1930s

Persephone Week 1: Princes in the Land

StuckinaBook All , , , 10 Comments

Right – Day One of the Persephone Week is finished, and so far I’m on track. I’ve read one book: Princes in the Land (1938) by Joanna Cannan. I think I’m supposed to link back to a central page, but I wasn’t sure which, so instead I’ll link back to two Persephone-related quizzes (with prizes!) on Claire’s and Verity’s respective blogs.

Since I’m hoping to read about six books this week, which requires a lot of reading, the reviews of them will be quite short. Hopefully enough for you to decide whether or not you want to investigate further the Persephone Books I’m reviewing…


I’ve been looking forward to reading Princes in the Land for quite a while, not least because it is often compared to one of my favourite Persephone Books, Elizabeth Cambridge’s Hostages to Fortune. Both are set in Oxfordshire; both concern the role of a mother, realising that her children and husband are not exactly what she expected. But where Cambridge’s heroine is pragmatic, wise, and selfless, Cannan’s is rather different. Having read Danielle’s recent review, and the blurb on the Persephone website, I wonder whether others have had different responses to the book… my views will become clear.

The novel opens with Patricia and Angela travelling with their mother, to live with the grandfather in their ancestral mansion. Patricia is travel-sick and miserable – no glamorous introduction to a ‘angular, freckled’ girl; a disappointment to their mother. Their mother ‘had been brought up to ring bells and now had no bells to ring’ (an example of Cannan’s concise, accurate summations of character) – as a poor relative, she must return to her father-in-law’s house, after the death of her husband. We speed through Patricia’s childhood here, and enter stage left a husband: Hugh. They meet in a train carriage, and have soon (after one or two incidents of note) married and set up house.

And the bulk of the novel follows this nuclear family of Patricia and Hugh, and their three children – August, Giles, and Nicola. For the most part, it chronicles Patricia’s illusions about them; the way her children form characters which are anathema to her. They don’t become murderers or drunks, but in her eyes a rejection of horses, an embracing of evangelical Christianity, a lower-middle-class villa, are all akin to her children beating orphans to death. It was here that Princes in the Land differed from Hostages to Fortune – where Catherine selflessly allows her children to follow their own paths, and sees them as acceptable, Patricia views any lifestyle other than her own ideal as dreadful. She has made sacrifices to her marriage, and initially seems an admirable character through and through – but by the end she appears increasingly selfish and unkind. This is mostly exemplified through her dissatisfaction with daughter-in-law Gwen. Her crimes are of the variety of saying ‘Pardon?’; using doilies; wanting to call her daughter Daphne. Patricia says at one point, without any evidence of irony, ‘Goodness knows I’m not snobbish.’ Does Cannan, somehow, agree with her? Can she be that blind? Patricia makes Nancy Mitford seem positively egalitarian. And, unlike Nancy Mitford, this horsey-huntin’-say-glass-not-mirror persona is presented without a shred of self-aware humour.

Which is odd, because Cannan writes quite wittily at times. For example, in describing Angela’s husband Victor – he is:

‘a pink young man with china-blue eyes and hair as golden as Angela’s, who could and did express all life was to him and all his reactions to it in the two simple sentences, “Hellish, eh?” and “Ripping, what?”‘
I suppose, in the end, I didn’t know where I stood with Princes in the Land. I don’t believe in judging a novel by the likeability of its characters, and Cannan can certainly write engagingly, sometimes amusingly, and in a domestic vein so familiar and welcome to Persephone fans. But I cannot sympathise with the character – her themes of a mother’s sacrifice, watching children grow, are ones I usually love, but the stance we seem encouraged to agree with is so prejudiced and, dare I add, proud. Though this only becomes concrete towards the end of the novel – before this, Cannan does show the family’s interlocking relationships from various, more generous angles… as I say, I’m not sure where I stand with the novel. It is certainly well written, and I’m glad I’ve read it, but… my overriding response is a desire to re-read Hostages to Fortune.

To Hear Ourselves…

StuckinaBook All , 3 Comments

I’m off to the cinema tonight to see The Time Travel[l]er’s Wife, the novel by Audrey Niffenegger which I wrote about in a scattergun fashion last October. Since I’m otherwise engaged, I’ll save an in-depth book review for another night, and instead introduce you to one of my favourite books, EM Delafield’s As Others Hear Us.

A common experience for those who’ve loved The Diary of a Provincial Lady but have exhausted the four wonderful volumes of that series, is to read some of her works, and realise how different they are from Provincial Lady land. Consequences (published by Persephone Books), The Way Things Are and Thank Heaven Fasting (Virago Modern Classics) and the most easily available. All great books; none remotely like the Provincial Lady. Her witty, light, self-deprecating take on life is shifted for social issues, real torment, and a rather sombre tone. In my experience of EM Delafield’s works (and I’ve read, ooo let me see, eighteen of her books) only two have the same light, amusing feel of DoPL: and As Others Hear Us and General Impressions. I’m struggling to engage with a few books, as I mentioned, so I turned to the old reliable: As Others Hear Us.

