Tag: classics

Review 2053: #1929 Club! The Last September

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I chose The Last September for the 1929 Club because I believe I’ve only read one book by Elizabeth Bowen, and that was long ago in a literature class. It is mostly a character study of a young girl during a turbulent time in Irish history.

Lois Farquar is at the point in life where she is trying to find where she belongs. She is recently out of school and has an uncertain place in the home of her uncle, Sir Richard Naylor. The life of her family and their neighbors in County Cork seems to center around visits, tea parties, and tennis with the young people in the neighborhood, including young officers of the occupying British army.

The Naylors are expecting a long-awaited visit by the Montmorencys. Lois is especially interested to meet Mr. Montmorency because he was once a suitor to her mother and she hopes to have a special friendship with him. But Hugo Montmorency chose his wife Francie instead of Laura. Francie, about 10 years older than Hugo, has become invalidish, and Hugo is constantly disgruntled and sulky. He seems to disklike Lois.

Lois is also trying to figure out how she feels about Gerald Lesworth, a young subaltern who has been courting her. At first, she seems more interested in a crush on Miss Norton, another visitor.

The events in this novel seem so mundane that it’s hard to believe that at this time the country was at war. However, slowly this becomes obvious.

This novel is beautifully written, evoking a time and place that by the end of the novel is gone. It is sensitive and observant, occasionally a social satire, but a subtle one.

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Review 2051: #1929 Club! Classics Club Spin! Grand Hotel

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The first book I chose for the 1929 Club was one that I have long heard of but never read. It was also coincidentally chosen for my Classics Club Spin!

In the 1920’s, the Grand Hotel is the most expensive in Berlin. Staying there are several guests whose lives are going to be changed.

Grusinskaya is a great ballet dancer still at the top of her form. But her clearly classical style has gone out of fashion, and after a lifetime of being alone, she’s very tired.

Kringelein is a poor clerk who has just found out he is dying and wants to experience a few weeks of luxury and “living.”

Doctor Otternschlag is an injured World War I veteran who hangs around the hotel doing nothing. He begins taking Kringelein around Berlin.

Baron Geigern is young, handsome, and personable, but he makes a living as a cat burglar, and he’s after Grusinskaya’s pearls.

Herr Preysing is the general manager of a company there to make a deal who ends up in a mid-life crisis.

Grand Hotel is a zeitgeist novel, very much a product of its time. Baum’s characters show their foibles or redeem themselves. Each one is flawed and complex.

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Review 2050: Summer Pudding

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After Janet Brain’s employer’s office is bombed in the Blitz, she travels to the village of Worsingford where her mother and sister Sheila have made their new home. She has never been there before, but she makes a new friend on the train, Barbara Haines. Barbara’s reactions to some things she says should tell Janet that something is going on, but she doesn’t notice.

Janet arranged for her mother to move out of London into the country because her doctor urged her to make her mother get some rest without telling her she has a bad heart. Sheila was supposed to be doing the housework. But when she arrives at the cottage, she finds her mother more worn than ever and Sheila, beautiful and spoiled, doing absolutely nothing. Janet had planned to join the WAAFs but realizes she can’t leave her mother with Sheila.

Janet learns that Sheila agreed to teach Iris, the daughter of their neighbor and landlord, Donald Sheldon, months ago but has not kept her promise. So Janet goes over to Sheldon’s to offer her services. She is attracted to Donald, a widower, but finds him acting oddly when she tries to bargain for her pay. Donald also has a housekeeper, Gladys, who is jealous of him.

As Janet gets to know Donald, he alternates between seeming to care for her and seeming to disapprove of her even though she can’t figure out what she’s done. She doesn’t realize that Sheila has been telling lies.

Although the Furrowed Middlebrow books often involve some light, understated romance, they usually have other things going on as well. This is the first book I’ve read under this imprint that is a standard romance, with most of the action devoted to keeping the couple apart until the end. How good a romance is depends on how well you do this, and in this case, I think Scarlett (a pen name for Noel Streatfeild) doesn’t always handle it well. Characters over-react to other characters’ comments, for example. The situation isn’t too badly handled, though, and the book makes nice light reading. Straight romance novels are not usually my genre, though.

I received this book from the publisher in exchange for a free and fair review.

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Review 2049: Hester

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When I was reading Hester, I reflected that it might more aptly be named Catherine. However, at the time it was written (published in 1883), many novels were named after their young and beautiful heroines. Catherine is neither young nor beautiful, but almost every action in this book refers back to her.

When Catherine Vernon was a young woman, she was engaged to marry John Vernon, her cousin and co-owner of Vernon’s, the family bank. The entire community is proud of Vernon’s, which is considered more trustworthy even than the Bank of England. John jilted Catherine to marry a gentle foolish woman, called Mrs. John in the novel. Later, John got the bank into financial difficulties and fled, presumably also embezzling some money. Although Catherine never had anything to do with the workings of the bank, she used her personal fortune to rescue it and took over its management.

