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. ( )

La darrera crònica dels Cazalet és, al meu parer, la més fluixa. Alguns passatges em sonaven a déjà vu d'altres llibres, però no per ser un record sinó per succeir coses semblants. L'autora no tracta tots els membres de la família de la mateixa manera, ni els té la mateixa consideració.
Dues coses m'han cridat l'atenció per molt particulars durant tota la saga: la minuciositat amb què descriu els vestits de les protagonistes femenines, i la rellevància que dóna al menjar (a cada àpat s'atura a il·lustrar-nos-en).

En general m'ho he passat molt bé sabent les peripècies d'aquesta família (quasi un clan), de la seva llar (Home Place, un personatge més) i, sincerament, em sap greu d'acomiadar-me'n: són dues-mil cinc-centes pàgines de companyia!

En algunes ocasions la traducció grinyola, però potser és l'original. Si algú llegeix aquesta ressenya i s'anima a llegir les Cròniques, va avisat: si llegeixes el primer, els llegeixes tots cinc! ( )