I've waited a long time to read this, and in fact had just realised that, in possession of a British Library reader's ticket, I now could get my hands on it - only to find that Penguin were republishing it. Nancy Mitford didn't want it published in her lifetime, telling Evelyn Waugh in 1951 that "too much has happened for jokes about Nazis to be regarded as funny or as anything but the worst of taste". Charlotte Mosley's introduction reminds us of the family row which ensued on its first publication in 1934, with Unity Mitford and Diana Mosley both seriously offended by Nancy's mockery of their political commitments.
The book casts a satirical eye over the trappings of fascism as practiced by the British Union of Fascists, including its casual violence, vague patriotism, appropriation of national artifacts and passion for uniforms. Eugenia Malmains, "the largest heiress in England", is the chief proponent of the novel's "Union Jackshirt" movement; as a portrait of Unity Mitford she comes across as both quite mad and quite charming, which seems to be true to life as far as my reading about Unity goes; her charm allows Nancy to expose the ease by which people can be attracted to fascism and the superficial reasons they may have for joining the cause. Perhaps the best joke in the book is Nancy's creation of Peersmont, a lunatic asylum specialising in the care of insane members of the House of Lords, which incorporates a replica of the Houses of Parliament and allows the Lords to go about their business with no hint that they are, in fact, incarcerated. Lord Driburgh, an inmate, has an enthusiasm for fascism that satirises similar views expressed by real members of the interwar House of Lords, including, for a time, Nancy's own father.
The pace of the novel is hectic and culminates in a pageant which, unsurprisingly, descends into violence. Woven around the satires are some rather cynical love stories in which dissipated young men search for heiresses to keep them; Nancy had just married Peter Rodd. The character of Mrs Case, the local beauty, I found rather pointless; she seems to be there only to create some opposition to the Jackshirts, in the form of her group of aesthetic young hangers-on, not as tame or as feeble as they look. Fascinating older beauties of this type were a regular feature in Nancy's early novels and presumably she couldn't quite let her go for this one.
Sunday, 11 April 2010
Country Dance by Margiad Evans
This little book, discovered while poking about in the sub-genre of diary fiction, is quirky and rather fascinating. First published in 1932, and available again now through the Library of Wales, the book comprises Ann Goodman's diaries with a preface and coda provided by the author. Ann Goodman is a shepherd's daughter writing in 1850, her father English, her mother Welsh. At the opening of the book, she is leaving her relative Mary's farm in Wales, where she has been living and working for some years; she has an English sweetheart there, Gabriel, and it is at his suggestion that she begins to keep a diary. Ann must return to her parents' home in England and care for her ailing mother. While there, she will catch the attention of the local (and Welsh) landowner Evan ap Evans, her father's employer. Ann tells us not only of the struggle between her Welsh and English suitors but of the struggle within herself to reconcile her dual nationality in the border country; her body and character are part of the contested space, her struggle to express herself and choose the right lover a series of border skirmishes. Gabriel's rage, and her father's rejection of Wales and the Welsh, drive Ann towards her own Welshness and the acceptance of Evan ap Evans's attention, in a context of commonplace anger, violence and rejection.
The preface and coda are a framing device that present Ann's diary as a historic document and Ann as a real person, and politicise Ann's story as "the entire history of the border". The novel presents its characters often in terms of racial stereotypes, or behaviour is explained away as due to Welshness or Englishness. One minor character, Gwen Powys, proposes a toast to "The Border", after others have toasted Wales and England, suggesting that the Border may be a separate space where the rules of nationality do not apply. Ann's embrace of her Welsh identity is, to some extent, celebrated by the narrative, but this is undercut by its tragic consequences.
There are some points where the writing subverts the diary form. Ann records conversations in Welsh in English, noting where characters have spoken in Welsh, and the diary gradually evolves a way of transcribing Welsh into an archaic English ("What hast thou done today?") to indicate when Welsh is being spoken. But Ann understands Welsh and English and would have no need to translate it in her own diary, except in the early stages where she is writing it for Gabriel to read; the translation is for the benefit of the general reader who cannot be expected to understand Welsh beyond "Nos da".