The title plays on the old saw, from a Burns poem, ‘O would some power the giftie gie us / To see ourselves as others see us.’ It was a quotation of which EMD was fond, since she also named a play To See Ourselves (the play from which her novel The Way Things Are was more or less adapted.) EMD transfers this ‘see’ into ‘hear’, and thus plays with dialogue. There are four sections to this book, involving longer-running characters etc., but the bulk of it are these little scenes. They are entirely dialogue, little excerpts from people’s lives. They show what a brilliant way EMD has at exposing the nuances of people’s characters and relationships, all through their own words. Difficult to describe, so I’ve included a couple in their entirety, which I typed up years ago for a wonderful EMD site. I think you’ll either read them and be baffled at why I find them hilarious – or, like me, you’ll be desperate to read more.

Before I share them, I must be honest and say… As Others Hear Us is ruinously expensive. I didn’t pay much for it five years ago, but a quick check on the usual secondhand book sites suggests that you’ll be lucky to find an affordable copy – this is more a title to track down in your library or their inter-library loan facility. On the plus side, General Impressions is fairly affordable, and is a similar thing. The scenes in that one aren’t entirely dialogue, if I recall, but they are still incredibly funny. Do go and find either book. I’d love to see them reprinted, but I suppose this sketch-orientated kind of book isn’t very fashionable anymore… who knows, maybe the tide will turn. Here goes – ‘The Reconciliation’, and ‘At the Writing-Table’.

