Not I by Samuel Beckett

I feel very privileged to have seen a stage performance of this play, since they don’t come along all that often. Lisa Dwan undertakes the incredibly demanding role of Mouth and delivers an astonishing and compelling performance. The ten minutes or so of the play flash by in the darkened theatre, one spotlight on Mouth and nothing other than the actress’s teeth and lips visible. I’ve seen the film of Not I, with Billie Whitelaw and directed by Beckett, a few times (you can see it here); I was surprised, although it is only to be expected, how very small Mouth is on stage, and so far away, requiring a greater effort to focus. This effort produces strange optical illusions: I thought I could see Mouth move across to the left, about a foot from her starting point, and wondered briefly how on earth this had been achieved and lit, before dismissing it. A question from the audience later revealed that this is a common experience for those watching this play. The other differences between the film and the play are the bright colour of Mouth, and the less visceral, more graphic quality of the image. This, I found, emphasised the visceral quality of the text and the sound.

After the performance, filmed interviews with Billie Whitelaw and Fiona Shaw, who has also performed the role, were shown. There was then an entertaining discussion between Lisa Dwan, Edward Petherbridge (famous for performing Krapp’s Last Tape) and Jude Kelly (director of Beckett and who had performed Not I as a student). Lisa Dwan described the torturous arrangements she submits to for each performance. Her face, including the insides of her nostrils, and her neck and shoulders are painted black. She is blindfolded and a pair of black tights stretched over her head and shoulders. Then she is led up some steps to a wooden frame, puts her head and arms through holes in the frame (it sounds like a monochrome version of one of these) and her head is strapped in place, to ensure she cannot move her mouth out of the spotlight. These arrangements (similar ones have been used by all the actresses who have played Mouth) and the feat of memory required to learn it go some way to explaining why it is so rarely performed. Billie Whitelaw spoke of it as the hardest role an actress can undertake.

This production, for pragmatic reasons, dispensed with the Auditor. Having written about this role during my MA I was slightly disappointed not to see him, but this did not detract from the power and intensity of the play at all. Jude Kelly mentioned during the discussion that all Beckett’s characters show an awareness that they are being watched, which I think points towards the importance of the Auditor as a manifestation of that awareness. However, I hope Lisa Dwan repeats her performance, with or without the Auditor, so that more audiences can have the opportunity of this extraordinary theatrical experience.

Ivy and Stevie by Kay Dick

This little book contains Kay Dick's transcriptions of recorded conversations with Ivy Compton Burnett and Stevie Smith, and her reflections on both writers. Kay Dick was friendly with both; she was introduced to Compton Burnett initially for professional reasons, and had the chutzpah to arrive for tea having read no ICB novels at all; luckily for her, she was liked and became a regular visitor. Kay and Stevie Smith had worked for the same organisation, Newnes, where Stevie was a secretary to the senior managers, and Kay assistant editor at the magazine John O'London's. Both recordings were made during a single visit; no plans were made, the conversations seem to have simply evolved. The recordings were also made late in each writer's career. Ivy had just published what was to be her last novel, and Stevie died within a few months of the recording. The book itself was published in 1971, a couple of years after Ivy's death and very shortly after Stevie's.

Each transcription seems highly characteristic to me of the mythology that has built up around each writer. Ivy is rather snobbish, very confident (she describes herself as "quite perfect morally"), very definite and tending to deal in absolutes. Stevie is expansive, discursive, more ambiguous, with a tendency to drift away from the point and then return to it. Either both writers spoke in a very similar way to their construction of prose, or Kay Dick has, deliberately or not, edited and presented her text to reflect their prose style. Both are extremely funny. Neither engages with issues of lesbian sexuality, but perhaps that would have been a bit much for 1971.

The two short essays that accompany the transcriptions tell the story of Kay's friendship with each. Both are affectionate and clear-sighted, and funny in themselves, especially the final chapter in Ivy's story, in which her bequests to friends are distributed during a post-funeral tea party at her flat, and much lugging of objects down the stairs ensues. In her introduction, Kay regrets that some of the taller tales recounted in the transcripts have been repeated as biographical fact; Ivy Compton Burnett had a tendency to fib about her upbringing, making it more rural and less suburban. This puts the transcriptions into the context of each writer's created work, rather than presenting them as factual accounts - and stimulates the appetite for reading more.

