Day 877: Literary Wives! The Happy Marriage

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Today is another review for the Literary Wives blogging club, in which we discuss the depiction of wives in modern fiction. If you have read the book, please participate by leaving comments on any of our blogs. Be sure to read the reviews and comments of the other wives!

Ariel of One Little Library
Emily of The Bookshelf of Emily J.
Lynn of Smoke and Mirrors
Naomi of Consumed By Ink

My Review

Cover for The Happy MarriageA famous painter living in Casablanca tells the story of his marriage in a “secret manuscript” as he recovers from a debilitating stroke. From all accounts, he has married a woman who is almost a lunatic. He tells how his family objected to his marrying beneath his social status but he was in love. Now that he has married this much younger woman, his relatives’ fears have been realized. She has poor taste, she is vulgar, irrationally jealous. She has fits of rage where she disturbs his work and even destroys it. She is constantly asking for money and giving it away to her relatives. She drinks too much and hangs out with unpleasant characters.

In the artist’s story, he is mild-mannered and generous, just trying to figure out a way to handle her irrational outbursts. Finally, he begins trying to get a divorce.

Amina, the artist’s wife, discovers his manuscript and we hear her version of the story—which is completely different. Amina’s story is about insults to her family, consistent unfaithfulness, miserliness and lies.

This novel reminds me very much of Fates and Furies, which has the same structure and intent. However, Fates and Furies seems both more unlikely and more nuanced. The Happy Marriage deals in problems that can trouble marriage—infidelity, money issues, dislike of a spouse’s friends, real and imagined insults—but we see nothing of the more subtle aspects of human relations.

What does this book say about wives or about the experience of being a wife?

Although I think we’re ultimately supposed to sympathize with Amina, the two characters in this novel are so angry with each other that their whole relationship seems clichéd to me. I’m not sure what this book ultimately says about wives. Its main point seems to be a larger one about how people self-justify their own bad behavior and see things from their own point of view. Both of the narrators, but certainly the husband, are untrustworthy.

Still, it seems that the husband married to have a wife that he thought he could control. He picked a much younger woman who was in love with him and would be dependent upon him financially. Many of his other choices seem to be made from vanity about his position.

Literary Wives logoThe wife’s rights are changing under Moroccan law, but even though the book blurb mentions this, it does not seem important to the story except that she can prevent their divorce. In effect, the husband is reduced to blackening her name with everyone and depicting her as unstable.

But Amina seemed to be happy in their relationship as long as she could travel with him and thought he was being faithful. That is, she seemed content with being treated as a trophy wife until she had to stay home with the kids (and of course, this coincided with the infidelity, it seems). So, I’m not sure that her idea of marriage is any more strongly developed than his. In this particular marriage, everything seems to boil down to a struggle for control.

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Day 876: The Diary of a Provincial Lady

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Cover for Diary of a Provincial LadyBest Book of the Week!
The Diary of a Provincial Lady was popular again quite a few years ago, but I didn’t read it then. Now that I have read it, I wish I’d read it earlier.

Considering that I have little in common with a 1930’s suburban upper-class English housewife and mother struggling with servant problems, I found this novel very funny.

The novel begins with a visit from Lady B., for whom the narrator’s husband Robert works as a land agent. Lady B. is in turn patronizing and demanding, first nearly sitting on the indoor bulbs, then questioning where the narrator got them and telling her where she should have got them, then telling her it’s too late to plant them anyway. The bulbs appear throughout the novel as a running joke. They get moved to the basement and then to the attic, are over-watered and under-watered, get stepped on by Robert when he is bringing down the suitcases, and are nibbled by mice. What they don’t do is bloom.

The house is made lively by a constant stream of visitors, including Our Vicar’s Wife, who always must be getting along but stays another hour. Another less pleasing visitor is the hearty Miss Pankerton, who barges her way into invitations and thinks nothing of bringing along an extra three people and two dogs on what was supposed to be a family picnic.

The narrator has two lively children—Robin, who makes frequent visits from prep school, and Vicky, who is at  home with a very French governess, Mademoiselle. I had to break out Google Translate for Mademoiselle, who continually manages to insult her employer and persists in being overly dramatic.

