Nervous Conditions – Tsitsi Dangarembga

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A friend lent me Tsitsi Dangarembga’s Nervous Conditions (1988) an embarrassingly long time ago (we’re talking years) and a combination of the appalling cover and the vague, uninviting title meant that I put it off for ages, and then forgot about it.  I finally remembered that I still had it a couple of weeks ago, flicked it open with some trepidation… and was almost immediately hooked.  What is it they say about judging books by their covers – do it or don’t do it?  I forget.

The striking opening line is ‘I was not sorry when my brother died.’  The ‘I’ in question is Tambudzai, who lives with her family in 1960s what-was-then Rhodesia.  They’re in a poor rural community, the poorest members of a large family – they can only afford to send one child to school, and it is Tambudzai’s brother Nhamo who gets this honour.  Tambudzai is desperate to attend school, even growing and selling her own maize to get the fees, but Nhamo tries to assert his masculine superiority at every turn, making Tambudzai miserable.  The reader doesn’t mourn much when Nhamo dies – and nor, it seems, does Tambudzai.  His death takes place in ‘the mission’, where Tambudzai’s rich uncle lives with his wife, son, and daughter Nyasha – and it is here where Tambudzai is herself later taken:

Thus began the period of my reincarnation.  I liked to think of my transfer to the mission as my reincarnation. With the egotistical faith of fourteen short years, during which my life had progressed very much according to plan, I expected this era to be significantly profound and broadening in terms of adding wisdom to my nature, clarity to my vision, glamour to my person.  In short, I expected my sojourn to fulfil all my fourteen-year-old fantasies, and on the whole I was not disappointed.  Freed from the constraints of the necessary and the squalid that defined and delimited our activity at home, I invested a lot of robust energy in approximating to my idea of a young woman of the world.  I was clean now, not only on special occasions but every day of the week.  
Nyasha is about the same age as Tambudzai, but had spent some time in England and adjusted to 1960s English culture, before having to re-adjust back to 1960s Rhodesian expectations.  One of the most interesting aspects of the Nervous Conditions is the contrast (and friendship) between these cousins.  Nyasha (although only fourteen) is considered loose and immoral for wearing short skirts and talking to boys; Tambudzai is keen to adhere to her uncle’s instructions, but is developing her own conscience and personality at the same time.  There is another storyline relating to Nyasha’s well-being which appears rather too suddenly at the end, and doesn’t really work – indeed, the whole ending is surprisingly rushed – but before that, this contrast of characters is really fascinating.  Alongside, there is an equally well-drawn juxtaposition of Tambudzai’s old life and her new life.  Although her parents want the best future for her, they are also clearly a little confused and jealous when she visits with a developing outlook on life.  It’s done very subtly, for the most part, and you can tell that the novel is semi-autobiographical.

Indeed, this is probably one of the reasons I enjoyed Nervous Conditions so much.  If you’ve been reading SiaB for a while, you probably know that I don’t like books set in countries which the author isn’t from, or doesn’t know well.  So if a British author wrote a novel set in Zimbabwe, but had never been nearer than Portugal, or had only been for a fortnight on a package holiday, then I wouldn’t be interested.  Since Dangarembga’s childhood was in fact in some respects like Nyasha’s (it seems), I’m very willing to read her views of her country and people.  Here’s a good example of why:

We waved and shouted and danced.  Then came Babamukuru, his car large and impressive, all sparkling metal and polished dark green.  It was too much for me.  I could have clambered on to the bonnet but, with Shupi in my arms, had to be content with a song: “Mauya, mauya.  Mauya, mauya.  Mauya, Babamukuru!”  Netsai picked up the melody.  Our vocal cords vibrating through wide arcs, we made an unbelievable racket.  Singing and dancing we ushered Babamukuru on to the homestead, hardly noticing Babamunini Thomas, who brought up the rear, not noticing Mainini Patience, who was with him, at all.
Had this been written by an author who had never lived in Africa, it could never have been as natural.  The greeting – so normal and expected of Tambudzai – would have become some sort of spectacle, where the dancing and singing would have been relayed as a piece of research.  I much prefer the sort of novel Nervous Conditions is, where the reader – wherever they live – is immersed in the non-artificial perspective of a local.