Gay Life by E M Delafield

This 1933 novel is on of EMD's psychological dramas, filled with complexes and neuroses including inferiority feeling, the pain of the ageing beauty, unfulfilled married women, infatuation and a dash of incest. The characters suffering from all these complaints are thrown together in a hotel in the South of France, located inconveniently far from the beach and the town. This semi-isolation ensures that they constantly fall over each other, share taxis and participate in joint entertainments, as well as encountering each other at meals every day. Some of this proximity grates on the participants, while others make the best of this opportunity.

Gay Life must have been quite challenging in its day, despite its muffled curses and firmly closed bedroom doors. The novel acknowledges frankly the twin desires for money and sex and the effects of these desires on human behaviour; it examines explicitly the willingness of the young, handsome and impoverished to sell sex and of the ageing to buy it, within a context of 'decent' bourgeois behaviour that gives a veneer of respectability to all concerned. The narrative is often contingent and episodic, with the plot essentially revolving around wealthy Coral Romayne, separated from her husband and viewing her forties with dismay; her son Patrick, sixteen, jealous and miserable; and his "holiday tutor" Buck, who also fills in as chauffeur and admirer of Mrs Romayne. Surrounding this group are a large number of characters; the Morgans, a Welsh family on a once-in-a-lifetime holiday, bringing a little pleasure to Patrick's life; Hilary and Angie Moon, a young and beautiful married couple who make a living selling this and that and sponging off the rich; Mr Bolham, a businessman and his secretary, Denis Waller; Mr Muller, a wealthy American visitor; and Mr Courteney, entertainments manager for the hotel and living there with his daughter Dulcie. Away from the hotel, we have Chrissie Challoner, a young and successful novelist. Surrounding this group are still more minor characters, often carefully delineated. The characters can be divided into those there for leisure, and those who must work, although the second group includes some who might seem at first sight to be on holiday. This division brings up matters of class, with many of the workers drawn from the lower middle classes, and carefully characterised as such.

Having established these two worlds, EMD makes use of doubles to emphasise their division. Olwen, the Morgans' oldest daughter, is doubled with Dulcie, "thin, shrill and blonde". Hilary and Buck are the two gigolos, one ostensibly working for a salary, the other desperate for money. Patrick Romayne is mirrored by Denis Waller, older but more juvenile, as troubled as Patrick but less brave. Angie Moon is Coral Romayne's counterpart, a painful reminder that Mrs Romayne's youth is behind her, while Coral is a warning to Angie about her future. Coral can also be doubled with Mary Morgan, the dutiful wife, while Mary has another counterpart in the form of Chrissie Challoner. Both are "good women", honest and fair, although their approaches to life differ considerably. Both also owe a little to the personality of their creator. Mary Morgan is very similar to the Provincial Lady, and to other loyal, loving mothers in EMD's fiction, while Chrissie Challoner can be read as an extension of the Provincial Lady's freedom-loving side.

It may be that the separation and mirroring of these two characters is a comment on the perpetual difficulty of reconciling the career of writer with that of wife and mother. Certainly all the women in Gay Life are limited and constrained by their circumstances and the way they approach them. Mary's enjoyment of Mr Muller's admiration is as far as she will go to address the unsatisfactory circumstances of her marriage. Coral's one ambition is to retain her sexual attractiveness to men. Even bohemian Chrissie is limited by her own emotions and need for affection. From a feminist perspective, this could be read as a critique of the limited scope of women's lives. However, there is also considerable evidence of the limitations imposed by class. Feeble Denis Waller, terrified that his secret marriage will be exposed, is a lower-middle-class clerk of the Leonard Bast persuasion, undersized and weak in body and mind. Much space is given to analysis of Denis, his background and his lack of self-awareness, his careful presentation of an acceptable self which undermines his integrity. His failure to connect adequately with the briefly infatuated Chrissie both emphasises his weakness and reassures the middle-class reader that no miscegenation will occur. The most constrained and hopeless character in the book is probably Dulcie, described as "horrid" and "shrieking"; she has thin hair and wears a "cheap, pink cotton kimono", thin hair and cheap clothes often being markers of "commonness" in fiction of this period. Dulcie seems to have no future in the same way as her peripatetic life in hotels, on the fringes of others' lives, provides her with no past. To be female is to be constrained; to be female and lower-class is doubly so. However, the narrative is generally harsh to Dulcie rather than sympathetic; if a feminist point is being made here, it is a very subtle one.

