I finished the book last night. I'm not sure what to make of it. I suppose that is because it is more a book of ideas than a narrative plot. Mr. Scogan seems to be the method to contrast the modern post-WWI era with the Victorian era. I didn't really like any of the characters.
The inspiration for Crome was Garsington Manor, and it sounds likes a fascinating history if the walls of that estate could talk.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garsington_Manor
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Garsington became a haven for the Morrells’ friends, including D. H. Lawrence, Siegfried Sassoon, Edward Sackville-West, William Smith, Lord David Cecil, John Cournos, Lytton Strachey, Aldous Huxley, Mark Gertler, Bertrand Russell and Virginia Woolf. In 1916, they invited conscientious objectors, including Clive Bell and other members of the Bloomsbury Group, to come and work on the home farm for the duration of World War I, as civilian Work of National Importance recognised as an alternative to military service. Aldous Huxley spent some time here before he wrote Crome Yellow, a book which contains a ridiculous character obviously intended as a caricature of Lady Ottoline Morrell; she never forgave him.
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