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I think Esther Forbes is a name to conjure with in America, but I hadn’t heard of her when I bought O, Genteel Lady!(1926) seven years ago. I picked it up because I’m keen to read anything by women from the ’20s, and because I was beguiled by the opening paragraphs:

‘I have nothing,’ she thought, ‘but myself. No parents that count; no longer a fiancé; no home. I’m not even young any more, actually twenty-four. Ladies in novels are never out of their teens. Well, at least I’ve got myself.’

She straightened her long, slim body, straightened her bonnet, and looked about the railroad coach and the miserable cold companions of her journey.

‘Myself… and a mink pelisse,’ she added, and was sorry for the women in frayed shawls and shabby bonnets gathered close about the pot-bellied stove standing midway in the coach.

Lance Bardeen – what a name! – has left a jilted lover behind in Amherst, Mass., and is moving to Boston. It isn’t long before the reader discovers that this novel might be written in the ’20s, but it set several decades earlier. In all the talk of bonnets didn’t clue us in, then Lance’s ability to hide her bare feet under her wide-hooped skirt shows us that this is a mid-to-late Victorian woman.

All the more impressive that she has struck out on her own, refusing to marry a man who is taking her for granted. Lance is spirited, intelligent, and determined to make a better life for herself. At times, she says wonderfully feminist things – like this, to a man who says ‘I will never again believe in your sex as I did’:

‘I hope you never will. I hope you’ll see we are not made of cambric and sawdust, with porcelain heads, but of flesh and blood.’

All well and good. I could have loved this novel if Lance had stayed true to her intentions as she set out for adventure. I really enjoyed seeing her start working at a magazine, writing little stories for them while also trying to write rather better stories for rather better magazines. It’s certainly not pacy or filled with plot, but it’s good fun – and the narrative of a small-town woman discovering the big city is pretty timeless. But…

Forbes gives us one of those heroes whom you wish never to hear of again. The sort of selfish brute who apparently turned the heads of woman in the mid-Victorian period – c.f. Heathcliff, though Anthony Jones certainly isn’t in his league of cruelty. He is struck by Lance and, let’s call a spade a spade, assaults her with a kiss. She reacts angrily, somewhere between the ‘think of my virtue’ of the typical novelistic miss and the ‘how dare you disrespect my agency’ of the character we saw at the outset. And yet… she quickly falls in love with him.

Partly to distract herself, partly (I imagine) because Forbes ran out of ideas for Boston, Lance goes off on a tour of England. While she’s there, why not meet with various famous literary figures of the day? Forbes gets rather carried away, giving scenes with George Eliot, Tennyson, and a near miss with the Brownings. I’m sure it was fun to write, and it’s pretty fun to read, but it rather dispenses with the structure of the novel.

So, O, Genteel Lady! sadly doesn’t live up to the promise of the first chapter and the delightful Lance we see in those pages – in my opinion, at least. It’s all a little hotchpotch – a novelist who hasn’t quite worked out yet how to use her evident skills.

My pile of books to write about has been rather piling up again. So much reading this year! So I’m probably going to do a few mini posts where I jumble a few different books together…

Love, Interrupted by Simon Thomas

First things first, it is very surreal to read a book by someone with exactly your name. Particularly when I would glance at the coffee table and see my name there. Very odd. But it’s certainly not the first time I’d heard of Simon Thomas. I doubt he has much name recognition outside the UK, but he was once a presenter on Blue Peter, a long-running children’s TV programme. He went on to sports presenting, but came to wider attention a couple of years ago when, tragically, his wife died of blood cancer aged 39. And only a few days after she was diagnosed.

In Love, Interrupted, Thomas writes about those terrible few days, as well as meeting Gemma and how they became a couple. He looks at his illness with depression and anxiety that happened before Gemma died.But most of the book is about the days, weeks, and months of grief that follow – as he tries to be honest and open to his eight-year-old son, while also facing the greatest pain of his life. As a man of faith, he also documents his wrestling with God – and his growing dependency on alcohol. It is such a wise, thoughtful and passionate book about grief – and about how people either did or did not help with their reactions. I read it because I know very little about grief, and want to be a better friend to friends who are experiencing or have experienced it – and I think Love, Interrupted will help me do that. Obviously ever journey with grief is different, but Thomas is so open and honest in his book that I will take a lot of it with me.

A William Maxwell Portrait: Memories and Appreciations

Published four years after his death, this is a collection of essays from people who worked with, corresponded with, or simply admired William Maxwell. I have loved and admired his fictional writing, and particularly enjoyed reading his letters with Sylvia Townsend Warner and Eudora Welty. And there is no doubt that he was a beloved and widely appreciated figure in American writing.

There are some names I recognise among the contributors – Donna Tartt, Alice Munro, Shirley Hazzard – and an awful lot that I didn’t. I particularly enjoyed Tartt’s funny, humble, personable account of being something of an occasional amanuensis for Maxwell. The contributors sometimes write entirely about their personal experiences of Maxwell, some write what are effectively literary essays, and most are in between. But clearly topics were not apportioned, and there is an awful lot of reputation here – down to the plots of novels being explained over and over. It’s possible that all these pieces were published separately, and this is a compilation. That would make sense, and explain why the editing is pretty much absent.