A little gay life edges into Gay Life. As well as the homoerotic overtones of the competition between Buck and Hilary, emphasised by their strongly gendered names, Chrissie asserts that she has fallen in love with women; Buck suspects her "of being a Lesbian, as he did all intelligent women to whom his own masculinity obviously made no immediate appeal". In the very last chapter, when we meet the next intake of hotel guests, they include two women, one of whom only has eyes for the other. EMD makes more overt use of homosexuality in this novel, possibly because of the sexually frank atmosphere that is established throughout the book, hotels and holidays being places and times where the norms of sexual good behaviour can be relaxed.

There are too many characters in Gay Life, and too many protracted scenes of high drama that are only really there to move the plot forward. There is also an over-reliance on discursive character analysis, although I started to find the endless back-stories - everyone has one, down to the hotel concierge who barely features in the book - an interesting feature by the end. The episodic, rather happenstance narrative does evoke the casual nature of holidays, their events and significance very well, however, and the book sustains interest. The characters may start as archetypes, but most develop personalities, and the drama of the book's climax is believable and cleverly handled. I would love to read some contemporary reviews to see how EMD's frankness went down with her readership.

Miss Buncle's Book by D E Stevenson

Another Persephone publication, Miss Buncle's Book is a highly entertaining story of a rural English village in the early 1930s, with some unexpected excursions into metafiction.

Barbara Buncle, spinster, lives in a cottage in the idyllic village of Silverstream. Her income depleted following the Wall Street Crash, she turns to writing to prop up her finances, having gone into the options of fiction and chicken farming as possible money-spinners with her maid, Dorcas. Dorcas is not keen on hens' feet, so Miss Buncle writes her novel. Mr Abbott (chosen because he is the first publisher in the London phone book) knows a winner when he sees it: Miss Buncle's book, can be read both as a straightforward romance of rural life or as a satire. She has taken characters from Silverstream and depicted their unvarnished foibles and characteristics. In the second half of her book, a mysterious Golden Boy with a pipe passes through the village, and under the spell of his music, the villagers act in odd ways: a woman throws over her cruel husband for a new lover, a pair of home-loving ladies set off for Samarkand, and two long-single villagers realise their love for one another and marry.

Published as Disturber of the Peace, and under a pseudonym, Miss Buncle's book is a runaway success. Its enigmatic qualities lead to controversial reviews which stimulate sales. Once it is read in Silverstream, however, and the villagers begin to recognise themselves, it generates real controversy. A stream of villagers visit Mr Abbott and call for the book's suppression. A village meeting is held to try to discover the author, and have him or her horse-whipped. Lawyers are pestered about libel cases. But, under the spell of the book, strange things begin to happen. The bullying Stephen Bulmer is suddenly much nicer to his put-upon wife and cowed children. Major Weatherfield, enjoying the book in his bath, is inspired to visit his neighbour Dorothea Bold and propose marriage to her. Ellen King and Angela Pretty, longtime companions, are persuaded to travel to Egypt for the sake of Miss Pretty's health. Miss Buncle's book itself is Silverstream's Golden Boy.

