The Yellow Wallpaper

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Two of the least successful advertising campaigns imaginable, there…

Sorry, starting in a frivolous mood. It shan’t persist, promise.
I’ve got this bug that’s going round (isn’t there always one going round?) and spent much of the day in bed – what better, thought I, than The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman? When I mentioned it the other day, there was quite a response from you guys telling me to drop everything and read it (including Angela, who writes about the book here). I’m nothing if not obedient…

Wow. I don’t know whether to call The Yellow Wallpaper a novel or a short story, probably the latter, but whatever it is: wow. What an effect, and what writing.

Sorry, I appear to be dissolving into cheerleaderdom – but sometimes a work is written so excellently that no other response is possible.

An unnamed woman is suffering from a nervous complaint (“nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression”) and sent to rest in a rented house, while her own (and her physician husband’s) is being repaired. She is given the large old nursery, at the top of the house, which has windows on all sides and is covered in patterned, yellow wallpaper. Her reaction to this wallpaper is measured and aesthetically based, at first:
‘I never saw a worse paper in my life. One of those sprawling flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin. It is dull enough to confuse the eye in following, pronounced enough to constantly irritate and provoke study, and when you follow the lame uncertain curves for a little distance they suddenly commit suicide – plunge off at outrageous angles, destory themselves in unheard of contractions. The color is repellent, almost revolting; a smouldering unclean yellow, strangely faded by the slow-turning sunlight.’

There are already hints of extremity – the suicide metaphor; the intense description of the colour. As the story continues, the heroine becomes increasingly obsessed by the wallpaper – trying to understand the pattern, and whatever may be secreted behind it.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman subtly portrays the woman’s plight through a naive and confused first person voice, and sublimation of her depression into obsession with the wallpaper. Many now think the story depicts post-natal depression (‘Such a dear baby! And yet I cannot be with him, it makes me so nervous.’) and it does so extremely sensitively. Deservedly a classic, The Yellow Wallpaper makes subtle mastery seem easy – but was almost certainly far from it.

It’s great to have this story in one of those beautiful Virago Modern Classics editions, but sadly it comes with an appalling afterword by Elaine R. Hedges. Hedges takes what is a poignant and deep example of sensitive feminist writing, and tries to turn it into the most militant variety. The sort which throws around terms like “marriage institution” and claims that no woman has ever voluntarily entered marriage, and all men seek to control and destroy women. She crushes all the beauty of Perkins Gilman’s story, and I found the whole Afterword belittled post-natal depression and insulted those who suffer from it, as though it were not significant enough an issue to which to devote a narrative. Tsk.

But – to end on a positive note – what a story. Thank you for pushing it to the top of tbr pile, folks.

What day is it, again?

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Got something rather fun in my inbox today… took me a while to… well, you’ll see:

Dear Mr Thomas,

My name is Alexander Garner, and I am the chief submissions editor for
Woo Hoo Magazine. A recent survey of our readers indicated that, and I
quote, “they only read it for the articles”, and as we always listen
carefully to our consumers we are always on the lookout for new and
exciting writing talent. To this end, I was gratified to recently find your
blog, “Stuck in a Book”. Literary material is always of interest to our
distinguished customers, and I am therefore writing to ask whether you
would be interested in syndicating your blog in the pages of our
publication.

I appreciate that Woo Hoo may not be quite the target market that you
had considered when you began writing, but rest assured that it is
entirely possible for work such as yours to sit comfortably alongside all of
the other articles currently published by our magazine (these include
the famous “Aunty Morticia’s Lingerie Advice” and “Cor What A Scorcher”
columns). Of course, we would require some minor editing to your
material.

This editing would consist of purely cosmetic changes, with perhaps
some slight alterations in tone. For example, I note that your blog is
currently very light on swearing. I fully appreciate that you may be
uncomfortable with too much swearing, but the odd burst of profanity tends
to reassure our customers. Similarly, your tendency not to include any
car chases or explosions in your work detracts from the overall ethos of
our publication, and we would, of course, insist on such elements
being introduced.

