Tag: classics

Review 2700: World of Wonders

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World of Wonders is the third book of Robertson Davies’ Deptford Trilogy and the one I least got along with. All three books deal with the repercussions of a malicious act—a snowball with a rock in it that Boy Staunton threw at Dunstan Ramsay when they were boys.

To make any sense of the plot of this one, I have to recap the action of the first book, so if you are planning to read it, you might do better to just read my review of it, Fifth Business. Boy’s snowball hits, not its intended target because Ramsay ducks, but the pregnant wife of the vicar, Mrs. Dempster. Her son Paul is born prematurely, and Mrs. Dempster is not quite right thereafter. Paul disappears as a boy and reappears after years and years as Magnus Eisengrim, the world-famous magician. Fifth Business ends with Boy Staunton’s possible suicide/possible murder with the selfsame stone in his mouth just after Boy meets Magnus. Did Magnus somehow murder Boy?

In World of Wonders, Dunstan Ramsay, now an old man, is living with Magnus and his friend Liesl. Magnus is starring in a film about another magician, French illusionist Robert-Houdin, and three of the film makers are visiting. Magnus has published a largely imaginary biography through Dunstan and now he agrees to tell the true story of his life from the time he disappeared as a boy. It’s quite harrowing at first, because he was kidnapped by a small-time magician in the World of Wonders carnival, held captive, and repeatedly sodomized. That’s just the beginning of an unusual and varied life.

I thought the story of Magnus’s life was interesting, but after each segment, his friends sit around and philosophize about it, maybe the sort of discussion that is exciting and interesting when you’re engaged in it but frankly not very interesting to read, at least not to me. I thought we were leading up to some surprising exploration of Boy Stanton’s death, but that wasn’t exactly how it ended, or at least what was revealed was not surprising.

Of the three books, I really enjoyed Fifth Business. The Manticore, from the point of view of Boy’s son David, was less interesting because of its emphasis on Jungian therapy. And I found this book the least interesting. In fact, I kept putting it down and reading other things, which is not usual for me.

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Review 2697: Literary Wives! Mrs. Bridge

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Today is another review for the Literary Wives blogging club, in which we discuss the depiction of wives in 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!

We’re also welcoming a new member to our club, although she just joined, so she may not be reviewing today’s book. Our new member is Marianne of Let’s Read! You can see her bio on my Literary Wives page (link above).

My Review

For its time, Mrs. Bridge was an unusual novel, especially in its structure. It is narrated in short chunks or chapters, 117 of them and most no longer than a page. Most of them document seemingly trivial incidents, but all together, they create a detailed picture of the characters and their relationships. Nothing much seems to happen except the conduct of a certain kind of life.

Mrs. Bridge marries and moves to Kansas City. Her husband is determined to provide well for his family, and the result is that he is always working, hardly ever at home. He is successful. Soon, Mrs. Bridge is a society matron with three children, a woman very conventional and concerned with appearances and “proper” behavior, not one to face ugliness. She has servants and not much to do.

Two of her three children react against her overconcern with propriety and perhaps her lack of a sense of humor. She constantly picks on her son Doug for basically being a boy—being unconcerned with his appearance and not very worried about any of her corrections. Her oldest daughter, Ruth, just goes her own way.

Mrs. Bridge has occasionally had intentions to read more or learn Spanish or take painting lessons—improve herself—but aside from buying the tools, nothing much comes of this. Eventually she faces middle age and an empty nest and wonders what has happened to her life.

I grew up 20 to 30 years later than this novel, but I remember this same kind of life for suburban matrons, even with housework and children and no servants—the lack of mental stimulation and a feeling of lack of purpose. I found this novel sad but interesting.

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

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Most of the information about Mrs. Bridge’s marriage is implied, since we see so little of Mr. Bridge. He is definitely in charge of the family. Mrs. Bridge does everything he tells her to, including placing her vote. Yet she seems to feel that her role is to correct the children constantly over minor things—many of which would never bother Mr. Bridge. He often seems stern, yet he seems to have a better relationship with the children than she does, and we have indications that he cares about her, only his way to show it is to buy her things. A few times she shows a sexual longing that he doesn’t seem to return. Not much affection is shown, but I believe it is felt. Whether it’s stronger than that as time goes on is not clear. Basically, the two have defined roles and they keep to them without much questioning.