The Reconciliation

‘I came around because I really think the whole thing is too absurd.’ ‘So do I. I always did.’ ‘You can’t have half as much as I did. I mean really, when one comes to think of it. After all these years.’ ‘Oh, I know. And I dare say if you hadn’t, I should have myself. I’m sure the last thing I want is to go on like this. Because really, it’s too absurd.’ ‘That’s what I think. It is all right, then?’ ‘Absolutely, as far as I’m concerned. What I mean is, I never have believed in keeping things up. I’m not that kind of person.’ ‘Neither am I, for that matter.’ ‘Oh no, dear, I know. But I must say, you took the whole thing up exactly in the way I didn’t mean it, in a way. Not that it matters now.’ ‘Well, it’s all over now, but, to be absolutely honest, I must say I can’t quite see how anybody could possibly have taken it any other way. Not really, I mean.’ ‘Well, you said that I said every one said you were spoiling the child, and of course, what I really said wasn’t that at all.’ ‘Well, dear, you say that now, I know, but what you said at the time was exactly what I said you said. Or so it seemed to me.’ ‘Well, there’s not much object in going over the whole thing all over again now it’s over, is there? But if you’d come straight to me at the time, I must say I think it would all have been simpler. It doesn’t matter, of course, now it’s all over and done with, but I just think it would have been simpler, that’s all.’ ‘Still, dear, it’s perfectly simple as it is, isn’t it? If you think I spoil the child, you’re quite entitled to your own opinion, naturally. All I said was, that it seemed a pity to tell everybody that everybody thought so, when really it was just simply what you thought. And I must say, I can’t help being rather amused, but we all know that lookers-on see most of the game – it just amuses me, that’s all.’ ‘Very well, dear, if you choose to be offended you must be offended, that’s all. As I said at the time, and still say, no one is fonder of children than I am, but to let any child go to rack and ruin for want of one single word seems to me a pity, that’s all. Just a pity.’ ‘Have it your own way, dear. I shouldn’t dream of contradicting you. Actually, it was only the other day that someone was saying how extraordinarily well brought up the child seemed to be, but I dare say that’s got nothing to do with it whatever.’ ‘Well, all I’ve got to say is that it’s a pity.’ ‘And if there’s one thing I’m not, it’s ready to take offense. I never have been, and I never shall be.’ ‘Besides, while we’re on the subject, I don’t understand about the blue wool, and never shall understand.’ ‘We’ve gone over the whole of the blue wool at least twenty times already.’ ‘I dare say, and I’m not saying anything at all. In fact, I’d rather not.’ ‘And if it comes to that, I may not have said very much about it – it’s not my way – but it would be an absolute lie if I said that I didn’t remember all that fuss about the library books.’ ‘I said at the time, and I still say, that the library books were a storm in a tea-cup.’ ‘Very well, dear. Nobody wants to quarrel less than I do.’ ‘As I always say, it takes two to make a quarrel. Besides, it’s so absurd.’ ‘That’s what I say. Why be so absurd as to quarrel, is what I say. Let bygones be bygones. The library books are over now, and that’s all about it.’ ‘It’s like the blue wool. When a thing is over, let it be over, is what I always say. I don’t want to say anything more about anything at all. The only thing I must say is that when you say I said that everybody said that about your spoiling that child, it simply isn’t what I said. That’s all. And I don’t want to say another word about it.’ ‘Well, certainly I don’t. There’s only one thing I simply can’t help saying . . .’
At the Writing-Table’Are you any good at whether a thing is EI or IE?’ ‘Not much, but I might.’ ‘Well, is it receive or recieve? I’ve written them both a hundred and forty-eight times on the blotting-paper, and they look completely wrong which ever I do.’ ‘”I after E except after C.”‘ ‘That’s muddled me worse than ever. Besides, I think you’ve got it wrong.’ ‘I dare say. Look here, the only thing to do is to leave it and not look at it and then go back with a fresh eye and you get it at once. I often do that.’ ‘Very well then, this is what I’ve said: Dear Mrs. Cartwright, I must say I was rather surprised to receive – or recieve – your letter about the sweet-stall at the Fete yesterday. As a matter of fact I was perfectly furious.’ ‘Oh, I wouldn’t put that, would you? Of course it’s quite true but isn’t it kind of undignified? Or isn’t it?’ ‘Oh, I haven’t said that. I was only saying it.’ ‘Oh, I see.’ ‘Dear Mrs. Cartwright, I must say I was rather surprised – or isn’t that strong enough?’ ‘Personally, I should put Dear Mrs. Cartwright, I was completely astonished and underline astonished. Because after all you were.’ ‘Oh, I was foaming, of course. I still am, if it comes to that.’ ‘Who wouldn’t be? And the trouble we took over those accounts!’ ‘That reminds me. What do you make six sevens come to?’ ‘Well – wait a minute. Give me a pencil and paper. I can do it if I add them.’ ‘How frightfully clever you are. I should never have thought of that.’ Seven and seven and seven and seven and seven and seven and seven.’ ‘Isn’t that one too many?’
‘I thought it was. Very well, seven and seven, and seven and seven, and seven and seven. That’s forty-two.’ ‘Good, how marvellous. I’m afraid it’s pence.’ ‘Like Alice through the Looking-Glass.’ ‘Why did she have pence? I don’t remember any.’ ‘I mean one and one and one and one and one and one and one.’ ‘Oh, the Red Queen. Yes.’ ‘I always love the kitchen picture.’ ‘I know. So do I. Well, Dear Mrs. Cartwright, I must say I was a good deal surprised, how would that do?’ ‘Isn’t that the same as before?’ ‘I said Rather before.’ ‘So you did. Personally I should put Absolutely staggered.’ ‘I easily might. What was I asking you about these sevens?’ ‘You said they were pence.’ ‘So they are, I’m afraid. How many did you say they made?’ ‘Forty-two or something.’ ‘Thirty-six would be three shillings, and six over. How very neat. Three and sixpence exactly. Isn’t it?’ ‘Wait a minute. I’ve lost the pencil. I make it three and sixpence, definitely.’ ‘I should think it’s bound to be right, if we both make it come to the same, shouldn’t you?’ ‘I should think so. Why don’t you get one of those marvellous little books that tell you how much everything comes to? People use them for wages.’ ‘I always mean to. I’ll make a note of it on the blotting-paper. There’s receive and recieve again, and they both look exactly the same as they did before. No fresh eye or anything.’ ‘How awful. I don’t suppose Mrs. Cartwright would know the difference, actually. She didn’t seem to me in the least intelligent.’ ‘Oh, she isn’t. But she just might, one never knows. I wouldn’t mind spelling it wrong, if she hadn’t behaved so badly about the sweet- stall.’ ‘I know exactly. I’ve got a frightfully good idea: what exactly have you said.’ ‘I’ve said: Dear Mrs. Cartwright, I must say I was rather surprised to receive – recieve – your letter about the sweet-stall at the Fete yesterday.’ ‘Very well, just put instead: Dear Mrs. Cartwright, I must say I was rather surprised to get your letter about the sweet-stall, and so on.’ ‘That’s marvellous! I must just re-write it, but I think it’s worth it, don’t you?’ ‘Absolutely. I do loathe writing letters.’ ‘So do I. I always think it takes such ages when one ought to be doing other things. Now, can you listen a minute? This is what I’ve put: Dear Mrs. Cartwright, I must say …’

Baking and Bill Maxwell

StuckinaBook All , 12 Comments

I’ll warn you at the beginning – this blog post does have some bookish bits, but you have to get through quite a lot on baking first. Not to be read if a) you loathe baking, or b) you’re on a diet…

A happy afternoon has been spent baking – Mel and I discovered that we had seven types of sugar in the house, and decided to put them all in some carrot cake muffins. Seven types of sugar, you ask (and the more literary-theory-obsessed amongst you may make mention of Seven Types of Ambiguity) – since I am never one to turn down a sugar-based question, I’ll list them. Caster sugar, golden caster sugar, granulated sugar, soft dark brown sugar, soft light brown sugar, muscovado sugar, icing sugar. The resultant carrot cake muffins are pretty delicious, though I says it as shouldn’t.