Although the sketches that periodically appear on your blog are well
executed, I fear that their content may be slightly too highbrow for some
of our readers. We would prefer it, therefore, if you could have your
sketch characters make more use of words like “boobs” and “busty”, and
include fewer literary allusions, as most of these are likely to simply
confuse our readers. Likewise, if the photography that appears could
be replaced with pictures of cars, fighter jets and football players, we
would be considerably happier.

Lastly, as most of our customers have yet to read a book that they
could not roll up and use to swat a fly, I would be more comfortable about
syndicating your work if it contained fewer references to books
entirely. Perhaps replacing this element of your content with references to
the latest bands, TV shows (I hear that Skins produces particularly good
material) and Die Hard movies would increase your work’s appeal.

I am sure that you will jump at the chance to see your name in print in
our distinguished publication, and as such I look forward eagerly to
hearing from you.

Yours sincerely,

Alexander Garner

Chief submissions editor, Woo Hoo Magazine

I tracked down which ‘friend’ was ‘Alex’… you can track him down here….

Blogging the Classics…

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…is the title of the Oxford Literary Festival talk I’ve just attended, at which friend of SiaB, Lynne Hatwell (aka dovegreyreader) spoke. That wasn’t a very good sentence, was it, and doubtless it would be frowned upon by Serious Critics and Professional Academics.

Oops. Mustn’t get this off on the wrong foot – these terms are still whirling around my mind – as the talk was about literary critics vs. bloggers. I’ve already trotted out my thoughts on this topic here, and they are nice, gentle thoughts. I’d just like to get rid of the ‘vs.’ and recognise that the two things are very different kettles of fish.

Luckily Lynne, alongside fellow blogger Mark Thwaite and critics John Carey and John Mullan, had wiser and more profound words to say. The discussion was fun, didn’t descend into fisticuffs, and left me feeling very proud of ‘our’ Lynne (and also feeling rather lowbrow, as both Mullan’s criticism and Thwaite’s blog sounded like they’d go rather over my head – but a blog for everything and everything in its blog, as they may or may not say). Lynne definitely stole the show – as my friend Mary (also the kind person who drove me home) said, until Lynne said her bit, the word ‘reader’ had been mentioned once. And, whatever the arguments are in theory, it is the reader for whom Lynne writes – and she also makes a witty, friendly and generally brilliant Event Speaker. I look forward to our lunch tomorrow. And maybe, if I heap all this praise on her, she’ll consider me for the list of blogs she links to!… nothing without a price, me ;-)

But she was wonderful. And I wanted to share a little anecdote about the nice lady who sat next to me, and whom I hope has found her way here. We got chatting before the event started, and she (foolishly I didn’t either ask her name or forward mine…) hadn’t come across many blogs, though was eager for pointers. At the end we turned to each other, to say how good it was – and she was so excited about blogging, it was lovely. “I can’t wait to get to my computer – it feels like there’s a whole new world out there!” Well, I hope you’ve made it here, so I can introduce myself properly. I’m Simon, very nice to meet you! That, to sum things up in a hazy but happy manner, is what blogging is all about.

Shorter Than Fiction

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It’s always difficult to review collections of short stories, or even consider them in one’s mind effectively. Should they be treated as ten or twenty separate works, or as one work? Sometimes there is an obvious linking style – as with Katherine Mansfield, say – which makes every narrative unmistakably by the same author, even if you can’t put your finger on the reason why. Other writers, like Clare Wigfall (whose The Loudest Sound and Nothing I talked about last August) have a huge variety and range in their style. I don’t think either approach is intrinsically superior, but the former is lot easier to make generalisations about!

