Seven Empty Houses by Samanta Schweblin (tr. Megan McDowell)

6 Replies

There is something particularly destabilising about stories in which the concept of home as a place of safety is challenged or undermined. Shirley Jackson excels at this type of domestic horror, from her stories of entrapment and paranoia, e.g. the Dark Tales collection, to her unsettling but magical masterpiece We Have Always Lived in the Castle. The Argentine writer Samanta Schweblin also taps into this sense of destabilisation in her story collection Seven Empty Houses, in which the home is a place of strange occurrences, hidden dangers and inescapable reminders of loss.

The collection comprises six short stories and one novella-length piece, Breath from the Depths, which is easily the strongest of the seven. While the collection is a little uneven overall, Schweblin’s best stories are infused with a sense of unease, twisting the recognisable into warped, destabilising shapes – and it’s this rooting in an off-kilter reality that makes the most successful pieces so compelling to read. Loss, grief and paranoia are recurring themes, intertwined with feelings of confinement and entrapment. Several of Schweblin’s protagonists seem trapped in a reality they are struggling to escape, be it dementia, troubling relationships or the loss of a loved one.

The novella-length Breath from the Depths revolves around Lola, who is clearly experiencing severe memory loss alongside the physical impacts of ageing, such as difficulties in standing and breathing. Her days are spent checking and rechecking a list of instructions she carries around, boxing up her possessions and waiting to die.

The list was part of a plan: Lola suspected that her life had been too long, so simple and light that now it lacked the weight needed to disappear. After studying the experiences of some acquaintances, she had concluded that even in old age, death needed a final push. An emotional nudge, or a physical one. And she couldn’t give that to her body. She wanted to die, but every morning, inevitably, she woke up again. What she could do, on the other hand, was arrange everything in that direction, attenuate her own life, reduce its space until she eliminated it completely. That’s what the list was about; that, and remaining focused on what was important. She turned to it when her attention wandered, when something upset or distracted her and she forgot what it was she was doing. It was a short list:

Classify everything.

Donate what is expendable.

Wrap what is important.

Concentrate on death.

If he meddles, ignore him. (pp. 57–58)

Meanwhile Lola’s husband (the ‘him’ mentioned at the end of the list), seems to be developing an unlikely friendship with the boy next door, which concerns Lola, signalling the paranoia that sometimes accompanies dementia. The garden is Lola’s husband’s domain, but Lola is worried about what he is doing there. Ditto the garage, which houses his tools and equipment…

She listened to the familiar story about the friend from poker he often ran into at the bank. She listened to a comment about the supermarket, even though he knew very well that after her incident the last time she ever set foot there, she never wanted to hear a word about that hell again. She listened to the problem of the streets blocked off downtown because of the sewage system, and his predictable opinions about almost everything. But he didn’t say anything about the boy, and she considered the possibility that this wasn’t their first meeting in the backyard, and the thought alarmed her. (p. 68)

As this expertly constructed story unfolds, Schweblin hints at key events and motifs that gradually reveal the horror of Lola’s situation. There are references to the ‘incident at the supermarket’, clearly a watershed moment in Lola’s ability (or not) to function independently. It’s something she is ashamed of and refuses to discuss, even though her memory of it remains intact.

Her husband and the doctors made her spend two days in the hospital for routine tests. They subjected her to analyses and exams and never once asked her opinion. They came with their forms and their explanations, falsely solicitous, imposing on her time and her patience, efficiently invoicing for as many medical procedures as possible. She knew how those things worked, but she didn’t get a voice or a vote; it was all up to him, and he was so naive and obsequious. It’s true there are things that Lola doesn’t remember, but she remembers that perfectly. (p. 77)

There are other mysteries too, planted by Schweblin for the reader to decipher. Why, for instance, have the neighbours not returned the wrench they borrowed from Lola’s husband? What secrets are they keeping from her? And what is the significance of the cocoa powder in the kitchen cabinet?   

This is a story steeped in loss – the loss of memories, the loss of agency/control and the loss of a son, a theme that reverberates between Lola and her exasperated neighbour. It’s a terrifying portrait of dementia, partly because Schweblin leaves so much of the trauma to the reader’s imagination, making us complicit in the claustrophobic horror of Lola’s life.

But the abyss had opened up, and words and things were moving away at full speed, with the light, now very far from her body. (p. 139)

Entrapment of another kind features in Out, a dreamlike story in which Schweblin blurs the margins between the real and the imagined. I found this one quite haunting, partly due to this blurring of boundaries and partly for the hypnagogic atmosphere Schweblin creates.

Several stories touch on the loss of children – some go missing temporarily, while others are clearly no longer alive. In An Unlucky Man, an eight-year-old girl finds her birthday upended when her three-year-old sister, the attention-seeking Abi, drinks a cup of bleach. Chaos subsequently ensues as the girls’ parents rush Abi and her sister, who narrates the story, to the nearest hospital. Just when we think we are reading one type of story, the one where Abi is in danger, Schweblin turns the tables on us, placing Abi’s eight-year-old sister (the narrator) in jeopardy. A strange man approaches the narrator while she is sitting on her own in the waiting room, and after a brief conversation, the pair leave for a nearby shopping mall without informing the girl’s parents. (In the rush to get Abi to hospital, the narrator has been left without any knickers, and on learning this, the man decides to buy her a new pair – hence the reason for the shopping trip.)  Schweblin’s cleverly invests this story with an unsettling degree of ambiguity as we’re never quite sure if this man is a sexual predator or simply being friendly but naive.

“I want to know where we’re going.”

“Don’t get persnickety with me now, darling.”

We crossed the avenue and went into a shopping center. It was an uninviting pace, and I was pretty sure Mom didn’t go there. (p. 165)

He’s certainly an oddball, but does this make him a genuine danger to an eight-year-old girl? It’s an excellent story with a memorable ending, but I’d better leave it there!

Children also go missing in My Parents and My Children, where a woman’s disapproval of her in-laws’ eccentricities prompts a possible overreaction when her two children cannot be located. Once again, there is an element of ambiguity here, leaving the scenario open to different interpretations. There are some excellent touches of humour in this one, which make the ending all the more effective.

Elsewhere, a mother struggles to come to terms with the death of her son, culminating in a fortnightly ritual involving his clothes, which she seems determined to retain. Meanwhile, her husband seems fearful or incapable of tackling this continuous cycle of grief.

Schweblin often withholds key information from her readers, drip-feeding us little clues as each story unfolds. In many instances, this technique is very effective, amplifying the disquieting feel of the situations she is aiming to explore. However, there are times when this approach can border on the oblique, which might prove frustrating for some.

Still, this is an interesting collection of stories in which the power of the most effective pieces rests in Schweblin’s ability to destabilise the reader. By rooting her tales in twisted but clearly recognisable realities, Schweblin creates the sense that these scenarios could happen to any of us; in other words, they are part of the world we live in, a world we might not be able to avoid or escape.

Seven Empty Houses is published by One World; my thanks to the publishers for kindly providing a review copy, which I read for #WITMonth.

Love in a Fallen City by Eileen Chang (tr. Karen S. Kingsbury and Eileen Chang)

27 Replies

Last year, I wrote about Jasmine Tea and other stories/novellas by Eileen Chang, one of the greatest chroniclers of Chinese life in the 20th century. In these pieces, Chang exposes the traditional social mores at play in 1940s Shanghai and Hong Kong, complete with all the cruelties, restrictions and hypocrisies these unwritten rules dictate. While my previous piece focused on two novellas (Aloeswood Incense and The Golden Cangue) and a short story (Jasmine Tea), this review covers my thoughts on two novellas, Love in a Fallen City and Red Rose, White Rose, plus the escapist story Sealed Off. All six are included in the beautiful NYRB Classics edition pictured below.

Chang’s family background enabled her to view this world from different angles. Born into an aristocratic family in Shanghai in 1920, Chang was raised by her deeply traditional father, an opium addict, and her more progressive mother, a woman of ‘sophisticated…and cosmopolitan tastes’ partly developed during her student days in England. Following her parents’ divorce in 1930, Chang lived with her father and stepmother but then fled their home after suffering extensive abuse. A period of study in Hong Kong duly followed, exposing her to a more Western culture. Nevertheless, when Japan attacked the city in December 1941, Chang was forced to return to occupied Shanghai, where she published these early stories and novellas in a volume entitled Romances.

These formative experiences, gained by straddling different cultures, almost certainly contributed to Chang’s scathing views of societal constraints in China at the time. In her precision, attention to detail and scalpel-like dissection of the complexities of human behaviour and social mores, Chang reminds me of Edith Wharton, another female writer whose characters often find themselves trapped between two worlds: one driven by personal needs and desires, another dictated by societal conventions and moral codes. There are other similarities too, not least an interest in their characters’ inner lives, often closed to outside observers, but vividly alive inside. Both writers are also adept at combining psychological acuity with a strong sense of cultural place, all cloaked in precise, elegant prose.

In the titular novella, Love in a Fallen City, Chang showcases many of her familiar themes, only in this instance, they are woven into a story with an open, hopeful ending, signalling a more optimistic tone than before.