Really, you have to feel sorry for Mrs. Bridge, who seems to feel vaguely that she is leading a sterile life, but it’s what everyone else of that social stratum is doing, too.

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Review 2694: #ReadIndies! The Spring Begins

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I didn’t think a press for a large library would be considered independent, but I guess it is, so I have another book that qualifies for Reading Independent Publishers Month.

The focus of The Spring Begins is unusual, especially for when it was published in 1934. It is about the awakening, the possibility of romance, for three women. But they are the women usually behind the scenes—a young housemaid, a young nursemaid, and a middle-aged day governess.

Lottie, the nursemaid, is 19 years old and straight out of an orphanage. She loves the two little girls she’s in charge of as well as their baby brother, but she is afraid of Nurse. She knows nothing of men, but Nurse has been horrifying her with stories about how nasty they are and what horrible things they do, so that she can barely bring herself to look at them. But there is a nice young man who works around the grounds named George.

Maggie, the kitchen maid and scrubber, has even less status in the house than Lottie. But she is a fierce, strong girl who hates Cook but is confident of her own attractions. She feels a strong pull toward Maxwell, the gardener, even though she knows he is not the marrying kind.

Hessie is the daughter of a deceased clergyman who helps out the vicar’s wife and acts as governess to her children. She is obsessed by her own gentility and her hopes for Mr. Saul, the curate. But she behaves artificially with him, and it’s clear that he’s not interested. Hessie finds herself adrift when she learns that her younger sister, Hilda, is engaged to her long-time boss. Hilda is fulfilling their mother’s only ambition, and Hessie notices how their mother begins to spoil Hilda and ignore Hessie. She is eaten up with a combination of jealousy and sadness that her relationship with Hilda will never be as close. Also, she is being disturbed by her own unruly thoughts about relations between men and women.

Of the three women, I liked Hessie least because she is constantly judging other people and thinking about her own behavior as a lady. I liked her better, though, after a crucial event toward the end of the novel.

I found this novel interesting, but sometimes my attention wandered from it. It is vividly written, though, and its characters are believable.

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Review 2682: The Woman in the Hall

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Molly and Jay Blake have led a straitened but normal childhood until Jay is hospitalized and needs care that Lorna Blake cannot afford. So, she has Molly dress in her shabby gym dress and takes her to beg at a rich person’s house. Molly is mortified. Lorna has an unusual relationship with her servant, Susan, and we understand from a conversation that this is not the first time Lorna has done this.

Jay recovers and life returns to normal. However, periodically Lorna gets restless and begins approaching rich people, telling them outrageous stories and usually coming away with money. She is a professional con woman who uses the excuse of needing money for her daughters, when she is clearly excited by this life. In fact, in some way she makes herself believe her lies. For example, years after she lies about Jay wanting to play the violin, she says that Jay used to beg her for luxuries, including the violin. In fact, both girls are horrified by their mother’s behavior and seldom ask for anything.

Lorna has done things in the past that have made her enemies. Captain Alexander Muir-Leslie’s engagement to Sylvia, whom he adores, is broken when he tries to convince her that Lorna cheated her. So, he begins trying to track Lorna down. He travels to America because Lorna has told people that her husband, Neil Inglefield, deserted her and her daughters. But Neil Inglefield is her stepbrother, not her husband. In company with his friend, Shirley Dennison, whose romance with Neil’s brother Lorna broke up years ago, Neil sets out to find Lorna. Instead, he finds Molly.

The first part of the novel, dealing with the girl’s earlier lives, seemed to me to become a bit repetitive after a while, as Lorna pulls her cons and then turns her stories back on her children to justify herself. Later, with the introduction of Muir-Leslie, the novel begins to be more about the effects on other people’s lives of her lies. This change immediately made the novel more interesting, culminating in a grotesque betrayal of one of her daughters.

