oven-ready for a TV series ... Fun of this kind is irresistible, even if its mildly satirical portrait of unearned privilege also palls. The problems real families in Cornwall face go far beyond the scope of this novel, but Rothschild’s tale is a lively and entertaining addition to its literature of escapism.
Nothing is left out in this madcap, convoluted novel, which parodies British aristocracy on one hand and the social-climbing world of new money on the other ... Ms. Rothschild is an intelligent writer and an elegant prose stylist. The first female chair of the National Gallery, she describes her characters’ physical characteristics with the eye of someone who’s spent a lifetime looking carefully at paintings. ... Her first novel, The Improbability of Love (2015), was a clever satire of the art world she knows well. It worked because a thread of suspense kept the story moving. That’s what’s missing from this unwieldy book. The characters are one-dimensional. One exception, the most vividly depicted and believable personality, is an elderly castle resident, Tuffy, sister of the earl ... Even given the meandering plot, with so many comings and goings it’s hard to keep track, Ms. Rothschild provides some good lines ... ne thing the British haven’t lost is their sense of humor, and Ms. Rothschild provides a large dose of it in this quirky satire.
An eccentric family of British aristocrats, their decaying ancestral home, and the financial crash of 2008 are the ingredients of Rothschild's...romantic/comic fairy tale ... Deft narration fails to eclipse the inherent shortcomings in this patchy satire of entitlement (literally) with sentimental touches.