I use sultanas with the carrots, rather than walnuts or almonds as some recipes suggest – and added in some cinammon. Oh, and I rather distrust any icing made of cheese, so I sprinkled muscovado sugar on them about two-thirds of the way through baking, to give an extra crunchy topping when they came out. (By the way, the main sugar in them is soft light brown – the other six were added in small amounts, just for fun).

Oh, and I also made a chocolate orange sponge cake, which is very sweet and very nice. This isn’t Stuck-in-a-Baking-Tin, I know, but if anybody would like recipes, I’d be happy to include them soon…


This was all inspired by Darlene’s foray into baking, which she documented here. Do go and read the comments (which do include a very lengthy one from me, I must confess) as the blogging baking community is quite good with tips. Though like most eager bakers, there are some fairly arbitrary rules which I stick by, regardless of advice. (Does anybody know the difference in taste achieved by caster or granulated in a sponge cake? Is there any? I refuse to use granulated, but based on nothing but whim and prejudice.)

Right. And onto books… They Came Like Swallows by William Maxwell was the third title selected in the Cornflower Book Group over at Cornflower Books. Sadly, since I’m already in four other book groups, I’ve not been able to join in with this one online – but They Came Like Swallows sounded absolutely wonderful when I read this introductory post, not least because it was under 200pp long. Karen very kindly gave me a copy of it, and eventually I was able to read the novel, whilst in Devon with my brother. And it is quite, quite brilliant.

My copy is at home, so I’m going to have to rely on my memory and all these wonderful comments from the Cornflower Book Group (including some pretty big spoilers, but then the book is more about writing than plot). In fact, I’ll keep it quick, because you can just as easily follow the links above and read their more erudite thoughts(!) The novel is divided into three sections – the two sons and the husband of Elizabeth, the silent centre of the book. Bunny starts off – a very nervous, anxious child, bullied by his brother and scared of his father, who just wants to be left alone with his homemade village. His love for Elizabeth burns through his every action, as does the isolation he feels in every other relationship. But Maxwell writes very cleverly – by the time we get to the sections from the perspectives of Bunny’s brother Robert, and father James, we realise that Bunny’s perspective is skewed. Not wrong, but very subjective. Three competing viewpoints coalesce into one brilliantly delicate novel – the various relationships between family members are all laced with misunderstandings, misconstruings, misapprehensions… all so realistic and uncomfortably possible.

Maxwell (and here is the bold statement) may be the best plain stylist I’ve ever read. Writers like Woolf are better at the detailed, mosaic, entangled writing. Austen is better at the balanced sentence; Wilde better at the epigram – but Maxwell perfects that type of writing that seems style-less but must actually take endless work. It flows perfectly – depths and minutiae of emotions are included without being obtrusive. The subtlety is in these familial depictions, not in the way the story moves – which is only a vehicle for Maxwell’s greater art. They Came Like Swallows has some pretty big plot moments, but the novel is much more about the interaction of a family – and that ambiguous, absent voice of Elizabeth ringing through every page.

Persephone Book Group

StuckinaBook All , , 6 Comments

And I am now back from my first ever Persephone Book Group! I do hope it’s the first of many, because the people were lovely, the discussion was fun, and meeting Persephone fans new or old is always a delight. I *am* a little worried that my Persephone obsession was a little too forthright… will have to temper my “Oo! Oo! I know that one!” for next time…

We discussed Flush by Virginia Woolf, which I read a few years ago and re-read last week. It’s all about Elizabeth Barrett and her courtship with Robert Browning, from the perspective of their dog Flush. I think it’s a brilliant book – mostly because it so successfully presents a new angle, a new way of perceiving things. Lots on smell especially – I liked this, on Flush’s astonishment that Mr. Barrett cannot tell Mr. Browning has been there:

‘Don’t you know,’ Flush marvelled, ‘who’s been sitting in that chair? Can’t you smell him?’ For to Flush the whole room still reeked of Mr. Browning’s presence. The air dashed past the bookcase, and eddied and curled round the heads of the five pale busts. But the heavy man sat by his daughter in entire self-absorption. He noticed nothing. He suspected nothing. Aghast at his obtuseness, Flush slipped past him out of the room.’

Critics haven’t always been enamoured by the novel, perhaps because the initial concept sounds a trifle silly. But in Woolf’s very able hands this is a clever, funny and very well observed book. I almost never get bothered about depictions of places in novels, but from the entirely new angle of a dog, I found descriptions of London and Italy fascinating.

