A year ago, Michael Walmer sent me a review copy of Eve in Egypt (1929) by Stella Tennyson Jesse. And look, here I am, I finally read it! It turns out it needed another August before I could turn to so vibrant a cover.
This was Tennyson Jesse’s only book – and, as you may well have surmised, she was the sister of the more-famous F Tennyson Jesse. Her sister wrote novels like A Pin To See The Peepshow and The Lacquer Lady that weren’t connected to her own life. Stella, on the other hand, drew influence straight from her own experiences. I suspect she was not much like Eve, but she certainly went to Egypt. And, boy, you’ll know it by the end!
Here’s how we meet Eve:
The funny thing was that Eve woke up that morning rather depressed than otherwise. “ If,” as she said to herself afterwards, “ I had had that wonderful feeling that something beautiful was going to happen, I could
have understood it; but to think that everything lovely in life began that morning, and that I never guessed it !
I only woke up with that horrid feeling of there being something unpleasant in the background. That does
really seem odd.”
And, after all, the something unpleasant had not been so very bad. To be exact, it was two proposals ; and
though Eve, like all nice-minded young women, deprecated the idea of a proposal that she couldn’t accept,
nevertheless there remained in her mind, as in the mind of every woman similarly situated, a pleasant residue — a sort of nice sugary sediment, as it were. After all, every proposal is a tribute to one’s charms, there’s no
getting away from that.
She is quintessentially 1920s – or at least a certain sort of 1920s. She is quite flighty and superficial, though with a heart under it all. The reason she goes to Egypt is largely to get away from having to respond to those two unwelcome proposals. And so off she goes with her sister Serena (charmingly ignorant), Serena’s husband Hugh, and the knowledgeable Jeremy.
It’s entirely obvious to the reader from the outset that she will fall in love with Jeremy, and this plot chugs along nicely in the background as we take a tour of Egypt. And this is where STJ’s experience certainly comes into play.
I’m always a little reluctant to read The Brits Abroad novels. I would rather read a novel set in Egypt written by an Egyptian (any recommendations?). But I was drawn in by the insouciance of this one, and it does deliver. Tennyson Jesse does an admirable job of making the info-dumps feel like they’re part of the conversation, and even gives humour to them and uses them to develop character. But it’s hard to deny that there are sections that scream “here’s my research!” Yes, Jeremy is educating the party – but perhaps we didn’t need quite as much of an overt history lesson.
Having said that, I was very interested by some temples that were left to flood when a new dam was built. As Jeremy explains, the locals need water and sometimes artefacts have to suffer the consequences. I went to Wikipedia. Turns out the UNESCO came along and thought that maybe the temple shouldn’t suffer the consequences, and dismantled and moved it. If I could remember the name of the temple, I’d put a link…
The experience is enhanced by some photos spread throughout the book, which I’m assuming were taken by Tennyson Jesse. As the back of this new edition says, it’s both ‘Literature – fiction’ and ‘travelogue’. I don’t tend to get on with the latter, but there was enough of the former to beguile me – and this was a fun, delightfully predictable story. And – again – what a stunning and happy cover!