Tag: Barsetshire Chronicles

Review 2260: #ThirkellBar! Three Score and Ten

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Three Score and Ten is the last novel of Angela Thirkell’s Barsetshire series, finished by a friend after her death. Could I tell the difference? Maybe.

As I’ve commented before, Thirkell’s later books don’t really have plots, but this book works toward three events—Mrs. Morland’s 70th birthday, a romance for Lord Mellings, and another romance for Sylvia Gould, whom I don’t even remember meeting before.

As usual with the later works, the novel consists of a series of tea parties and dinners, with the Barsetshire Agricultural Show also taking place. Mrs. Morland entertains her grandson Robin because his siblings have the measles, and he is exactly as I remember his father, Tony, as a boy, including behaving several years younger than his age of ten or eleven.

The birthday party gives its author the opportunity to bring in almost everyone who has ever appeared in the series. Several characters who aren’t invited appear in an indignant meeting called because of the intentions of Lord Averfordbury to tear down Wiple Terrace, home of Miss Bent and Miss Hampton and several Southbridge school teachers, and put up a factory.

Could I tell that not all of the novel was written by Thirkell? Not so much, although maybe the conversations at the birthday party are not as clever. Twenty pages, by the way, are devoted to that party, which is about 18 more than were taken for any of the many weddings that appeared in the series (although admittedly most were only mentioned) and about 15 too many.

One more issue that has little to do with the original novel. I think I’ve had occasion to comment about the earlier Moyer Bell editions (all of the post-war novels) that they had a lot of typos. I haven’t mentioned that in a while because they got better, but this book had lots of them, including ones that show the text couldn’t have even been subjected to a spell checker.

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Reading Thirkell’s Barsetshire Series in Order: #29 Three Score and Ten + #28 Love at All Ages Wrap-Up

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Thanks to everyone who is keeping up at least with comments for Love at All Ages. One more to go!

I see now why some of the lists of the Barsetshire series include Three Score and Ten, and some do not. It’s because Three Score and Ten was finished posthumously by a friend. It should be interesting to see what difference there is. I will be posting my review of this novel on Tuesday, October 31.

Review 2244: #ThirkellBar! Love at All Ages

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If Love at All Ages can be said to have a plot, it’s the wedding of the vicar Mr. Oriel and Lady Gwendolyn, the sister of the Duke of Towers (not to be confused with the Earl of Pomfret Towers). If these names do not sound familiar, it’s because as far as I can remember, we have not met these characters before, or anyone else in that family, and we don’t really seem to get to know them now. However, other familiar characters help with or appear at the wedding.

The back of the novel also mentions the christening of the first child of Lady William Harcourt (previously Edith Graham, who monopolized at least three of the previous novels), but by the time we get done with the wedding, I’d forgotten it.

The title hints that the book includes another love affair, and since Lady Gwendolyn and her intended are well into middle age, the implication is that it involves younger people. This is just a hint that there may be a suitable mate for young Ludo, Lord Mellings, the heir of the Earl of Pomfret.

Otherwise, the book contains the usual plethora of literary allusions, tea parties, boating parties, and so on. The preoccupations that I complained about last time are still all there, too—including yet another mention of Mrs. Fewling’s lack of proper undergarments when she was still Margot Phelps—although not repeated as often. However, there is a scene where Lydia Merton remembers her husband’s old infatuation (with someone very much like Mrs. Brandon but not her, I can’t remember) and then two pages later, her husband thinks about it, and as if that weren’t enough, it’s mentioned again later in the book.

So, no improvement here and less interest, because so much of the book is about characters we don’t know and don’t get to know. However, there’s only one book left to go. (In fact, the cover of my book says this one is the last one, which if it were, would be quite a disappointment as the last in the series.)

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Review 2230: #ThirkellBar! Close Quarters

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Although it begins somewhere else, Close Quarters is mostly concerned with Margot Macfayden. Readers may remember that in Jutland Cottage, Margot was the daughter of impoverished and ailing Admiral and Mrs. Phelps. She worked hard, day in and out, maintaining their house and keeping the goats and chickens without much of a thought for herself until Rose Fairweather took her in hand. At the same time, others pitched in to alleviate her condition by visiting her parents so she could get away sometimes. Nevertheless, the wealthy, older Mr. Macfayden found her crying in the henhouse one day and proposed.

At the beginning of Close Quarters, Mr. Macfayden dies after only five years of marriage, and aside from her natural grief, Margot finds herself again at a crossroads. Her parents are now cared for, but she thinks perhaps she should live with them again. However, she doesn’t want to.