The book group seemed, on the whole, to like the book a lot. Most of us didn’t know much about Elizabeth Barrett Browning before we started, but didn’t think that made much of a difference. Woolf’s slightly odd views on class were discussed, but so too her liveliness and breaking free from Victorianism. Whilst I love Flush, I don’t think it’s the most representative of Persephone’s books, and I’d be intrigued to see what the views are on other titles. Next time is Joanna Canaan’s Princes In The Land, and after that Rachel Ferguson’s Alas, Poor Lady. I’ve not read either of them, and sadly I’m going to miss the next one, but looking forward to July and Alas, Poor Lady.

If anybody from the book group is dropping in (since I shamelessly advertised this blog) please do say hello! I look forward to seeing you again.

Cheerful Weather For The Wedding

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I finished Julia Strachey’s Cheerful Weather For The Wedding the other day – I’m reading short books in snatches while writing my dissertation, and this is one of the Persephone Books is one I’ve meaning to read for a while. Elaine at Random Jottings gave it to me many moons ago, but somehow it’s only just worked its way to the top of the pile.

Well, I’m very glad Elaine could spare it, as I loved every second! This short novel (120pp) all takes place on the wedding day of Dolly and Owen. And it’s very, very funny. There is a semi-serious romance storyline through the centre of it (should Dolly be marrying Owen? Will they actually get married?) but it is the host of secondary characters which make this novel (or perhaps novella?) so amusing. My favourites are brothers Robert and Tom – the latter spends the entire novel trying to persuade the former to change his emerald-coloured socks: “Robert, your mother would desire you to go upstairs instantly to take off those bounder’s socks, Robert, and to change into a respectable pair. Will you go, Robert?” He is distraught lest their schoolfellows – ‘men from Rugby’ – be at the wedding and witness this calamatous social faux pas. Robert’s iterated response is “Go and put your head in a bag.” I kept hoping these two would crop up, even though they essentially said the same thing every time they appeared, it was done so amusingly and accurately that I could have read pages of Tom’s serious monotone and Robert’s complete lack of care.

And then there’s dotty Nellie-from-the-village, one of the ‘help’:

“The gentleman that come to see about the hot pipes out in the lobby, said to me, ‘ have two of my own,’ he said, ‘what are both of them big strapping great boys by now. And oh… good golly! – what devils and demons they do be!’ he said. ‘Well,’ I said to him, ‘my son Teddy is exactly the very same thing over again,’ I said. ‘All the time this cigarette-smoking, they pointed boots, and all of it, why, devils and demons isn’t in it with such as they are,’ I said. No. Very decidedly not!”

The whole family, and especially servants, are very funny characters – slightly ridiculous, but not too exaggerated as to not ring true. I suppose that’s why the humour is so good – rooted in the actual. Sort of a less-hyperbolic PG Wodehouse, perhaps. Crossed with Virginia Woolf.

According to IMDB there is a film of Cheerful Weather For The Wedding due in 2010. The only information about it at the moment is that Sinead Cusack is attached – I suppose she’ll play Mrs. Thatcham. I’m not sure the novel will make a good film, actually – sometimes lines which are great written down lose everything when spoken. Still, I’ll keep an open mind until I see it, which I undoubtedly will.

If you’re wavering on Cheerful Weather For The Wedding, I encourage you to give it a go (though this comes with a warning that not everyone agrees with me: see this review by Vintage Reads) – it’s recently been released in the beautiful Persephone Classics edition (pictured) which should make it more easily available… and I might just have to get myself a copy of that one too. I think it’s entered my Top Five Persephones, and since I’ve read all or part of over thirty, that’s not bad at all.

Making Conversation

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Persephone Books very kindly sent me a copy of Making Conversation by Christine Longford to review, and I actually read it a month or two ago, but was waiting for it to be available on the website before putting down my thoughts here. And, of course, that means I’ll have to search back into the depths of my memory…

The novel follows Martha from childhood through school and into Oxford University. She is an awkward girl, and, as the Persephone website says, ‘her besetting trouble is that she talks either too much, or too little: she can never get the right balance of conversation.’ This is evident from the opening pages, where she marvels at the inexpensive price of the brooch given to Ellen, the cook-general. (“You little idiot.. Now she won’t think anything of it. People like that don’t, if you tell them the price.”) Very intelligent but equally detached, she seems to meander through school and interaction with ‘paying guests’ at home (very definitely not a hotel) – where her mother advertises as an ‘Officer’s wife’: ‘This was mostly true. The military connexion grew fainter with the years. It was some time since Major Freke had written too many cheques, and disappeared.’ Martha isn’t quite precocious, but her indifferent responses at school and habit of repeating what she doesn’t understand (“Miss Spencer pulled my hair, and said I had committed adultery”) might give that impression.

Time passes, and Martha becomes a student at Oxford University. This was the part of the novel I enjoyed most, reflecting on the ways in which things have changed. Not least, apparently, the propensity to send people down all the time, and the illicit parties at men’s colleges offer a glimpse of the past. By the time Martha gets to university, her personality seems to have completely altered – which is probably true to life, but a little off-putting in what is tantamount to a Bildungsroman. She is pretty outgoing, even vivacious; jokey, flirty and chatty.

