Tag: classics

Review 2571: #1952 Club! The Price of Salt

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Here we go with my last entry this year for the 1952 Club!

If you’re accustomed to Patricia Highsmith’s suspense novels, like the Ripley novels or Strangers on a Train, The Price of Salt may be a big change of pace. The W. W. Norton and Company edition I read tries to slant it more in that direction by using phrases like “sexual obsession” and “stalking” on the cover, but it’s not like that.

Therese Belivet is unhappy in her life. She is a set designer who can’t find a job, so she has taken a temporary Christmas-season job with a large department store. She hates that job. She dates a man who wants to marry her—Richard—but she doesn’t want to marry him, even though she likes him.

Then one day at work she sees a beautiful blonde woman about 10 or 15 years older than herself. She is immediately struck by her. After she sells her a doll, she puts a little thank you note into the package to be delivered, not signing it but using her employee number. To her surprise, the woman, Carol Aird, calls her at the store.

They begin a hesitant friendship, with Carol often picking her up to spend the night at her house. She lives alone because she is divorcing her husband, who is trying to get custody of their daughter. Therese, who is madly in love with Carol, can’t figure out how Carol feels, as she is cold at times.

Professionally, things are looking up a little for Therese. She gets a short-term job doing sets for an off-Broadway play and has the attention of a major director. Things are getting rocky with Richard, though, and she can’t figure out the situation with Carol. Then Carol invites her to accompany her on a cross-country driving trip.

If this book wasn’t written in 1952 or was about a man and woman, it would more or less be a standard romance with the entanglement of a 50s divorce. However, because of when it was published, it was a daring novel, especially for the United States. (I have read other similar books from English writers, published earlier.) Like many of Highsmith’s books, I wasn’t drawn to any of her characters, but I have never thought Highsmith cared about that kind of thing, in fact, may have preferred protagonists that readers don’t like.

I don’t know what I feel about it. I guess I admire Highsmith’s courage in writing it but otherwise felt sort of meh about it.

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Review 2570: #1952 Club! Excellent Women

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Entry #2 for the 1952 Club!

By “excellent women,” Pym seems to mean a type of English spinsters who occupy themselves with charity events and helping others, dress drably, and are taken for granted by men. That’s what Mildred Lathbury seems to think she is. She’s a clergyman’s daughter of limited means, mild-mannered and religious but observant of others’ characters while not wishing them any harm. In Excellent Women, she gets a surprising amount of attention from men, but then she’s always picking up after them.

Mildred lives upstairs of a vacant flat, and she’s curious about what her new neighbors will be like. She knows they’re named the Napiers by the sign at the doorbell. She meets Helena Napier on page 2, a young, stylish woman, and sees her around with a man, whom she assumes is her husband, Rockingham (known as Rocky). But he is not. He is Everard Bone, an anthropologist, and he and Helena, also an anthropologist, are writing a paper together. Rocky is off serving in Italy.

Mildred is good friends with Julian Malory, the vicar of her rather high church, and his sister Winifred. It is the expectation of several characters in the book that Julian will marry Mildred, but she doesn’t seem to expect it. Or does she? It’s hard to tell. Certainly, he is very friendly with her, but she thinks he is not the marrying kind.

Mildred meets Everard before she meets Rocky. Although he seems not to notice her at first, after a while he begins seeking her out. He is abrupt and serious, and she doesn’t think she likes him. Or does she? It’s hard to tell.

Once he shows up, Rocky is utterly charming and handsome. He is very friendly to Mildred and keeps popping up for tea. Mildred senses friction in the Napier home—well, she can hear them arguing. Rocky does all the cooking and cleaning in their home, because Helena is completely undomesticated. (She sounds like my kind of gal, even though she isn’t depicted particularly positively.) Mildred distrusts Rocky’s charm. She understands from Everard that Helena thinks she’s in love with him (Everard).

It being post-war London, it is still hard to find a place to live, so the Malorys decide to lease their upper floor. Soon, it is taken by Mrs. Gray, a beautiful clergyman’s widow. Mildred finds both Julian and Winifred transfixed by her, so she steers clear. It’s pretty evident what Mrs. Gray thinks Julian’s fate should be.

