A day late and a dollar short. ( )

This is my second time listening to the series. I can’t wait for enough time to pass so I can enjoy it all over again.

This is the story of an English middle class family that covers the period from 1939 to the late 50s. The story and cast are brilliantly sustained and developed in Elizabeth Jane Howard’s telling, which is unfailingly insightful, full of pathos and humor. I live inside the world of the Cazalets as I am reading.

One reads different books for different things, making it impossible (at least for me) to say of any book: this is my favorite of all. But for a five volume family saga depicting the era between the wars in England, the Cazalet Chronicles are just perfect. ( )

Five stars is really for the series as a whole. Every book had me gripped; many a bus stop nearly missed, real tears shed and characters who I really did care about ( and a few who made me very cross). A truly satisfying saga that follows a family from the uncertainties pre-second world war to the very end of the 1950s. Births, marriages, divorces, deaths, affairs and the pains of growing up are beautifully portrayed through a wonderful array of very different personalities, against a background of seismic social change. Although I loved this final book in the series it did show that it was written some time later than the initial four. It was almost as though Elizabeth Jane Howard herself needed to reacquaint herself with her cast. A minor criticism of a magnificent, rewarding, very enjoyable read. ( )

As the world changed, so did the Cazalet family. This book must be Howard's masterpiece, published 18 years after what was supposed to be the final volume in the series, and published the year before Howard died.

I'm so sad that I've finished my time with the Cazalets. I shall have to buy all 5 books to reread. ( )

(1) First book of the year is the last book of the Cazalet Chronicles. And I am so sad to be done and so thankful to the author for giving me hours and hours of entertainment over the holidays. I read these voraciously, engaged and charmed the whole time and find I am still thinking about the characters - wishing there were more.

This one fasts forwards several years after Clary and Polly's marriages. Zoe and Rupert have another child; Hugh remarries and has another child; and the Duchy finally passes away. It also becomes increasingly apparent that the family business that kept them all fairly comfortably all their lives is failing.

This book jumps around quite a bit more than the others - while Louise, Polly, and Clary were the predominant lives we followed in the past - this one jumps around in the third person to almost everyone (though we see no more of Jessica's family) - I think we even had some of the story from Georgie's mouse Rivers perspective here and there.

It all wraps up nicely - the family come together in crisis and find their way through with love as they always do. The underlying moral - 'you reap what you sow,' is on full display. I enjoyed everyone's denouement. I can't quite give the books any higher than 4 stars despite my enjoyment. It is really just obsessively reading about a made up family without much literary gravitas nor profound musings about the larger world or the human condition.

Nevertheless - It will be hard to start on anything else . . . I will have to go make some tea and shape or Toad in the Hole to cheer me up. ( )

This is the fifth and final book in Howard's Cazalet family epic taking place from roughly the 1930s-50s in England. I was a little nervous because this last book was written about 10 years after the first four. But luckily, it felt just the same in style and gave a satisfying conclusion to the series.

I have absolutely loved reading these books. They are great comfort reads - easy to read, engaging characters, and lots of drama. This is not highly literary writing, a lot of it feels soap opera-ish, but in the best possible way. Over the last couple years, I've turned to these when I need something totally absorbing and I'm sad to finish them. She wrapped things up pretty well, but in a multi-generational story like this there can always be new stories told and I'm sort of sad not to know what happens to everyone. As you can see, I've come to think of these people as real! ( )

sad to be at the end. too many characters I think. ( )

Heerlijk, nog een vijfde deel ontdekt. Dit deel begint 7 jaar na deel 4. De Cazalets gaan failliet. Maar het belangrijkste is eigenlijk het verhaal van Rachel en Sid. Uiteindelijk sterft Sid aan kanker en Rachel blijft alleen achter. Zo prachtig en ontroerend beschreven! Weer genieten, dit vijfde deel en heel jammer om definitief afscheid te moeten nemen van de familie. ( )

The final Cazalet chronicle
By sally tarbox on 18 March 2018
Format: Kindle Edition
The fifth and final of the Cazalet chronicles, all of which I have read and enjoyed over past few weeks. You totally get into the personalities, with their problems and flaws, and want to find out what happens next.
This volume takes up the story some ten years on, from 1956-58. The children we left are now adults, the newly-weds now have families of their own, while the older characters are entering old age and its difficulties.. Meanwhile the business which once gave them such a privileged lifestyle is failing...
I didn't think this was QUITE as well-written as previous volumes, a bit 'chick-litty' at times. Nonetheless, a must-read if you've got this far, and very enjoyable. ( )

The fifth and last of the [Cazelet Chronicles], it seemed a bit choppy and superficial at first, but I was also reading it in choppy little bits which didn't help. I waited for the opportunity to read most of it in a few long sittings, and even though it ends on a somber note and I had a lump in my throat for the final one hundred pages, I think Howard did fine with this last volume. Book Four, like a fairy tale, ended on a very happy note all around, except for one or two characters everyone was settled romatically or practically-speaking and was more or less thriving, although, it is true there were storm clouds lurking on the horizon. I see now that Howard had a larger arc in mind, a harder, tougher arc that includes real failures, real endings, the not-a-fairy-tale ending of literature. All along, while reading I kept thinking of other writers from Angela Thirkell (at the lighter end) to Mary Wesley and Penelope Fitzgerald (at the darker end, and many many in-between, say, Barbara Pym.) Howard manages an orchestral piece (music plays a large part in the book--the Cazelets are anything but ordinary; they are attractive and talented if flawed in all the usual ways) that can go from light to dark in a matter of pages. In the four previous novels I don't think Howard reaches quite as deeply, except perhaps with the death of the Duchy, the grandmother, and Rupert's difficulties and that is where the choppiness arises. She is describing upheaval of the kind that can break a family apart definitively and it is dark stuff so that when the children are being funny in this volume it can be a little hard to make the shift. And yet, that is exactly how life is. One character mulls how you can be with a small child, playing along with them, and still frantically worried about an adult matter of huge importance. It's not as comfortable a read as the previous books, but I think it lifts the whole Chronicle up a level. Yet one could also argue that this last book does not fit so well with the mood of the previous four. It isn't quite as well edited or fleshed out, but overall it is remarkable how Howard takes leave of almost every character in a satisfactory, realistic way. **** for Book 5 and ****1/2 for the whole. ( )