The new introduction by Rachel Billington compares the novel to Cold Comfort Farm, at least in terms of being a classic of English humour. Well… I don’t quite agree. Making Conversation is an excellent portrait of a character not often depicted sympathetically in the early twentieth century – the female academic, the intelligent but quiet girl – but isn’t ever laugh-out-loud funny. Lots of diverting sections, and a certain amount of amusing turns of phrase (for example the quotation below) but I don’t think Longford’s priority is hyperbolic comedy, as Gibbons’ was.

‘She would renounce all the lusts of the flesh. It would save a lot of trouble, and as she wasn’t a success on the carnal side, she might as well give it up. In that case, there would be no need to marry and have a family; and she could become famous as a Homeric scholar.’



And, as always, the presentation of the book is perfect. We know what to expect from the outside, but the endpaper (yes, Col, I’m going to talk about the endpaper) is one of my favourites from Persephone yet, apparently from a 1931 dress silk.

In conclusion – another welcome inclusion in the Persephone canon, and with invaluable, and quietly amusing, insights into another aspect of a disappeared world.

Two People

StuckinaBook All , , 9 Comments

Hurray for Capuchin Classics, reprinting an AA Milne novel – Two People, which was first published in 1931. A slightly less significant event in the Two People timeline is January 2003, when I first read it. This was back in the days when I could really blitz a single author, and read everything they’d written – by the time I read Two People (doing quick sums) I had read 29 books by AAM in the space of two years. Gosh. I’ve read only nine since, so I was pretty much getting to the end of the available AAMs.

With plays, sketches, essays, short stories, an autobiography, pacifist literature, poetry and, of course, children’s books to his name, his novels have always felt a little like an afterthought. Not quite the same joyously whimsical Milne of the early days, nor yet the serious Milne of the Second World War. And, for the most part, I have forgotten everything that happens in his novels. What really remains is a single image from the book – for Mr. Pim it is a pair of orange curtains; for Four Days’ Wonder it is a haystack; for Chloe Marr it is a woman looking into a mirror. For Two People I mainly remembered those two people standing by a pond… which turned out to be fairly insignificant.

As Ann Thwaite points out in her short introduction, and is evident to any who has read her very excellent biography of AAM (in print, or available from a penny on Amazon), Two People is pretty autobiographical. Not only is the male half of those two people a writer, but the portrayed marriage between Reginald and Sylvia Wellard bears a striking resemblance to that between Alan Alexander and Daphne Milne. There are two novels in Two People – one about a naive rural novelist seeing his first book, ‘Bindweed’, become a success in London literary society; one about a man married to much younger, beautiful woman who is not his intellectual equal.

And that’s the crux. Sylvia is often wise, always kind, ludicrously good – but she doesn’t understand Reginald’s jokes, ignorantly assumes any obstacle will be simple for him, would be content to live a quiet, unassuming life in Westaways – a thinly disguised Cotchford Farm, the Milne’s Sussex residence. At first I though Sylvia’s astounding beauty was showing the prejudiced viewpoint of Reginald, but people all over the place stumble over themselves and exclaim involuntarily at her beauty – which is sweet but a little exaggerated and, it has to be said, no true depiction of Daphne Milne.

Ann Thwaite warns in her introduction that even those who ‘have an aversion to novels about writers’ will enjoy this. I didn’t know people had such aversions – I think novels about novelists are fascinatingly revealing about the author. But there is much more to Two People than that – I’d be astonished if anyone could finish the novel thinking Reginald wholly appealing (his views about laying on water for villagers are rather reprehensible, for example) but, much more importantly, it is an honest and true depiction of a marriage. Says I, who is not married, but certainly it seems to deal with the genuine, everyday issues that a marriage would face – with temperaments as catalysts, rather than adultery and murder and all those extremes.

Being Milne, the novel is also very funny. I recognise that AAM is an acquired taste – some find the whimsy a trifle sickening, whereas I find it delightful and clever. Two People isn’t the most representative of Milne’s work (I’d look towards The Sunny Side for an in-print example, from Snow Books) but I do encourage you to seek it out. Milne’s non-children’s work is seriously underrated, and I loved this novel upon re-reading it. Bright but also with a serious undertone – and possibly the nearest thing Milne wrote to an autobiography of his marriage, since his actual autobiography It’s Too Late Now rather skirted around it.

Here’s a scene which illustrates the perils-facing-a-writer strand, and the humour (they’re at a tennis party):

“Fella in the Sixtieth out in Inida with me wrote a book,” said Colonel Rudge suddenly.

“Oh?” said Reginald

“Fact,” said the Colonel. “Fella in the Sixtieth.”

Reginald waited for the rest of the story, but it seemd that that was all. The Colonel was simply noting the coincidence of somebody over here writing a book and somebody in India also writing a book.