I’ve always been interested in novels about sociopaths, and Lorna is an early portrayal. Also, the words “child abuse” are never spoken, and perhaps in 1939 Lorna’s behavior wouldn’t be understood that way, but it is now. This novel is a compelling character study. There are characters to like in this novel, but Lorna isn’t one of them.

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Review 2669: Dean Street December! The Musgraves

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My last selection for Dean Street December is The Musgraves by D. E. Stevenson. It’s a little inconsequential compared to some of her others but makes a pleasant read nonetheless.

Esther Musgrave married a much older man when she was quite young, and her biggest regret of that time was that she was unable to befriend his son Walter, who was only a few years younger than herself. Despite her efforts, he was jealous and sulky, and when Charles tried to call him to order, he left university and disappeared. Charles died years later without hearing from him again.

Now two of Esther’s daughters are grown, and the other one has just finished school. Margaret is happily married to Bernard, a solicitor. Rose is dreamy and affectionate. Only Delia, the oldest daughter, poses a problem. She has very little to do and resents being asked to help out. At Bernard’s suggestion, Esther has moved off the family estate because she can’t afford to keep it up. Now Bernard is trying to sell it. Esther is happy in her small house, but Delia constantly complains about it. Delia’s only interest is in the local drama club, and she has fought for the lead in the upcoming play, but now she’s having trouble learning her lines.

A new resident has moved into the neighborhood, Eulalie Winter. Delia befriends her and becomes jealous of her, so much so that Esther feels she should not call on her. Bernard says he recognizes her as the companion of a wealthy woman who died, leaving her all her money. Her appearance and name are changed, but Bernard thinks she’s the same woman he met on a cruise with the old lady.

Rose, quite naïve, has met a young man in the woods by the abbey. Young, maybe, but a lot older than she is. He has been working on her sympathies and has convinced her not to tell her mother about their meetings.

And Walter comes to call! He has come to England on business from South Africa and says he regrets the pain he caused everyone.

Esther herself is a bit silly and ineffectual, a big worrier. But everyone in the family is going to experience a change.

I liked this one, but I didn’t really get pulled into it or feel affection for any of the characters. Still, I wanted to know what happened.

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Review 2667: Dean Street December! Cecil

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Through about 20 years’ time, Lady Anne Guthrie becomes more and more concerned about the relationship between her husband’s much younger stepbrother, Cecil, and Cecil’s mother, Lady Guthrie. Anne’s husband Charlie was already an adult when his elderly father married Edythe, who was very young. They had only one child, and Lady Guthrie, who plays the invalid card, does everything to keep her son with her, saying he is too nervous to be sent to school, keeping him out of university, and opposing his proposed career as a diplomat. This novel is set in the late 19th century, seemingly for no apparent reason, perhaps because the events later in the novel are more believable then.

Anne, who finds Lady Guthrie tiresome, thinks her decisions are misguided, but Charlie’s cousin Nealie thinks Edythe is more selfish than misguided. As Cecil grows to an adult, it becomes obvious that his mother will do anything to prevent his marriage, but Cecil sees only the sacrifice she has made to live with his frequently ill father and raise him virtually on her own.

Charlie and Anne try to help Cecil, whom they are fond of, but the events of the novel become darker as it proceeds. This is a terrific character study of a “delicate” woman who uses her health and close relationship with her son to manipulate him. I found it very involving.

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Review 2661: Dean Street December! Charlotte Fairlie

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When Charlotte Fairlie was a girl her relationship with her widowed father was close. Then he met someone, and she seemed to be nice, but as soon as they were married, she became jealous of Charlotte. In the end, he sent Charlotte to his brother, and she never saw him again. (Oddly, she reflects later that it was the only thing he could do, but I think not.)

Now Charlotte has achieved her goal since she was in school. She has been appointed head of St. Elizabeth’s, her old school. She is young for such a position but has been wearing a stodgy hat to board meetings to disguise that fact. The only thorn in her side is Miss Pinkerton, who thinks she should have had the position and is a real troublemaker.