Margiad Evans (a psuedonym for Peggy Whistler) wrote three other novels, and two volumes of poetry, as well as an autobiography and an account of her experience of epilepsy - she died from a brain tumour in 1958 at the early age of 49. Last year there was a centenary conference about her at the University of Swansea; I hope this means she is more likely to be read, as her sparse and lyrical prose merits attention, and Country Dance has resonated with me for some time.
The preface and coda are a framing device that present Ann's diary as a historic document and Ann as a real person, and politicise Ann's story as "the entire history of the border". The novel presents its characters often in terms of racial stereotypes, or behaviour is explained away as due to Welshness or Englishness. One minor character, Gwen Powys, proposes a toast to "The Border", after others have toasted Wales and England, suggesting that the Border may be a separate space where the rules of nationality do not apply. Ann's embrace of her Welsh identity is, to some extent, celebrated by the narrative, but this is undercut by its tragic consequences.
There are some points where the writing subverts the diary form. Ann records conversations in Welsh in English, noting where characters have spoken in Welsh, and the diary gradually evolves a way of transcribing Welsh into an archaic English ("What hast thou done today?") to indicate when Welsh is being spoken. But Ann understands Welsh and English and would have no need to translate it in her own diary, except in the early stages where she is writing it for Gabriel to read; the translation is for the benefit of the general reader who cannot be expected to understand Welsh beyond "Nos da".
Margiad Evans (a psuedonym for Peggy Whistler) wrote three other novels, and two volumes of poetry, as well as an autobiography and an account of her experience of epilepsy - she died from a brain tumour in 1958 at the early age of 49. Last year there was a centenary conference about her at the University of Swansea; I hope this means she is more likely to be read, as her sparse and lyrical prose merits attention, and Country Dance has resonated with me for some time.
Monday, 15 March 2010
Women Are Like That by E M Delafield
This collection of short stories, first published in 1929, deals mainly with episodes from the lives of a variety of women - as you might expect - and a couple of men. Many of the stories focus on romance: proposals, affairs, temptations and partings often provide the dramatic pivot. Middle-aged women, often suburban, are exposed to romance directly and indirectly; apparently forty-three is a dangerous age for a woman. Thankfully, I shall be forty-four in a couple of months.
Two of the stories feature characters who appear elsewhere in Delafield's novels. "The Sprat" acquaints us with Raoul Radow, the sulky Roumanian violinist from Challenge to Clarissa. "Oil Painting, circa 1890" is a version of the later lives of the sisters Frederica and Cicely Marlowe from Thank Heaven Fasting; this story, entirely serious and rather tragic, shows the effects of a "morbid", introspective love between sisters that forbids either of them a life of her own. Delafield suspends her ironic voice again for "The Whole Duty of Woman", a story alluding clearly to Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper". Elinor Ambrey, recuperating in a nursing home after a breakdown, considers interior design choices:
"How clever of them not to have wall-paper with a pattern. Looking at that plain, unbroken, cream-coloured surface was very restful - one wasn't obliged to trace, with weary eyes and resentful brain, the repeated convolutions of twisting, impossible, floral combinations, to count and recount the spirals and horseshoes, and crescents, fomred by their distorted leaves and stems." (227)
This, of course, is exactly what the unfortunate heroine of "The Yellow Wallpaper" does spend her time doing, with tragic consequences. But even a plain cream-coloured surface cannot save Mrs Ambrey from nervous collapse at the thought of resuming married life. Delafield's story also has in common with Gilman's the medical control and regulation of women: Mrs Ambrey would prefer to sleep alone, but her doctor reminds her that the whole duty of woman resides in thinking of her husband and providing him with opportunities for procreation.