The story revolves around Liusu, the Sixth Sister of the traditional Bai household in Shanghai. After suffering abuse from her husband, Liusu gained a divorce and returned to her family’s home, where she has been living for the past seven years. Nevertheless, tensions are rife within the Bai household, with Liusu’s relatives blaming her for the family’s financial woes.

Fed up with Liusu, whom they consider a bad penny, the Bais turn their attention to arranging a marriage for their youngest daughter, Baolu, drawing on the services of a matchmaker to facilitate a suitable match. However, when Liusu accompanies Baolu to a meeting with Fan Liuyuan, a wealthy, unmarried businessman with a complex family history, it is she, Liusu, who catches the potential suitor’s eye, much to her family’s annoyance.

Nevertheless, the prospect of remaining with her resentful family proves too hideous for Liusu to bear, so she decides to gamble on her future, accepting the matchmaker’s offer of a move to Hong Kong as her household help. Suspecting this arrangement has something to do with Fan Liuyuan, Liusu will take her chances, despite the inherent uncertainty involved. If she loses in love, Liusu knows her reputation will likely be ruined – no man would ever look at her again, not even a widower with five children to look after. But if she wins, she will net a much sought-after partner, securing her future, financially at least.

Was it really true that Fan Liuyuan liked her? Not certain in the least. All those things he’d said—she didn’t believe a word of it. She could tell that he was used to lying to women, she’d have to be very careful. Family, family everywhere, and no one to turn to—she was on her own. (p. 127)

Chang excels at portraying a world in which a person’s actions in public often mask their true intentions in private. Her stories frequently unfold like an intricate game of chess, in which each player’s moves are strategically planned with a specific endgame in mind. Consequently, the women in these stories must frequently hypothesise about what the men in their lives are up to. Are their outward intentions genuine? Can they be taken at face value, or is there an ulterior motive concealed underneath? Ideally, Liusi would like to find spiritual love with Liuyuan, not merely a physical attraction.

Liusu stared at him in shock, suddenly seeing how wicked this man was. Whenever they were in public, he made sure to get the impression of affectionate intimacy, so that now she had no way to prove that they had not slept together. She was riding the tiger now, no way to go home, no way to rejoin her family; she had no option except to become his mistress. But if she relented at this point, all her efforts would have been wasted, with no hope of recovery. She wouldn’t do it! Even if she was trapped by appearances, he’d taken advantage of her in name only. The real truth was that he had not gotten her. And since he hadn’t, he might come back someday, ready to make peace on better terms. (p. 151)

As this excellent, nuanced dance draws to a close, Hong Kong comes under attack from Japanese air raids in December 1941. Liusu and Liuyuan are caught up in the bombings, which sweep away any previous doubts between them. In a rare optimistic ending for Chang, the couple hope to find love in this fallen city, a fragile world full of chaos and disorder. With the traditional supports of their former lives, such as money, property and available food, no longer present, what else can they rely on but each other? It’s an excellent, richly imagined story, elegantly told.

In Sealed Off, an evocative, escapist story set on a Shanghai tram, Chang provides some welcome light relief, albeit against a backdrop of a country at war. When the city streets are sealed off during a lockdown, a tram is forced to stop. Thrown together in this stationary tramcar, Zongzhen, a married accountant at a city bank, and Cuiyuan, a female English tutor at the city’s college, begin chatting. An intense, fanciful conversation swiftly ensues, in which the two strangers become infatuated with one another, even imagining a future together, as impractical as that may be.

Zongzhen and Cuiyuan suddenly felt they were seeing each other for the first time. To his eyes, her face was the spare, simple peony of a watercolour sketch, and the strands of hair fluttering at her temples were pistils ruffled by a breeze.

He looked at her, and she blushed. When she let him see her blush, he grew visibly happy. Then she blushed even more deeply. (p. 247)

It’s all a fantasy, of course; and as soon as the tram starts moving again, the bubble bursts, returning Zongzhen and Cuiyuan to the mundane realities of their respective worlds: Zongzhen to his roles of father, husband and accountant, Cuiyuan to her parents’ hopes for a wealthy son-in-law. In short, it’s a lovely story of what might have been, a fleeting escapist dream that takes place out of time.

In the end she’d probably marry, but her husband could never be as dear as this stranger met by chance…this man on a tram in the middle of a sealed-off city…it could never be this natural again. Never again… (p. 249)

The familiar theme of illicit entanglements resurfaces in the final novella, Red Rose, White Rose,in which Zhenbao, an educated textile engineer from a lowly family, is caught between two very different women: his fiery, passionate lover, Jiaorui, who happens to be married to a friend; and his dull, lacklustre wife, Yanli, whom his mother arranges as a suitable match.

There were two women in Zhenbao’s life: one he called his white rose, the other his red rose. One was a spotless wife, the other a passionate mistress. […]

Marry a red rose and eventually she’ll be a mosquito-blood streak smeared on the wall, while the white one is “moonlight in front of my bed.” Marry a white rose, and before long she’ll be a grain of sticky rice that’s gotten stuck to your clothes; the red one, by then, is a scarlet beauty mark just over your heart. (p. 255)

As this intricate story unfolds, Chang charts Zhenbao’s life through his sexual experiences, from his initiations with sex workers in Europe while studying, to his dangerous affair with tempestuous Jiaorui back in Shanghai.

Seeing her [Jiaorui] was much better than hearing about her: under her white, shampoo-sculpted hair was a tawny gold face, the skin glistening and the flesh so firm that her eyes rose at a long upward slant, like the eyes of an actress. Her striped dressing gown, worn without a belt, hugged her body loosely, and the black-and-white stripes hinted at her figure, each line, each inch, fully alive. (p. 263–264)

Like other men in Chang’s stories, Zhenbao is plagued by self-destructive tendencies, especially when things go wrong. This finely wrought story – at times sensual, at times merciless – is a cautionary tale of the dangers of desire.

Just as before, Chang uses imagery very effectively in these stories, from the evocative flowers in Red Rose, White Rose, and the respective temperaments they suggest, to jewel-like details, beautifully expressed.

…suddenly she [Jiaorui] became a sapphire from whose depths a flickering lamp draws waves of light and shadow. (p. 286)

In these candid, exquisitely written tales, Chang lays bare the traditional social mores at play in 1940s Shanghai and Hong Kong, complete with all the cruelties, constraints and hypocrisies these unwritten codes dictate. Her precision and psychological acuity are top-notch, highlighting the tensions between progressive Western-influenced ideas and traditional, patriarchal power structures in more conservative quarters. Contrasts are everywhere here, from the cultural differences between East and West, reflected in the lifestyles of Shanghai vs Hong Kong, to the roles adopted by women, e.g. dutiful wife vs tempestuous lover.

This is a world in which there are precious few opportunities, other than marriage, for women to advance and attain financial security; moreover, there are no guarantees of love. Once again, there are parallels with Edith Wharton’s society novels and stories here, largely set in socially conscious New York. Maybe Jane Austen’s fiction, too. As The Japan Times notes, ‘think of her [Chang] as Jane Austen with the gloves off’. A fitting tagline indeed for this incisive, unsparing chronicler of Chinese life.

The Transit of Venus by Shirley Hazzard

30 Replies

First published in 1980, The Transit of Venus is the third novel by the Australian writer Shirley Hazzard, an author I’ve been circling for some time. It’s also one of the best novels I’ve read so far this year – up there with Penelope Mortimer’s The Pumpkin Eater in terms of structure, craftsmanship and prose.

Suffused with a quiet sense of tragedy, The Transit of Venus is a novel about different forms of love, from deep, fulfilling love to longstanding, unrequited love to painful, doomed love – the type of relationship that was never meant to be. By exploring themes of chance, fate, destiny and power dynamics, Hazzard considers how relationships can be shaped by forces beyond our control, akin to the shifting of tectonic plates, violent storms or other natural phenomena. Moral integrity, or the lack thereof, is another defining theme here, particularly amongst the men. It’s a superb novel, beautifully constructed from the opening paragraph to the last, and fully deserving of its reputation as a masterpiece of 20th-century literature.

The novel revolves around two Australian sisters, Caro and Grace Bell, who are raised by their older half-sister, Dora, following their parents’ death. Dora, who is severe and ever-watchful, enjoys playing the martyr, revelling in the role of someone who has sacrificed all.

Dora sat on a corner of the spread rug, longing to be assigned some task so she could resent it. (p. 45)

After WWII, the sisters move to England, where they stay with Sefton Thrale, an eminent astronomer, and his wife Charmian; and it is through the Thrales that Caro (now in her early twenties) and Grace meet two of the men who will shape their lives over the next thirty years. Grace, the younger of the two sisters, marries the Thrales’ son, Christian, a rather pompous, selfish bureaucrat, who seems barely interested in his wife’s emotional needs. Meanwhile, Caro makes a lasting impression on Ted Tice, a young astronomer who is staying with the Thrales while he works on a project with Sefton. Ted falls hard for Caro, whom he finds beautiful and beguiling, but his love is not reciprocated; in short, friendship and kindliness are acceptable to Caro, but anything deeper is not.   