Overall, the affection and respect everyone seems to have had for Maxwell is rather touching. But it leans heavily on ‘respect’. Because he was in his mid-90s when he died, most of Maxwell’s contemporaries had predeceased him. So we get only the perspective of the next generation[s], looking to his reputation and his output, doffing their cap and treating him like a reverend old man. It couldn’t be any other way, but I did miss any affection from a contemporary – someone who wouldn’t put him on quite such a pedestal. If Sylvia Townsend Warner could have added a chapter, she would have ribbed him, admired him, accepted his admiration, and loved him. Perfect.

I For One by J.B. Priestley

First off, this book is perhaps my Platonic ideal of the musty smell of a book. Some people love new book smell, which I dislike. Some people hate musty book smell, but it is my kryptonite.

Anyway, this is a collection of occasional essays. Many of us have enjoyed his Delight – this is more in the line of grumbles, but they’re also pretty delightful to read about. Though the book was published in 1924, there are plenty of topics that ring true almost a hundred years later – on being annoyed by optimists and by strangers, on different understandings of free speech, on everyone’s secret conviction that they’re pretty good at singing. I enjoyed his look back at a moralistic science book for children, from his youth, and his analysis of the characters of Charles and Emma in there. And ‘The New Hypocrisy’ was great fun – about how everyone has to pretend to be amoral or immoral in the ’20s, regardless of what they actually do:

The young men who loudly extol an ethical system that would make a tiger look thoughtful, are now compelled to deceive their acquaintances just as the old type of hypocrite deceived his’ and often when they are generally supposed to be breaking the ten Commandments, they are in reality paying secret visits of consolation to invalid aunts in East Dulwich.

It’s the sort of totally inconsequential collection that probably wouldn’t get published now, or would appear as online columns perhaps, but it’s a fun window into how amiable grumbling has never really changed.

It’s no secret that I adore Virginia Woolf, so I was pleased when I was given the opportunity to watch What Was Virginia Woolf Afraid Of?, which was shown on Sky Arts last year and is now available on DVD. It’s a documentary about her life and work, speaking to many Woolf experts.

The first one who pops up is Hermione Lee, who was my thesis supervisor during my Masters. I only tangentially wrote about Woolf then, but I certainly enjoyed going to her Woolf lectures as an undergraduate. Alongside her are experts like Lyndall Gordon and a lot of people I hadn’t heard of, but are doubtless brilliant. I particularly enjoyed the small amounts of archival interview footage with Angelica Garnett, Woolf’s niece, and Nigel Nicolson [who also seemed weirdly excited to talk about his parents’ love lives and affairs – he being the son of Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson].

The documentary starts by talking in broad brushstrokes about her influence on writing, her power as a writer, the main themes of her life and work. From here, there is a fairly chronological look at her life – looking particularly at moments of trauma. These include the early deaths of her brother and mother, and the sexual assault she suffered at the hands of her step brothers. Woolf’s mental health is inextricably intertwined with her reputation and any interpretation of her work, and it is discussed sensitively here – the trauma is not allowed to loom too large, but is given a reasonable space. But I would have liked a bit more on how funny Woolf was, in her novels, letters, and particularly her essays.

The choice of readings from Woolf’s books are wonderfully well chosen – all perfectly illustrating different aspects of her character and career. Many are the expected moments from anybody who loves her writing, and her most famous novels certainly take the limelight, but there are some more unexpected and thoughtful choices too. All read beautifully, and accompanied by a new score by Adrian Munsey.

If you already know about Woolf, it’s unlikely that you’ll find anything you didn’t already know here. There are certainly no new revelations or unusual interpretations. But, much like Alexandra Harris’s brilliant biography of her, it manages to encapsulate almost everything significant in a short space. If you only know her writing, or don’t know much about Woolf at all, it’s a great place to start – and should set you off keen to find out more about the many angles of this multi-faceted genius.

Because it was a nicer copy of a book I already loved

Because it had a painting I liked on the cover

Because of the lovely musty smell

Because my friend was so enthusiastic (even though I knew I wouldn’t keep it)

Because I was in an independent bookshop and hadn’t found anything I wanted

Because Persephone had once mentioned thinking about publishing it

Because it was a shade of blue I loved

Because of the book’s unusual height

Because I’d read in P.G. Wodehouse’s collected letters that he liked it

Because I wanted a souvenir (and there weren’t many books in English)

Because it was mentioned by the Provincial Lady

Because it had the word ‘spinster’ in the title

Because I needed change for the bus

Because I don’t often see books set in Worcestershire

Because I liked the sound it made when it closed (I later discovered I already owned this book)

Because I’d read something else by that author, and hadn’t really liked it, but wished I had

Because it felt wrong for an English Literature student not to have the book

Because I wanted to talk to the author at a signing

Because the author is my friend

Because the author is my friend’s sister

Because of the font on the spine

Because Q.D. Leavis wrote about it

Because it matched other books I had by that author (which I hadn’t read)

Because I liked the wordplay in the title

Because the author is related to an author I like

Because the author had the same surname as an author I like (though I knew they weren’t related)

Oh, and because I wanted to read it.