The Good Companions by J.B. Priestley

The Good Companions Reviews

• 
  Jane

  I found a 1986 copy of The Good Companions tucked in the "sad, abandoned books" closet in the common room of our dormitory. I was desperate for a novel that wouldn't depress me--for some reason, the books I grabbed on my way up to Boston were all intelligently and academically unhappy, a little rubbing and joyless, or otherwise just unsettling. This story filled a literary need I didn't know I had. Brilliant characterization, brilliant storytelling, characters developed quickly, deftly, danced across the page and then cut loose at exactly the right time. I adored reading it. It was brilliant. I don't know if I'd recommend it to other people--it's possible it just hit what I needed, personally, at one specific moment--but this impulse find is now one of my favorite novels of all time.
• 
  Adrian Buck

  This book has been a good companion to me over the last two months. I'm no longer used to reading such long novels in a single stretch, and so took a week on, week off approach, fitting shorter books into the off weeks. It may have been better for that, there is a hint of serial production about it. Priestley was a big Dickens fan, and there is a distinctly Dickensian cast to this. There is the attempt to bring in the full scope of English society, from landed gentry (Miss Trant), via prep school teacher (Inigo Jollifant) to industrial labourer (Jess Oakroyd) with all points between, below and above. The novel is picaresque in it's presentation of series of episodes connected only by the passing of time. But the focus on three main characters, Trant, Jollifant, and Oakroyd is something of an innovation for me. This triumvirate share something in common, none of them are actually interested in the stage as a career, and stumble upon it by accident. The plots in which they are caught up are driven by the socio-economic strivings of the minor theatrical types around them.
  
  What is most surprising about The Good Companions is its lightness of tone. Earlier this year I read Priestley's
  English Journey which written five years later, covers much of the geographic ground the Companions go over. The impact of industrial depression of the early thirties was obvious enough to knock Priestley out of his complacency, and the descriptions of industrial towns in the later book are almost apocalyptic. Last year I read
  Lost Empires which is set in the same milieu as the Companions, the lowest level of the repertory stage. Lost Empires was disturbing in its presentation of the sexual abuse and even sexual violence that was part of that milieu. This is not surprising to us reading Priestley in the midst of the Me Too movement, but it casts a shadow over Priestley's presentation in the Companions. Did he see the theatrical world of the 1930s as far more wholesome than the one he had participated in in the 1910s, or was he saving the public from some of the bitterness of his experience in 1929 only to reveal it in 1965. What had happened in between, the Lady Chatterley case? Perhaps it is simply his perception of what public taste will tolerate. Dickens himself struggled with this, and you have to read him closely to pick up the sexual realities he wrote about.
  
  Finally, I read this from my grandfather's first edition. The dust jacket is lost, the covers have suffered water damage, but each page was thumbed over by my grandfather, ninety-two years earlier. That added to my enjoyment of reading this. At the end of the book, he wrote "12.29": I can't tell now whether he meant December, 1929 or the 29th of December. I used to do likewise when I finished a book, but it's something Goodreads does for me nowadays. The servers have to stay up, or my grandchilden will mis out. I'm not optimistic.
• 
  Emily

  A slightly dated charmer featuring an oddball group of travelling theatrical types in 1920s England, that I'm really surprised I never heard of before my goodreads friend Kathy brought it to my attention. I enjoyed it a lot, and I'm not sure if I should say despite or because of its being so very long. I felt completely immersed in the travels of these people, it was often funny, and many of the characterizations delicious. For some reason though, I was quite happy to read just a bit at a time, so this 600 page door-stopper took forever to get through, and I'm already behind on my quite modest 2020 goodreads challenge.
• 
  Timothy Hallinan

  If you're thinking about reading this wonderful novel, you've got to be prepared for an extremely long period piece (written immediately after World War I)that's a little slow getting started, that's about the lives of Britain's long-forgotten music-hall troupes, and that's devoid of any really sensational plot developments. If that doesn't stop you, GET THIS BOOK.
  
  It's one of my best reads of 2013 and maybe 2012, as well. Priestley introduces us to three discontented people -- a lonely unmarried woman who's just sold all the furnishings in the family home and moved into a cottage, a discontented factory laborer in the North, and a well-born, underemployed music teacher in the worst (and funniest) fictional school since Dotheboys Hall in Dickens' MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT. Well, maybe the university in Kingsley Amis' LUCKY JIM should be on the list, too, but that's about it.
  
  One by one, the members of this mismatched trio leave their unsatisfying lives behind and take to the road. Inevitably, their lives intersect. Extremely evitably, if there is such a word, they all wind up involved in trying to resuscitate a failing variety troupe that's working the rag-end of British vaudeville in its final, melancholy days. It's show business, but just barely.
  