Mildred isn’t at all liberated. She is constantly cleaning up after men or doing ridiculously involved favors for Rocky and Helena, and all take her for granted. Yet, this is a lively, amusing social comedy. It is also a tale of the rapidly disappearing lives of upper- and middle-class English people.

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Review 2568: The Quiet American

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I long ago saw the movie version of The Quiet American starring Michael Caine and Brendan Frasier, but I couldn’t remember the details. I need to read more Greene, so when this book filled a hole in my A Century of Books project, I found a copy.

The narrator, Thomas Fowler, is an aging British reporter in Saigon, a cynical, world-weary man. The time setting is the early 1950s, when it was the French fighting the Communists in Vietnam. Fowler has lived a long time in Vietnam and has a young mistress named Phuong whom he cares for more than he admits.

At the beginning of the novel, he learns that an American, Alden Pyle, is dead. Then the story backtracks to his meeting with Pyle, a young naïve man who has just arrived in the country. Fowler catches on fairly quickly that Pyle has no real understanding of the country or its people but some half-baked ideas about Vietnam based on a book by an author who spent one week in the country. However, Pyle is not receptive to other ideas (until it’s too late).

Fowler invites Pyle to his home, where he meets Phuong. Very quickly, Pyle decides that he is in love with Phuong and tells Fowler he can make a better life for her, so he will court her but not behind Fowler’s back. He seems to have no conception that this may be painful for Fowler.

Fowler is married, so he cannot marry Phuong, but he writes a letter to his wife asking for a divorce—a request he’s fairly sure will be denied. At about the same time, he receives notice that he has been promoted and should return to London, but all he wants is to stay in Saigon with Phuong. He writes asking to stay.

He knows, though, that Phuong, although she cares for him, is probably ultimately going to be practical and take the young man who can marry her—egged on by her older sister, who has always thought Phuong could do better.

With this situation between them, Fowler begins hearing rumors about Pyle’s activities in Vietnam.

There are some suspenseful passages in this story, but what Greene does even better is get into the motivations of his characters. Of course, all the Americans in the novel are clueless oafs (except Pyle, who is clueless but not an oaf), and the women are disregarded. Phuong’s sister has more of a personality than Phuong does, and in one passage, Greene has Fowler basically say to Pyle that Phuong doesn’t think. (All she does in her own time is dance, visit her sister, and read movie magazines.)

If you can get past these caveats, this is a really good, suspenseful and psychological novel. None of the characters are particularly likable, but at some points you feel a lot of sympathy for Fowler.

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Review 2560: #ReadingIrelandMonth25! The Country Girls

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I have read many very long books lately, so I was relieved when I realized that I could read the first novel, The Country Girls, in my big volume of The Country Girls Trilogy for 1960 for my A Century of Books project. Not only that, but it would qualify for Reading Ireland, too! I will certainly read the other two novels at some time after I finish my project.

Just as another indication of the unreliability of Goodread’s list of books published for specific years, it had listed the trilogy for 1960, but all three novels as a single volume were not published until 1986.

Caithleen is 14 at the beginning of the novel, a naïve, gawky girl from Western Ireland. She adores her mother, but they both fear her father when he is drunk. Their house is falling apart, because her father routinely blows all their money when he is drunk and returns angry and violent.

The other girl is Baba, Caithleen’s frenemy, who bullies her in public and pulls nasty tricks on her but sometimes shows she likes her. Otherwise, her friends are older men—Hickey, who has worked for the family for years; the inappropriately behaving Jack, a pub owner; and Mr. Gentleman, who is middle aged and married but whom she likes.

Caithleen has won a scholarship to a convent school and is dismayed to learn that Baba is going, too. She tells Caithleen that scholarships are stupid, and her parents are paying her way, which obviously is better. Both girls are dreading going. Caithleen is suffering through a party at Baba’s house when People come to tell her that her mother is dead, having drowned crossing the Shannon when a boat sank.

The novel follows the two girls until they are 18 and get a room together in Dublin. All the while, Baba specializes in talking the more sensible and cautious Caithleen into situations where she gets into trouble.

This novel is a bit sad, a little funny, and true-to-life, as the naïve Caithleen follows more worldly Baba in their unusual friendship. Some tension is evoked by Caithleen’s continued friendship with Mr. Gentleman. I liked the novel very much and intend to read the other two of the trilogy.

