I'm searching, along with Susan, for anyone who has read The Threshold by Dorothea Rutherford.
I found my second hand copy when working at the age of 16 in Foyle's Bookshop in London's Charing Cross Road. Published in 1954, it was already quite battered when I picked it up. I read the first page and was immediately enchanted. I've read it every few years with increasing pleasure. Looking at this most precious of my books, I long to know more about the town and especially about Dorothea Rutherford, the little girl in the book who grew up in Estonia at the turn of the last century.
I have found over time that my reading of The Threshold alters as I get older and change; it has been in a way a measure of my life's experiences. At 16 or 17 I was hardly in a position to fully appreciate the mother's grief; then I became a mother myself - and so on.
I am always, always, on Liesbeth's side. Everything she experiences is sad or unfair and yet she finds joy and beauty wherever she looks. Sunlight is important to her and is present in almost every chapter; she is sensitive to atmosphere without understanding what she is witnessing. I like her tiny attempts at naughtiness and rebellion. She is so small, so totally without power. I remember this when I was little myself. Someone wrote that injustice remains with children all their lives - whether their clothes were ironed or meals poorly cooked is more easily forgotten, perhaps never even noticed.
I very much admire the 'shape' of the book and the way in which the chapters, though linked sequentially, can be read separately and enjoyed for the beauty of the description as well as the emotional content. There is a wonderful section about a Christmas bazaar. I can see it all perfectly and add my own details of dress and décor now that I know more about the period.
Having been married to my German first husband, I am particularly enthralled with German language references. I know (from staying with his grandparents in Frankfurt) all about samovars and cobblestone cakes and shops like Herr Stude's. Since The Threshold is translated from the German, I am curious about Estonia's history at that time. I've been looking at websites for Reval, now Tallinn, and have found pictures of the statue of Old Thomas, Liesbeth's Little Thomas presumably. I sometimes feel inspired to go there but that might be totally the wrong thing to do. I wouldn't want to destroy the picture The Threshold gives.
Recently, browsing for links to the book, I discovered Susan who is as passionate (not too strong a word) about it as I am. We have each tried to make contact with publishers and museums who might throw some light on who Dorothea/Liesbeth was, how she came to marry an Englishman, presumably move to England and at last have her work translated in the 50s - by an aunt of Britain's present Deputy Prime Minister - and to have The Threshold published in English by Rupert Hart-Davis.
Susan received an email from the original German publisher of The Threshold who told her that Dorothea came from a well-known highly successful Tallinn family called Luther.
She says, My most precious book is not my oldest; it is not my most beautiful; nor is it my most expensive; it cannot be found amongst my youthful school prizes, nor in my handful of autographed history volumes. No, it is a slightly scruffy, slightly 'foxed', pale blue cloth-on-board book that my mother bought for herself in 1959.
She and I would love to discuss this book with others.