Primarily, of course, I valued Nervous Conditions for Dangarembga’s writing.  It is lilting and beautiful, but not overly stylised.  It flows naturally, and gives Tambudzai’s voice perfectly.  My only reservation with the novel, aside from the aforementioned rushed ending, was that it occasionally lost the subtlety which mostly made it special.  I’m all for a feminist message, but sometimes Dangarembga didn’t trust to the show-don’t-tell method (and she should have trusted it, because she excels at it for the most part.  Excerpts like this just felt as though they’d been included for cutting and pasting into high school essays:

[…]Babamukuru condemning Nyasha to whoredom, making her a victim of femaleness, just as I had felt victimised at home in the days when Nhamo went to school and I grew my maize.  The victimisation, I saw, was universal.  It didn’t depend on poverty, on lack of education or on tradition.  It didn’t depend on any of the things I had thought it depended on.  Men took it everywhere with them.
Not to mention how reductive that it.  Never mind.  Nervous Conditions is a novel, not a treatise, and for the most part Dangarembga achieves this wonderfully.  Not for nothing did it win the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize in 1989.  It’s always a treat when I enjoy a book much more than I thought I would, and I can only apologise to my friend that it took me so long to get around to reading this one.

Stuck-in-a-Book’s Weekend Miscellany

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Well, it’s wet and miserable here – but it has been beautiful, as exemplified in this picture from the road trip I took on Thursday to Toot Baldon (because of its brilliant name).  Not a bad view for our picnic, eh?

1.) The blog post – go and read Hayley’s lovely, thought-provoking post about why so many of us love books as well as reading…

2.) The link – is this Youtube clip: a man being ‘interviewed’ by himself, from a video he made 20 years ago.  It’s very clever.

3.) The book – came from Bloomsbury the other day.  I should have read this back during the Jubilee weekend, but it’s still Jubilee Year, isn’t it?  I’m very excited about Coronation by Paul Gallico… I’ll let you know more soon!

 Have a great weekend!

Briefly… a pet peeve!

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I discovered recently that I have a pet peeve when it comes to novels.  I’ve been reading two really good books – Wise Children by Angela Carter and A Favourite of the Gods by Sybille Bedford – and they both are really, really good.  But both were a little marred for me… I’ve discovered that I really don’t like it when a novel starts with one scene in ‘present day’, and then skips back and starts again in the past, progressing forwards again to the present.

I haven’t quite worked out why.  I think I’m used to ‘flashbacks’ being a bit of something to skim through, and when the flashback takes up the entire novel, obviously things are different – and perhaps I find that disconcerting.  Somehow everything takes on that sepia tone of prolonged anticlimax…

Does anyone else feel like this?  I imagine not… but perhaps you have other pet peeves which feel irrational, yet affect your enjoyment a bit?

Sorry for such a brief post – I’ve spent the evening painting (final picture will be shown, if it is ever finished!) and now I’m going to sleep the sleep of just person in a turpentine-filled room.

The Love-Child by Edith Olivier

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I have blogged before about The Love-Child, one of my favourite books and in my ongoing list of 50 You Must Read, but I’ve never been very happy with my post on it.   Nor do I think the following wholly encapsulates how wonderful the novel is by any means, but… I thought it worth sharing.  I wrote it for Hesperus Press’s Uncover A Classic competition – but, sadly for me, a different book was chosen.  More on that soon, but I decided not to put my ‘500 word introduction’ to waste – and so, just in case you’ve yet to read this beautiful novel, here is the piece I wrote for the Hesperus competition…

photo source



Edith Olivier’s The Love Child (1927) was her first novel, and easily her best.  Although rediscovered as a ‘modern classic’ in 1981, it has not been reprinted since – perhaps because it resist categorisation – yet it deserves a far wider, rapturous audience.

The Love Child tells the story of Agatha Bodenham, a middle-aged childless spinster mourning the death of her mother as the novel opens.  She fondly recalls her childhood imaginary friend, Clarissa, and even copes with her loneliness by talking to Clarissa again.  This attachment grows until one afternoon, to Agatha’s surprise, Clarissa herself appears in the garden: ‘She was smaller even than Agatha had imagined her, and she looked young for her age, which must have been ten or eleven.  […] Physically, she looked shadowy and pathetic, but a spirit peeped out of her eyes, with something of roguishness, perhaps, but yet it was unmistakably there.’

Initially Clarissa is visible only to Agatha, but gradually others can see her also – and Agatha copes with both the joy of new-found companionship, and the embarrassment of explaining the sudden appearance of a child.  Eventually she decides she must pretend that Clarissa is her own daughter; her love child.  ‘She had saved her.  But at what a cost!  Her position, her name, her character – she had given them all, but Clarissa was hers’.

