In Search of a Past
Ronald Fraser, the internationally renowned oral historian, turns his attention to his own origins in this remarkable memoir. In Search of a Past gathers the recollections of the servants who worked at the manor house outside London where Fraser grew up. It was the place where his parents—one American, the other Scottish—learned to embrace the lifestyle of the idle local gentry. Fraser paints a vivid picture of a vanished interwar world. Sensitively recorded, the words of his family’s former employees capture the texture of English "county" life as seen from below, woven into a background of their personal lives, their work and the social antagonisms they experienced.
Beneath their stories, however, the author glimpses another unspoken narrative—that of his own childhood. He submits to a course of psychoanalysis and delves into a past riven by confusing emotions and conflicting class allegiances. The result is an innovative, honest, and beautifully written account of the search for lost time, one that defies literary categorization.
Hardback, 216 pages
ISBN: 9781844675975
August 2010
$29.95 / £20.00
Reviews
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This book makes an important breach in the walls of memory and penetrates its frozen silences.
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"Job snobs": the new reality of domestic labour
"Why do we spend our lives living through them?" The words of the intelligent and frustrated housemaid, Elsie, in the Robert Altman film Gosford Park, remind us of the human potential locked away in the relationship between the British aristocracy and those who served them. Chained by poverty to a social class who both despised and resented them, generations of intelligent working people had their lives moulded by the comings-and-goings of their employers, with the personal lives of both becoming dangerously and unhappily intertwined.
Ronald Fraser: 1930 - 2012
We are sad to announce the death on 10th February of Ronald Fraser, the most distinguished English historian of Spain, and a member of the New Left Trust. Ronnie played a huge part in helping to establish, first New Left Review (as its Business Manager in 1963) and later New Left Books, the parent company of Verso in 1969. Till the very end he kept a watchful, if distant, eye on both institutions.
From the very beginning he was a great exponent of interviewing working people (in Britain) and peasants (in the villages of Andalucia) as a way to create a new historical archive based on the experiences of the subaltern classes. The existence of both New Left Review and Verso owes a great deal to his business skills at a time when left intellectuals regarded money matters as ‘vulgar' and not worth too much thought.
In the near future we will be organising an evening in London to pay homage to his work. In the meantime the tribute he would have greatly appreciated was a new generation of scholars and activists finding a way to his books.
Tariq Ali
UPDATE: His obituary in the Guardian, written by Tariq Ali.
UPDATE 21st Feb: His obituary in the New York Times, written by Douglas Martin.
UPDATE 22nd Feb: His obituary in the Washington Post, written by Matt Schudel.
For writing by Ronald Fraser, see below.
Raymond Carr on Ronald Fraser in the Spectator
Sir Raymond Carr, the renowned historian of Spain, has reviewed Ronald Fraser's In Search of a Past for the Spectator. While Fraser and Carr may differ somewhat in their views on the aristocracy, Carr finds the book "a compelling read."
Discussions
Begin a discussionOther books by Ronald Fraser
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In Hiding
“So brief and yet so complete, so movingly human.”—Arthur Miller, New York Times
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A magisterial history of “Napoleon’s Vietnam,” by the highly acclaimed historian of Spain.