He [Ted] supposed she had some fear of physical love. He did not invent this to save his pride, having already noticed her quick withdrawals that extended even to the eyes, and the effort—almost charitable—with which she did sometimes touch; and from time to time a turning to her younger, lighter sister as to the one who had mastered this subject or was at least at ease with its inevitability.

As Ted Tice saw, it was not a matter of conquering her objections. She herself required a kind of conquering. And he had begun with devotion. (p. 56)

The novel follows the trajectories of these women’s lives – particularly their emotional lives – over the next thirty years. Caro is Hazzard’s primary focus here, but Garce has her moments too, especially in middle age.

Alongside Ted Tice, Caro also becomes entangled with Paul Ivory, an attractive, up-and-coming playwright who comes to stay with his godmother, Charmian Thrale, shortly after Ted’s arrival. Paul, who is soon to be engaged to the wealthy socialite Tertia Drage, slips into a sexually charged affair with Caro, seemingly from mutual attraction; however, as the novel reveals its secrets, we learn more about the likely driving force behind Paul’s dalliance with Caro. At heart, Paul is a complex, morally compromised character, but to say any more would spoil things, I think.

Like Anita Brookner and Elizabeth Taylor, Hazzard has an extraordinary talent for creating razor-sharp pen portraits in just a few sentences. Her eye for detail is so acute, as seen here in this description of Tertia.

He had Tertia with him, the daughter of a lord. So sleekly pretty, so fair and tall that she seemed an advertisement for something very costly. She had driven a car from the castle, and her hair was bound with a strip of pink silk that passed behind her ears. Her eyes were light blue—shining with what at a distance passed for sheer delight, and perhaps in childhood had truly been. Up close, however, the clarity was stinging, and neither gave nor received a good impression. Nothing about her appeared to have been humanly touched. (p. 66)

Hazzard also excels in her portrayal of power dynamics, particularly sexual dynamics, between characters. As Lauren Groff points out in her excellent introduction, Caro tries to stake a claim on Paul by appearing naked beside him at a upstairs bedroom window while Tertia speaks to him from below. The reason for Caro’s nakedness is, of course, abundantly clear to Tertia, Caro’s rival for Paul’s heart.   

“Nothing too arduous,” he said, or was saying, when from the fixing of Tertia’s limbs he knew that Caro stood beside him.

He knew that Caro had come up behind him and was by his side at the window. Her bare shoulder, perfectly aloof, touched his own. He did not turn, but, as if he himself were Tertia Drage, saw Caro standing naked beside him at that high window and looking down; looking down on the two of them. It was he and Tertia, and Caroline Bell looking down on them. Caro’s hand rested on the sill. She was wearing nothing but a small round watch (pp. 107–108)

There’s also a wonderful scene in which Tertia attempts to exert her superiority over Caro, who, refusing to be cowed, simply stares her opponent down. It’s another brilliant illustration of the tensions and power dynamics between these two very different women, united by their respective entanglements with Paul.

As the novel unfolds, we follow these characters, tracing their paths as they orbit around Caro, who exerts a kind of gravitational pull on those around her. We track Caro’s lifelong friendship with Ted, and in turn, his hopes that one day she will submit; her chance encounters with Paul Ivory, now married to Tertia, although not necessarily happily; and her marriage to Adam Vail, a wealthy diplomat who lobbies for the release of political prisoners. Caro’s relationship with Adam is deeply fulfilling, the only fly in the ointment being his teenage daughter from a previous marriage, reluctant to accept her stepmother’s presence in the family home.

While Transit is more focused on character than plot, things do happen, tapping into themes of chance and fate, the sense of greater forces at play here, speeding individuals towards their ultimate destinations. There are births, marriages and deaths, various affairs (emotional and sexual), betrayals, a murder, the possibility of blackmail or exposure, and moral reckonings for more than one of Caro’s suitors.

Something Hazzard does particularly well is to portray subtle, barely voiced emotions in profoundly moving ways – for  instance, her depiction of the gentle, deeply felt love that develops between Grace Thrale and her son’s doctor, Angus Dance, a kind, compassionate divorcee who seems much better suited to Grace than her uncaring husband, Christian. Stagnating in an unfulfilling marriage, Grace is illuminated by Angus, a sensitive, intelligent man who sees her as an individual, rather than simply a wife and a mother, primarily there to meet her family’s ongoing needs. On paper, this might sound very cliched, something we’ve seen a hundred times before; but somehow, Hazzard invests this relationship with a delicacy and emotional charge, elevating her portrayal to a higher level.

“It seems so long ago.”

“I’ve not seen you since.”

It was the mingling of great and trivial that could not be misunderstood.

He went on, ”Yet we are so close.”

She fell silent, leaning back into colours and shadows of the room: not in fulfilment, which could hardly be, but in voluptuous calm, at peace. Her hand was outstretched on the table, the sleeve pushed up. It was the first time he had seen her inner arm. She knew it might be the only such passage between them, ever. If the usual griefs were coming to her at last, so was this unprecedented perfection. (p. 281)

There are some wonderful insights into character, too – complex, knotty personality traits rarely expressed so acutely and elegantly. (Edith Wharton might be a good comparison here.) Hazzard’s prose style can, at times, seem dense and  tricky to penetrate, but the rewards are plentiful for those who persist.

He [Christian] walked home perplexed by a sensation, sharp yet heavy, close to disappointment. Possibly he had imagined Caro cut out for some dénouement that would vindicate, or redeem, the cautious order of his own existence—a culmination, even tragic, that only she seemed fitted to enact. Or perhaps he had wished, for the greater common good, to see her sink into vapid domesticity like other women, sink into it as housewives sink exhaustedly into arm-chairs at evening. He detested the idea that she and [Adam] Vail were lovers, but less for the imagined carnality than because Vail was personable, resolute and rich. The satisfaction to Christian in withholding compassion from Caro had sprung directly from her need, her poverty. There was no power whatever now in letting Caro jolly well fend for herself. (pp. 191–192)

Dora’s love life also comes under scrutiny, when – much to Caro and Garce’s surprise – she announces her marriage to the aptly named Major Ingot, a solidly built businessman who ‘cut(s) the oval sweep of a watermelon’ when standing in a doorway. It all ends in tears, of course, but I’ll leave you to discover the details yourself, should you read the book.

Miss Morphew said, “Dora was too trusting.”

Dora whimpered. “He [Major Ingot] won me over.”

It was hard to imagine the Major in wooing mood. One suspected he had never courted anything, except disaster. (pp. 164–165)

Hazzard also invests her novel with a palpable sense of time and place. Newsworthy events are mentioned in passing, anchoring various developments in the appropriate era while also occasionally echoing the turmoil in her characters’ lives. Postwar London is especially vividly portrayed, as is the Thales’ home in the South of England, the setting for the book’s compelling opening chapters.

Nevertheless, Hazzard’s coup de grâce stems from the novel’s structure and delicate foreshadowing, in which the piercing ending echoes various clues and motifs, initially seeded in the opening section and subtly hinted at throughout. Chance and destiny are both invoked here, giving the novel the air of a classic Greek tragedy.

In short, it’s a superb, richly layered novel – one of those books you want to start again the moment you finish it. I’ll end with a short quote that seems to capture something of the novel’s sadness – initially stemming from Ted’s unrequited love, but like so many other elements here, it seems all the more poignant once the full implication of the novel’s ending becomes clear. It’s masterful stuff!

In the restaurant, Ted Tice was watching Caro’s lowered eyelids; the tragedy is not that love doesn’t last. The tragedy is the love that lasts. (p. 292)

Women Writers in Translation – some book recommendations for #WITMonth    

45 Replies

As many of you know, August is #WITMonth (Women in Translation), a celebration of books by women writers, initially written in languages other than English (and then translated for English-speaking readers to enjoy). This annual event, initially established and hosted by Meytal Radzinski, aims to raise the profile of translated literature by women writers across the globe. It’s also one of my favourites, partly for the theme and partly for the flexibility – there are so many terrific books to choose from!

Over the past twelve years, #WITMonth has grown in popularity, with many publishers and bookshops around the world joining members of the reading community to showcase works by women writers in translation. Alongside this, I’ve been trying to make #WIT a more regular thing by reading and reviewing books by women in translation more often (rather than just saving them for August). So, if you’re looking for ideas on what to read for this year’s #WITMonth and beyond, here’s a round-up of some favourites from my recent(ish) reading.

A Little Luck by Claudia Piñeiro (tr. Frances Riddle)

A fascinating, utterly gripping novel about chance vs fate, split-second decisions and their irreversible consequences, guilt vs responsibility and condemnation vs redemption. In short, this thought-provoking story follows a middle-aged woman, Mary Lohan, who returns to her old neighbourhood in Temperley, Buenos Aires, after an absence of twenty years. At first, we don’t know why she has come back, or the reasons behind her earlier departure, but things gradually become clearer as the novel unfolds. Piñeiro is very skilled at withholding key information, and the novel is a masterclass in measured pacing and the piece-by-piece reveal. The compelling first-person narrative reads like a kind of confession, establishing a level of intimacy with the reader, drawing them into Mary’s story from the opening pages. An outstanding, beautifully written novel that’s hard to shake.