The majority of the stories, however, deploy Delafield's usual amusing ironic approach to love. Middle-aged women pursuing romance are sympathetically ridiculed. Modern girls, approaching love-affairs with scientific detachment and a grounding in Havelock Ellis, find that they care rather more than they expected. Several stories contrast the morality of the late Victorian and Edwardian period with that of the 1920s, usually to the advantage of the modern age; a couple ironise the way in which mothers, unhappily married to minor domestic tyrants, ensure their daughters exploit to the full their own opportunities for unhappiness.
This is an entertaining collection, reminiscent at times of Dorothy Whipple, especially in those stories focusing on suburban middle-age; the final story, in which bad weather changes the lives of its two protagonists, reminded me, with its irony, bathos and slight cynicism, of Sylvia Townsend Warner. There is enough variety in approach, narrative voice and subject matter to sustain the reader's interest and enjoyment. My copy is a facsimile reprint by PFD and is pretty clear, although some pages have had the ends of the lines cut off by the scanner, requiring a little extra input from the reader.
Two of the stories feature characters who appear elsewhere in Delafield's novels. "The Sprat" acquaints us with Raoul Radow, the sulky Roumanian violinist from Challenge to Clarissa. "Oil Painting, circa 1890" is a version of the later lives of the sisters Frederica and Cicely Marlowe from Thank Heaven Fasting; this story, entirely serious and rather tragic, shows the effects of a "morbid", introspective love between sisters that forbids either of them a life of her own. Delafield suspends her ironic voice again for "The Whole Duty of Woman", a story alluding clearly to Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper". Elinor Ambrey, recuperating in a nursing home after a breakdown, considers interior design choices:
"How clever of them not to have wall-paper with a pattern. Looking at that plain, unbroken, cream-coloured surface was very restful - one wasn't obliged to trace, with weary eyes and resentful brain, the repeated convolutions of twisting, impossible, floral combinations, to count and recount the spirals and horseshoes, and crescents, fomred by their distorted leaves and stems." (227)
This, of course, is exactly what the unfortunate heroine of "The Yellow Wallpaper" does spend her time doing, with tragic consequences. But even a plain cream-coloured surface cannot save Mrs Ambrey from nervous collapse at the thought of resuming married life. Delafield's story also has in common with Gilman's the medical control and regulation of women: Mrs Ambrey would prefer to sleep alone, but her doctor reminds her that the whole duty of woman resides in thinking of her husband and providing him with opportunities for procreation.
The majority of the stories, however, deploy Delafield's usual amusing ironic approach to love. Middle-aged women pursuing romance are sympathetically ridiculed. Modern girls, approaching love-affairs with scientific detachment and a grounding in Havelock Ellis, find that they care rather more than they expected. Several stories contrast the morality of the late Victorian and Edwardian period with that of the 1920s, usually to the advantage of the modern age; a couple ironise the way in which mothers, unhappily married to minor domestic tyrants, ensure their daughters exploit to the full their own opportunities for unhappiness.
This is an entertaining collection, reminiscent at times of Dorothy Whipple, especially in those stories focusing on suburban middle-age; the final story, in which bad weather changes the lives of its two protagonists, reminded me, with its irony, bathos and slight cynicism, of Sylvia Townsend Warner. There is enough variety in approach, narrative voice and subject matter to sustain the reader's interest and enjoyment. My copy is a facsimile reprint by PFD and is pretty clear, although some pages have had the ends of the lines cut off by the scanner, requiring a little extra input from the reader.
Sunday, 28 February 2010
What is Love? by E M Delafield
Delafield answers her own question by telling us of the complicated interactions of naive, beautiful Ellie Carey; her kind and handsome brother Lionel; her attractive, modern cousin Victoria; and the sophisticated Simon Lawless, laden with sex appeal and addicted to flirtation. In the margins of their story are Ellie and Lionel's scandalously divorced parents, George Carey and Fay Dallinger; Eglantine de la Riviere, daughter of the agent's widow at Milton Waters, the Carey country house; and Robin Alistair, a colonial planter back in England seeking a wife. It is impossible to write much more about this book without giving away the plot, so if you don't want to know what happens, look away now.