A new girl starts at the school, Tessa MacRyne. She is an unusual child, self-possessed but homesick for her island home in Western Scotland. Charlotte catches her running away one day and learns that a letter from her mother has informed her that her parents are divorcing and her mother has returned to her parents in the U. S. Tessa feels she must return home to comfort her father. Charlotte’s handling of the situation earns her Tessa’s affection and an invitation to the island of Targ during summer break.

A friendship begins between Charlotte and Lawrence Swayne, the headmaster of the boys’ school. Unexpectedly, her proposes marriage to her, thinking they would make a great partnership.

I found this novel to be deeply touching and involving. I generally think of Stevenson’s books as very light romance, but I felt this book was a little deeper.

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Review 2660: Little Boy Lost

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When World War II broke out in France, Hilary Wainwright left his pregnant wife Lisa in Paris to rejoin his regiment, thinking that the British would be fighting in France. He only saw his son, John, once, shortly after he was born. Later, he heard that Lisa, who was working with the resistance, was dead. He had no idea what happened to the baby, but he once received a visit from Pierre Verdier, the fiancé of Lisa’s best friend, Jeanne. He reported that Lisa had given the baby to Jeanne shortly before she was arrested, but that now Jeanne was dead, and he did not know what happened to the baby.

The war is over, and Pierre returns. He tells Hilary he wants to look for John for him. Hilary is now ambivalent about finding his son. When Lisa was killed, he envisioned getting comfort from raising his son, but it has been five years. Now he’s more worried about how to tell whether any boy they find is really his.

Pierre eventually traces a boy who might be John to a Catholic orphanage in Northern France. Hilary goes to Paris to meet the people Pierre traced. He has always loved France, but post-war, the country is in dire straits. Hilary travels to the northern town to try to determine whether the boy, called Jean, is his.

Frankly, I disliked Hilary pretty much all the way through this novel. The Afterword says that it takes Hilary until the last few pages to know his own mind, but in fact, he uses every excuse to try to disassociate himself from responsibility. When he thinks he would be betraying Lisa if he accidentally took home the wrong boy, for example, it seems clear from what is said about her that she would have taken Jean as soon as she saw his plight.

Small spoiler—when it seemed Hilary was going to use his lust for an obvious slut to break his promises, I was really disgusted.

That being said, I still enjoyed reading this novel, which is touching and insightful into human weakness. It also provides a post-war view of France that is bleak and that I hadn’t read of before.

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Review 2657: Literary Wives! The Soul of Kindness

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Today is another review for the Literary Wives blogging club, in which we discuss the depiction of wives in 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!

My Review

Although this novel has a main character, Flora, it is more of a community novel, about a group of people whose lives are affected by Flora. I was going to say by her actions, but Flora doesn’t really act.

Flora’s best friend Meg has never approved of how much Flora’s mother, Mrs. Secetan, cossets her, but in school Meg picks up the cossetting herself. Flora is a beautiful young woman, getting married to Richard in the first chapter, and people tend to worship her and try to protect her. Her influence is well-intentioned, but she doesn’t seem to understand that what she believes is good for other people may not be.

There’s her father-in-law, Percy, for one. He is a widower who drinks a bit too much and whom Mrs. Secetan thinks is uncouth. He has been happy with his mistress Ba for years, living apart, having his days to himself and his nights with Ba. And Ba, who owns a dress shop, likes the independence this gives her. But Flora thinks they will be happier married.

And Kit, Meg’s younger brother, adores Flora. She encourages him in his career as an actor even though he can’t act and is a financial burden on Meg.

And Meg loves her friend Patrick, whom everyone but Flora realizes is gay. Even when Richard tells her that, she can’t believe it and persists in wondering why they don’t get married.

If you ask Richard, he’s happily married, although he works a lot. Yet he occasionally seeks out the company of a neighbor, Elinor Pringle, whose playwright/activist husband leaves her alone almost all the time, even when he is home. Their friendship is entirely innocent, but when Flora learns about it, she can’t grasp that.

In fact, Flora, meaning well, is often cruel because she utterly fails to see anything from anyone else’s point of view. And only Kit’s friend Liz sees her for what she is. Everyone else thinks she’s wonderful.

I feel that Taylor is very observant of people’s foibles. As a realist writer, she doesn’t really deal in unmixed joy. She has a fine eye for complex personalities, though.