There’s No Turning Back by Alba de Céspedes (tr. Ann Goldstein)

Groundbreaking on its initial publication in 1938, There’s No Turning Back can now be viewed as a prescient, transgressive exploration of women’s desire for independence, autonomy and self-expression. By weaving together the stories of eight young female students living in the Grimaldi, a convent-style boarding house in Rome, de Céspedes presents the reader with a range of different experiences as each of these women must find a way to live to shape her future direction for the better.

In essence, each student is trying to bridge the gap between the role society has deemed for her and the one she herself wishes to adopt. Moreover, she must consider the challenges to be overcome and the sacrifices required to achieve her aspirations. With many of these women looking to branch out beyond the traditional gender-based roles of wife and mother, the novel explores themes such as female friendship, agency, independence, autonomy, ambition, desire, and fulfilment in a wonderfully engaging way. By focusing on the choices these characters make to break free from their constraints, de Céspedes explores the upsides and downsides of progression through education vs work, love vs independence and personal desires vs familial duty. An immersive, richly imagined novel that deserves to be better known – this author’s Forbidden Notebook is another stunner!

Long Live the Post Horn! by Vigdis Hjorth (tr. Charlotte Barslund)

First published in Norwegian in 2013 and translated into English in 2020, Long Live the Post Horn! was written by the acclaimed Norwegian writer Vigdis Hjorth. Ostensibly a portrayal of a lonely young woman whose life is directionless, unfulfilling and lacking in substance, the novel gradually transitions into a story about self-acceptance and personal agency, illustrating that there are positive choices to be made every day of our lives, irrespective of how small or insignificant these decisions appear to be. Moreover, Hjorth offers the reader a subtle critique of the damaging impact of capitalism, neatly highlighting the tensions between the lives, livelihoods and needs of individual citizens and the relentless corporate drive for reduced margins, greater efficiencies and increased profits.

As the novel unfolds, it also undergoes something of a shift in tone, as a palpable sense of existential dread gives way to a quiet optimism, flecked with moments of dry, deadpan humour throughout. I loved this humane story of an alienated PR consultant struggling to find meaning in a fractured, uncertain world, which feels particularly timely given the current rate at which AI-enabled systems are replacing human interactions in various aspects of our lives.

The Dangers of Smoking in Bed by Mariana Enriquez (tr. Megan McDowell)

In 2024, I read and loved Mariana Enriquez’s Things We Lost in the Fire, a superb collection of macabre, deeply disturbing short stories in which elements of Gothic horror and surreal, otherworldly imagery mingle with insightful social critique, tapping into the collective traumas from Argentina’s atrocities, both past and present. Enriquez grew up during the Dirty War, when several thousand Argentine citizens were murdered or disappeared. Consequently, the ghosts of the vanished – both literal and metaphorical – haunt many of her stories, bringing the country’s horrors to life in vivid and compelling ways.

Translated into English in 2021, The Dangers of Smoking in Bed is in a very similar vein to Fire – another unnerving collection of stories with the power to destabilise and disturb contemporary readers. Enriquez excels at weaving together the surreal and supernatural, embedding these into the real-world socio-political horrors of life in Argentina, from poverty, parental neglect and sexual abuse to disappearances, murders and other criminal activities. There’s a wildness or sense of craziness to many of these stories, twisting the recognisable into distorted, destabilising shapes – and it’s this rooting in reality, the real and inescapable, that makes Enriquez’s stories so horrifying and impactful to read. Unnerving, alluring and inventive, these stories are not for the faint-hearted; otherwise, very highly recommended indeed!

A Silence Shared by Lalla Romano (tr. Brian Robert Moore)

Lalla Romano’s In Farthest Seas, a profound, intimate and deeply moving elegy to her husband Innocenzo (Cenzo) Monti, made my Jan – June reading highlights (posted last week), so this time, I thought I’d recommend another of her books, A Silence Shared. In this atmospheric, beautifully written novella, Giulia, the young woman who narrates the story, is drawn into the orbit of an enigmatic married couple – the lively, spontaneous Ada and her distant, preoccupied husband, Paolo – while sheltering in the Italian countryside during WW2. A sense of connection swiftly develops between Giulia and Paolo, a kind of affinity or unspoken bond which flourishes in their shared silences, enhancing the delicate mood in the couple’s house.

There is something dreamlike and hypnotic about this novella, as if the reader is viewing every development through a light, gauzy curtain, rendering everything with a hazy, shimmering glow. Romano excels in creating an intimate, emotionally charged atmosphere, highlighting the burgeoning relationships between Giulia, Paolo and Ada. It’s a beautiful ode to stillness and silence, all expressed in Romano’s subtle, poetic prose.

The Empusium by Olga Tokarczuk (tr. Antonia Lloyd-Jones)

Inspired by Thomas Mann’s 1924 novel The Magic Mountain, which explores various philosophical ideas and the nature of European society in the run-up to WW1, The Empusium is Olga Tokarczuk’s sly, clever and erudite response – a health resort horror story in which the true horrors are the misogynistic views of men, central to received wisdom and intellectual thinking at that time. It’s a dense, elegantly written novel that requires patience and concentration from readers, but the rewards are plentiful for those who persist. I found it oddly gripping and unsettling, the sort of book that really gets under your skin. It’s also a novel fizzing with ideas and opposing forces, all culminating in a haunting denouement worthy of Sylvia Townsend Warner or Barbara Comyns. While Tokarczuk might not be everyone’s taste, it’s hard not to acknowledge her skill as a visionary writer capable of tackling some of the central tensions and philosophical concerns of our world, even though she might well unnerve us in the cleverest of ways.

Child of All Nations by Irmgard Keun (tr., Michael Hofmann)

Narrated by ten-year-old Kully, whose voice I found highly engaging from the start, Child of All Nations provides an eye-opening window into the uncertain existence of a small family of German refugees, forced to leave their homeland due to the father’s criticism of the Nazi’s political beliefs. Headed by Peter/Pierre, a dynamic, outspoken writer, Kully’s family left Germany in 1936 in search of freedom. In practice, however, true liberty is rather difficult to achieve, especially for Kully and her mother, Annie. As the novella unfolds, we see how the family continually lives on credit in well-to-do hotels, racking up expenses they can ill afford to settle. When Peter goes off on his travels, attempting to conjure up some money from nowhere, Kully and Annie remain behind at their latest establishment, effectively acting as collateral in place of payment for their stay.

With her beguiling blend of streetwise intelligence, natural curiosity and moments of innocence, Kully is a marvellous creation, hardy and adaptable in a myriad of situations. Her instincts are sharp, ever alert to the unwritten principles and rules, even when the logic behind them remains somewhat mysterious. The use of a child narrator, especially one as curious and thoughtful as Kully, enables Keun to subtly criticise the German authorities more easily than if her novella were being told from the perspective of an adult. While undoubtedly streetwise and intelligent, Kully remains a ten-year-old girl at heart, complete with the suggestion of innocence this age implies – a technique that allows Keun to highlight the poignancy and absurdity of the situations her protagonist must face.

A Woman by Sibilla Aleramo (tr. Erica Segre and Simon Carnell)

What a phenomenal book this is, an autobiographical feminist novel first published in Italian in 1906, under a pseudonym due to its radical content! Touching on similar themes to Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s seminal text The Yellow Wallpaper and Alba de Cespedes’ startling confessional novel Forbidden Notebook, in which a woman explores the right to her own existence in light of the demands of marriage and motherhood, Aleramo’s A Woman reads like a howl from the past, a cry of anguish for liberty, independence and intellectual fulfilment in an oppressive world.

In passionate, emotive prose, Aleramo lays bare the horrific realities of life for a young Italian woman trapped in a brutal, patriarchal society, in which a married woman is considered her husband’s property to do with as he pleases. I found it a vital, propulsive read, an early example of feminist autofiction that deserves to be widely read. Annie Ernaux fans should be rushing to pick this up!

The Door by Magda Szabó (tr. Len Rix)

This extraordinary novel is a character study, a detailed portrayal of a complex, co-dependent relationship between the female writer who narrates the story and her elderly housekeeper, the enigmatic, unpredictable Emerence. Using this dynamic as a framework, Szabó explores various themes, including betrayal, guilt, shame, loyalty, sacrifice, mortality, grief and the tensions between the traditional ‘old’ Hungary and the more progressive ‘new’ Hungary in post-war society. In fact, the relationship between the writer (who remains unnamed until the end of the novel) and Emerence could be seen as a metaphor for the country’s tensions, trauma and evolution during the last century. A friend chose this for our book group, and I could not be more grateful to her.

The Lady Bandit by Emilia Pardo Bazán (tr. Robert M. Fedorchek)

Ten years ago, back in the early days of this blog, I read and loved The House of Ulloa, a feisty tale of contrasting values in which a virtuous chaplain finds himself embroiled in the exploits of a rough and ready marquis and those of his equally lively companions. The novel, a Penguin Classic, was written by Emilia Pardo Bazán, a key figure in the 19th-century Spanish literary scene. Now Penguin have issued The Lady Bandit, a collection of Pardo Bazán’s short stories, as part of their Archive series, and it’s a very welcome release, for me at least.