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Review 2558: Reading Wales Month ’25! How Green Was My Valley

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I didn’t intend to participate in Reading Wales Month ’25 this year, but when this novel fit into my A Century of Books project, I decided to fit it in for Reading Wales, too.

Such a lovely book this is, especially in the music of its language. It’s the story of the Morgans, a family of Welsh coal miners, told by one of its youngest members, Huw.

Huw is six when the novel begins. His family and those of the others in the valley are relatively prosperous, but there are signs that with the mine owners, profits are becoming more important than the lives of the men. Huw’s older brother Davy has been reading socialist literature and is talking about a union, but his father is against it.

It’s difficult to summarize this book because it’s full of family events, one of the first being Huw’s brother Ivor’s marriage to Bronwen. And there is the arrival of Mr. Gruffydd, the new preacher. But overarching everything for the men is the work, as pay gets lower and the valley begins experiencing periods of hunger and want.

I was as entranced by this novel as I ever was, the family so upright, god-fearing, and loyal, Huw’s experiences as he grows up. All the while, the fate of the valley is foreshadowed as Huw speaks from his 60s, returning just as his house is being destroyed by a mountain of slag.

It’s a real page-turner, not in terms of action, but for other reasons.

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Review 2557: Cousin Rosamund

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Cousin Rosamund is the third book in West’s Aubrey family series, and another was planned. I couldn’t tell when reading it, but apparently West died before finishing the second book, This Real Night, so it was finished from fragments and notes. Cousin Rosamund was assembled the same way, although West’s style was certainly captured.

The novel begins sometime after World War I. The three Aubrey girls, Rose, Mary, and Cordelia, are the only ones left of their immediate family, but they still have Nancy, their old neighbor; their beloved cousin Rosamund; and the folks at the pub on the river. Cordelia, always the odd girl out, has become less hostile since her marriage.

Cousin Rosamund comes to tell Rose and Mary that Nancy is getting married. Mary especially is upset that Nancy didn’t tell her herself, but Rosamund’s intercession, they see later, is needed so that they will not judge Oswald on sight, for he is gauche, awkward, unattractive, and a man-‘splainer. But he loves Nancy and she him, and that is all that counts.

Rose and Mary are now both successful and famous pianists, but neither is interested in marriage. Mary, in fact, seems to find the idea distasteful, although they are glad to see their friends happily married.

Inexplicably, Rosamund, who has been working as a nurse, marries one of her patients. The girls are all hurt not to be invited to the wedding, and once they meet the groom, they are horrified. His name is Nestor Ganymedios, and he is rich, extremely vulgar, ugly, and probably dishonest in his business dealings. Further, they see almost nothing of her after the marriage.

This novel is about marriage, which West examines in several incarnations. Unfortunately, it ends before we learn the explanation for Rosamund’s choice, but at least West’s intentions for the entire series are explained in the Afterword of my Penguin edition.

All of these novels are beautifully written and show a profound knowledge of music. The girls have such pure affection for the small number of people they love, yet the characters are realistically drawn.

One caveat: In this novel some characters express outdated ideas about homosexuality, and some homosexual characters in the book are not depicted positively, but it is not clear when she wrote this. The first book went to the publishers in 1956, at which point she said she planned three more, but though she finished most of the second, she seemed unable to finish this one. It ends about 1929, but her original plans were to encompass World War II.

Although it doesn’t fit the context of what I’ve discussed, I wanted to give just one quote because it’s so lucid and poetically spare. Rose has seemingly been disgusted with her long-time friend Oliver after he told her the story of his first marriage despite its end not being his fault. She is really fighting a battle with herself. She enters a room where he is.

He came toward me and I became rigid with disgust, it seemed certain that I must die when he touched me, but instead, of course, I lived.

Wow.

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Review 2554: #ReadingAusten25! Pride and Prejudice

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For years, I read all of Jane Austen’s novels once every year, but I haven’t done that since I started this blog. Now, Reading Austen 25 has given me an excuse to do it again.

The neighborhood is thrilled, because Netherfield Park, a large estate that has been vacant, has been leased. More importantly, the new occupant is Mr. Bingley, a young, single man of fortune. Foolish Mrs. Bennett, with five single daughters, is certain he will marry one of them.