Olivier constructs a mother/daughter relationship which is more poignant, and more vulnerable than most.  Clarissa may disappear as suddenly as she appeared – especially when, as the years progress, a local man named David begins to fall in love with her.  Agatha’s possessiveness and uncertainty are drawn beautifully, demonstrating the pain suffered by one unused to love when her creation may be taken from her.  She is not cast as a villain, but simply a lonely woman battling for the solution to that loneliness.  Olivier herself had neither husband nor children when, in her fifties, she was inspired to start writing novels.  According to her autobiography, the idea for The Love Child came to her suddenly in the middle of the night, and was written ‘during those feverish wakeful hours when the body is weary but the mind seems let loose to work abnormally quickly.’  The novel certainly reads with the enchanting spontaneity this writing process suggests and, although often addressing sad topics, is far from a melancholy book.  This is primarily due to Clarissa herself.  She is a captivating character – naïve, almost elfin, yet fascinated by science and delighted by motorcars – she animates not only Agatha’s monotonous life, but enlivens the whole novel.

In a short book, which could easily be read in two or three hours, Olivier encompasses moving and involving themes in a warm, lively manner; it seems absurd that this beautiful novel should ever have fallen out of print.  A new generation of readers deserve to discover The Love Child.

The Island of the Colourblind – Oliver Sacks

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Every now and then I pick up something which couldn’t be further away from my dual comfort zones of 1920s-housewife and quirky-domestic, and end up being captivated.  So… now for something completely different!

I already knew that I loved Sacks’ book The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat, and I have one or two of his books in various places – including The Island of the Colourblind (1997) (sorry, I can’t bring myself to give the American title, blame my English student sensibilities).  I can’t remember what it was that catapulted the book from shelf to hand – perhaps one too many novels with teacups and maids? – but it did indeed find its way there, and I whipped through it in a day or two.

The title and blurb both offer slightly false information – suggesting that there is an entire community of colourblind people on the ‘tiny Pacific atoll’ Pingelap.  It turns out that the incident of achromatopsia (symptoms are complete colourblindness – i.e. everything in greyscale – and a high sensitivity to light) is in fact one in 12 of the population.  It’s still wildly more than the rest of the world – where achromatopsia is found in one in 30,000.  Even though it is not the isolated, uniform community which Sacks initially hoped to find, he does highlight the emotional benefits of this high incidence:

There was an immediate understanding and sharing between them, a commonality of language and perception, which extended to Knut as well. […] When a Pingelapese baby starts to squint and turn away from the light, there is at least a cultural knowledge of his perceptual world, his special needs and strengths, even a mythology to explain it.  In this sense, then, Pingelap is an island of the colourblind.  No one born here with the maskun finds himself wholly isolated or misunderstood, which is the almost universal lot of people with congenital achromatopsia elsewhere in the world.

Amongst that number is the mentioned Knut – a Scandinavian scientist who both has and investigates the condition.  When Sacks offers Knut the chance to accompany him, Knut leaps at the chance – and his experience with the condition proves invaluable as a point of connection between the outsider Westerners and the inevitably intimate island society.  (Sacks is occasionally rather scathing about other Westerners who have visited, especially missionaries, but I suppose I couldn’t expect him to share my views on them – and, unlike his view of other visitors, he never considers his own work and provisions as a colonial activity.)  Knut also provides a sophisticated, intelligent and thorough angle of living with achromatopsia amongst millions who don’t.

Not thinking, I enthused about the wonderful blues of the sea – then stopped, embarrassed.  Knut, though he has no direct experience of colour, is very erudite on the subject.  He is intrigued by the range of words and images other people use about colour and was arrested by my use of the word “azure.”  (“Is it similar to cerulean?”)  He wondered whether “indigo” was, for me, a separate, seventh colour of the spectrum, neither blue nor violet, but itself, in between.  “Many people,” he added, “do not see indigo as a separate spectral colour, and others see light blue as distinct from blue.”  With no direct knowledge of colour, Knut has accumulated an immense mental catalogue, an archive, of vicarious colour knowledge about the world.

It reminded me somehow of Helen Keller’s accounts of living as a blind, dumb, death woman in a world which is largely none of these things – and the sensitivity with which she perceives how others might perceive her world.