Ellie is an old-fashioned innocent, a contrast to the monocle-sporting Victoria whose attitudes to life and love are relentlessly pragmatic. Inevitably, Ellie falls for the magnetic Simon Lawless, who is charmed by her beauty but soon disappointed by her hopeless dancing, her lack of interest in clothes and social life; there is one particularly choice episode where he criticises her flower arranging in a way we would now see as thoroughly metrosexual. Everyone she knows is against the match, including the amoral Lady Dallinger, who counsels Ellie not to marry her first love; and in the end, Simon's overt attention to other girls causes Ellie to break off their rather tentative engagement.
Victoria and Simon have flirted with each other for years, knowing how much they resemble each other; when the main action of the novel takes place, Victoria is twenty-nine and believes she must marry soon if she is to marry at all, but Simon is a bad financial prospect. Lionel is in love with Victoria, and has proposed many times, but she eventually rejects him in favour of Simon when her mother's death leaves her better off than she expected, and Simon has made a killing on the stock exchange; she has also recognised that the similarity between them will make a successful match. Lionel takes Ellie back to Madrid where he works as a diplomat, but not before Ellie and Victoria have made their peace with each other.
Robin, originally infatuated with Victoria, is refused by her in explicit terms, and eventually recognises a kindred spirit in Eglantine. Both are cowed by domineering mothers, and seeking escape; Eglantine admires Robin and he likes her. As with Simon and Victoria, however, the match is presented as a practical alliance of equals rather than a grand romance. Robin and Eglantine are an exaggerated, hopefully satirised, version of Robert and Elizabeth Dashwood's courtship; Eglantine de la Riviere is an exaggerated version of EMD's awkward maiden name, Edmée de la Pasture. Robert Dashwood was apparently anxious to read this book when it came out; I wonder what he made of it.
Love, then, in this book, has little to do with marriage, bearing out Fay Dallinger's advice to Ellie. It is possible to read Victoria's acceptance of Simon as an act of rescue to keep him permanently away from Ellie, whom Victoria loves and knows that he can only hurt. Ellie's recognition that Simon and Victoria simply cannot help themselves, and her forgiveness of Victoria, suggest a stronger, more enduring love between the cousins than that supporting any of the marriages contracted during the novel.
The early parts of the novel rely quite heavily on the language and devices of romantic fiction - Ellie's "fiery bliss" under Simon's touch is my favourite bit of Mills and Boon-ese - but towards the end the plot and characters develop in rather unexpected ways, undermining any tendency towards love story. There is a tendency towards stereotype - Robin's sister Maud is a stock eccentric spinster, still schoolgirlish and awkward, rather like Olive in The Heel of Achilles; George Carey is a gruff but genuine English gentleman, with hints of Uncle Matthew about him. Victoria and Ellie are given enough depth of character, however, to rise above their particular roles, and Victoria's thoughtful, calmly affectionate nature belies the hardness of some of the agressively modern characteristics attributed to her.
You can now buy a facsimile reprint of What is Love?, as well as several other Delafield titles, as PFD who manage her literary estate have started a print-on-demand service for a number of authors. Good news for Delafield fans - although at £12 each it is often cheaper to get a secondhand copy of an original edition.
Ellie is an old-fashioned innocent, a contrast to the monocle-sporting Victoria whose attitudes to life and love are relentlessly pragmatic. Inevitably, Ellie falls for the magnetic Simon Lawless, who is charmed by her beauty but soon disappointed by her hopeless dancing, her lack of interest in clothes and social life; there is one particularly choice episode where he criticises her flower arranging in a way we would now see as thoroughly metrosexual. Everyone she knows is against the match, including the amoral Lady Dallinger, who counsels Ellie not to marry her first love; and in the end, Simon's overt attention to other girls causes Ellie to break off their rather tentative engagement.