  Among Priestley's many gifts are indelible characterization, a powerful sense of place, a fine, understated sense of humor, and the ability to write stories without villains. Adversity itself is villain enough in this world. The book reminds me of Dickens in both its humor and its theatricality but that's not to take away from Priestley's individuality. THE GOOD COMPANIONS was a sensational best-seller in its day, it's been the basis of several stage plays and half a dozen movies (Judi Dench, who starred in one of the films, provides an introduction to this excellent Kindle edition) and Priestley spent the rest of his life trying to write something that would make people stop thinking of him as the author of THE GOOD COMPANIONS. He got quite sticky about it and probably wound up regretting having written it.
  
  Just in case I haven't made myself clear, I love this book.
• 
  Kath

  I loved the way that Priestley drew you into this story and his portrayal of the Northern character. His descriptions of the various events which lead to the formation of the 'Good Companions' was wonderful and I couldn't put the book down. I now have to read more Priestley!
  
• 
  Harini Gopalswami Srinivasan

  A delightful book, with lovable and memorable characters and lots of local colour. Follows the adventures of a troupe of music hall performers in what must be the 1920s, as they travel through small-town England. The diverse cast of characters is viewed mainly through the eyes of two 'outsiders' -- Jess Oakroyd, a working class middle-aged man from Yorkshire who has run away from home and unsympathetic wife; and Miss Trant, a middle aged lady who has come into a small fortune and decides to follow her dream and support the stranded troupe. Not a great book but thoroughly enjoyable.
• 
  Laura

  From BBC Radio 4 Dra,a:
  John Retallack's dramatisation of J B Priestley's classic story of a 1929 Concert Party tour charts new adventures for factory worker Jess Oakroyd and newly independant Miss Trant.
  
  Music composed by Neil Brand
  
  Musicians Neil Brand, Michael Hammond & Alex Hammond.
  
  Director: David Hunter.
  
  
  https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09s...
• 
  Bettie

  
  Bettie's Books
  
• 
  Anna Kļaviņa

  I am at last reading The Good Companions. I love it. That's the sort of book I would like to write.
  
  P.G. Wodehouse
• 
  Christopher Newton

  Maybe not great literature but I can't remember the last time I enjoyed a book so much.
• 
  Catie

  Mentioned in, The Diary of a Provincial Lady by E. M. Delafield
• 
  Trisha

  Another book on my read-through-the-20th-century project, this one was published in 1929 and is a great example of why it’s such a good idea to read old books.
  
  It’s a “picaresque” novel, meaning it has to do with the adventures of characters who travel from place to place. In this case they’re a colorful group of theater people originally known as the Dinky Doos who have changed their name to The Good Companions. They belong to “concert party” (also known as a Pierrot troupe) who make their living traveling across England putting on shows.
  
  Most likely this book would never be published these days primarily because of its length (over 600 pages) and Priestley’s leisurely style of including a great deal of descriptive information about people and places that's not all that necessary. If he were writing today much of it – like the charming paragraph about how to make Yorkshire Pudding - would probably be edited out in order to keep the pace moving.
  
  But that leisurely pace is part of the reason this novel is so much fun to read. It’s set in a series of small English towns in the 1920s and provides an entertaining glimpse into what it was like to belong to a travelling troupe of music-hall entertainers at a time when such groups were beginning to be eclipsed by motion pictures.
  
  Part of the fun of this novel comes from the cast of colorful characters and the way Priestley describes them: “Miss Potter had a sleek, almost electro-plated, blonde head; no eye-brows; very round blue eyes; a button of a nose, so small and heavily powdered that it resembled the chalked end of a billiard cue…”
  
  It can be argued that this novel is definitely dated, and yet that’s one of the things that makes it so charming. Its characters travelled by “rail, and “lodged” in boarding houses. They wore ’jumper suits” when riding in “motor-cars” to protect their clothing from dust and they spent their money on sheet music or "gramophone records."
  
  This is definitely a character-driven novel and Priestley had a knack for bringing them to life. At first I had a hard time deciphering some of the dialogue that took place between characters who spoke with Yorkshire or Cockney accents, but it didn’t take long to get used to it. And I enjoyed the fact that Priestley is an omniscient narrator who often interrupts the story to address readers directly. I got the feeling that he probably enjoyed writing this novel as much as I enjoyed reading it!
  