There is no cure for achromatopsia, but it is a condition which becomes much more manageable with the simple expedient of dark glasses and strong magnifying glasses.  The next island Sacks visits, Guam, has a more debilitating illness shared by much of the population: Lytico-Bodig disease.  (I’m just realising how unlike my normal posts this is!)  It’s a neurological disease which manifests itself in symptoms like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.  Despite decades of research, nobody has worked out what caused this – but nobody born in the past few decades has shown any symptoms.  Sacks gets a bit too involved in the history of research into the disease for my understanding, but more personal accounts of people living with the condition cannot but be moving.

Sacks is certainly a learned neurologist, but his books are not textbooks in their style.  He has the gift of interweaving the scientist and the storyteller.  His narrative is moving and personal, rather than the impersonal facts and figures one might anticipate from a scientific study.  Perhaps it is most poignant when Sacks realises the limitations of his work:

To calm her, the family started to sing an old folk song, and the old lady, so demented, so fragmented, most of the time, joined in, singing fluently along with the others.  She seemed to get all the words, all the feeling, of the song, and to be composed, restored to herself, as long as she sang.  John and I slipped out quietly while they were singing, suddenly feeling, at this point, that neurology was irrelevant.

I wouldn’t ever browse the science sections of bookshops, and I don’t remember how I first stumbled across The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat, but I’m very glad I did.  The Island of the Colourblind (a play on Wells’ The Island of the Blind, which I should mention before this post ends) isn’t as captivating as that book, but it is a rather different kettle of fish.  Instead of many psychological disorders and fascinating patients, Sacks explores two communities – more slowly, more deeply, and even more sympathetically.  There was a danger in The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat that it could feel a bit like giving a penny to see a freakshow (although I’m sure that’s not what Sacks intended.)  The Island of the Colourblind invites the reader onto two islands, to become, however briefly, a concerned member of two very different communities – not watching from the outside, but sympathising from the inside.  The fascinating statistical aberrations are still there, as are some as-yet unexplained mysteries, but this is primarily a very human study – and a narrative which treads the path between science and storytelling, almost always with impressive success.

Half a Century of Books

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I had a lovely break in Somerset, and was surprised by how well my little sale went – I’ll head off to the post office tomorrow, laden with parcels.  I’ll see how many books I cull later in the year, and might well bring it back again.

But onto today’s post… We are now in the second half of the year, and I am continuing my quarterly look at how A Century of Books is going. Here was the first quarter’s, where I was on exactly 25 that qualified.  My sidebar at the moment announces that I’ve done 44 of my 100, but there are a further six which I’ve yet to review, so… once more, I am precisely on target!  50 books read for A Century of Books; 50 to go.  (I have actually read nearer 70 books this year, but the others have been pre- or post- 20th century, or overlapped on my list.)

Links to all the reviewed books are here.  And here’s how I’m doing, by decade…

1900s: 3
1910s: 1
1920s: 8
1930s: 6
1940s: 8
1950s: 5
1960s: 3
1970s: 5
1980s: 6
1990s: 5

Still a noticeable slump at the beginning of the century, but surprisingly high numbers at the end of it…

If you’re reading along with A Century of Books, or any similar project – how is yours going?

A Little Sale…

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Books for Sale!

I’m going away for a long weekend (conference down near home, so making the most of it) and thought I’d try something… I’ve been having a sort-out, and have quite a few books I don’t need any more.  I’m also somewhat in need of monies at the moment, what with an unfunded DPhil and all, so I thought I’d copy an idea Rachel had a while ago, and put up my old books for sale.  I think some of them might appeal.  Hope you don’t mind this swerve away from normal blog posts – but I think it could be win-win for us both.

Because of postage costs, this is just for people in the UK – but if you see something you really like, then email me and we can try to work something out!

To make things simple, they’re £4 each, 3 for £10, including postage.  Pick the one(s) you want, and email me at simondavidthomas[at]yahoo.co.uk (and maybe stake your claim in the comments) – payment would have to be by cheque, or bank transfer, or Paypal.

With every order, if you like, I’ll include one of my sketches.  Just say ‘yes please, sketch!’ with your email.  (Feel free to pick one from the archives – links in the left column – or I’ll pick one.)

I don’t know if this is going to be wildly successful or a complete dud, but I thought it would be worth a shot!  There are pictures of them all below, and a list at the bottom (I’ll delete them from the list as they go… pictures might not be updated).  I wish I could just post them all off for free, but it would leave me very skint!