The House of Ulloa is an entertaining, picaresque romp, and there’s a similar feel to several of the sixteen short stories included in Bandit. Here we have darkly comic tales of fair-weather servants, trigger-happy priests and a notorious robber who finally meets her match. However, alongside the humour, Pardo Bazán also has an eye for the melancholic; many of these stories are genuinely poignant as relationships break down, lovers are parted and doting mothers are deceived. It’s an excellent collection, by turns chilling, shocking, humorous and touching. Pardo Bazán weaves a richly imagined tapestry of 19th-century Spain here, moving seamlessly from one intriguing tale to the next with elegance and verve.

If you’re looking for more inspiration, my previous #WITMonth recommendations are here: 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021 and 2020.

As ever, do let me know your thoughts on these books if you’ve read them or are thinking of doing so – I’d love to hear your views. And feel free to mention one or two of your own favourite ‘women in translation’ reads (or plans for this year) – it’s always interesting to hear about these, too.

My favourite books from Jan – June 2026

28 Replies

Now that we’re well into July, I thought it might be interesting to put together a mid-year review, summarising my reading highlights from January to June.

I seem to say this every year, but 2026 is shaping up to be another terrific year of reading for me. From brilliant reissues and rediscoveries to treasures from my TBR, the books have been excellent, with very few misses. As many of you know, most of the books I read were first published in the 20th century, but I do enjoy the occasional contemporary novel or two, and one of these – The Empusium by Olga Tokarczuk (tr. Antonia Lloyd-Jones) – almost made its way into this list, but not quite. Everything here is very last century, but there are valid reasons for the survival or rediscovery of these books in recent times, as quality tends to endure.

So, without further ado, here are my favourite reads from Jan to June 2026. These are the books I loved, the books that have stayed with me, the books I’m most likely to recommend to other readers. As ever, I’ve summarised each one in this post, but in each instance, you can find my full review by clicking on the relevant title.

The Levant Trilogy by Olivia Manning

One of my informal reading aims for 2026 was to read Olivia Manning’s Levant Trilogy, which, together with her earlier Balkan Trilogy, forms The Fortunes of War, a superb, largely autobiographical series of novels based on the author’s experiences during WWII. Viewed as a whole, the series offers a unique insight into lives lived on the advancing edges of war as the Germans closed in on Eastern Europe and North Africa. Moreover, it provides an acutely perceptive portrait of the early years of a fraught marriage unfolding against the backdrop of displacement and uncertainty.

In these books, we meet Guy and Harriet Pringle as they embark on married life, firstly in Bucharest, where Guy is employed by the British Council as a University lecturer, then in Athens, and finally in Cairo, where he initially finds himself sidelined with fewer opportunities to put his teaching skills to good use. The Pringles are, of course, based on Manning and her husband, Reggie Smith, and the fictional couple’s movements across the Balkans and the Levant mirror those of the author and Smith. It’s a wonderfully immersive series,  in which Manning succeeds in portraying both Pringles as complex, authentic and flawed individuals – just as we all are in life.

In Farthest Seas by Lalla Romano (tr. Brian Robert Moore)

A couple of years ago, I read and thoroughly enjoyed A Silence Shared, a beautiful, enigmatic novel by the Italian writer, translator and artist Lalla Romano. Now we have an elegant English translation of another of Romano’s books, In Farthest Seas, a profound, intimate and deeply moving elegy to Innocenzo (Cenzo) Monti, Romano’s husband of circa fifty years. If anything, I loved Seas even more than A Silence Shared, possibly because it reads like a work of autofiction. There is a genuine sense of honesty and vulnerability here, a palpable poignancy that cuts close to the bone.

Written as a series of crystalline vignettes, In Farthest Seas constructs an evocative portrait of the first four years of Lalla’s relationship with Cenzo (culminating in their wedding in the early 1930s) and the final four months they spent together before his death in the mid-1980s. Beautiful, candid and profoundly moving, it’s a kaleidoscopic elegy to a longstanding love and a deeply felt loss. I loved this heartfelt, melancholic book, and yet there is genuine beauty here too, while also encouraging us to reflect on our own mortality.

Freezing Point by Anders Bodelsen (tr. Joan Tate)

First published in Danish in 1969, Freezing Point is a chilling dystopian nightmare shot through with absurdist, deadpan humour. It’s also another thrilling entry in the Faber Editions series, an expertly curated selection of rediscovered gems, dedicated to showcasing radical literary voices from the past that still speak to us today.

The novella revolves around Bruno, a thirty-two-year-old man, who is diagnosed with an incurable cancer. However, with the alternative being certain death within months, Bruno opts to be ‘frozen down’ until such time as his cancer can be cured. The story plays out at three different points in time: 1973, 1995 and 2022, as we follow Bruno as he is frozen down and then defrosted. As this excellent, thought-provoking novella draws to a close, Bodelsen reveals the true horror of a world where immortality seems to be the only option. It’s a terrifying, nightmarish finish to a thoroughly absorbing story. Very highly recommended, partly because reading it today makes many of its themes seem eerily prescient.

Mr Wrong by Elizabeth Jane Howard

While Elizabeth Jane Howard is best known for her multigenerational family epic, The Cazalet Chronicles, in 1975, she published a collection of short stories, Mr Wrong, which demonstrates a darker, more chilling side to her range. Of the nine pieces included here, two are effectively ghost stories, expertly channelling the unnerving atmosphere one expects from this type of tale. Several others feature sinister or unsettling elements, showcasing Howard’s ability to mine the more disquieting aspects of human nature, especially where sexual relationships are involved. I loved this collection of evocative, beautifully written stories that showcase the full range of her talents for fiction. Happily, there are no weak links here, just pure, unadulterated reading pleasure, especially for readers who enjoy sinister, unsettling, beautifully written tales.

Miss Buncle’s Book by D. E. Stevenson

Unashamedly charming and cosy, Miss Buncle’s Book is an ideal comfort read – a throwback to simpler times when life was less complex and demanding than it is today, while also presenting its own particular challenges. First published in 1934 and reissued by Persephone in 2008, Stevenson’s novel revolves around life in the fictional English village of Silverstream, which might at first sight seem a picturesque idyll, but is in fact seething with discontent. Central to the story is Barbara Buncle, an unmarried gentlewoman, much like those excellent women one finds in Barbara Pym’s novels. However, Miss Buncle has a way with words, as we discover when the novel unfolds.

It’s an utterly delightful read, the type of book in which the good will be rewarded for their kind efforts while the wicked will get their comeuppance. Without wishing to give anything away, the novel’s ending is perfect, showcasing a most surprising metafictional dimension to Miss Buncle’s literary talents. Highly recommended, especially for fans of The Fortnight in September, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day and The Enchanted April!

The Sundial by Shirley Jackson

Over the past few years, Shirley Jackson has become one of my favourite writers, partly because she excels at exposing the darker sides of domestic life. Like David Lynch with his seminal film Blue Velvet, Jackson seems fascinated by the horrors lurking behind the picket fence and other seemingly innocuous suburban settings, tapping into our fears of danger within the home.

First published in 1958, The Sundial is less well known than some of Jackson’s other novels, but I’m not sure why. With its beguiling blend of Gothic horror, suspenseful ambiguity and caustic humour, I found it utterly compelling – up there with The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle in terms of enjoyment for me. There are shades of Barbara Comyns and Ivy Compton-Burnett at work here – an English eccentricity that acts as an interesting counterpoint to the story’s American setting. In summary, it’s a marvellous novel about a highly dysfunctional family, an irresistible blend of Gothic horror, suspenseful ambiguity and barbed humour in the dying days of an era.

Incidents in the Rue Laugier by Anita Brookner

I love Anita Brookner. Her insights into the loneliness and isolation that characterise her protagonists’ lives are painfully acute. Every time I read her, I seem to discover a new favourite, and her superb 1995 novel, Incidents in the Rue Laugier, is no exception to that rule. A little like its predecessor, A Private View, Incidents is somewhat different from Brookner’s trademark stories of unmarried women living quiet, unfulfilled lives while waiting for their unattainable lovers to make fleeting appearances before disappearing into the night. In this instance, she turns her attention to a young woman, the sexually inexperienced Maud Gonthier, whose life is cruelly shaped by an ill-advised love affair at an impressionable age.

What differentiates Brookner’s fiction from many explorations of stagnant relationships is the precision and depth of insight she brings to her work. Incidents in the Rue Laugier is in effect the dissection of a mismatched marriage, the forensic examination of how two lives have been fatally compromised by a foolish dalliance with a feckless man. It’s another brilliant novel by one of my favourite writers – a tale of passionate, youthful love and its disastrous consequences in the style of Henry James.  

The Day of the Owl by Leonardo Sciascia (tr. Archibald Colquhoun and Anthony Oliver)

Born in Racalmuto, Sicily, in 1921, Leonardo Sciascia became one of Italy’s leading writers and political commentators during the second half of the 20th century, a man deeply interested in truth, justice and moral values. Through a series of superb crime novellas and non-fiction works, Sciascia probed the corruption and criminality endemic in Sicilian and Italian society at the time, illustrating how the mafia’s tentacles extended to powerful politicians and members of the Catholic Church.