2013, Pan MacMillan Publishers, Read by Penelope Wilton

Book Description: adapted from Amazon.ca
It is the 1950s and as the Duchy, the Cazalets' beloved matriarch, dies, she takes with her the last remnants of a disappearing world – of houses with servants, of class and tradition – in which the Cazalets have thrived. Louise, now divorced, becomes entangled in a painful affair; while Polly and Clary must balance marriage and motherhood with their own ideas and ambitions. Hugh and Edward, now in their sixties, are feeling ill-equipped for this modern world; while Villy, long abandoned by her husband, must at last learn to live independently. But it is Rachel, who has always lived for others, who will face her greatest challenges yet. Events converge at Christmas; as a new generation of Cazalets descend on Home Place. Only one thing is certain: nothing will ever be the same again.

My Review:
I’ve listened adoringly to the Cazalet Chronicles one after the next, and the old cliché is true here that Howard saved the best for the last. There is a sadness to the tone here, or perhaps tribute is a better word: a tribute to days and times gone by – and a reminiscence that, as well as the lean years of war, there were many good times.

Over the span of the chronicles, I’ve loved observing the characters grow into adolescence, adulthood, and, in the case of the three Cazalet brothers, into their senior years. Clary and Archie have difficulty in All Change: human, relatable difficulty which challenges their marriage, if not their love. Polly and Gerald are a joy to behold. And, surprise me!: Edward, who for most of the series behaved so abominably that I disliked him intensely, has come to look rather pitiful, and I found myself sorry for him and for the poor choices he’d made. For Hugh and Jemima, I wanted to stand up and cheer! And little Georgie, along with his pet rat Rivers, I won’t ever forget.

Howard’s Cazalet Chronicles are most highly recommended, and All Change is my favourite of the five. I listened to the series on audiobook and would be remiss not to mention that narrators Jill Balcon and Penelope Wilton are sublime! The last Christmas at Home Place is so beautifully written that I wanted to crawl into the pages and share in the family’s joy, sadness, humour, and hope:

“Snow fell in the night, large flakes as big as feathers. And after a while, it began to settle. The bare trees became heavy with it. It thickened on the ground so that it became like the icing on a cake, then a satisfactory three inches of dazzling crunch. Spiders’ webs sparked with icicles, the sky was the colour of dirty pearls, and the air smelled of snow.” ( )

A leap forward in time; the fourth book in The Cazalet Chronicles left us in 1947 but this, the last in the series, runs from June 1956 to December 1958. Much has changed in the 11 years after VE Day: Queen Elizabeth succeeds to the throne after the death of her father King George VI, there are eight million refugees within Germany’s borders, President Eisenhower is elected. And in the world of the Cazalets, The Duchy dies.
This final book is an examination of the nature of love that persists despite pain and trouble. The cousins experience difficulties in love – affairs, divorce, misguided attachments and betrayal – while their parents are fractured by the failure of the family timber business. Suddenly there is no money: houses must be sold, servants let go after years of service, meals cooked and houses cleaned without help. Family love persists through this dark time and, as throughout the war, the Cazalet family emerges out the other side, shaped differently for the next decade.
Reading the last book in a well-loved series is always a mixed feeling: delight and loss. So it is with wonder that I consider how Elizabeth Jane Howard wrote this final book of the series when she was 90, completing it before she died in January 2014.
Read more of my book reviews at http://www.sandradanby.com/book-reviews-a-z/ ( )

I've loved the previous four books in the series and was nervous about reading this one - but needn't have worried. Howard mixes new life with death, love and living. She juggles a myriad of characters of all ages, coming out of the war and into the bright light of the post war world. The death of the matriarch, the Duchy, at the start of the book heralds a coming round full circle, as the children of the pre war books become the parents and life continues, changing in some unexpected ways. Strings and patterns set up earlier continue to play out, and the book finishes in the midst of things, as life will go on. A wise and moving finale to a life and career

I love these chronicles so it was fantastic to be able to read on in the Cazalet saga, set 20 years on from the start in 1937.
New characters include the offspring of the original children - Howard creates their individual voices and personalities with her usual cleverness. Has she ever produced an unlikeable character? They may vary between headstrong or weak, over emotional or repressed, too honest or deceitful, but it is hard to pick one for whom we have no sympathy at some stage in the series.
We see the impact of earlier behaviours playing out, negatively in some cases, in others there is a rewarding resolution. But there are losses, sorrows, grief and suffering as the realities of life circumstances alter after the war. The passage of time is shown more clearly in changes in relationships.
Maybe there is less of the descriptive detail of everyday life in this final volume, more emphasis on emotion rather than the characters' actions and routines. There is something dogged about the rapid turnover of chapters, each headed with the names of those involved, as if Howard was determined to follow up everyone in what she may have considered her last work in the series.
It' is a very long book, with lots happening to keep the reader very engaged with this very well known group of characters, set in such a significant period of the twentieth century for England. ( )