A Book Blog by Books do Furnish a Room

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Lady Anna by Anthony Trollope

 

Oh dear Mr Trollope; what did you do with this one. I loved the Palliser and Barsetshire novels, but, well let me explain.

The plot is typical Trollope. Young woman marries dashing and handsome Earl against the advice of her family and becomes pregnant. The Earl turns out to be evil and lecherous and soon after the marriage he announces that he was already married and the marriage is therefore null and void; thus raising the spectre of illegitimacy. The Earl disappears off to be wicked in warmer climes. Wife and daughter are left penniless. They are taken in by a local tailor, Thomas Thwaite who provides support and financial assistance with the legal claim against the earl. Anna is brought up with the tailor’s son Anna. In due time the Earl returns to the ancestral home and dies intestate. The Earl has a nephew who inherits the title. He also has considerable wealth which is now in dispute. If the late Earl’s marriage to Anna’s mother was legitimate she inherits. If it was not, although she is his daughter, her cousin the new Earl gets the dosh. Hence a court case ensues and Trollope makes the outcome unclear. As the smart money moves towards Anna a plot is devised by some of the lawyers. Why not marry the new Earl to Anna and problem solved; money and title in one place. Anna’s mother is taken with the idea. However Anna and the tailor’s son Daniel have managed to fall in love; much to her mother’s intense horror. Trollope has added arranged marriage and love vs “duty” to the mix and also marriage between classes. Anna is now a countess to be as she is likely to win the court case and Daniel is a journeyman tailor. Trollope also does not make the mistake of making the Earl unattractive or an idiot; he is charming and rather humble. As the tale plays out there is also an examination of the onset of mental illness.

The plot is very typical of Trollope as are the subjects, As usual the female characters are strong and more unusually the lead males are not complete idiots. So what irritated me?

1. Daniel Thwaite is alleged to be a political radical. Although he is honest and true-hearted, does he really have to have such a large chip on his shoulder? His radicalism is also limited and doesn’t extend to darning his own socks; he expects his wife do that.
2. Ok; where did you find the phrase “hymenal altar” and why on earth would you consider sticking it in the novel?
3. The Earl reminded me way too much of Hugh Grant; I think much more could have been made of his character.
4. What happened to the usual side plots and meandering minor characters; they’re missing.
5. The depiction of Anna’s mother is problematic. Trollope gave himself a lot to work with. Her marriage to an abusive, titled husband and years of penury, relieved by a tailor and his son. Then there is the possibility of title and wealth and the possibility of a good marriage for her daughter. There is excellent tension created between mother and daughter. The problem is that Trollope has created a situation with interesting possibilities; he just doesn’t use it effectively and although he resists a traditional happy ending I was left thinking that this was an opportunity wasted. I will admit that the portrayal of the Countess at the end was probably shocking at the time, but I do wonder what a Bronte or Eliot would have made of it.
6. Why use a court case as a pivotal plot point then just leave it.

I could probably go on and I may be being a little harsh. Trollope wrote this on a ship to Australia and I wonder if it might have been better dropped over the side! However there are good points and Trollope does make his usual points about love conquering all, arranged marriages being a social evil and the invidiousness of class.

5 out of 10

Starting The Road to Oxiana by Robert Byron

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March Moonlight by Dorothy Richardson

 

This is the last of the Pilgrimage novels; a journey I started nearly a year ago. I will miss Miriam and her comings and goings; they’ve become very much part of my life.

This last novel in the series was published posthumously in 1967 and it is unfinished. It is probably only two-thirds complete if the length of the other novels is anything to go by and only the first three chapters have been revised by Richardson. This is obvious as the last parts are a little disjointed. But the sense of it all is there and a full circle is achieved; it is 1915 and Miriam has come to the point where she is to start her own autobiographical writings; in fact to start Pilgrimage! The ending is a beginning.

March Moonlight starts with another holiday, his time in Vaud and contains several more of Miriam’s close relationships juxtaposed with each other. Starting in chapter one with Jean. Miriam also considers spirituality, Quakerism and through Jean Anglo-Catholicism. Writing now becomes work for Miriam and there are various nods towards Woolf’s A Room of one’s Own. There is a foreshadowing of the debate within 1970s feminism about whether withdrawing to what might be seen as the traditional feminine realm of the inner spirit could be seen as reactionary; whereas, it has been argued that in Pilgrimage there is more a reclamation of this space. Pilgrimage is also a journey through modernism, being written over such a long period.

Miriam’s friendship with Jean has generated analysis of friendship; starting with the Aristotelian conceptions as progressed by Derrida, but using a feminine conception rather than the all masculine one conceived by Aristotle. Although for Miriam friendship reaches it pinnacle with Jean.