Mr. Bingley has come with friends, and the first time everyone meets them is at a local ball. Although Mr. Bingley seems attracted to Jane Bennett, Elizabeth Bennett’s beautiful older sister, his friend Mr. Darcy stays aloof from the locals and will only dance with members of his own party. (That may seem okay to modern readers but is really very rude for the time.) When Mr. Bingley tries to get him to dance, suggesting Elizabeth as a suitable partner, Darcy slights her.

Later, Lizzy meets Mr. Wickham, a pleasing young man who grew up with Mr. Darcy. He tells her that Mr. Darcy has treated him wrongly, especially that he withheld a living from him that was promised to him by Darcy’s father. Lizzy is shocked.

Things look good for Jane, though, as Bingley is very attentive. Unfortunately, at a ball hosted by Bingley, all of Lizzy’s family except Jane behave in an embarrassing manner—her mother loudly discussing Jane’s chances with Bingley, her foolish younger sisters making exhibitions of themselves, and her father loudly correcting Mary. The next thing they know, the entire Bingley party has left for London with no intention of returning. Lizzy blames Jane’s disappointment in love on Caroline Bingley—Bingley’s sister—and on Mr. Darcy.

This novel is a domestic drama, a romance, and a witty social satire. Austen is gifted at creating characters whose personalities become obvious almost as soon as they open their mouths. I find it hard to choose my favorite Austen novel, but this one is certainly the funniest, with such characters as Mr. Collins, Mrs. Bennett, and Lady Catherine De Bourgh.

Harking back to a discussion last month about Austen’s wobble between sense and sensibility, I see more evidence of it here, when Mr. Darcy takes Jane’s calm demeanor for indifference to Mr. Bingley and when, later, he doesn’t speak to Lizzy because he can’t tell if she cares for him.

Anyway, of course, this novel is great.

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Review 2553: September

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I think Rosamunde Pilcher is considered a romance novelist. Judging from this book, though, I wouldn’t call her that. Although there are some romantic situations in it, this book, in its focus on family and the beauties of Scotland, reminds me more of something by Molly Clavering’s or D. E. Stevenson’s family-oriented novels, although much more recently written.

The novel is about two families in small-town Scotland and particularly what happens when a neighbor decides to hold a ball for her daughter in September.

Violet Aird is a mother and grandmother. Her son Edmund is a businessman who spends a lot of time traveling. His daughter Alexa is a shy young woman living in a house she inherited from her other grandmother in London. His second wife, Virginia, is an American who loves being home and taking care of their eight-year-old son, Henry.

The other family is the Balmerinos. Archie Balmerino is the local laird, and although he owns a lot of land, the family isn’t as prosperous as it was, especially since Archie lost a leg in Northern Ireland. His wife Isobel has arranged to take paying guests in the summer as a result. Archie’s sister Pandora ran off with a married man when she was 18 and hasn’t returned. Archie and Isobel have children, twelve-year-old Hamish and much older Lucille, who has been living in Europe.

Lucille is traveling around Europe with her Australian friend, Jeff, when she decides to go to Majorca to visit her Aunt Pandora, whom she has never met. Pandora is beautiful, rich, and generous. Lucille hadn’t been planning to return home for the ball, but Pandora decides they should all drive back together for the party.

Trouble is brewing between Edmund and Virginia, because Edmund has signed Henry up to go to boarding school in the fall without consulting Virginia. When Virginia objects that he is too young, Edmund thinks she is babying Henry and is coldly insistent. About then, she meets a man Alexa has invited home, who turns out to be an old friend.

Alexa herself has become involved with a man for the first time. He is Noel Keeling, up to now a lady’s man who usually dates women a lot more attractive than Alexa.

I said this novel isn’t exactly a romance, but it unfortunately employs some romance conventions. One is to describe almost everything everyone wears. The other is to describe almost every room people enter. Pilcher also tells us the contents of almost every meal, no matter how commonplace. In fact, I found the book to be about two hundred pages longer than it needed to be.