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

There are three marriages on view here—Richard and Flora’s, Percy and Ba’s, and the Pringles’, although we don’t get much perspective on the feminine half of the marriages except Elinor’s. From the beginning I didn’t forecast success for Flora’s marriage because she wasn’t paying attention during the groom’s speech and seemed more concerned about her doves. But it seems to be surprisingly successful. Yet, Richard is clearly getting something out of his friendship with Elinor that he doesn’t get from Flora. He is innocent of any intent to deceive, but Flora is beginning to doubt him by the end of the book, and I foresee trouble from that.

Percy was happier with Ba as his mistress, because he had time for himself. And perhaps Ba, although we don’t see much from her point of view, was happier, too.

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In the introduction to my edition, Philip Henshir states that Taylor felt it was better to be lonely than bored. Certainly, there are some lonely people in this book. Elinor Pringle is one of them. Between his activist meetings and his time spent writing bad plays, her husband Geoffrey leaves her almost entirely alone. She has little to do, so she is both lonely and bored. In this marrriage, we see only her dissatisfaction.

As for Flora, she seems perfectly happy as wife, mother, and interferer in other people’s business until her interference nearly causes a tragedy and she gets a letter from Liz. And then, at least to her, her husband seems to be meeting another woman.

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Review 2648: #ReadingAusten25! Persuasion

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Persuasion is a reread and re-review for me, and I see that my original post works just as well as it did before for a general review. So, I was trying to think of a topic I could discuss, and I decided to focus on its villains.

Maybe “villains” is too strong a word for this novel. The only outright villain in Austen that I can think of now is Mr. Wickham in Pride and Prejudice. But certainly Austen’s work features selfish people, people who wish ill to others, and even people who actively work against others. It strikes me that, although many of these characters are comic, they are less comic as she goes on. Is it my imagination, or are there also more of them?

First, there’s Anne Elliot’s entire family. Her father and sister Elizabeth are cold and snobbish and care only for appearances. Neither of them thinks Anne is of any account. And Sir Walter Elliot holds this high opinion of himself despite his having recklessly outspent his income, he and his daughter refusing to retrench where it might lessen their consequence. Above all, Sir Walter felt that Frederick Wentworth was beneath Anne when she fell in love with him seven years ago.

Anne’s sister, Mary Musgrove, is a little more bearable, but she is also self-consequential, as evidenced by her disdain of the Hayters, her husband’s cousins. However, she finds Mary useful (selfishly so, but Anne wants to be useful) and although she never considers Anne’s comfort, the contrast between Anne’s life in her father’s house and the one in Mary’s, with her nearby warm and welcoming in-laws and the visits with the neighbors, is striking. Of course, Anne has to bear Mary’s whining.

Then there is Mrs. Cox, Elizabeth’s friend, a poor widow and daughter to Sir Walter’s lawyer, so of inferior station. Pretty much everyone except Sir Walter and Elizabeth understands that Mrs. Cox means to marry Sir Walter if she can. However, she isn’t actively malevolent, and the only aspect we see of her is excessive agreeableness (sycophancy?). As she is living with two such people and probably endures many humiliations, I sort of feel sorry for her.

Now, if you don’t want spoilers, skip this part, because it’s about Mr. William Elliot, the young, handsome, well-mannered relative, Sir Walter’s heir, whom Anne encounters briefly in Lyme and meets later in Bath. Everyone thinks he and Anne will make a match (except Elizabeth and Sir Walter, who think he’s after Elizabeth), but Anne has one safeguard—she has been in love with Captain Wentworth since she was 19. Also, she instinctively feels that there is something about Elliot she doesn’t understand. He turns out to be the moral equivalent of Mr. Wickham, although he doesn’t do anything as dastardly. Still, his attentions to Anne get in the way for a while of her gaining an understanding with Frederick Wentworth.

These negative characters are maybe a bit more nuanced but also more seriously depicted than equivalent characters in her other books, where they are often comic. They’re not at all funny in this book, and notice how almost all of them are related to Anne.

Austen is certainly a master at showing us people’s foibles in a way that is absolutely believable.

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