  
• 
  Bill Lawrence

  It's taken me a few years to get around to this. I tried a few years ago but didn't get very far, but this time I made it. It takes a while to get going, 200 pages to get 3 of the characters on their separate journeys to meet up with the abandoned concert party and then it meanders around the country before building to a well expected finale. However, there is a charm to the story that is engaging, as are many of the characters, and once the story starts to flow - I did find the first three split narratives a struggle - it is a pleasant read. Then there are Priestley's insights, his descriptions of England, the towns and villages, the people, rogues and heroes, saints and sinners, marriages and friendships, all create a wonderful sense of a country coming to terms with itself and things being possible. His summation of football alone (less than 0.1% of the book) is worth the read and is used regularly by the better football journalists even today. Priestley enjoys bringing together strangers from different class, age, ambition and tradition and seeing what they will do together for the greater good. It is of its time, but remains an entertaining feast, albeit overcooked.
• 
  Bobbie Darbyshire

  Published in 1929. A working-class Yorkshireman, a disreputable young schoolmaster, and a colonel’s daughter – each abandons an unsatisfactory life for the open road. They come across each other, fall in with a failing theatrical touring company and set about making it a success.
  My heart sank when I found this reading-group choice had 621 pages, but I’m really glad to have read it. Against the advice of his publisher, and with the collaborative and financial support of Hugh Walpole, Priestley said, ‘I saw no reason why the picaresque novel should vanish with the stagecoach. Why not one about my own England of the 1920s?’ The publisher was wrong – it fast achieved huge sales and has since been adapted several times for stage, screen and radio.
  Exquisitely written, wryly amusing, intricately plotted, it is deservedly a twentieth-century classic.
• 
  Mark Rubenstein

  A bit less charm and a bit more grittiness would’ve done the job of earning it five.
• 
  Shelly L

  Break a leg! Madcap is not my cup o’ tea. But this adorable book does it right. I'd never've discovered it if not for our
  Matilda. Manages to create characters of character, ones you care about, ones you root for and love. Zany situations here are of a human pattern and heartfelt purpose. The play’s the thing, and alls well that ends well, rooted in the heart’s desire for something real. Something more.
• 
  Steven J.

  The Good Companions was a pleasant surprise that I came upon during a classic book challenge i undertook.
  I never heard of it before, and it was quite a lengthy book at 640 pages or so. The book was a great read and has many colorful and funny characters in it and the story and plot is pretty good.
  The story is really about three people who are parting their ways in their current lives to go on an adventure which pairs them all together when they meet up at a town called Rawsley in England.
  The three people are Jessiah Oakroyd who is a handy man who does odd jobs and carpentry, his wife and kid are a bunch of jerks so Jessy decides to leave home. Elizabeth Trant, a woman who has taken care of her sick father, Colonel Trant, until his death, and finally Inigo Jolliphant whom teaches history and literature at a boarding school in which he gets canned and decides to go on playing piano.
  They all meet up in Rawsley by chance and Elizabeth decides to manage and payout for a failing concert troupe called the Dinky Doo's in which later she changes that ridiculous name to the Good Companions. Inigo is their new piano player and Oakroyd helps build scenes and does odd jobs around the theater. There are other many great characters they meet along their journey to Rawsley and also during their time with the concert troupe, too many characters to mention, but the three are the main ones the story is about.
  There wasn't one time during this whole book that I ever got bored the story just builds and builds and finally comes out to a great ending.
• 
  Amy Durreson

  I hadn't read this for a long time, but a chance mention reminded me that I had enjoyed my first read, so I sought it out with some qualms. Not all fondly-remembered books bear rereading, after all.
  
  I was relieved to fall in love with this story again. It's a simple enough story - three misfits, a vicar's daughter facing genteel spinsterhood, a flamboyant schoolmaster, and a mill worker unfairly laid off and sick of his ungrateful family, all turn their backs on their lives and take off in search of adventure. The adventure they all find is a travelling show on its last legs, and all three throw in with the players as they tour across England.
  
  It's a warm and lovely story, but there was an edge of sadness to rereading it. When I first read it in my teens, the world it described was still just within living memory. This time, it felt like a historical novel. Modern entertainment is so at odds with the pierhead and fairground entertainments of the book that it felt like it was describing a very faraway world.
• 
  Peter Macinnis

  I enjoyed this so much as a teenager (that's half a century ago, near enough for government work) that I have just bought it for Kindle so I can read it again on my travels.
  
  A mixed group of English "characters" go on the halls, having adventures of a gentle kind in the English countryside. They formed what was called, I think, a concert party. It's a gentle, joyful book.
  