Normal service will resume next Tuesday :)

The Upright Piano Player – David Abbott
A Long, Long Way – Sebastian Barry
Discipline – Mary Brunton
Cloud 9 – Caryl Churchill
Youth and other stories – Joseph Conrad
Under Western Eyes – Josephn Conrad
Old Men Forget – Duff Cooper
The New House – Lettice Cooper
The Ridleys – Richmal Crompton
Weatherley Parade – Richmal Crompton
Mariana – Monica Dickens
The Bookshop – Penelope Fitzgerald
The Battle of the Villa Fiorita – Rumer Godden
Island Magic – Elizabeth Goudge
The Ivory Tower – Henry James
The Gingerbread Woman – Jennifer Johnson
Kim – Rudyard Kipling
The Village – Marghanita Laski
Little Boy Lost – Marghanita Laski
Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town – Stephen Leacock
Babbit – Sinclair Lewis
The World My Wilderness – Rose Macaulay
Greenery Street – Denis Mackail
If I May – A.A. Milne
Once on a Time – A.A. Milne
The Tao of Pooh and the Te of Piglet – Benjamin Hoff
The Empty Room – Charles Morgan
White Boots – Noel Streatfeild
Love Letters – Leonard Woolf and Trekkie Ritchie Parsons
A Haunted House – Virginia Woolf
A Book of One’s Own: People and their Diaries – Thomas Mallon

Five From the Archive (no.4)

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Didn’t we all get excited over the past couple of days?  Mum and I have very much enjoyed the debates we’ve been having – your comments have been hilarious.  Some of you I’ll never look at in quite the same light again.

Anyway, on with the show – and another trip down memory lane for Five From The Archive.  This week…

Five… Books About Death

A quick note.  I am definitely not intending to be glib about death or grief – but I think it is fascinating to see the many and varied ways in which death is treated in fiction and non-fiction.  Obviously ‘death’ is a huge topic, but it’s thought-provoking to see how it has influenced such different books – some treating death with reverence and mourning; some as a matter of historical interest; some as merely a plot point.

I had the delight of seeing Karen/Cornflower on Sunday, and she laughed nervously when I asked her whether or not she thought it would be a good idea… but I’m going to go ahead, trusting that you know I wouldn’t intend to be flippant about grief.  Ok?  Ok.

1.) Death and the Maidens (2007) by Janet Todd

In short: Todd uses the suicide of little-known Fanny Wollstonecraft as the starting point for exploring the strange and fascinating, intertwining lives of the Shelleys, Wollstonecrafts, and Godwins.

From the review: “According to Hogg (and also quoted by Todd), Shelley was ‘altogether incapable of rendering an account of any transaction whatsoever, according to the strict and precise truth, and the bare naked realities of actual life’. It is to Todd’s great credit that the reverse is true for her – what could have become sensationalised or hand-wringing is, in fact, told with a caring honesty. Death and the Maidens does not fall into the other trap, which much literary biography does, of dryness and dullness – though the research is doubtless impeccable, Todd does not write this work in an overly-scholarly manner.”

2.) In the Springtime of the Year (1974) by Susan Hill

In short: A young woman comes to terms with the sudden death of her husband.

From the review: “Some of my favourite writers are those who can weave an involving narrative without huge set pieces or plot turns. The biggest event having happened in the first few pages, this novel is more a study of grief than a rollercoaster of events. From the immediate aftermath; the funeral; Ruth’s difficult relations with Ben’s family; closer kinship with Ben’s younger brother; dealing with Ben’s possessions; moving onwards to the future without him – each stage is subtly and intimately shown – never too much introspection, and always writing of so high a standard that it doesn’t feel like cliché.”

3.) Let Not The Waves of the Sea (2011) by Simon Stephenson

In short: Easily the most moving book on this list.  Stephenson’s brother was killed in the new year tsunami, and this beautiful book traces past and future – a biography, autobiography, travelogue, and even a philosophy.

From the review: “It is often said that first-time authors put everything into their book – with novels, this is meant is a criticism.  Every idea is thrown in, to the detriment of the structure and unity required of fiction.  With non-fiction, with Let Not The Waves of the Sea, putting everything in is what makes Stephenson’s book so special. […] This book is as full and varied and complex as the life it commemorates, and I consider it a privilege to have been able to read it.”