Two short story writers have sent me their debut collections recently, both of whom are rather prolific and much-published in various publications. Balancing on the Edge of the World by Elizabeth Baines, and Words from a Glass Bubble by Vanessa Gebbie. I think the best way to chat about these books is to pick the story from each which I most enjoyed, and which is fairly representative, and use that as a starting point.

The blurb to Baines’ Balancing on the Edge of the Worlds says the stories are all about power – the keeping, losing, grasping or relinquishing of it. That’s probably as unifying a theme as any, but it’s probably easier to suggest a unifying style. Baines’ writing has a soothing softness to it, but somehow each story feels haunted and uneasy, until a turn (nothing so histrionic as a ‘twist’, if you can see the difference) justifies this foreboding. But even with uneasiness, and occasional tragedy, that softness remains.

The story I wanted to pick out is ‘Compass and Torch’ – in the third person, an uncertain boy on a trip with his Dad, whom he doesn’t often see. ‘The boy is intent. Watching Dad. Watching what Dad is. Drinking it in: the essence of Dad.’ The awkwardness of their relationship – with its latent closeness, and surface of discomfort – is portrayed so exactly. We see it first in relation to the torch, of which the boy is so anxiously proud:

The boy is chattering: ‘Have you brought one too, have you brought a torch?’ ‘Oh, yes!’ Is this a problem? the boy suddenly wonders. Does this make one of the torches redundant? For a brief moment he is uncertain, potentially dismayed, a mood which the man, for all his distraction, catches. ‘We can use both of them, can’t we, Dad?’ ‘Oh yes! Yes, of couse!’ Then a swoop of delight: ‘We can light up more with both, can’t we?’ ‘Oh yes, certainly!’ The man too is gratefully caught on a wave of triumph. ‘Oh, yes, two are definitely better! Back-up, for a start.’
I shouldn’t dream of telling you the end of this story, except that it is done calmly in a couple of sentences, and won’t leave your mind for some time. Baines’ stories are executed with a subtle smoothness, and a precise portrayal of human relationships – both the surface of them, and what goes on underneath. A great debut.

Words from a Glass Bubble by Vanessa Gebbie has an equally varied group of scenarios, narrators and themes – but her voice is rather harsher, more concerned with the gritty and the earthy. Occasionally a quieter voice creeps through, which leaves one staring at the page at the sheer pathos Gebbie can create. ‘The Kettle on the Boat’, for instance, where parents quietly take their Inuit daughter away on a boat; she narrates the journey, and leave her for adoption: “If I am not there to help, how will Mama know when the fish are ready?”

The one I wanted to point to, though, is ‘Cactus Man’. ‘The Kettle on the Boat’ was my favourite, but ‘Cactus Man’ is perhaps more representative. ‘Spike’, an enthusiast and collector of cacti , wants to discover his real name because he is getting married. He visits a social worker who can look through his files and tell him.

‘I was saying how unusual your case is.’ ‘Can’t be doing with too much usual.’ ‘Sorry?’ ‘We feed off being unusual, us lot.’ ‘Oh, I see’.

The story is one of muted disappointment, understated grief and an eventual path of hope for Spike. Gebbie is at her most subtle here, and manages to evoke the lives of her central characters completely, visualised through the stilted attempts of Spike to gain a firmer grasp on his identity. There is nothing so saccharine as a ‘love conquers all’ message here (however true that may be) but a sense that hope can be found amongst fragility and discouragement.

Both collections are published by Salt Publishing.

The Bestowing Sun

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Sometimes something rather special comes along. Granted, it didn’t start very well – but from the second word onwards, The Bestowing Sun is something worth talking about.

Let me be clearer. I asked Flame Books (see the sketch…) to send me a review copy of Neil Grimmett’s novel The Bestowing Sun for two reasons – firstly, the cover; secondly, it is set in rural Somerset. As someone who calls rural Somerset home, I was intrigued to see how it would appear in fiction. And the first word of this novel is “Mommy.” Nobody in Somerset has ever, does ever or will ever use that word. Tsk.