The narrator’s husband is taciturn except when complaining about expenses or the condition of the house, but he never denies her and is often kind. Many paragraphs, though, end with “Robert said nothing,” which begins to be very funny after a while. In fact, there is a lot that Robert finds nothing to say about. Meanwhile, the poor narrator is constantly scrambling for money, hocking her grandmother’s jewels and so on, to be able to keep up a decent appearance.

To some extent Delafield is depicting types but they also seem like real people, very funny real people. Delafield’s sense of humor is dry. Particularly amusing are her memos to herself and her queries. For example, after arguing with the children about washing up for tea:

(Mem: Have sometimes considered—though idly—writing letter to The Times to find out if any recorded instances exist of parents and children whose views on this subject coincide. Topic of far wider appeal than many of those so exhaustively dealt with.)

All I can say is, I can’t tell you how many times a page I chuckled, or just plain laughed out loud.

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Day 875: The River of No Return

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Cover for The River of No ReturnThe River of No Return was popular a few years ago, but I didn’t get around to reading it until now. The plot combining time travel and romance reminded me of The Time-Traveler’s Wife, which I loved. I found Ridgway’s book not nearly as interesting, though.

Nick Davenport appears to be a wealthy dilettante dabbling in cheese making in 2013, but in 1810, he was Nicholas Falcott, Marquess of Blackdown. While fighting in the Peninsular Wars, he was suddenly thrust forward in time to 2003. There he was picked up by a society of time travelers called the Guild, trained to live in modern times, and given a potload of money to live on. Now, the Guild wants him to travel backward to 1815, something he didn’t even know could be done, and resume his earlier life to carry out a mission for them.

Back in 1815, Julia Percy’s grandfather has just died, leaving her at the mercy of an unknown cousin. Since she was a child, Julia has watched her grandfather play little tricks with time. She is just beginning to realize that she can do it, too. Then her cousin Eamon arrives and begins looking for something, a talisman. Julia eventually realizes that she herself is the talisman.

When Nick arrives back in time, he learns he is to find a representative of a rival time-travel society called the Ofan and kill that person. The Guild has learned that the time period within which they can go forward is moving backward in time, and they think the activities of the Ofan have affected the river of time. The Guild thinks this Ofan member lives in a house neighboring Nick’s, the home of Julia Percy.  But Nick has no intention of killing anyone.

A portion of this novel is more romance novelish than I like, a fairly standard romantic plot with unlikely (for the time) sex scenes. Since I am not a fan of the standard romance novel, this was not a plus for me.

Worse, though, is the theory of time travel and its link with human emotions and monetary exchange, which is scientifically absurd. Audrey Niffenegger’s genetic abnormality is at least faintly believable.

All in all, my reaction was fairly meh. The novel is well written, but I wasn’t particularly interested in most of the characters. I thought Nick was incredibly naive about the Guild and went along with it far too long. An alternate explanation of the moving time horizon seemed immediately obvious to me, although it is not addressed in this novel. Because this novel is clearly designed for a sequel, only the romance plot is resolved.

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Day 874: Two Picture Books by William Joyce

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I saw some more cute books by William Joyce too late to send them for the holidays, so I’m saving them for next year for my youngest nephew.

Cover for Santa CallsSanta Calls

Art Atchison Ainsworth and his little sister Esther live in Abilene. One day Santa sends them an order to report to the North Pole in a flying machine. (He sends the flying machine, too.) Art is not always nice to Esther and doesn’t want her to come along. But they go together, taking along Art’s friend Spaulding Littlefeets. What mission does Santa have for the three children?

Cover for The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris LessmoreThe Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore
Mr. Morris Lessmore is leading an ordinary life when he sees a woman with flying books. He wishes he has one, too, and then he finds a room of flying books. Lessmore writes his own book as he explores the joys of books. (This one is bound to appeal to me.)

* * *

Both of these books feature beautiful illustrations in Joyce’s classic retro style. The text of Santa Calls is a little more difficult than that of the other book. The weakest part of Joyce’s books is the text, I think. It is all right, but I have seen more clever writing in other children’s books. But I love the illustrations, and I think that most children won’t notice the quality of the text.