Pilgrimage is a great series of novels and deserves recognition alongside Proust, Joyce and Woolf. And if Lawrence disliked it;

“Did I feel a twinge in my little toe, or didn’t I?’ asks every character in Mr Joyce or Miss Richardson or Monsieur Proust”

Then it has to be good.  The time span it covers, the early 1890s to 1915, means that it is also a fin de siècle novel and covers the period of Edwardian optimism and high imperialism as well as a time of social ferment.

It’s quite a hefty read, but well worth the effort.

9 out of 10

Starting The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton.

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Ghost Stories by Walter de la Mare

 

 

Every Christmas I tend to read some ghost stories or something of that ilk (habit I’m afraid). More often and not I am disappointed. I’ve never read anything by de la Mare before, but he wrote a lot of shorter fiction and quite a few ghost stories; this collection is from the folio society and contains; Out of the Deep, The House, Revenant, The Green Room, Bad Company, The Quincunx and An Anniversary.

These ghost stories are well written and quite dry. The problem I have with ghost stories is that you need to suspend your reason and I don’t easily do that. The light of reason is suspended for candlelight. However the essence of a good ghost story is the old story of two friends. One of them jumps out covered in a white cloth to scare the other and seems to succeed. However the response comes, “Oh, it’s not you I’m scared of; it’s what’s standing behind you!”

There is a subtlety about these stories and for modern readers not too much to shock; and they are variable in quality. The best is probably the first “Out of the Deep”. Jimmie inherits the house of his aunt and uncle together with its contents. A house where he was brought up, unhappily. He moves in. There is a particular symbolism to the bell pull which summons the servants linked to Jimmie’s childhood. He is alone in the house most of the time. One night he pulls the bell pull and a servant appears. This is a rather clever working out of childhood unhappiness and misery and its effects on adult life.

Revenant is about a man lecturing about Poe in a provincial town. He notices a man in a cape standing at the back. The man seeks him out afterwards and challenges the whole premise of the lecture. Of course, no one else has seen the man and he knows an awful lot about Poe.

The Green Room is about an old second hand bookshop (ok this one appealed for purely bookish reasons). Certain select customers are allowed in the parlour at the back where more precious books are kept. Obviously, the room has more to it than just books.

The others, for me were not very remarkable. These tales don’t have twists, but some are worth a read if you like this sort of thing; not as good as the May Sinclair stories I read recently.

6 out of 10

Starting Web of Belonging by Stevie Davies

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The Greatcoat by Helen Dunmore

 

Another alleged ghost story, but not quite a ghost story. It is set in 1954 in the East Riding of Yorkshire amongst the old airfields of world war two, now abandoned and beginning to crumble. Dunmore write well about Britain just after the war, with rationing still in place and in a small town. The shadows of the war are long and still strong.

It is a straightforward story. Isabel and Philip are newly married. Philip is a newly qualified doctor and they have moved into their first flat together in a strange new town. Philip, whilst caring is a man who feels his wife should not work. Isabel is in a new town with no friends and feels a bit like a piece of china wrapped in cotton wool. There is also a strange and rather uncommunicative landlady. The flat is cold (we are before central heating) and Isabel finds an old army greatcoat in a cupboard. Using the greatcoat for warmth Isabel starts to dream and one evening hears a knock on the window. Outside is a young airman, who seems to want to come in. Initially she does not let him in (Philip is out on night calls). Eventually one evening she lets him in. Isabel often walks during the day and a few miles away is an abandoned airfield which she occasionally explores. One day it is a fully working airfield; I think at this point I might have questioned in some way what was happening, perhaps even sought help? The airman is called Alec and is the pilot of a Lancaster bomber (it is a bomber base nearby). An affair develops. The reader is given some clues about what is going on and the timeline is all over the place. It didn’t at any time seem like a ghost story although there were chilling moments.

There are a few good unveiling moments and Dunmore does capture some aspects of post war life very well and the description of the derelict airfield is very good. The portrait of Philip, an essentially good man who wants to help society, but who is constrained by his upbringing and his notions of what a woman should be and do is very well written. He is trapped by the dominant ideology and unable to think outside of it; Isabel recognizes this and when an opportunity seems to present itself, she takes it. There is a choice to be made at the end as Isabel begins to see what is happening.

On the whole though the story is without real depth and there are too many plot contrivances which solve a little problem. Reception has been variable and I suppose that reflects how I feel about it. It was ok but no more.

6 out of 10

Starting The Railway Station Man by Jennifer Johnston