But the other few thousand words are great. The novel focuses upon two brothers, William and Richard, who grow up together in a farming family, with parents Herbie and Madeline. From the outset, from the earliest age, William is obsessed with his art, with the creation of art and the presentation of humans as their nature truly is, in paintings. Richard is his stocky, sensible brother who can’t understand this perspective, how it absorbs and controls William. Towards the beginning, William unveils a painting his parents commissioned him to create, of the family posed around the kitchen table:

‘Richard had grunted and struggled to his feet the moment the cloth uncovered the canvas, Madeline gave a small cry and clasped her hand over her face. Herbie took the painting without a word or a look at William and carried it off. William has not been able to find it since though, as now, he was haunted by it.’

Without describing the painting, or telling us what the family saw in their portraits, Grimmett shows the striking effects of William’s works, and the discords they spark in his relatives.

What follows is akin to a retelling of The Prodigal Son (would I be wrong in thinking the title a pun?) – one of the most beautiful parables in the Bible for demonstrating God’s love and grace, and one Our Vicar always calls The Forgiving Father rather than The Prodigal Son. In The Bestowing Sun it is a lengthy absence on William’s part – to a crumbling marriage, alcoholism and self-destruction (all of which we see very early in the novel). I wasn’t fond of the harshness and coarseness of the language in this section, until I realised what Grimmett was doing. As William makes his way back to the farm of his childhood, initially as an address for bail, we feel not only his longing for home. The reader (at least, this reader) longs alongside him for the softer, more beautiful language – the gentle characterisation that so exactly depicts fraternal rivalry and buried attachment; parental pride and hurt; the tarnished bewitching qualities of Selina – a girl both brothers loved and neither can forget.

In some ways, the path of the plot is not unpredictable, but that is scarcely the point. The final chapter of this novel is so beautiful, a touching harmony of art, family and prodigality – though with none of the soppiness of that sentence, I must add. Grimmett’s great achievement is writing a beautiful novel which is never pretentious and certainly never lachrymose. Quite the reverse. These are plain-talking rural folk, after all. I think the combination of artistry and rurality is best demonstrated in this realisation from Richard: ‘But how. he suddenly thought, does one fool an artist’s eye? It would be a bit like someone showing him a sick or weakly calf and expecting him to carry it back from the market.’

Buyings…

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After my Lentern non-book buying, I am easing myself in gently. Well, I’m waiting for payday tomorrow before I go crazy. My Amazon basket is already filled to the brim… but one of the things I love most about book buying is the unexpected; wandering into a charity shop and seeing what it has. This probably leads to buying all sorts of books I don’t technically *need*, but it also occasions surprises, and fun reading is a lot about serendipity.

The three books I bought from Oxfam a couple of days ago are in the photo above:

The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman – I think I might already have this, but I wasn’t sure, and I certainly haven’t read it. A slim work about illness and insanity and domesticity – perhaps I should dig out Woolf’s On Being Ill and read them alongside each other?

The Leavises on Fiction by P. J. M. Robertson – old FR and QD are important figures for my potential masters thesis, if only as people to set oneself against – this book looks both interesting and useful, a combination to assuage any guilt.

The Vicar of Wakefield and She Stoops to Conquer – Oliver Goldsmith – I’ve read both but own neither; have been looking out for a nice copy of TVOW since I read it a year or so ago, as it is hilarious and thought-provoking. This rather battered old copy is the sort of edition I like.

Next into my virtual shopping basket must be these gems from The Book People:
A series of20 disparate classics, under the title ‘Great Loves’ – only £15. How could I not? Follow the link to see which works are included – some (well, one) I’ve read, lots I’d like to read, and a few names I’ve not seen before. A nice little project.