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Day 873: Fidelity

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Cover for FidelityBest Book of the Week!
Fidelity begins in 1913 with the return of Ruth Holland to her home town in Iowa after an absence of ten years. As a naive young woman from a privileged background, Ruth fell in love with a married man. When he was diagnosed with tuberculosis a few years later, Ruth left town to join him in Arizona.

Ruth’s good friend, Dr. Deane Franklin, would like to see Ruth’s old friends welcome her back as she returns to her father’s deathbed. He knows that Ruth’s life has been difficult, both emotionally and economically, and would like people to show some sympathy. He wants to introduce Ruth to his new wife Amy. But Amy thinks this suggestion is shocking and can’t imagine why Deane would want her to know this scandalous woman.

Eventually, the novel returns in time to show how the affair started and progressed. It is not until Ruth returns that she learns how difficult things also were for her family after she left.

The plot of Fidelity, which was written in 1915, closely mirrors a situation in Glaspell’s own life, in which she ran off with a married man and later married him. She wrote the novel to answer the question “Was it worth it?”

During Ruth’s visit back home, she meets a woman who teaches her to recognize another type of fidelity—to herself. Although we don’t know where this fidelity will take her, we know that she will keep to it.

Of course, the novel is also meant as a condemnation of the small minds in Ruth’s home town. Even though they have known her from a child, most of her former friends misinterpret her actions in terms of her new reputation. Only her youngest brother Ted and a few friends see her for the person she has always been.

I found this novel completely fascinating from beginning to end, even though I’m not sure I would answer the question the same way Ruth did. The novel is particularly insightful about its characters, making readers understand and sympathize with even some of its unlikable ones.

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Day 872: Elizabeth Is Missing

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Cover for Elizabeth Is MIssingBefore I begin my review, here is a little bit of news about the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction. Some of you may know that, along with Helen of She Reads Novels, I am attempting to read all the short-listed novels. Today the short list for 2016 was released. To see the list, check out my Walter Scott project page. I have only read one of the novels, but was disappointed, along with other readers, to see that A God in Ruins, which was on the long list, didn’t make the short list.

* * *

Elizabeth Is Missing is—I won’t disguise it—the third book about Alzheimers I’ve read in the last six months. When the book blurb says Maud is forgetful, that’s putting it mildly. After only a few pages of this novel, I wondered why Maud was living alone.

Maud is an old lady who is having trouble keeping track of just about everything. She writes herself reminder notes but loses them. She makes endless cups of tea and forgets them. Her caregiver comes in every morning and makes her lunch and she has eaten it by 9:30. She remembers occasionally that her friend Elizabeth is missing. Elizabeth doesn’t answer her phone and she isn’t home. But no one pays attention to a dotty old lady.

Of course, we realize fairly quickly that Elizabeth isn’t missing, but Maud has a more important mystery in her life. When she was a young girl just after World War II, her older sister Sukey disappeared, never to be seen again. Although Maud’s short-term memory is inconsistent, there’s nothing wrong with her long-term memory, at least not at first, so the more coherent narrative is the time around Sukey’s disappearance. Maud finds the boundaries between the past and present blurring.

I found this novel extremely painful to read at times, even more so than Still Alice. However, it is certainly compelling although not perhaps as realistic as Still Alice is.

One thing that bothered me, although only a bit, is that Maud clearly has all the information she needs to solve her sister’s disappearance, if only she can make sense of it. But she tried to investigate when she was young, and she had the same information then. That she would finally solve it in her current condition is a bit hard to buy. We’re to understand that she found something before the action of the novel, though. At least, that’s what I think happened, since sometimes the narration from the point of view of a confused old woman is a little opaque.

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Day 871: The Summer Before the War

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Cover for The Summer before the WarBest Book of the Week!
I, for one, have been waiting for Helen Simonson’s second novel ever since I read the first one. And here it is!