Victoria and Simon have flirted with each other for years, knowing how much they resemble each other; when the main action of the novel takes place, Victoria is twenty-nine and believes she must marry soon if she is to marry at all, but Simon is a bad financial prospect. Lionel is in love with Victoria, and has proposed many times, but she eventually rejects him in favour of Simon when her mother's death leaves her better off than she expected, and Simon has made a killing on the stock exchange; she has also recognised that the similarity between them will make a successful match. Lionel takes Ellie back to Madrid where he works as a diplomat, but not before Ellie and Victoria have made their peace with each other.
Robin, originally infatuated with Victoria, is refused by her in explicit terms, and eventually recognises a kindred spirit in Eglantine. Both are cowed by domineering mothers, and seeking escape; Eglantine admires Robin and he likes her. As with Simon and Victoria, however, the match is presented as a practical alliance of equals rather than a grand romance. Robin and Eglantine are an exaggerated, hopefully satirised, version of Robert and Elizabeth Dashwood's courtship; Eglantine de la Riviere is an exaggerated version of EMD's awkward maiden name, Edmée de la Pasture. Robert Dashwood was apparently anxious to read this book when it came out; I wonder what he made of it.
Love, then, in this book, has little to do with marriage, bearing out Fay Dallinger's advice to Ellie. It is possible to read Victoria's acceptance of Simon as an act of rescue to keep him permanently away from Ellie, whom Victoria loves and knows that he can only hurt. Ellie's recognition that Simon and Victoria simply cannot help themselves, and her forgiveness of Victoria, suggest a stronger, more enduring love between the cousins than that supporting any of the marriages contracted during the novel.
The early parts of the novel rely quite heavily on the language and devices of romantic fiction - Ellie's "fiery bliss" under Simon's touch is my favourite bit of Mills and Boon-ese - but towards the end the plot and characters develop in rather unexpected ways, undermining any tendency towards love story. There is a tendency towards stereotype - Robin's sister Maud is a stock eccentric spinster, still schoolgirlish and awkward, rather like Olive in The Heel of Achilles; George Carey is a gruff but genuine English gentleman, with hints of Uncle Matthew about him. Victoria and Ellie are given enough depth of character, however, to rise above their particular roles, and Victoria's thoughtful, calmly affectionate nature belies the hardness of some of the agressively modern characteristics attributed to her.
You can now buy a facsimile reprint of What is Love?, as well as several other Delafield titles, as PFD who manage her literary estate have started a print-on-demand service for a number of authors. Good news for Delafield fans - although at £12 each it is often cheaper to get a secondhand copy of an original edition.
Wednesday, 17 February 2010
Try Anything Twice by Jan Struther
I found this collection of Jan Struther's journalism considerably more engaging than her better-known Mrs Miniver. Written for a variety of inter-war journals, designed to amuse, these pieces must have piqued rueful self-awareness among Struther's readers as she delicately skewers middle-class pretension. Of course, she is not immune to this vice herself, and to the 21st-century eye some of her topics - second homes, boarding schools - smack of privilege. The essay "Pump Lane" is probably typical: the narrator enumerates the comical vices of her neighbours in the slum behind her elegant house, only to regret their departure to modern Council houses and the occupation of their cottages by Bohemians. The status quo may be annoying, and inconvenient, but its disruption provokes a conservative nostalgia. However, Struther the essayist is less smug than Mrs Miniver, and more open-minded; this comes across particularly in her travel pieces. My favourite piece in the book, "The Philosopher in the Pine Trees", is not only beautifully written, but evokes the beauty of a place, the generosity of strangers to travellers, and characterful, wise individuals with great irony; by the time Struther wrote about her journey and her inadvertant stay with her philosopher host, the pine wood and the house had disappeared into the Spanish Civil War. Possibly the book is most interesting as a document of what material would be amusing to the readers of the Spectator or the New Statesman at the time.