Initially published in 1961, The Day of the Owl was Sciascia’s first novella, and it remains a highlight to this day. Based on a real case, the novella was the first work of fiction to openly explore the mafia and its role in organised crime, partly facilitated by the code of silence that prevented both powerful influencers and innocent citizens from speaking out. It’s also a great example of a detective novel that subverts some of the traditional codes of crime fiction. Sciascia’s interests lie not in the resolution of the crime and the restoration of a rightful moral order; rather, his focus is on the structures and codes that prevent the delivery of justice – barriers he feels just as passionate about as his protagonist when the novella draws to a close.

The Passenger by Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz (tr. Philip Boehm)

For a novel written in the immediate aftermath of Kristallnacht, a state-sponsored wave of violence, vandalism and imprisonment of Jews that took place in November 1938, The Passenger still feels remarkably relevant, charting as it does an ordinary Jewish businessman’s attempts to evade the Nazis in a Germany whose fundamental codes of decency have been superseded by the poisonous rhetoric of Fascism. As the Kristallnacht atrocities begin to bite, Boschwitz’s protagonist realises his life is in mortal danger, prompting him to flee his home when the Nazis start battering down the door. Shunned by his former friends and work colleagues, he must try to conceal his Jewish identity, leaving him little option but to go on the run, a journey that takes him from one perilous encounter to another to evade capture.

In light of the recent rise in antisemitism, The Passenger is an extremely timely read – propulsive, urgent and utterly terrifying. There are echoes of other stories of fear, discrimination and displacement here, from Anna Seghers’ novel Transit, Sally Carson’s Crooked Cross and Emeric Pressburger’s The Glass Pearls (all excellent) to classic Hitchcock thrillers such as The 39 Steps, Notorious and The Lady Vanishes. Like many of these works, there’s an existential dimension to Boschwitz’s novel, the feeling of being trapped in a bureaucratic nightmare from which there is no apparent escape.

The Battle of the Villa Fiorita by Rumer Godden

I loved this evocative, immersive read, a psychologically astute exploration of the impact of a woman’s adulterous affair and subsequent divorce on her two adolescent children, fourteen-year-old Hugh Clavering and his younger sister Caddie, who is almost twelve. As the novel opens, we find Hugh and Caddie in the garden of Villa Fiorita, situated by Lake Garda in northern Italy. They have run away from their father’s flat in central London and travelled to Italy with the intention of reclaiming their mother, Fanny, to bring her home to England, where the family can be reunited. The Villa is Fanny’s current home, which she is sharing with her lover, the successful film director Rob Quillet, while he writes his next film.

Godden excels at portraying the emotional blackmail Fanny and Rob are subjected to as the children refuse to accept this new reality. At close to twelve, Caddie is too young to truly understand the depth of feeling and desire her mother feels for Rob, and yet she cannot deny that something powerful has happened to draw her mother away from their former life in England. It’s a wonderful summer read with plenty of drama and a vivid sense of place, reminding readers that there are rarely any winners in broken families, especially when children are involved.

Ladies of the Rachmaninoff Eyes by Henry Van Dyke

First published in 1965, Ladies of the Rachmaninoff Eyes is a glorious tragicomedy that also functions as a black, queer coming-of-age story. It is by turns witty, barbed, tender and poignant – think Truman Capote crossed with the drawing-room satire of Nancy Mitford or Ivy Compton-Burnett and you’ll be on the right lines. The novella is narrated by Oliver, a precocious sixteen-year-old boy, who lives in a grand house with his wealthy patron, an elderly Jewish widow named Etta Klein, and her longstanding black housekeeper/companion/sparring partner, Harriet Gibbs, who also happens to be Oliver’s aunt. These ladies enjoy a co-dependent love-hate relationship that frequently oscillates from one extreme of the emotional spectrum to the other. Black, queer and as bright as a button, Oliver has grown up in a rarefied atmosphere, an eccentric hothouse in which he serves as a kind of stand-in for Etta’s deceased son, Sargeant. His days are spent reading Baudelaire, composing poetry, lolling around the grounds at Green Acorns, and fighting off Della, the black housemaid who seems determined to seduce him.

It’s another brilliant addition to the Faber Editions stable and the coming-of-age genre, which seems to hold an enduring appeal for many readers. Oliver is a wonderfully engaging narrator to spend time with, an intelligent young man with a distinctive, erudite tone of voice. Ultimately, the book is also an elegiac reflection on death, the passing of time and the loss of youth in a changing world.

The Pumpkin Eater by Penelope Mortimer

Raw, unflinching and razor-sharp – these are the descriptions that come to mind when I think of Penelope Mortimer’s fiction. Mortimer has an innate ability to portray how easy it is for an intelligent woman to descend into a downward spiral or emotional collapse, especially if she is isolated in a stifling, unfulfilling marriage to a self-absorbed husband. It’s a subject she explored with great skill in her excellent 1958 novel Daddy’s Gone A-Hunting, which delves into the horrors of a soulless suburban life. But if anything, her semi-autobiographical novel The Pumpkin Eater, which was published in 1962, is even more penetrating in its depiction of a mother’s slide into an inescapable mental abyss.

Much of the novel is related through the narrator’s discussions with her doctor in their regular therapy sessions, which Jake, her husband of thirteen years, has arranged. What emerges as the novel unfolds is a vivid picture of a woman in crisis, lonely and isolated in a tumultuous marriage in which her only viable role is to produce children and care for them – it’s all she seems to know how to do. The writing is remarkable – a superb novel and an emotional tour de force.

Do let me know your thoughts on these books if you’ve read them or are thinking of doing so – I’d love to hear your views. And feel free to mention one or two of your own favourite reads from the first 6 months of the year – it’s always nice to hear about these, too.

Another Part of the Wood by Beryl Bainbridge  

32 Replies

This is only my third novel by the British writer Beryl Bainbridge, following An Awfully Big Adventure and The Bottle Factory Outing (both excellent), but I’m already sensing something of a pattern to her work: intriguing but unlikeable characters, often at odds with one another; a narrative that walks the line between dark, edgy comedy and pathos or tragedy; and a brooding sense of tension waiting to erupt.

First published in 1968 and revised in 1979, Another Part of the Wood was Bainbridge’s second book to appear in print – a barbed, brilliantly executed novel about dysfunctional families, the breakdown of love, and what can happen when a parent fails to take responsibility for the children in their care. If you enjoy books about unlikeable characters cooped up in a pressure-cooker environment, this is a novel for you!

The story takes place at a primitive holiday camp in the Welsh forests. George MacFarley, whose family owns the camp, has invited his friend, Joseph, to stay. However, as George soon discovers, the men will not be alone. On arrival, Joseph is accompanied by his girlfriend, Dotty, his seven-year-old son, Roland, and a strange adolescent boy named Kidney. Moreover, Joseph has taken it upon himself to invite two other people to join the trip – a pair that George has never met. They are Lionel and May Gosling, a married couple who will be arriving later. George, who had been looking forward to intellectual chats with Joseph, is somewhat perturbed by these developments – as is his assistant, Balfour, who senses sexual tension ahead.

‘She’s [May’s] a blonde,’ said Joseph, ‘and he’s in some sort of business. He [Lionel] used to be in the army. Had his buttock shot off in Italy.’

George said without reproach, listening to an owl hoot somewhere behind the long barn, ‘You didn’t say there was a woman coming.’

‘Didn’t I? Oh well, they’re married, George. It’s not too bad.’

Dear God, thought Balfour, practically sobered with shock. Not two men but a man and wife – a woman with yellow hair and a man with a mutilated arse, in his hut, sleeping in the same room as himself. He removed his hands from his face and gazed at Joseph hopelessly. (p. 24–25)

Kidney (Joseph’s protégé) is overweight, has learning difficulties and needs to take regular medication – referred to at the start of the novel as ‘his pills’, but we discover the name of the specific drug later in the story. Joseph, it turns out, is acting as a kind of foster father to Kidney, having come across him at the technical college where he works; it’s a somewhat bizarre situation, especially considering his lack of interest in spending time with his own son, Roland. Based on Bainbridge’s ex-husband, Joseph sees himself as a saviour of souls, an idealistic figure, although his actual behaviour fails to live up to this billing. He seems determined to wean Kidney off his pills during the trip, favouring exercise and fresh air over regular medication, but the reader can already detect trouble afoot…

In some respects, the trip is an opportunity for Joseph to spend time with Roland, who lives with his mother, Joseph’s ex-wife. Joseph has promised the boy that they will climb the nearby mountain together; however, he soon forgets this idea when other distractions divert his attention away.

While the camp is meant to be a place of rest, the visitors find it uncomfortable and claustrophobic. The sleeping arrangements are cramped, the lighting is virtually non-existent and the toilets are far from ideal. Moreover, there’s precious little to do, and with internal space being limited, tensions – sexual and otherwise – inevitably abound. Moreover, the arrival of May and Lionel Gosling – a couple Joseph and Dotty barely know – adds colour to an already fractious mix.