Some years later, John Vernon has died, leaving his wife and daughter Hester destitute. Catherine has divided one of her properties into apartments and offered them to relatives who need them, so she kindly offers a home to Mrs. John and Hester. Hester, at fourteen, knows nothing about her father’s perfidy and is very proud. She notices that some of Catherine’s dependents are both sycophantic and ungrateful but also that their behavior amuses Catherine. Hester is offended by this and tends to misjudge Catherine. Since Hester is sulky and rude, Catherine misjudges her, and they proceed to misunderstand each other.

Catherine has brought two young cousins in to learn to run the bank, and by the time Hester is a young woman, they are in charge of it. Henry is a hard worker and is grateful to Catherine for the opportunity, but he is only moderately intelligent and depends on Edward for difficult decisions. Catherine has come to love Edward like a son and has given him a place to live in her own home. What she doesn’t know is that his apparent regard is false. He is bored at the bank and wants to be able to make his own fortune (presumably using the bank’s money to start it). He also misjudges Catherine and thinks she spies on him.

Hester grows into a beautiful independent woman who is used to being ignored and disregarded. However, she has an unusual relationship with Edward, who ignores her when Catherine is around because Catherine doesn’t like her but exchanges cryptic looks and comments with her.

The reader knows this behavior is ungentlemanly as is his two-faced behavior with Catherine, but while the steadfast Harry proposes to Hester and is refused, and she is briefly attracted to a young stockbroker, grandson to her neighbors, she eventually falls in love with Edward.

This is an insightful novel about complex human relationships. I really think Margaret Oliphant, especially with this novel, is right up there with George Eliot and Dickens. The Introduction to my edition calls Hester Oliphant’s masterpiece, and although I have read and enjoyed several of her books but not all (who could? she was unbelievably prolific), I so far agree.

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Review 2046: Dear Hugo

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Sara Montieth has purchased a cottage in a small Scottish border village because she wants a quiet life. She has chosen the village because it was the boyhood home of her young man Ivo, who was killed in the war, and his brother Hugo.

Dear Hugo is an epistemological novel, consisting of Sara’s letters to Hugo, whom she has never met and who lives in Nairobi. It is about her daily life, the people she likes and dislikes, the events in the village. Although she wanted a quiet life, hers becomes eventful, especially after her cousin, who is newly remarried, asks her to take his 13-year-old son Arthur during his school holidays. It’s even more so after Hugo sends them a puppy.

The letters are written with gentle humor and describe all the village characters, including Miss Bonaly, a disapproving spinster who urges Sara not to hire Madge Marchbanks, an unwed mother, to help with the housework, and kindly, perceptive Mrs. Keith, who knew Ivo and Hugo as boys.

This is a nice, gentle novel of village life. It didn’t end quite the way I was hoping for, but I enjoyed it very much.

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Review 2041: The Marble Staircase

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Charlotte Moley’s life has always been dominated by others—first by her mother, both before and after her marriage and widowhood, and lately by her grown daughter Alison. Her only periods of happiness were the summers she spent in Italy with Mrs. Gamalion and her friends, long ago before the war.

Now Mrs. Gamalion has left her a legacy—a run-down old house in the coastal town of Nything. It is full of souvenirs of the old lady’s life, and Charlotte decides to keep it and stay there, much to Alison’s disapproval. She also begins making friends, meeting Mrs. Bateman her first night on the esplanade.

Charlotte has old memories to deal with, both of her mother and her disappointment in love one Italian summer. It is Mrs. Gamalion’s gift that helps Charlotte let go of the past and make herself a new life.

I have read and enjoyed every Elizabeth Fair novel that Dean Street Press has reissued. This is another very pleasant light read in this imprint.

I received this book from the publisher in exchange for a free and fair review.

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Review 2039: Alien Hearts

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It’s hard for me to start this review without a swear word. A lot of discussion goes on in this novel about the nature of love and the difference between men and women, but to my mind, neither Maupassant nor his characters have a clue. But maybe that’s what I should expect from a man who died of syphilis at 43.

André Mariolle is a young, rich dilettante who is introduced into the salon of Madame de Burne, who is known for her flirtations that only go so far. Her salon is peopled with artists and musicians, and Mariolle is an outlier, but she embarks on a flirtation as she would with any new man in her circle. However, this time the two fall in love and begin an affaire.

Mariolle isn’t happy for long, though, because he wants her to be as madly in love with him as he is with her. We get lots of descriptions of heart rendings.