Hugh Grange is preparing to pick up the new schoolteacher from the station at the beginning of The Summer Before the War. His Aunt Agatha has been instrumental in the school board’s controversial decision to hire a woman as the school’s new Latin mistress. Agatha has supported the hire because the woman was the most qualified applicant, but she is aware that her position as well as the teacher’s is precarious and that the mayor’s wife, Bettina Fothergill, is up to something.

So, Beatrice Nash arrives to take the position unaware that it is already threatened. She has been eager to leave the home of her father’s relatives, where she has lived since her father’s death. She soon finds that he has bargained away her freedom by agreeing to put her money into trust in return for being allowed to return home to his estranged family. Beatrice’s trustees start right out by assuming that she is mishandling her money.

Hugh is a medical student who is working under Dr. Ramsey, a well-known Harley Street physician. Hugh is a careful person whose future is neatly charted out. He will qualify in a year and then marry Dr. Ramsey’s daughter and join his practice. But the Great War breaks out, and Dr. Ramsey pressures him to accompany him to the front. Hugh wants to finish qualifying first, but Lucy Ramsey threatens to give him a white feather if he doesn’t join up.

Hugh’s cousin Daniel is a poet, and he plans to open a journal in London with his good friend Craigmore, Lord North’s son. But after Lord North sees Daniel and Craigmore together at the local hops festival, he makes Craigmore join the air corps. Daniel joins the Artists’ Rifles in reaction.

link to NetgalleyThis description doesn’t do much justice to the novel, which is about how all the characters’ lives are affected by the war. Aside from the same kind of class and town politics featured in Simonson’s delightful Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand, we meet a handful of characters who are genuinely likable and we get very involved in several subplots.

Simonson evokes a bustling town of Rye in 1917, with it occupants becoming involved in their various war activities. Belgian refugees arrive, and the town begins to experience the first horrors of war. This novel makes an absorbing second effort that is at times very touching.

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Day 870: Jane Steele

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Cover for Jane SteeleBest Book of the Week!
Fans of Lyndsay Faye’s Timothy Wilde trilogy (I am one) have undoubtedly been looking forward to Jane Steele, which she describes as a riff on Jane Eyre. In this novel, which Faye dedicates to “Miss Eyre and Mr. Nickleby,” Jane Steele describes her life as one very similar to Jane Eyre’s, only with an important difference—Jane Steele is a serial killer.

At the beginning of the novel, Jane is nine or ten years old, living in a cottage with her mother on the grounds of Highgate House. Although her mother has told her Highgate House belongs to her, it is occupied by her Aunt Patience Barbary and her cousin Edwin. Mrs. Barbary hates Jane and her mother, and after her mother’s death from an overdose of some opiate, Mrs. Barbary wastes no time in preparing to ship Jane off to Lowan Bridge School, run by Mr. Vesalius Munt. But before that can happen, Edwin tries to rape Jane, who pushes him off a cliff to his death. Terrified by the perspicacious Constable Quillfeather, Jane goes meekly to school.

It is difficult to know how much to reveal in this review, but suffice it to say that almost every action in Jane Eyre is echoed in some way in Jane Steele, but always with a twist. Mr. Munt is, if anything, a worse sadist and hypocrite than the headmaster of Lowood School. Jane Steele has a dear friend in the school, Rebecca Clarke, who comes close to dying, but when Mr. Munt offers Jane a choice between further starving Clarke or agreeing to be sent to an asylum, Jane instead chooses to stab him with a letter opener. Jane being sixteen by then, she and Clarke run off to London.

link to NetgalleyEventually, Jane meets her Mr. Rochester when she forges credentials as a governess to go work at Highgate House. There she hopes to search for proof of her mother’s claim that the house belongs to her. She finds herself in an unusual environment. The house belongs to Mr. Charles Thornfield, a nephew of Patience Barbary. Her charge is a little Sikh girl named Sahjara, and the entire household is Sikh. This household has its own secrets, to do with the betrayal of the Khaba, the Sikh military, by its own leaders.

This novel is a romping good read, full of adventure. It features a missing treasure, secret identities, several oily villains, and the resurrection of the heroine’s self-esteem. Yes, Jane kills five men. Do we still like her? Absolutely. I think you’re going to love this book.

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