May giggled and stepped out of the Mini in her new pink trews and her gingham shirt, a white silk handkerchief tied casually about her neck. She turned her powdered cheek for Joseph’s gallant kiss, moving past Dotty with a jangling of the charm bracelet on her rounded arm and stood at the barred gate looking about her at the view. (p. 47)

Lionel persists in banging on about his time in the army, much to the annoyance of his wife, May, who comes across as a bit of a maneater. Balfour clearly finds May’s sexual energy uncomfortable, especially as he is sharing a hut with the Goslings – a situation not helped by Lionel’s nightly routine of recounting erotic stories to his bored wife while they’re in bed. Meanwhile, Balfour, who stutters and suffers from some kind of nervous condition, cannot think about May without getting hot under the collar.

Balfour, alone in the upper air, was huge and bloated with excitement. Legs, arms, stomach, mind balloon out into the darkness, leaving only his head pinched to the pillow like some specimen butterfly. (p. 84)

May doesn’t seem to like Lionel very much, with his potbelly, thinning hair and never-ending reminiscences about the war. In short, she considers him a fool. Meanwhile, Lionel thinks May needs to be protected from the evils of the world and is jealous of other men who look at her with lust.

She only wanted him to touch her when he was dressed as the business executive he pretended to be. She could take the caresses of the man of the Stock Exchange, soon to make his million, but she despised the tubby husband panting on the mohair settee in the expensive flat with the yellow brocade curtains and the plastic tulips on the windowsill. (pp. 56–57)

After the first night, May wants to go home. The camp is boring, cramped and cold – and besides, she’s simply not equipped for the camping lifestyle.

May wouldn’t speak to Lionel. She was obviously huffy. She shielded her face with one hand and played with her spoon in the unappetizing massive of her shredded wheat. She felt exhausted and hideous, with all her make-up on wrong. The mirror was too small, and when she had done her eyebrows Joseph had made some remark about her warpaint and they had all watched her. She was sure she had swollen in the night; she felt blown out like some balloon. […]

It was such a small hut with all these people in it. There wasn’t room to breathe and it was so dark with the door shut, as if they were in a ships cabin with the spray splashing up against the porthole. There was more space further in, towards that chintz sofa…but it was warmer near the cooker. There was something large and grey standing near the wall, shaped like an unexploded bomb with a metal knob on it. She hoped it wouldn’t blow up. Lionel was going on about Churchill being a great man, talking about him as if he’d met him, saying he spoke to him at Malta once. He always pretended that. He never had met him. (pp. 99–100)

Meanwhile, Dotty is getting fed up with Joseph, who makes her feel boring and worthless. She also feels sorry for Roland, who seems bored and homesick, particularly as he’s not getting any time with his father. Meanwhile, Joseph is mostly interested in himself, paying precious little attention to Roland, Kidney or Dotty. The following passage is particularly telling in the insights it gives us into Joseph’s character.

Why was it so difficult to like anyone for any length of time, let her alone love them? He  [Joseph] wasn’t sure if he was unable to love because he had no tenderness for himself or because he felt himself to be perfect and out of reach of compassion. His ex-wife said it was because he was a selfish bastard, but that was the same thing. […] he didn’t remember either the lengths or the depths of any of his involvements with any one person. He was either absorbed or empty, and one feeling followed the other. (p. 10)

Moreover, May is suspicious of Kidney and considers him abnormal. She also dislikes Joseph with his supercilious ways and believes he should not allow Kidney to sleep beside Roland, given her concerns about the adolescent.

As Lynn Barber outlines in her excellent introduction to the novella, Bainbridge’s initial drafts were often long, but she pared them back very aggressively, sometimes removing elements that the reader might actually benefit from knowing. However, in this instance, I don’t think it affects the quality of the book. If anything, this spareness adds to the intrigue, allowing readers to join the dots or come up with their own hypotheses for what has taken place. For instance, there are brief references to Kidney having been treated in a clinic (possibly residential), alongside his need for regular medication. There are hints too that it may not be advisable for him to share a home with a woman, which suggests a history of sexual violence or abuse of some description. Nothing is explicitly spelt out, but the possibility is left hanging in the air. There’s also a rather ominous mention of a rope at one stage, which might point to another troubling element in Kidney’s past….

Right from the very start, there’s a palpable sense of unease, the distinct feeling that something terrible is going to happen before the end of the trip. Things do happen – a fire breaks out in the woods, various arguments take place, Balfour has a funny turn, and a wasps’ nest is disturbed with the inevitable results – but I’ll hold back from revealing the most dramatic developments, which come towards the novella’s close. The shadow of WWII also hangs over the story, from Lionel’s obsession with reminiscing about his wartime exploits to George’s fascination with the Holocaust and the Jews – he has planted trees on the campsite as a memorial to the losses.

In some respects, Another Part of the Wood is a dark and disturbing read, but Bainbridge’s talent for creating oddly compelling scenarios means it’s hard to turn away. In essence, this is an excellent, well-crafted tragi-comedy, shot through with Bainbridge’s acute insight into human nature. It’s the juxtaposition between the darkly comic and the deeply tragic that makes this such an unsettling yet involving read. I’ll finish with a final quote that made me laugh out loud!

Lionel was now talking about treaties and organisations. ‘South American powers,’ he said seriously, ‘Asiatic powers. European powers, known collectively as the Great Powers.’

‘I only know Tyrone Power,’ said May.  (p. 101)

Highly recommended, if you can track it down.

The Spring House by Cynthia Asquith

24 Replies

Part war-torn love story, part character study, part portrayal of a young woman’s life on the home front, The Spring House is another brilliant entry in the British Library Women Writers series – in fact, I think it’s one of the most absorbing and accomplished novels in the collection so far.

First published in 1936, The Spring House is one of only two novels by Lady Cynthia Asquith, whose writing encompassed diaries, royal biographies and children’s books. She was also the daughter-in-law of the Liberal politician Herbert Henry Asquith, Britain’s Prime Minister from 1908 to 1916. While the book came out at a time of rising political tensions across Europe, it takes as its setting an earlier conflict – that of WWI and its impact on those who remained in Britain. The novel deftly combines social comedy with emotional perceptiveness, and we also see how war changes people, focusing predominantly on the upper-class milieu. There are also some excellent insights into the traumatic fallout from conflict on the battlefield, touching on loss, crippling grief and debilitating shell shock. It’s an excellent and immersive story, elegantly expressed.

Opening in May 1915 and closing in April 1919, The Spring House spans four years in the life of its central protagonist, Miranda Gray, a twenty-two-year-old British woman from a privileged background. Before the war, Miranda and her husband, Leonard, had been living in Canada, where Leonard remained stationed following the outbreak. However, when the war began, Miranda, accompanied by her four-year-old son, Pat, happened to be visiting her mother at Star Cross, the family’s grand country home in England. Now Miranda and Pat have been in Britain for ten months, ostensibly because Leonard is worried about the risk of them being attacked by submarines during their return crossing to Canada. Meanwhile, Star Cross has been turned into an auxiliary hospital, and Miranda’s mother, Mrs Moore, is heavily involved in its day-to-day management.

On the surface, Miranda comes across as rather self-absorbed, someone who thrives on admiration as confirmation of her value to others. Her feelings towards Leonard are those of loyalty and affection, not passion and desire. At seventeen, she had fallen in love with the idea of love rather than Leonard himself. Now the thought of him clouds her, draining her mind of vivacity and ideas.

Consequently, Miranda keeps a string of eligible men dangling from her fingertips, ready to ensure she is suitably entertained. A sequence of flirtations has already taken place, none of which lasted for very long. Rather, Miranda favours superficial relationships based on admiration without the complications of deepening emotions. Her closest friend, Gloria, who is nursing at Star Cross, considers these men to be ‘occupations’  or playthings for Miranda, there to provide the admiration she relies on. In effect, each admirer is a looking-glass in which Miranda can preen herself. Perhaps they are little more than ‘a succession of shifting illusions’, a thought Miranda chafes against, even though she realises it might well be true.

What did she really feel towards Richard? At present she felt in a state of emotional catalepsy. How tired she was of finding the exhilaration of a new friendship evaporate! As familiarity grew, glimpses of a rare intimacy faded like a mirage, and she had to admit that once again she had been attracted by a fabrication of her own mind—a sort of projection of herself. Objectivity sudden suddenly returned, leaving her with a sense of disenchantment. (p. 13)

Also of relevance to the story are Miranda’s brothers, Robin and Stephen. At the tender age of twenty, Robin has just finished his military training and is about to leave for the front as an officer in the war, which has interrupted his studies at Oxford. Young in spirit but mature in understanding, Robin is amiable, charming and intensely alive; his mere presence tends to enliven others. He also writes poetry; in fact, he lives poetry. Stephen, on the other hand, is four years older than Miranda, whom he loves in a protective way. His demeanour leans towards droll self-criticism, punctuated by periods of depression and a tendency to turn in on himself. The war has cut short his promising House of Commons career, while also quickly compromising his mental health. Naturally, Miranda adores both brothers, while also recognising their individual needs.

At first, despite all this activity around her at Star Cross, Miranda remains rather detached from the emotional reality of war. It still feels rather remote and unreal to her, and she oscillates between embracing social situations and the vivacity they provide and admonishing herself for pursuing frivolity at such a sensitive time.