Odd One Out

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Normally a narrative about a quiet girl, alternatively ignored and put upon by all whom she loves, killing herself alone in a pub and having her suicide note tampered with – these would the ingredients of fiction. Not in Janet Todd’s Death and the Maidens, a book I was sent for review a shamefully long time ago. This biography of the Shelley/Wollstonecraft circle focalises the dysfunctional bunch around the figure of the least well-known: Fanny Wollstonecraft. Daughter of one famous Mary, sister to another, sister-in-law to Percy Shelley and observer of a whole crowd of renowned figures, Fanny’s life and death remain much less documented. Todd redresses this, but uses Fanny’s life as a viewpoint rather than the be and end all of this deeply researched but eminently approachable book.

Todd opens the book with this suicide (so I’m not giving anything away), and there is a constant understated thread throughout, as the reader tries to understand what could lead a girl in her early 20s to commit this act.

She was born to Gilbert Imlay and Mary Wollstonecraft, famous authoress of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (which I have started reading in a tatty Dover Thrift Edition) amongst other things, and soon step-daughter to William Godwin, whose Political Justice was busy inspiring a generation of young idealists, including one Percy Bysshe Shelley. Though Shelley never swayed from his ‘ideal’, the rest of the world did –

‘In Political Justice [Godwin] had declared the love of fame a delusion; yet he was finding it difficult to adapt to his changed public position, no longer London’s pre-eminent intellectual but simply a cultural anachronism, his great work, which had seared the minds of so many in the radical 1790s, now largely unread and his frank Memoirs a byword for indelicacy.’

It was in these Memoirs that anyone who wasn’t already aware could discover news of Fanny’s illegitimacy. No secrecy there. She grew up with an unfriendly stepmother, Mary having died in childbirth to another Mary, and the pity, scorn or envy of a public which couldn’t imagine itself in her position. Fanny certainly shared some of her parents’ views, often with fervour, but was never allowed to be in the position to exercise them. Much of her life is summarised when Todd writes: ‘Fanny’s quotidian life might be dismal but the imaginative life fed by poetic visions could be rich indeed’

These poetic visions came partly in the form of Shelley, who initially wished to meet Godwin, and Wollstonecraft’s progeny, but ended up in an abscondment with Fanny’s two sisters, Mary and Claire. Not, one notes, Fanny – who was often a go-between, ferrying messages or bearing disapproval, but never a true confidante. Todd speculates as to whether or not Fanny loved Shelley – something perhaps even she didn’t know, but characteristic of a book which doesn’t sweep away human emotions simply because they are inexact.

Shelley wrote to Fanny at one point that, ‘despite being “one of those formidable & long clawed animals called a Man”, he was inoffensive and lived on vegetables.‘ You and me both, Percy – but the self-portraits he painted were often delusional. He claimed in Defence of Poetry, as Todd cites, that the Poet “is more delicately organized than other men, and sensible to pain and pleasure, both his own and that of others, in a degree unknown to them.” What price self-knowledge! Shelley, at least the Shelley we see in Death and the Maidens, was not sensible in any sense of the word – forever acting in his own interests (thinly disguised as being his ideals) he left one wife while pregnant, had numerous affairs, continually tried to lure his sisters and other young girls from those who loved them, and bewailed his own situation whenever it stepped lower than blissful. The most discordant aspect of his character is that he continued to pay Godwin money – for no other apparent reason than appreciation of his talent – long after Godwin refused to give audience to Shelley.

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. By that I mean it is perfectly permissable to start sentences “Fanny must have felt…” or “Perhaps she would have…” – in a determinedly highbrow work, these might have been axed. As it is, Death and the Maidens is informal enough that, while intelligent research is never compromised, it is a much more approachable work than many on the period.

Wherever Fanny went and whatever she did, the dual curses of being notorious in public and ignored in private plagued her – she was continually thrust into the background of the limelight, as it were, an unhappy compromise. Had she been raised in a normal, average family, she had the temperament to live a long and fairly insignificant life. She was intelligent without being a genius; emotional without being unstably passionate. Janet Todd produces a fascinating work which shows both the tragedy and beauty of Fanny’s short life, and offers a strikingly unique angle on some of the period’s most prominent figures.