Tuesday, 16 February 2010
The Diary of a Young Lady of Fashion in the Year 1764-1765 by Cleone Knox
Poking about in the minor sub-genre of fictional diaries written for humorous effect, I discovered a reference to this little book, in which twenty-year-old Cleone Knox, of a wealthy County Down family, travels with her father, and brother Ned, on a grand tour of Europe. At the opening of the book, she is being courted by David Ancaster, whom she loves, but her father is against the match. After a bungled attempt at elopement, Cleone is hurried away to see whether travel will bring her to her senses. We travel with her to visit her sister in Derbyshire and then on to London, Bath, a French chateau, Paris, Switzerland and finally to Venice. Despite her affection for Mr Ancaster, Cleone is a lively diarist and not averse to a little flirtation; she is also greatly interested in matters of dress; she is constantly surprised and amused by the people and places she encounters; and given to Random Capitalisation to express the Strength of her Feelings.
On its publication in 1925, the Diary was taken to be genuine, having been presented as edited by one Alexander Blacker Kerr, a distant descendent of Miss Knox. After about six months, there was a minor scandal when the Daily Express revealed that the diary was in fact the work of Magdalen King-Hall, then aged twenty-one. The real author contributes a foreword to the copy I have, explaining that she was inspired by her sister’s suggestion to make a first attempt at a novel in the form of an eighteenth-century diary. The result is an amusing little book; Cleone’s style is a well sustained pastiche, and some episodes are extremely funny indeed. Magdalen King-Hall went on to have a successful career as a writer, and her work includes the novel which inspired The Wicked Lady, for which we should all be grateful. Margaret Lockwood would have also made a marvellous Cleone Knox.
On its publication in 1925, the Diary was taken to be genuine, having been presented as edited by one Alexander Blacker Kerr, a distant descendent of Miss Knox. After about six months, there was a minor scandal when the Daily Express revealed that the diary was in fact the work of Magdalen King-Hall, then aged twenty-one. The real author contributes a foreword to the copy I have, explaining that she was inspired by her sister’s suggestion to make a first attempt at a novel in the form of an eighteenth-century diary. The result is an amusing little book; Cleone’s style is a well sustained pastiche, and some episodes are extremely funny indeed. Magdalen King-Hall went on to have a successful career as a writer, and her work includes the novel which inspired The Wicked Lady, for which we should all be grateful. Margaret Lockwood would have also made a marvellous Cleone Knox.
Saturday, 9 January 2010
The Crowded Street by Winifred Holtby
Holtby's 1924 novel is the story of Muriel Hammond, brought up in Edwardian Marshington and Kingsport (a disguised Hull) to marry well and help maintain her family's social status. Muriel, however, is not a success in the marriage-market, but her sense of duty to her family keeps her at home, unlike the Vicar's dynamic daughter Delia Vaughan, headed for Newnham. Muriel is no iconoclast, and accepts the limitations of her environment: when, at school, her request for teaching in astronomy is diverted into extra dressmaking classes, much more suitable for married life, she is disappointed, but not enough to rebel. Rebellion is left to her younger sister Connie, who pays a heavy cost for it, but her sufferings teach Muriel to follow her duty to herself, which leads her to new pleasures and opportunities.
The characterisation in the novel is, for the most part, very subtle. Dutiful Muriel could be dull, but the depth of character Holtby achieves renders her interesting and three-dimensional. Her mother could be a cardboard tyrant, but Holtby gives us her back-story and some explanation for her obsession with social status and its maintenance. Mr Hammond, a sack-manufacturer made good with philandering habits, could be straight out of Brass, but surprises us often enough in his brief appearances to avoid stereotype. The only failure in this respect is probably William Todd, the crippled and pious patriarch of the farming family into which Connie marries. The failure isn't really Holtby's fault, but he is so reminiscent of Amos Starkadder that he cannot avoid being humorous. The Persephone catalogue suggests this novel might have been an influence on Cold Comfort Farm. There are episodes where Holtby's novel is funny enough in its own right: Muriel's triumph after a tennis match evaporating thanks to an exposed safety-pin, for example, and Connie's escapade with a bolting horse, as well as Muriel's faux pas at the party described in the opening Prologue.
