Helpful Score: 1
wars provides the setting for this lengthy novel about a shell shocked young man who takes on a temporary job as a teacher and ends up spending the next 22 years gradually learning to love everything about his life as a school master, housemaster and eventually the headmaster. For those of us Anglophiles who loved Hogwarts School of Wizardy, Bamfylde is the next best thing and actually goes a long ways to helping us understand the British residential school system that provides part of the framework for the Harry Potter books. While the plot and the characterizations were a little thin in places what kept me reading was the setting and time period. Even though I didn't live through that era and certainly never attended a boys'boarding school the book left me feeling nostalgic for an England that probably only exists in books, and a way of life where no matter what happens the best way to approach it is to have a cup of tea first.