But Miss Buncle needs to write another book, and thankfully a second Golden Boy appears in the shape of Sally, a neighbour's grand-daughter sent to the country to rest. Pretty, seventeen and self-possessed, Sally works her own magic on Silverstream: the Vicar is made to realise that his fiancée loves not him, or his charitable ways, but his money, and Barbara is much improved by a new hat and hairstyle. Barbara's second book draws on the effects of the two Golden Boys and describes the effects of Sally, and the publication of Disturber of the Peace, on Silverstream and on the book's author. Mr Abbott remarks that he "had never before read a novel about a woman who wrote a novel about a woman who wrote a novel - it was like a recurring decimal". The reader of Miss Buncle's Book can move the decimal point further back. Cleverly, Mr Abbott's criticisms of certain aspects of the plot echoed this reader's own; D E Stevenson has anticipated the claims of improbability that might be raised. In Miss Buncle's Book, we read Miss Buncle's book again and again through the eyes of different readers, creating a multiple perspective and multiple layers of fiction, and challenging and reforming our own impressions and opinions.

Aline Templeton's introduction points out the very surprising "warmly described lesbian relationship between gruff Miss King and pretty Miss Pretty" and indeed, their relationship seems to be well accepted and even admired by Miss King's old friend the village doctor, who counsels her against leaving Miss Pretty. Unfortunately he does this by explaining that, as Angela Pretty is weak and feminine and will wither unless strong, masculine Miss King is by her side, but you can't have everything. Interestingly, Miss King makes the same sort of allusion to The Well of Loneliness as appears in EMD's Challenge to Clarissa; the book caused worry to women living together, but they decided to ignore its implications. In both books, this ambiguous reference can either be read as a denial or an avowal of a lesbian relationship; but in Miss Buncle's Book there seems to be little ambiguity elsewhere.

This is a book that will bear re-reading, as Mr Abbott spots; it is funny as well as clever, describing a variety of characters effectively, and keeping them well in play. D E Stevenson was a best-seller in her day, and I hope we may see more of her work from Persephone.

Making Conversation by Christine Longford

This coming-of-age story, reprinted by Persephone, is both witty and touching. We meet Martha Freke, a schoolgirl during the first World War, and follow her through adolescence and on to Oxford. Martha is continually beset by the problems of making conversation: a misunderstanding of the meaning of "adultery", caused in part by her headmistress, leads to her eventual expulsion from school; it is never clear whether she should argue with adults or simply agree with everything they say. The narrative is slightly episodic, and we see Martha take up and drop religious, philosophical and romantic interests, greatly influenced by her peers. She has the advantage of a rather glamourous mother, separated from her father and taking in interesting, sometimes foreign, lodgers; the local Vicar supplies a number of camp young aesthetes and pacifists; and at Oxford she is distracted from her studies by the pleasures of new frocks and hats, and hamfisted flirtations. Unsuprisingly, this ends badly, and Martha is dispatched to Prague as an au pair, her Oxford place given to "the better woman" Martha was keeping out.

The book is slight, but funny; the scene in which Martha, parroting uncomprehendingly the hints given by her mother, suggests that her Headmistress is pursuing a lesbian affair with a fellow teacher, is highly amusing, with Martha mystified by the outrage her comment generates. The depiction of Martha's interview at Oxford will make anyone who has been through this process cringe with recognition. Martha's various useless suitors and her fellow students are wryly observed. It's not quite up there with Nancy Mitford in the humour stakes, as the introduction suggests, but it's good fun all the same.

Happy birthday, Persephone Books

Persephone are 10 years old this year. They were celebrating at one of their London bookshops on Thursday last week, and as I happened to be in London for work, I went along. The place was thronged with readers lured by the three-for-two offer and the promise of champagne and buns. Perhaps they'd all be consumed by the time I arrived, because tepid mineral water was the order of the day, but I made good use of the special offer, and went home with:

William - an Englishman by Cicely Hamilton, playwright, suffragette and author of Marriage as a Trade and the lyrics to March of the Women, which I've had the pleasure of singing this year. This was Persephone's first book and I've been hankering after it for some time.

Plats du Jour by Patience Gray and Primrose Boyd, a book that brought continental food within reach of British cooks during the late 1950s, or at least within reach of their imaginations.

and finally Miss Buncle's Book which tells of the impact on a small English village when one of their number publishes a bestseller which consists of thinly-veiled portraits of the local characters.