I found this a profoundly feminist novel, although it contains little obvious polemic. Delia and Muriel debate woman's proper duty, but neither of them is clearly presented as either right or wrong. The narrative gradually leads Muriel, and with her the reader, to an understanding of the constraints on women's lives and how they are maintained - and also how they can be effectively challenged. This allows moving insights into the lives of antifeminist women and men as well as those who attack the status quo. The end of the novel makes it clear that freedom of choice for women improves the lot of men as well. Muriel's journey from hapless wallflower to a woman confident enough to make her own choices (albeit backed by money settled on her by her father, and stimulated by Delia's need of her) is moving.
I find the title a bit perplexing. There is as epigraph a poem by Vera Brittain, which goes:
"Beware!
You met two travellers in the town
Who promised you that they would take you down
The valley far away
To some strange carnival this summer's day.
Take care,
Lest in the crowded street
They hurry past you with forgetting feet,
And leave you standing there."
So we see how the title arises, but the "strange carnival" that Muriel is in danger of missing sounds faintly sinister, and the strongest theme of the novel is the development of agency from within, even if Muriel's agency is based on her need to be needed. There is a Longfellow quote, "Not in the clamour of the crowded street, not in the shouts and plaudits of the throng, but in ourselves, are triumph and defeat" (from "The Poets") which fits the theme better. I assume that this text inspired the title, and the VB poem was added afterwards, but would love to know if this is really how it happened.
The characterisation in the novel is, for the most part, very subtle. Dutiful Muriel could be dull, but the depth of character Holtby achieves renders her interesting and three-dimensional. Her mother could be a cardboard tyrant, but Holtby gives us her back-story and some explanation for her obsession with social status and its maintenance. Mr Hammond, a sack-manufacturer made good with philandering habits, could be straight out of Brass, but surprises us often enough in his brief appearances to avoid stereotype. The only failure in this respect is probably William Todd, the crippled and pious patriarch of the farming family into which Connie marries. The failure isn't really Holtby's fault, but he is so reminiscent of Amos Starkadder that he cannot avoid being humorous. The Persephone catalogue suggests this novel might have been an influence on Cold Comfort Farm. There are episodes where Holtby's novel is funny enough in its own right: Muriel's triumph after a tennis match evaporating thanks to an exposed safety-pin, for example, and Connie's escapade with a bolting horse, as well as Muriel's faux pas at the party described in the opening Prologue.
I found this a profoundly feminist novel, although it contains little obvious polemic. Delia and Muriel debate woman's proper duty, but neither of them is clearly presented as either right or wrong. The narrative gradually leads Muriel, and with her the reader, to an understanding of the constraints on women's lives and how they are maintained - and also how they can be effectively challenged. This allows moving insights into the lives of antifeminist women and men as well as those who attack the status quo. The end of the novel makes it clear that freedom of choice for women improves the lot of men as well. Muriel's journey from hapless wallflower to a woman confident enough to make her own choices (albeit backed by money settled on her by her father, and stimulated by Delia's need of her) is moving.
I find the title a bit perplexing. There is as epigraph a poem by Vera Brittain, which goes:
"Beware!
You met two travellers in the town
Who promised you that they would take you down
The valley far away
To some strange carnival this summer's day.
Take care,
Lest in the crowded street
They hurry past you with forgetting feet,
And leave you standing there."
So we see how the title arises, but the "strange carnival" that Muriel is in danger of missing sounds faintly sinister, and the strongest theme of the novel is the development of agency from within, even if Muriel's agency is based on her need to be needed. There is a Longfellow quote, "Not in the clamour of the crowded street, not in the shouts and plaudits of the throng, but in ourselves, are triumph and defeat" (from "The Poets") which fits the theme better. I assume that this text inspired the title, and the VB poem was added afterwards, but would love to know if this is really how it happened.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)