Another issue I had with it was that although it was published in 1990 and gave no clear indication of its time setting, it seemed so horribly out of date for then that I wondered if it wasn’t an old manuscript that had been set aside until the success of The Shell Seekers. One example is that the American Virginia spots an American across a room and wonders why you can always tell an American. He doesn’t even wear a crew cut. What? I haven’t seen a crew cut on anyone except the military since about 1961!

And then there is Archie with his false leg made out of either tin or aluminum. In the 1970s-90s, legs were being made out of such things as polymers, and I think I can safely say that no one has ever made an artificial leg out of tin or aluminum, neither of which would support the weight. (Oh, I see now that artificial legs were made out of Duralumin, a hard, lightweight alloy of aluminum, during World War I. Well, the time setting may not be specified, but the novel is set a lot later than that, at least in the 1960s or 70s and I suspect later.)

I was interested enough in the story to finish it, even though Pandora’s big secret was pretty obvious from near the beginning of the book, but thought the novel was only a middling effort.

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Review 2549: A Bend in the River

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Salim is a young man of Indian descent who was born and raised on the east coast of Africa, at that time a cosmopolitan and wealthy area. Feeling the need for a life change, he buys a store in an unnamed Central African country (probably Congo) based on the stories his friend has told about the town. He makes the difficult journey there. It is the mid-20th century when African countries were throwing off their colonial rulers. He arrives to find the rebellion has destroyed the town.

Salim makes a life there, following a second rebellion, a boom and rebuilding, the reappearance of Europeans, and so on. However, he struggles with a sense of inertia and lack of identity.

This novel has been criticized for leaning toward colonialism. I’m not sure it does, but certainly it spends a lot of time looking at the characteristics of what Salim might call “bush Africans.” The new leader of the country is such a man, and at first, he seems to be a symbol of hope and prosperity, but eventually things change.

I was enthralled by the beginning of the book but not as interested as political issues emerged. There is a long section about an area called The Domain, sort of like the unoccupied cities the Russians and Chinese have built, that bored me. Also, there is a shocking scene when Salim attacks his lover.

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Review 2545: This Real Night

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This Real Night is the second book in West’s Aubrey family trilogy, which starts with The Fountain Overflows. I put The Fountain Overflows on my Top Ten list for last year, and this novel is just as good.

The novel begins just after the girls’ father leaves them. He is beloved by all, but he is a gambling addict who has lost all their money many times, and when he leaves, goes with a collection of jewels he had hidden from their mother. Since he left, their mother has sold some paintings that she pretended were worthless, so they, although nowhere near well off, are comparatively comfortable.

Their mother was once a famous concert pianist, and she has trained the twins, Rose and Mary, to become pianists. Soon they will start music school. Their older sister, Cordelia, who was convinced by a teacher that she was a talented violinist, has finally realized that she is not, but she decides she wants to become an assistant in an art gallery. She begins studying art history. Their brother Richard Quin is still a schoolboy.

Their household is expanded because their Aunt Constance and beloved cousin Rosamund have moved in. Constance’s husband, although wealthy, is so stingy that they can’t support their household, as he only spends money on his spiritualism hobby.

One advantage of their father’s absence is that they can continue their friendship with Mr. Morpurgo. He had been a great supporter of their father, hiring him to be an editor of his paper, for their father was a brilliant political writer. Like all of their father’s past supporters and friends, Mr. Morpurgo broke with him, probably over a series of unpaid debts.

The novel begins with a visit from a strained, ill-looking Mr. Morpurgo, lately returned from a trip abroad. It is Richard Quin and Rosamund who figure out that their father has died, probably a suicide, but they don’t tell anyone. Rose only learns after she overhears them talking sometime later.

The family story continues relating fairly mundane events, but they are made interesting by the vibrant narration and the perceptions of this highly intelligent and gifted family. They are also very loving with each other except for Cordelia, whom Rose thinks hates them all and who definitely processes information differently than the others. For example, they all deeply love Richard Quin, who is attractive, charismatic, and kind, but Cordelia thinks he is going to be a failure.

The family faces difficulties such as the girls’ sense that people, especially men, don’t like them, the problems of Aunt Lily, whose sister is serving time for murder, and the revelation by Rose’s new professor that she has been trained wrongly for her talents. They are a family you fall in love with. The novel ends at the beginning of World War I.

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