[…]

“Tranter, that was the fella,” came from his right. “Expect you know him.”

Reginal awoke and said that he was afraid he didn’t. (Why ‘afraid’, he wondered. Afraid of what?)

“Well, he wrote a book,” said the Colonel stubbornly. “Forget what it was called.”

[…]

“What d’you say your book was called?” said the Colonel, evidently hoping that this would give a clue to the title of Tranter’s book.

“Bindweed,” grunted Reginald, feeling suddenly ashamed of it.

“What?”

“Bindweed!” (What the devil does it matter, he thought angrily.)

“Ah!… No, that wasn’t it. Bindweed,” said Colonel Rudge, pulling at his moustache. “That’s the stuff that climbs up things, what? Gets all over the garden.”

“Yes.”

“Thought so. […] Sort of gardening book, what?” said Colonel Rudge.

“What?… Oh… No.”

“It is the stuff I mean, isn’t it?”

“What is?”

“The what-d’you-call-it.”

“Is what?”

“What I said. Climbs up things. Gets all over the garden?”

“Oh yes, yes. Always!”

“What d’you say it was called? This stuff?”

“Bindweed.”

“Yes. And what d’you say your book was called?”

“Bindweed.”

“That’s right,” said the Colonel fretfully. “That’s what I said.”

This, thought Reginald, is one of the interesting people brought down from London who want to talk to me about my book.

Russian Here, Russian There

StuckinaBook All , 1 Comment

I love the Alice illustrations so much that I’m a bit reluctant to move on from them… but I suppose they’re still there for me and anyone else to look at. And if my copy of the Alice books weren’t in Somerset, I’d have definitely re-read it by now… as it is, I have instead finished a book I’ve been dipping in and out of for quite a while now. One of those books to read at bedtime – it’s EM Delafield’s Straw Without Bricks: I Visit Soviet Russia.

The astute among you will notice that this isn’t the title in the little picture accompanying this post… blame latterday publishers. Straw Without Bricks is an account of EM Delafield’s experience after her American publishers asked her to visit Russia and ‘write a funny book about it’. She does so as herself and, though her voice is often quite similar to that of the Provincial Lady’s in other books, there is no suggestion that this is one of the Provincial Lady series… in fact, it’s not even written as a diary. The Provincial Lady tag was just added in reprints to sell more copies. Tsk.

Violet Powell’s so-so biography of EMD makes little mention of this book, except to say that it wasn’t very successful, and generally judged to have been a bad idea (and EMD may have shared this opinion). I imagine that was largely because at the time of publication, 1937, the world wasn’t quite ready for an honest appraisal of life as a tourist in Soviet Russia. For readers of 2009, it is a fascinating book – EMD does write in quite a light style, but this is certainly not the ‘funny book’ that her publisher was hoping for. Delafield’s own political leanings were to the left, though not as far as Communism, and she treats the country and its inhabitants seriously. Much of this is with a subdued horror – at the indoctrination, the lack of freedom, the systematic removal of beauty and individualism – but she never makes Communism’s adherents appear ridiculous. The humour is often directed towards her fellow tourists, or such quintessentially British anxieties as having to wait around for something to happen, or wondering how to pass someone one is keen not to engage in trivial conversation.

Her accounts of visiting factories, maternity wards, farms are all deeply interesting – a very true version (one assumes) of a little-accessed situation, without being dry or documentary-style. In the end, it is the absence of a moderate reaction to Soviet Russia which frustrates and baffles EMD:

‘My fellow travellers all have opinions of their own which they regard, rightly or wrongly, as being of more value than mine. Most of them are pessimistic, and declare that they don’t ever want to come back again, and that the Crimea was lovely but the plugs in the hotels wouldn’t pull, and Moscow was interesting but very depressing.

Some, on the other hand – like Mrs. Pansy Baker – are wholly enthusiastic. (There is no juste milieu where the Soviet is concerned.) How splendid it all is, they cry, and how fine to see everybody busy, happy and cared-for. As for the institutions – the creches, the schools, the public parks and the prisons – all, without any qualification whatsoever, are perfect. Russia has nothing left to learn.’

As I said, Straw Without Bricks isn’t written in a diary format – in fact, the format confuses me a little. I don’t know the publication history (perhaps, like the PL books, this appeared in Time and Tide?), but most the book seems to be organised in separate but linked articles – sketches or anecdotes centred around certain events or people which vaguely follow on from each other, but could be read individually. The first eighty pages, though, are all about a Soviet Commune EMD lived in – a section followed, anachronistically, by an essay about sailing out to Russia. Odd. But easy enough to cope with, so long as temporal logic isn’t sought to join these sections!

