A House in Order

Nigel Dennis

• Publisher: Faber & Faber
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9780571320943
• Edition: 0
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literature General
• Index: Literature

A House in Order was Nigel Dennis's third and final novel, first published in 1966.
'A quizzical pleasure... This civilized conundrum is about a nameless man captured in a timeless war in an anonymous country who manages to survive in a greenhouse, where he is most protected as well as most exposed... An antiseptic little man, a cartographer by profession, a horticulturist by avocation, he spends a first night in an abandoned, mucky greenhouse and is very happy to be permitted to stay on there, tending his 283 plants... However he lives in the fear that every day will be his last...' Kirkus Review
'A parable of human anguish raised to an existential level.' Time
'A haunting allegory that has influenced my writing.' Diane Johnson ( Lulu in Marrakech, Le Divorce)

Table of contents

• Cover
• LandingPage
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• ‘Take me, take me! I am a prisoner too’
• I didn’t get up feeling any happier
• When the guard shut my greenhouse door
• I counted seven whole days of this sunshine
• Suddenly, all my changes
• Next day, a corporal came to my door
• I got some consolation that night
• But I spent all the next week like a fool
• The Colonel was the first to come down
• They played their wretched music after supper
• He arrived in the dark
• The agronomist never came
• So many cars lined up on the gravel road
• He arrived as the other had
• They kept me back in the hall
• When morning came, the beaters had all gone
• I am lucky in my village policeman
• Copyright