She knows the Luftons would like to reclaim the house she’s been leasing, so she starts looking for a house, but she can’t find anything suitable. No one but the readers know that Canon Fewling (Tubby to his friends) suffered a great disappointment when he learned she was engaged.

Although I found the ending of this book more touching than the last few, there were several occasions when Thirkell repeated conversations that she has not only had in other books but that had already appeared in this one, as if she couldn’t remember what she had written. The story of Mr. Wickham’s reluctant proposal to Margot is repeated three or four times, for example, while a snobby conversation about common mispronunciations occurs more than once. There is a stupid recurring joke about the Parkinsons’ last name that I don’t understand but suspect is more snobbery, and several different people opine that Mrs. Parkinson wears the pants in the family. Also, Margot’s lack of undergarments when Rose took her in hand is mentioned again.

Maybe I’m getting tired of Thirkell’s little conversational tidbits, but they seem also to occur more often. I liked the central theme of this book but disliked a lot of the chatter. And that’s disappointing, because often the chatter is amusing. Anyway, only two more books to go.

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Review 2213: #ThirkellBar! A Double Affair

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I have to start out with a spoiler for the book before this one, so if you haven’t read Never Too Late and plan to, skip now to the second paragraph. A Double Affair begins with the wedding of Miss Merriman, called Merry by her friends, to Mr. Choyce. Merry has appeared in many of the novels as the devoted secretary/companion to both Lord Pomfret and Lady Emily Leslie, and she deserves a happy ending. (Readers may recall that early in the series she had an unrequited love.) The wedding is described in much more detail than any of the others—if they are described at all—so Thirkell must have thought so, too.

Then we briefly return to the subject of Edith Graham, still eighteen after three books. And here, I think Thirkell has made a continuity error, for Edith is returning from a trip to America after having returned two books ago. I noticed this particularly because I read the beginning of this book out of order, so in my mind she had just returned and she was returning again. So, at the end of Never Too Late, I looked for an indication that she was going abroad again, but there was none—just her plan to go to agricultural school.

Thirkell gets over this, sort of, by saying she abandoned her studies to go to America with Uncle David and Aunt Rose, but never once is there a reference to two trips to America. Thirkell even has her say that she thinks her temperamental problems were caused by this trip, but she had those same problems two books ago when she returned the first time.

In any case, I’m a little tired of Edith and her temper. At the beginning of the book, she still has three admirers—George Halliday, the farmer; John Crosse, the banker and Lord Crosse’s son; and Lord Mellings, the young heir of Lord Pomfret. However, she seems to lose her temper if some man isn’t paying attention to her at all times.

This is a good time to look at the problems of George Halliday. His father died in the last book, and now his mother is feeling lonely. He is working hard and is sometimes irked because when he gets home, his mother wants attention, whereas he wants to work on the books or just relax. Finally, she goes for a visit to her daughter Sylvia at Rushwater, where Sylvia and Martin feel much the same. But Mrs. Halliday has a surprise for everyone.

This novel will finally dispose of the affections of George, John, and Edith, but in what combination?

Although I enjoyed keeping up with these characters, this is the first time I’ve felt that Thirkell lost track of her plotting a bit. Also, I don’t want to spoil any romantic surprises, but I’ll just say that she cheats a bit in this one.

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Review 2198: #ThirkellBar! Never Too Late

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Purely by error, I read most of the next book in the series before this one (apparently my stack got rearranged), which spoiled a key surprise of this book. So I will not spoil it for you.

Much of this book deals with young Edith Graham, who can’t decide what to do with herself. As, in fact, did the last book and as does the next one. It’s unusual for Thirkell to spend so much time with one character, although she certainly revisits characters time and again. To a certain extent, though, she also did this with Clarissa Graham, who was also a little spoiled. Edith is clearly discontented, especially when she feels she is not getting enough male attention.

But the novel also deals with the problems of George Halliday and his mother. George has been working hard to keep his father’s farm going and to keep his patience with his father’s advice. But now Mr. Halliday is failing in mind and body. George is too busy with the farm to help his mother care for his father, and both of them are exhausted. So, Agnes Graham, working with friends, takes a hand in the situation.

Aside from George’s problems there are newcomers to meet—the Carters, cousins of Everard Carter, the headmaster of Southbridge School—and two very understated romances of the middle-aged variety. So, I found Never Too Late to be as delightful as usual.

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Review 2181: #ThirkellBar! Enter Sir Robert

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Enter Sir Robert is the last of the Thirkell Barsetshire books that I read before, so I’ll let my previous review stand as a good plot synopsis and use this post to point out things I noticed this time around.