Despite the cock-up on the catering front at their birthday party, I can wholeheartedly recommend Persephone's output to anyone interested in women's writing and the 20th century - although there are some earlier books too for diehard Victorianists. There are some marvellous books to be found in that elegant grey livery, and Persephone are responsible for leading me to some inspiring work, particularly Leonard Woolf's The Wise Virgins which gave me the theme for my MA dissertation, the marvellous Every Eye by Isobel English, and Marghanita Laski's tense, powerful Little Boy Lost, the book that led me to Persphone after reading Nicholas Lezard's review in the Guardian. Happy birthday, Persephone, and here's to another shelf-ful of French grey spines.

Nightingale Wood by Stella Gibbons

Nightingale Wood uses the conventions and structures of the fairy story to narrate the lives of three women, each chafing in her own way against the restrictions of her circumstances. Romantic, superficial Viola is Cinderella, hoping that the local Prince Charming will rescue her from her excruciatingly dull life with her late husband’s family, the Withers. Tina, her sister-in-law, might be Sleeping Beauty, hoping that Saxon the handsome chauffeur will be able to cut through the thickets of social convention and be her friend and lover. Hetty could be a bookish Rapunzel, waiting to be twenty-one so she can escape the prison of middle-class social life and devote herself to literature.

If the metaphors in that paragraph seem strained, imagine them extended over the length of a novel, and you’ll get a sense of the problems with Nightingale Wood. In Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons demonstrated a mastery of the pithy character study, a light and economical touch, that is mostly absent from the later book. Instead, we get pages of exposition, of psychological explanations of characters, and very obvious setting and springing of plot traps and twists. For example, there is the local hermit. He is lavishly introduced and described, we learn of his previous married life, his current relationship with Saxon’s mother, his tendency to arrive unexpectedly at the Withers, drunk and ranting. His sole plot function is to give away the subversive lovers, Tina and Saxon, which would have happened anyway since they have secretly married by the time he bellows the news at the Withers. This would not be a problem if he were amusing, or interesting, but unfortunately he comes across only as a dull, self-indulgent bit of local rural colour.

The plot takes a good while to resolve itself, with many digressions into the little ways of other minor characters, before our three heroines get their heart's desires, or something very similar. The author even has recourse to a house fire near the end of the novel to move the plot along, always a sign of desperation. The good are, eventually, rewarded: Tina and Saxon get a handsome legacy to help their transgressive marriage along; Hetty is rescued from debutante hell by a previously undiscovered uncle who has a second-hand bookshop and a stern Communist wife; and superficial Viola, through an act of charity on behalf of an elderly friend, touches the heart of her Prince Charming at exactly the right moment - when his shrewish fiancée is throwing an impressive tantrum - leading to their eventual marriage.

Some of these happy endings are quite satisfying. Tina is an attractive character and it is pleasing to see her work her way through the difficulties of her feelings for the chauffeur, naming and owning her desire, and for the success of an inter-class marriage to be recognised and articulated. Hetty, mature beyond her twenty years in the Flora Poste manner, gets to lead the literary life she idolises. To an extent, these are women of some agency, with the courage and ability to make their own lives, although each is dependent on a male deus ex machina. Viola is more problematic. She has always dreamed of marrying Victor Spring, and eventually does. She shows plenty of spirit along the way, returning Victor's kisses ardently, rejecting Victor firmly when she realises his intentions are not honourable, but still pines after him. We are told so many times that Viola is superficial, that her dreams and affections are shallow, that perhaps we are not supposed to worry that Victor is quite dim and boorish; Viola seems unworried by his baser qualities. But the happy endings are a little bit pat, and the three of them suggest an attempt to provide a vicarious happy ending for any reader, whether she yearns for companionate marriage, intellectual stimulus or social success.

There is still good, witty writing here: I particularly liked the description of Victor's endlessly scolding fiancée as "keeping up a continual splutter like a catherine-wheel", and the description of the same person, dressed in black and yellow, as resembling a "slim, ill-tempered, handsome wasp". If it wasn't for Cold Comfort Farm, this book would seem a lot better. But then, if it wasn't for Cold Comfort Farm, it would never have been revived at all.