This book isn’t as good as the Provincial Lady books proper, or rather it’s different. Those are some of the warmest, funniest, truest books I’ve ever read, and I will read and re-read them for the rest of my life – Straw Without Bricks performs a wholly different task, and is in its own right an important, touching, sensible and informative book with many sparks of humour which is recognisably EMD. Occasionally I found myself wishing she’d simply written the ‘funny book’ her publisher asked for; in the end I realised how much more sensitively she’d approached the task, and the result is much more appropriate, even if somewhat less immortal.

The Family Reunion

StuckinaBook All , 7 Comments

Yesterday evening I was in London, possibly the first time I’ve gone up ‘for the evening’ in a cosmopolitan sort of way, to see ‘The Family Reunion‘ by T. S. Eliot. It’s being performed at the Donmar Warehouse Theatre, which is in a very nice little area of London called Seven Dials. Agatha Christie aficianadoes – I’m looking at you, Colin – might be able to tell me if there’s any connection with The Seven Dials Mystery? If I ever had to live in London, that’s where I’d like to live. I imagine a day’s rent is more than I could earn in a year.

Why did I want to see the play? No literary reasons at all, I’m afraid – it was the cast. Does that make me strange? Mel suggests it does. But no matter – it was quite an exceptional line-up: Penelope Wilton, Sam West, Gemma Jones, Una Stubbs. I daresay the others deserve their names in lights, but it was for these four (in that order) that I was excited. Most especially Penelope Wilton – in fact, I found the play by Googling her name. She’s wonderful in Iris and Calendar Girls and Pride and Prejudice and everything, probably, but the main reason I wanted to see her was because of The Borrowers. This was one of the programmes we grew up watching, and it felt surreal to have one of the stars mere feet away from me. Even more surreal when Homily Clock (aka Penelope Wilton) started having a conversation with Prince Caspian (aka Sam West).

I should probably mention the play itself… a mother and aunts and uncles are gathered for the homecoming of Harry, who hasn’t been to their grand house for eight years. In the interrim Something Has Happened to him, involving his much disliked wife, and it’s had all sorts of effects on Harry. That’s about as much concrete plot as I could grasp – much of the play focuses on the relations between relatives and mindsets, and leads into a curious philosophical staging which might be summed up as ‘there’s more to life than there seems’. I don’t know if T.S. Eliot was a Christian when he wrote ‘The Family Reunion’, but it seems very much the work of someone who is starting on the path – realises there is more to life than meets the eye, and wants to explore it. Occasional bursts of humour, mostly provided by Una Stubbs, and some rather creepy boy apparitions (who at one point appear behind a door in an instant; no idea how they did that), and another effect which I found wonderful. Quite often four members of the cast would suddenly move together and speak in unison, Greek Chorus-like, revealing their shared psychologies. Could have been affected, but instead worked very well.

This might all have been a bit of a babble: difficult to make plain what I thought about such a complex play. I must read it. I’ll finish, instead, with some more celebrity-spotting – we were followed into the theatre by Celia Imrie! (Maybe there to see Calendar Girls co-star Penelope Wilton?)

Miss Buncle’s Book

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One of the books I got for my birthday was a new Persephone – Miss Buncle’s Book by D. E. Stevenson. My lovely friend Lucy, who knows more about modern fiction than anyone else I know, gave it to me – so thank you Lucy! D. E. Stevenson is one of those authors whose name has been at the back of my mind, and on my shelves, for years – but never made it to actual reading. I have two or three already, but have been on the lookout for Miss Buncle’s Book for quite a while, as it is reportedly Stevenson’s best. The folks at Persephone Books obviously agree, and have made this hard-to-find title a lot easier to find. The premise is difficult to dislike – Barbara Buncle, a quiet, amiable lady in a quiet, amiable village decides to write a novel, and features all her neighbours in it under thinly disguised names. Luckily for her all the villagers seem to have surnames which are adjectives or nouns (Bold, King, Pretty) or with obvious associations (Fortnum/Mason; Dick/Turpin) and this all adds to the fun. The village all read the novel, and are scandalised at the accurate (and thus not always flattering) depiction of themselves – and are determined to root out the identity of ‘John Smith’, the alias Miss Buncle chose for herself.

A rather wonderful idea for a novel, which somehow doesn’t get too complicated, Miss Buncle’s Book would have been even better in the hands of Angela Thirkell, and a literary classic if E. M. Delafield had penned it. As it is, D. E. Stevenson’s writing isn’t quite as good as her ideas – a lot of cliches and unoriginal turns of phrase which prevent the novel from being in a higher league. Don’t misunderstand me, this is better than a lot of writing out there, but Persephone so often publish those whose writing is exceptional (perhaps my recent immersing in Katherine Mansfield has spoilt me for lesser writers, which is most of ’em) that I didn’t expect to have to be on cliche-watch.

Having said all that, Miss Buncle’s Book is still a delight. The characters are fun and the situation very amusing. She handles it all with liveliness and a healthy dollop of whimsy, and I would certainly recommend the novel wholeheartedly – it just doesn’t quite become the classic it could have been.