Monkey Business

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A week or so ago, in the middle of Hesperus Week (an annual custom which may become a yearly tradition, to paraphrase The Simpsons) we chatted a bit about a new publishing venture – Capuchin Classics. Very exciting – it’s even occasioned the return of Stuck-in-a-Book’s sketches, which I hope to keep up. Emma Howard, the ‘chatelaine’ of Capuchin, very kindly agreed to answer a few questions and tell us a bit both about the books, and herself. I did ask the questions about what you should be asking, but Emma writes with such a beautiful flow that you’ll just get the answers, and trust me when I say that they match the invisible questions! And you’ll have to also imagine me squealing “hurray!” when you read about AA Milne… I’m almost as excited as if my own (hypothetical) novel were being published.

Capuchin Classics is a new imprint which aims to offer the book-lover a range of reprints of outstanding works which have undeservedly been forgotten or are not easily available in the British market, alongside a choice of literary favourites which are themselves in the classic genre. Its driving principle is to bring back works of real quality which are in danger of disappearing, in the first instance fiction, leavened with some high profile and high quality classics which will boost the series in bookshops big and small. We hope that the Capuchin list will offer discerning readers a kind of instant library, its quality in a wide variety of titles.

We are looking for books of real quality across a wide range of titles and authors – those books which, in our opinion, should still be available to readers and not subject to the whim of fashion. Pure and simple, if it’s not good enough we won’t publish it.

The first four titles were chosen to give a balanced foretaste of the list to come – i.e. a “classic” (Plain Tales), stories by one of our favourite writers (de Maupassant) and two oustanding novels which were inexplicably not in print – The Green Hat was on our original longlist, and was also suggested by Kirsty Gunn (the foreword writer and an outstanding fiction writer herself) and An Error of Judgement was suggested to me by a friend – when I read it I was completely bowled over, and it just so happened to be one of the first titles for which we reached an agreement – plus Hansford Johnson is most certainly a writer who should be available.

My own background is in fiction publishing – I was at Faber and Faber for 12 years until I left to have children. For some time, like many of us concerned with really good books, I have been all too aware of the caprice by which one book or author survives for a year or a decade or a generation longer than another of just as fine a creative gift or depth of thought. When Tom Stacey and his colleagues Max Scott and Christopher Ind, with their existing publishing structure and wide experience, shared these same thoughts with me Capuchin Classics was conceived. It loosely takes its name from the Capuchin monkey, supposedly the most intelligent primate after man, and all its assocations with Capuchin monks and capuccinos!

We all agreed that we wanted the books to look simple and elegant (not like every other book on the “3 for the price of 2” tables!), and have been tremendously blessed with the wonderful visual eyes of our illustrator Angela Landels. The mint colour was chosen simply because we all liked it, and the print for its clarity.

Capuchin already has fiction scheduled to 2010, which will include GK Chesterton’s The Napoleon of Notting Hill, John Galsworthy’s The Dark Flower, Elizabeth Goudge’s Green Dolphin Country, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala’s How I Became A Holy Mother, LP Hartley’s The Hireling, Eric Linklater’s Juan in America, a new selection of HE Bates’ stories, Hugh Walpole’s Mister Perrin and Mister Traill, Michael Bracewell’s The Conclave, Norman Douglas’s South Wind, AA Milne’s Two People and You Shall Know Them by Vercors, amongst others (for a fuller list do visit our website.) I note that on your blog you mention some of the same authors, and do hope you will encourage your readers to give us any of their own ideas – we hope that the Capuchin enterprise will be an ongoing dialogue of likeminded souls.