4.) The Driver’s Seat (1970) by Muriel Spark

In short: My third Spark, and the one which made me love her – we learn early on that eccentric tourist Lise has been killed, and this short novel traces the curious events leading up to her death.

From the review: “The novel [is] some sort of waiting game, the reader never being quite sure where they stand. Spark’s prose is deliberately – and deliciously – disorientating. We move in and out of Lise’s thoughts, never quite grasping hold of her perspective, nor yet letting it slip entirely out of reach.”

5.) Murder at the Vicarage (1930) by Agatha Christie

In short: You know the score with Agatha Christie… it’s interesting how death has become emotionless for the reader in murder mysteries, isn’t it?  All the usual red herrings and impossibilities in typical Christie fare.

From the review: “What I wasn’t expecting, what I had somehow either forgotten or never noticed, was how funny Christie is. The problems the vicar and his wife have with their servant are written so amusingly, I laughed out loud a few times. She also has the drifting ‘oh gosh how we simply shrieked’ type down pat too.”

This is probably the vastest topic yet in Five From the Archive, but which great books (fiction or non-fiction) would you recommend under the theme of death?   Over to you!  Hope you’re enjoying this series – I’m really loving a trawl back through the archives – and it’s fun to be thinking up sketches again.

In Defence of Jean-Benoit (by Anne aka Our Vicar’s Wife)

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As promised yesterday, my Mum (aka Anne aka Our Vicar’s Wife) has written a response to my review of Frenchman’s Creek by Daphne du Maurier… over to you, Mum!  (Plenty of spoilers ahead…)

Of course, Simon has it all wrong!  This book is not about infidelity and selfishness, or greed and violence – it is about the human condition, the cages which surround us, a bid to escape into an unchained world and the difficult moral choices which drag the protagonists back into the world they hoped to escape (with acceptance of their lot).

Dona was born into the nobility in the Restoration world with its dissolute Royal Court, its nation newly released from the constraints of the Puritan Commonwealth and the privileged few with time and money on their hands.  As a gently born woman her prospects were good – but her choices were few.  She married Harry St Columb because he ‘was amusing’ and she ‘liked his eyes’.  She was 23 – an age when it was high time she settled down.  Married life had begun as a series of journeys, travelling from house to house, merry-making with Harry’s friends – a ‘fast set’.  Soon pregnant, Dona had been forced into acting a part – in ‘an atmosphere strained and artificial’ in which Harry treated her with ‘a hearty boisterousness, a forced jollity, a making of noise in an endeavour to cheer her up, and on top of it all great lavish caresses that helped her not at all.’

Simon defends Harry – and it is true that he loved Dona – but his attentions to her are mirrored in his fawning dogs.  He is clumsy and crass and clearly not her intellectual equal – possibly a common enough figure in the English shires of the time, but his desire to be part of the ‘in crowd’ draws him to London, where his heavy drinking make him even more doltish and unacceptable as a husband.  It is there that Dona begins to look around her for distraction.

London at that time was filthy, loud, stinking and claustrophobic.  The Court encouraged licentiousness and their ‘set’ – or at least the men in it – entered into every new escapade without conscience or moderation.  As long as Harry had his pleasures he joined in with the rest, but he was not the equal of Rockingham – a dangerous man, who formed part of the group.  Dona, desperately locked into an unfulfilling marriage became increasingly reckless, encouraged by the predatory Rockingham and failing to see him as the dangerous man he was.  The court revelled in extreme behaviour, but Dona excelled and shocked even the most cynical amongst them – in being wild and outrageous, she knew herself to be alive.  But, eventually she took part in one escapade too many and the sight of the Countess, whom she and Rockingham had held up in her coach (in the guise of highwaymen) begging for her life with the words “For God’s sake spare me, I am very old, and very tired” brought Dona to her senses : ‘Dona, swept in an instant by a wave of shame and degradation, had handed back the purse, and turned her horse’s head, and ridden back to town, hot with self-loathing, blinded by tears of abasement, while Rockingham pursued her with shouts and cries of “What the devil now, and what has happened?” and Harry, who had been told the adventure would be nothing but a ride to Hampton Court by moonlight, walked home to bed, not too certain of his direction, to be confronted by his wife on the doorstep dressed up in his best friend’s breeches.’