The ending of this novel made me laugh out loud. I don’t want to give anything away, but I’ll just say that Sir Robert Graham has been referred to in most of the books of the series but has not once appeared. In this novel, he is retiring, and his wife, Lady Agnes, arranges for him to become a church warden and talks about the things he is planning to do. And finally he appears.

Edith, Lady Agnes’s youngest daughter, is the focus of this novel, and although there is no overt romance in this one, because at 17 she’s a bit too young, she meets two delightful young men in their 30’s. (I thought the novel said she was 18, but as she is still 18 for at least the next two books, I’m assuming she is 17 now.) George Halliday is in the difficult situation of running his father’s farm when he knows that his father, who is going downhill in health, would rather run it himself. John Cross is a bank manager leasing a house from the Hallidays.

Toward the beginning of the novel there is an unpleasant little diatribe against foreigners, particularly immigrants, that will strike some chords familiar today, but that’s just a small part of the novel.

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Review 2165: #ThirkellBar! What Did It Mean?

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The focus of What Did It Mean? is on Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation. The novel deals principally with Lydia Merton, who has been asked to chair the committee for the Northbridge coronation pageant. This gives Thirkell the opportunity to poke fun at village committee meetings, during which very little seems to get done.

Lydia also gets acquainted with the Earl and Lady Pomfret and takes an interest in their oldest son, Lord Mellings, who at 16 is too tall for his strength, sensitive, and shy. Lydia arranges for him to meet the actress Jessica Dean and her husband Aubrey Clover, the playwright, and they enlist him in a part for their short play for the coronation, which promises to do much for his confidence.

For a while when reading this book, I thought Thirkell was starting to phone it in or that she needed a better editor. For example, there is a scene in which Lydia telephones to the Clovers to ask them to participate in the pageant. Then immediately following that, she takes Lord Mellings to the Deans to ask the Clovers the same question. Similarly, she reminds us several times of the little romance that took place between Noel Merton and Mrs. Arbuthnot when Lydia became so sick. There are also too many meetings described and no apparent romance until quite late in the novel.

However, the novel picked up as it went on, and the romance, once it emerged, was understated and touching. I finally ended up liking this one almost as well as the others.

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Reading Thirkell’s Barsetshire Series in Order: #22 Jutland Cottage + #21 Happy Returns Wrap-Up!

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Rereading Happy Returns in the context of the rest of the Barsetshire series proved to be much more rewarding than reading it as a one-off as I did years ago. My thanks to the people who are sticking with the project and made comments or read along with this book:

  • Liz Dexter of Adventures in Reading
  • Penelope Gough
  • Gypsi

The next book is Jutland Cottage, and I will be posting my review on Friday, March 31! I hope some of you can read along with me. Including Jutland Cottage, there are only eight more books to go in the series!

And here’s our badge.

Review 2129: #ThirkellBar! Happy Returns

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Cover for Happy Returns

When I originally reviewed Happy Returns, I remarked that I thought it would be easier to keep track of its many characters if you had read the series from the beginning. That certainly proved to be the case when I revisited the novel this time. I provided an adequate summary in my original review, so I’ll use this post to write about my observations second time around.

I didn’t mention that much of the point of view of this novel is from Eric Swan, whom we met way back when he was a school friend of Tony Morland’s and used to infuriate Philip Winter, then his schoolmaster, by looking at him through his glasses. (I believe this was in Summer Half.) Swan is now working for Philip, and at thirty, has not found the woman for him. However, he is immediately struck by Grace Grantly.

Much of the novel concerns whether the engagement of Clarissa Graham and Charles Belton will actually end in marriage, but I was also interested in the growing friendship between the older Lady Lufton and her very nice tenant, Mr. Macfayden. Lady Lufton was exceedingly irritating in the preceding book because of her helplessness after her husband’s death, but in this one a few choice words from a friend make her pull herself together. This takes some of the pressure off the burdened young Lord Lufton, her son. He has been attracted to Clarissa, but another instance of rudeness toward Charles breaks the spell. Unfortunately, he also notices Grace Grantly.

I enjoyed this novel in its context within the series much more than I did as a stand-alone. I knew most of the characters already, although I sometimes wish I had drawn up tables for each character when I read the first book and continued with it as I went on.

I haven’t commented on this before, but I also enjoy the references to Trollope’s Palliser and Barsetshire series. I have probably missed some, but I am noticing them more often because lately I’ve been reading the Palliser series.

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