The Introduction to the novel includes a quote about it from Tolstoy: “In this last novel the author does not know who is to be loved and who is to be hated, nor does the reader know it, consequently he does not believe in the events described and is not interested in them.” Yes.

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Review 2037: #ThirkellBar! Private Enterprise

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Private Enterprise is Thirkell’s first wholly post-war Barsetshire novel. It reflects the confusion and discomfort caused by government measures that make things seem more difficult even than during the war.

The novel begins with Noel and Lydia Merton. Noel is back at his law firm, and they are now parents of two small children. To them for part of the summer holidays comes Colin Keith, Lydia’s brother, whom we first met in Summer Half. It is immediately apparent that he has fallen in love, with Mrs. Arbuthnot, a young widow. He is trying to find a house for her and her sister-in-law, Miss Arbuthnot, near Barsetshire.

Colin makes a fool of himself over Mrs. Arbuthnot but manages to find the two women a house. They move in and are quickly welcomed into the community. Again, we meet or hear about quite a few of the characters from previous books, including Mrs. Brandon and Francis Brandon, her son. Mrs. Brandon has gotten older, but we remember how young men used to fall in love with her and Noel Merton enjoyed flirting with her. We’re told several times that Mrs. Arbuthnot resembles her.

Unfortunately, Colin is not the only person who makes a fool of himself over Mrs. Arbuthnot. In the meantime, Miss Arbuthnot, older and less expectant, has her own quiet romance.

I noticed Thirkell’s snobbishness more in this novel than the previous ones, maybe because the others were more fun. It is clear that things are changing for the entitled classes and they don’t like it. Still, this novel seems an accurate record of life for these families (and to some extent of those of the less privileged) in post-World War II England, and I am still enjoying hearing about my favorite characters.

A comment about my edition. In the series up to this book, I have been reading the Virago editions, but Virago chose not to issue the post-war books, so I will have to finish the series reading Moyer Bell editions. As always with Moyer Bell, I am spotting lots of typos that seem to result from machine-reading a word wrong and substituting one that doesn’t make sense. Those are trivial, though, compared to the odd selection of the cover design and pictures at the beginning of each chapter. They are all by John Everett Millais, a Pre-Raphaelite artist. I have nothing against the Pre-Raphaelites, but they were a Victorian movement, and Millais was dead by the beginning of the 20th century. The women depicted in his paintings are dressed completely wrong for post-World War II England, of course, which makes me wonder why these paintings were selected for this novel. It’s a very odd choice. Perhaps the editors thought the novel took place after the Boer War?

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Review 2021: A House in the Country

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All during the war, Ruth, her husband, four friends, and the Adam children have been stuffed into an uncomfortable house in London, suffering privations of every sort. As early as 1941, they all began dreaming of taking a house in the country together, where they could have space, good food, and plenty of fresh air for the children. At the end of the war, Ruth finds an ad for a large house in Kent, 33 rooms. They go to see it and fall in love.

They figure that with their combined incomes, they can barely afford it. Ruth will do the housekeeping. The house comes with Howard, a handyman/gardener who has lived there most of his life and whose assistance proves invaluable.

Adam lets us know right away that this plan doesn’t work, but the descriptions of the beauties of the landscape and garden sometimes made me forget this. Written with a deadpan humor, the autobiographical novel tracks the ups and downs of this experience, through employment issues, attempts at agriculture, paying guests, house sharing. But as Adam repeatedly states, the house was built to be served, not to serve.

The story of the hapless occupants is funny and touching. I found it fascinating.

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Review 2020: #ThirkellBar! Peace Breaks Out

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Although Peace Breaks Out begins by returning to Anne Fielding, now almost 19, who was Miss Bunting’s student in the last book, it spends a lot of time with the Leslie family, whom we have encountered in several of the books. Anne has just met Sylvia Halliday, a beautiful, golden girl a few years older, and shortly thereafter, both girls come to the attention of David Leslie.

At 37, David should have toned down his tricks, but he hasn’t, so Anne is smitten while the older Sylvia’s reaction is a bit harder to ascertain. Anne’s being smitten puts her friend Robin Dale in a funk, which is good because he was tending to take her for granted. And David seems to be almost seriously considering her as a wife.

For the first time, we get a true sense of how tired the British are with the living conditions of the war. This is expressed by being upset about the peace, which makes conditions even worse.

In this novel, readers meet or hear of almost all of the main characters from the previous novels. Rose Fairweather, in all her beautiful idiocy, reappears from America, and more importantly, Rose Bingham, a Leslie cousin who we saw a bit of on the occasion of the other Rose’s wedding, returns from the continent.

It’s really been useful for me to have begun reading these novels in order. I only wish I had started out making charts of characters’ relationships, what books they appeared in, and some notes about each one.

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