Resumen
Resumen de Robin Linnet
Para quién es
Readers who like witty drawing-room conversation, vivid portraits of Edwardian high society, close friendships between young men, and a mother-and-son bond that deepens when the world around them is thrown into upheaval.
De qué trata este libro
Robin Linnet is a novel by E. F. Benson, who died in 1940 and was best known for his comic social fiction. It is set in the last months of peace in 1914 and the first winter of the Great War. It follows a golden nineteen-year-old Cambridge undergraduate, his closest friend, and the mother who adores him.
The book moves between two worlds. One is the sleepy, joking life of St Stephen's College, where dons play whist and undergraduates play poker. The other is the glittering circle around Robin's mother, Lady Grote, who fills her country house with singers, painters, financiers and snobs. Benson watches both worlds with a wry eye and then lets the war walk into them.
You will meet a pianist-don who hates modern music, a rich hostess with divided loyalties, a tenor with a wildcat's manners, and a woman who has never needed to ask what life is for. Benson shows how a whole society, and one woman in it, is shaken out of its comfort. The story begins on a hot May night in a Cambridge college room.
En este resumen
- 1Two friends and a candleFree
- 2The dons guard the old Cambridge
- 3A house where Saturday never ends
- 4A Saturday party and a landing airplane
- 5The white room and the shadow in the garden
- 6A dinner in Curzon Street and a long night
- 7A letter at the stage door, and war
- 8A mother learns what she can give
- 9What the book is really about
Idea clave 1 de 9
Two friends and a candle
The story opens in a Cambridge college room on a hot night in early May. Two undergraduates sit over Plato by the light of a stolen candle, because the electric light has failed. They are Jim Lethbridge, who is twenty, and Robin Linnet, who is nineteen. Their friends call Robin Birds, since he is a Robin and a Linnet in one body.
Robin drinks whisky and soda, screams for his nurse in the dark, and slips a lump of ice down Jim's collar. A wrestling match follows, and a third friend, Badsley, called Badders, wanders in and is tied up like a fowl. Robin teases Badders about his endless crushes on girls, and invents a dead grandmother just to watch him squirm.
Behind the high spirits lies something steady. After midnight the two walk out onto the dewy grass behind the college and stop on the bridge. A nightingale sings. Robin wonders aloud whether they will drift apart once Cambridge ends and each becomes the father of a family. Jim answers that their friendship is built into them now. He points at their footprints in the dew and says the old tracks will always be waiting.
The next day Robin plays cricket for the University against Middlesex. He starts in a state of nerves, then remembers how much worse it must be for Jim watching, and the fear drops away. He bats beautifully and falls one run short of a century, then wants an enormous drink.
These opening scenes set the tone. Robin is graceful, funny and loved, and his talent for enjoying the moment seems to fit him exactly. The chapter also plants a question that the rest of the book will answer in earnest. What will happen to a boy like this when the moment he lives for comes to an end?
That’s 1 of 9 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
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Questions about Robin Linnet
What is Robin Linnet about?
It follows Robin, a gifted young Cambridge cricketer, and his mother Lady Grote through the summer of 1914 and the first winter of the war. It mixes comedy of manners with the effect of war on a pleasure-loving society.
When is Robin Linnet set?
The story opens on a May night in 1914 and runs through the outbreak of the First World War into the following winter. Historical events such as the mobilization and the ultimatum stand behind the characters' private lives.
Who are Damon and Pythias in the first chapter?
Damon and Pythias are the nicknames the two friends give each other after the Greek pair famed for loyalty. They are Jim Lethbridge and Robin Linnet, who call themselves Day and Pie while they read Plato.
Who are the Gurtners?
Sir Hermann Gurtner is a German-born financier and his wife Aline, a former governess, is a keen social climber. Their divided loyalties and the money Sir Hermann makes from war news form a strong thread in the story.
Is Robin Linnet easy to read?
Benson writes in a lively, conversational voice, with quick jokes, vivid characters and short scenes full of dialogue. The Cambridge and country house chapters are full of humor, and the wartime chapters follow Helen closely.