  I need to read it again, because I can't recall if they ever got the Shuddersford (as Susie called it). Music halls interest me because they were very much an 1859 phenomenon, but by the time I read 'Good Companions' for the first time, just after I started listening to it as a radio serial. My parents told me I had to read it as well, and I did, getting ahead of the once-a-week dose, but some of the joy came from the audio version, where Sydney Torch had done the music, so I can still hum 'Slipping Round the Corner'. Sometimes you just have to mix the media!
• 
  Val

  This is a delightful book, nicely written with humour and a pleasant, quirky cast and story. It was first published in 1929, written a few years earlier and became the bestseller of the depression.
  It is the story of a travelling theatre group, but it starts with an ordinary working man being laid off from his work at a Yorkshire woolen mill, a gentlewoman selling up and moving out, and a schoolmaster getting the sack. In this book their misfortunes are the impetus for a new life. It brings together diverse characters from very different backgrounds, bohemian and traditional, middle and working classes and different temperaments, all working together, having adventures and some success. It is also partly a travelogue round Britain of the time.
  There is an embedded social message, but it is worth reading because it is such great fun, whether we are in a depression or not.
• 
  John Eliot

  The edition I have of this book was republished over 50 times between 1929 and 1974. The popularity quite incredible. It's weakness is probably is that it was first published in 1929. It hasn't always dated as well as other novels that were published long ago. At times it is twee. On the positive side it is very well written, at times stunningly well written. The story of a concert party in 1929 is quite fascinating in this day when they don't exist and all forms of entertainment are on the television. There are parts of the novel which are very Sillitoe as he writes about terraced house working class Yorkshire. I think if you were new to Priestley I'd read something by him that was more up to date.
• 
  Craig

  Re-read. Another book that displays Priestley's amazing ability to develop interesting, well-rounded characters who feel very real, even minor ones that appear only briefly. A different time, a long-gone profession, and great characters.
  
  Note: This re-read was of the 1929 1st edition which, perhaps half-a-dozen times, used terms for people of African and Asian descent that would be considered pejoratives today. I expect this was mainly a reflection of when and where the book was written (the references weren't that negative, pretty much just straight identifiers), but each use did drop me right out of the story for a while. I believe my decades-ago initial reading was of a much later edition which must have been edited, as I don't remember seeing any of this then.
• 
  Samantha

  My grandad got this for me, and managed to source a copy even though they stopped printing in 2000.. It was his favourite book of his teenage years and one night, when he missed the last train back to home he sat on the platform and read this book until morning. If I ever read anything, I knew this book would be one of them, just to know my Grandad's favourite a little bit more!
  
  It was a very wordy book and typical of the time of publication (1927 I think?) but the characters and plot line were wonderful!! It was such a happy go lucky book filled with such different yet realistic characters. I can totally understand why my Grandad loves this so dearly. It will certainly stick with me forever...
• 
  Carolyn

  I bought a trade paperback of this book in May of 1987 when I was about to have our first baby. I brought it to the hospital with me, along with a couple of thrillers, and ended up reading that book like my salvation would result from reading it. The style is a little old fashioned, it is by no means a book with non-stop action, laughs anf thrills -- it is a lovely look at a long-ago time with interesting people tying to make fulfilling lives for themselves through a traveling theater troupe. I really love it. I re-read about ten years ago -- it stands up even with the post-partum sentimentality!
• 
  Keith

  Another Radio 4 inspired catch up. The 90 minute adaptation was well done but understandably drops a great deal of set up. With the events of the last week it also made me worry about Roy Hudd! So far it's a friendly, great bear of a book but doesn't set the world alight, which it was never meant to do. It is a book of its time for its time, and none the worse for that.
  I feel this is one of the few books that you can read comfortably after listening to an abridged version as there weren't any major twists in the book but the characters, which carry the story far more than the plot does, are better fleshed out. Looking forward to finishing this.
• 
  Paul Servini

  The tale of three disparate people at turning points in their life and how they end up in a performing troupe. What follows is a light-hearted look at the ups and downs of a performing life. It succeeds because of the wonderful way Priestley portrays each of these characters and weaves them together into a convincing whole. Some may not like the Deux ex Machina way things turn out for the best in the end, but as I was really rooting for these people it didn't disturb me.
• 
  George Barnett

  A terrific read. Not a book which can be described as "fashionable " these days, but obviously a huge hit in the pre and post war eras. Funny, cheerful, and optimistic, it describes a world of provincial theatres and touring shows which no longer exists. Priestley clearly loved England and the oddities of place which globalisation has largely destroyed or homogenised, although he doesn't flinch from portraying mean and desperate towns too.