And now to me! I always find it impossible to choose a favourite book or author, but I have to say that, like you, Tove Jansson’s The Summer Book is high up on my list. I’m a huge fan of William Trevor (the last “non-work” book I read was Felicia’s Journey) and count Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides and A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry among my more modern favourites. At the moment I’m reading The World My Wilderness by Rose Macaulay, another writer we hope to be publishing in the future.

Now, to sell Capuchin to a stranger in 5 words! I think the most appropriate phrase would have to be our shout line, Books to Keep Alive.

Ending with one word to spare(!) Thank you so much, Emma – and everyone else, get thinking about potential Capuchin titles – and get buying!

Marmots and snorkelling

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I’ve mentioned my friend Mel’s website before, The Pygmy Giant, which is flash fiction – i.e. using few words to big effect. She’s set up a competition which you might like to join in – a story short competition. With only a few restrictions…

No more than 250 words.

Must include these words:
marmot
trouble
snorkelling
understated
shiny
throttle

Eek. I’ve done mine now (had to hack down from 340 words to 250… tricky) and emailed it in. If you fancy having a go, scribble something down and email it in to thepygmygiant@gmail.com – there is even a potential prize of/worth five English pounds. Goodness gracious. One week to enter. All good fun. Might even let you see mine later, or perhaps we’ll have a group Show And Tell.

L’arbretrary

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Back to books, and back to Barbara Comyns – she appears in the 50 Books with her excellent, surreal novel Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead, and I previously read an autobiographical novel Our Spoons Came From Woolworths, which is told through the childlike voice of a naive young wife and mother – and I couldn’t resist The Juniper Tree when I discovered that it was adapted from a tale from the Brothers Grimm. One of my pet interests is myths turned into domestic literature i.e. the fantastic transferred to the everyday, contained so that it plays out through human emotions rather than the mystical or extreme.

I didn’t know ‘The Juniper Tree’ (by Brothers Grimm) before I read The Juniper Tree (by Barbara Comyns… this is going to get confusing…) and I think it’s best to approach it that way. Reading about the Grimm’s tale on Wikipedia afterwards, I was stunned by how Comyns managed to work the tale into the novel, weaving aspects in subtly and artistically. I could appreciate this in retrospect, but if I’d known the tale beforehand then the plot would have held no secrets. Whether or not you know it, I urge you to seek out The Juniper Tree.

Bella, estranged from her mother and with illegitimate young daughter Tommy in tow (yes, daughter), takes up work in an antique store in Twickenham. In the first paragraph, she encounters a mysterious woman:

‘I noticed a beautiful fair woman standing in the courtyard outside her house like a statue, standing there so still. As I drew nearer I saw that her hands were moving. She was paring an apple out there in the snow and as I passed, looking at her out of the sides of my eyes, the knife slipped, and suddenly there was blood on the snow. She turned and went into her house before I could offer to help.’

As the blurb writes, the first glimpse of Gertrude Forbes is at once fairytale and sinister. Gertrude and her husband, Bernard, befriend Bella – she becomes a regular visitor at their large house, complete with extensive garden and juniper tree. The Forbes’ long for a child; Bella longs for friends and love; Tommy longs for a family. Longings collide and events grow gracefully macabre.

Having read three novels by Comyns, I am astonished that they all come from the same pen – they are so different. The Juniper Tree doesn’t have the vulnerability of Our Spoons Came From Woolworths, or the surreal humour or Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead; in their place is a haunting domesticity – everything calm on the surface, but an awareness throughout that the relationships between each character simmer with potential change and tragedy. The majority of the novel can be read as a simple domestic tale, until a twist which cannot be ignored towards the end, but the whole work is fraught with an intermingling of the fairytale and the sinister. The Brothers Grimm tale, read either beforehand or subsequently, brings out even more layers in The Juniper Tree. I don’t think there is any other novelist I’ve come across who writes so subtly the disturbing and the domestic, or whose oeuvre is so brilliantly varied. If that is not too bold a statement to make on the basis of three novels.