This is the turning point for Dona, who can think of nothing but escape.  She seizes her children, hastily packs her trunks and leaves for the country estate (and Simon, Harry had more than one estate – Navron, far away in Cornwall, was a neglected and forgotten part of his childhood – he didn’t rate it highly, so Dona’s arrival there was a gift to it!)  Yes, the children hate the upheaval, the frantic journey on atrocious roads, and Prue is put-upon; but in fact the life to which Dona takes them is idyllic for the children, who quickly lose their town ways and delight in the soft country air and the simple pleasures of childhood – putting on weight and gaining in strength, health and happiness.

Dona revels in the new life.  She shuns local society and lives simply – but she is aware her escape is only for a time.  Then Fate takes charge with her ‘inevitable’ meeting with the French pirate.  Led into world beyond her experience and imagining, Dona is fascinated by the enigmatic Frenchman, who challenges all her preconceptions about men.  His mysterious origins fascinate her – in his own way, he too has sought to escape from a world he can no longer tolerate.  He says:
“Once there was a man called Jean-Benoit Aubery, who had estates in Brittany, money, friends, responsibilities…. (he) became weary of Jean-Benoit Aubery, so he turned into a pirate, and built La Mouette.”

“And is it really possible to become someone else?”

“I have found it so.”  But of course this is far too simple.  This is perhaps the Frenchman’s Achilles heel – he convinces Dona that escape is possible and that he has found it – but perhaps, by sharing it with her, he will lose it himself, forever.  Perhaps he too will remember it only as a dream.

The discussion goes on to describe the difference between contentment and happiness:
“Contentment is a state of mind and body when the two work in harmony, and there is no friction….Happiness is elusive – coming perhaps once in a lifetime – approaching ecstasy.”For a few brief weeks, in the height of summer, romance blossoms between the like-minded runaways.  Their mutual attraction is animal – physical, mental, emotional and pure (or impure) romance – but it is a ‘midsummer night’s dream’ and from the dream they are forced to waken.

The pirating interlude is full of drama and danger, revealing both Dona’s and Jean-Benoit’s reckless zest for life and risk-taking.  With it comes the full expression of their love – but even as they seem to vanquish the perceived foe, their real and deadly enemies are closing in upon them.  Dona walks back into a trap.  Harry, egged on by the suspicious Rockingham, has arrived unannounced.  The last chapters of the book, with their highly charged atmosphere and dramatic denouement keep the reader turning the pages late into a sultry summer’s night.

Dona’s bid for freedom and escape cannot be like Jean-Benoit’s – she is a woman, and a mother – she can only escape for a season.  The inevitable ‘prison door’ clangs shut behind her – but the choice is one she makes for herself, eyes wide open, having tasted her one moment of true happiness.  I do not defend her actions – or those of any of the characters – but I recognise what it cost her to return to Harry and the humdrum life he offered, and I can admire the mind which invented her.

I could write of the descriptions of the countryside, the odious, pompous Godolphin and his pedestrian neighbours, the vile Rockingham, the delightful William – all is there – Daphne du Maurier excelled at painting portraits of places, people and moods.  But the main thread of the story is what appealed to me, reading it for the first time as an adolescent.   It was the perfect attempt at escape – and who, sitting their exams at the age of 16, has not thought of dropping everything and going in search of adventure?  And I would maintain that 16 is probably about the right age to read this – for the struggles which Dona and Jean-Benoit encounter are on a par with those of Romeo and Juliet – for all that they are mature adults, Dona and Jean-Benoit display a curious immaturity.  It is a ‘coming of age’ book, a rite of passage, nothing serious!

I refuse to enter into a dialogue with my son about my so called ‘pirate fixation’ (wherever did he get that from???) but I will write in support of the Frenchman – he was beautifully drawn by du Maurier as a hero with a heart, a mind and immense talent – and if he had killed, it was only in the heat of battle and in self-defence.  He, and perhaps William too, took the trouble to get to know Dona – and I sense that no-one else in her life had ever done that before.  Small wonder she loved them!

I claim this book as perfect escapist reading for anyone who needs to go on a journey away from their own particular humdrum existence – just for a little while – and paddle in the shallows of the Helford river, hopeful of catching the cry of the oyster catcher and the laughter of a long-lost summer’s afternoon.

After all, we willingly return to our true lives – glad to be part of the real and less than perfect world – in our place, loved and needed – and content.  For where there is a Dona and a French pirate, there is also a home and a hearth and toasted muffins for tea!

And I almost hesitate to say it – but here goes – it’s a girl’s book, Simon, a girl’s book!