For the moment her hurried, entangled life was too full to allow of much introspection. She was carried on from one thing to another. It was only in moments (frequent enough) of despondency, due to intense physical fatigue, that she had violent, what she called ‘downs’ with herself and condemned her present existence as trivial. At other times she saw herself and her life through a haze of glamour and felt a sense of momentous purpose in all her actions and concerns, however trivial. Each new friendship seemed an enthralling adventure; and embarkation on uncharted seas. (p. 111)

In time, though, Miranda is drawn into war work by volunteering as a VAD nurse at a Red Cross hospital in the South Downs. Following a period of turbulence, she welcomes the structure, order and immense satisfaction this activity provides, at least for a while. It’s also an opportunity for Asquith to offer us some moving insights into the realities of working life as a voluntary nurse during WWI.

Everything changes for Miranda when Stephen – back at Star Cross and experiencing what we would now term shell shock – invites a wounded fellow officer, John Marlowe, to stay for a week. At first, Miranda is a little disappointed at the prospect of not having Stephen to herself, but as soon as she meets John, all concerns about his presence go straight out the window. John reveals himself to be charming, bright and quick-witted, so much so that Miranda falls rapidly under his spell. She feels utterly enlivened by him as her mind dances with love and fizzes with ideas.

She had become someone else—an entirely different being, Leonard’s Miranda no longer existed. It was over two years since she had even seen him, and his letters were those of a private schoolboy.

Leonard? Leonard? She reiterated her husband’s name, but the sound evoked only a dim and fading picture. If they have been together through these crucial years, no doubt their marriage would have been cemented by all the little daily sharings, which, if there is any kindliness, create and preserve a sort of love. But the long separation had been fatal to every feeling except a strained loyalty. And yet through that restraining loyalty, she could see no loophole. (p. 183)

With her loveless marriage to Leonard thrown into sharp relief, Miranda must wrestle with her love for John and her familial obligations – but I’ll leave you to discover just how the drama plays out, should you read the book. It’s a story that encompasses loss, grief, deceptions and family secrets – and for Miranda there are moral choices and sacrifices to be negotiated, some of which she may come to regret at a later time.

Something Asquith does so well here is to elicit the reader’s sympathies for a privileged young woman who, at first sight, appears rather self-absorbed and emotionally disconnected from the reality of the outside world. The more we read, however, the more we warm to Miranda, largely due to Asquith’s skill in deepening her character. As the novel unfolds, we become increasingly aware of Miranda’s fears, regrets and dashed dreams, alongside her hopes and expectations for the future, all of which provide insights into the maelstrom of emotions that assail her. It’s a hugely impressive character study, highlighting the conflicting feelings and motivations many of us experience in our youth, particularly when we lose a loved one. Asquith’s razor-sharp pen portraits of minor characters also deserve a mention here, particularly that of Miranda’s frosty mother-in-law, Mrs Gray.

It was over two years since Miranda had seen her mother-in-law. She had almost forgotten her eyes were quite so narrow, her lips so thin, but how well she remembered that sort of sterilized look, like some material that has been dry-cleaned once too often. As always, she was irreproachably dressed, no—not dressed, ‘turned out’ was the word, in a perfectly cut tailor-made of neutral tint. […] Her daughter-in-law had the old uncomfortable feeling of being on approval; also that there was not enough air in the room. (pp. 192–193)

The novel also touches on differing attitudes towards war, from the overly romantic to the moralistic and dutiful to committed pacifists, such as Miranda’s intellectual friend and poet, L. D. Harvest. The latter even considers Miranda’s nursing work to be in sympathy with the romantic and heroic notions of war, such is his abhorrence of anything connected to the conflict, war poetry included.

As series consultant Simon Thomas explains in the novel’s afterword, Cynthia Asquith was no stranger to loss. In October 1915, her younger brother, Yvo, died in WWI at the age of nineteen, and then six months later, her older brother, Hugo, was killed in battle aged thirty-one. It is these experiences which feed into the portrayal of Miranda’s grief, insightfully conveyed through Asquith’s exquisite prose.

How soon might the memory […] cease to be a rapturous pain; fade into a subdued ache; gradually become uninsistent as the scent of a dying flower? She searched the emptied  future. When someone very young died, it was like losing two people. All that he was and all that he might become. How much she had hoped—guessed—expected  for […]. All this was now ended. She sickened at the blank stretching before her. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. (p. 88)

On a lighter note, there are also some lovely moments of social comedy here, particularly in the various gatherings and dinners at Star Cross, with Miranda’s Aunt Madge and charming family friend, Sir Horace Wetherby, providing much of the humour. Sir Horace is another of Miranda’s suitors, but while she comes to depend on his generous affection and companionship, anything deeper would be out of the question. Their interactions add another layer to the novel, highlighting once again the complexity of Miranda’s character. In truth, she is so far removed from the self-interested young woman we assume her to be in those initial chapters that it’s a very impressive transformation indeed. Asquith also has a flair for descriptive writing, peppering the novel with vivid scenes, from her atmospheric descriptions of wartime London to various trysts in the Spring House (Miranda’s refuge in the grounds of Star Cross).

In summary, then, The Spring House is an excellent, richly textured novel about loss, grief, compromises, the complications of love and familial obligations at a time of war. It’s also a fascinating character study that shows just how complex and layered human beings can be, even those who might initially appear shallow and self-absorbed. A very impressive novel, and I’m delighted to see it back in print! (My thanks to the publisher for kindly providing a review copy.)

The Pumpkin Eater by Penelope Mortimer

46 Replies

Raw, unflinching and razor-sharp are just some of the descriptions that come to mind when I think of Penelope Mortimer’s fiction. Mortimer has an innate ability to portray how easy it is for an intelligent woman to descend into a downward spiral or emotional collapse, especially if she is isolated in a stifling, unfulfilling marriage to a self-absorbed husband. It’s a subject she explored with great skill in her excellent 1958 novel Daddy’s Gone A-Hunting, which delves into the horrors of a soulless suburban life. But if anything, her semi-autobiographical novel The Pumpkin Eater, which was published in 1962, is even more penetrating in its depiction of a mother’s slide into an inescapable mental abyss. It’s probably the best novel I’ve read so far this year, which makes it a shoo-in for my 2026 highlights, unless something unexpected happens between now and then.

The Pumpkin Eater is narrated by Mrs Armitage, a woman defined from the outset by her marriage to the successful screenwriter and filmmaker, Jake Armitage. Jake is the narrator’s fourth husband, and they have amassed a large brood of children – some from her earlier marriages and others fathered by Jake, but the narrator gave birth to them all. With the exception of the eldest girl, Dinah, the children are not differentiated as individuals; instead, they are either part of the older group or one of Jake’s children.

Much of the novel is related through Mrs Armitage’s discussions with her doctor in their regular therapy sessions, which Jake, her husband of thirteen years, has arranged. As she talks to this doctor about her feelings and current situation, the narrator’s backstory emerges through these reflections. Jake, we soon learn, is a particularly complex character, chameleonic in certain respects. The side he presents to the external world is that of an amiable, gregarious, ambitious man, sometimes lazy but often fun-loving. In reality though, he is selfish, insensitive, aggressive, violent and cruel – qualities that make him hard to live with as a husband and father.

After a modest start, Jake is now working and travelling on a near-continuous basis, rubbing shoulders with demanding producers and glamorous, temperamental film stars. While Jake has furnished his wife with every material possession and service she might need, from a large house in London to a nurse to help with the children and all manner of other worldly goods, he has completely neglected her emotional needs. Consequently, the narrator’s life is hollow and meaningless, and the only solution she can think of to fill this vacuum is to have another child. Jake, however, is vehemently opposed to this idea, creating immense friction between them, which often leads to intense outbursts and rows.

As far as Jake sees it, he has worked like a demon to support the whole family, taking on terrible scripts he wanted nothing to do with, simply to earn enough money to keep the family afloat. And just when some breathing space appears to be in sight, the narrator gets herself pregnant again, prompting Jake’s anger at the prospect of another child…

[Jake:] “…You don’t care about me, all you care about is the bills being paid and the bloody children, that great fucking army of children that I’m supposed to support and work my guts out for, so I can’t even take a bath in peace, I can’t eat a bloody meal without them whining and slobbering all over the table, I can’t even go to bed with you without one of them barging in in the middle. If you cared about me you’d try to understand me, wouldn’t you? All right, I’m a bastard! All right, I’m no good to you! But what joy do you think I get out of this god-awful boring family life of yours? Where do I come in? (p. 40)

As the narrator lies on the doctor’s couch, revealing her thoughts in a candid, unguarded manner, a harrowing picture begins to emerge. We learn how every aspect of her life has been dictated by men, from her upbringing to her choices of husbands and the nature of their marriages to the control of her physical and mental health. For instance, I was struck by how often men discuss the narrator in her presence while acting as if she isn’t there, as in this scene before her marriage to Jake.

“If I’d had a son,” my father said, “I’d have known how to bring him up. No problem. We failed with this girl here. There’s no question of it, we failed. It’s time she had a firm hand on her tiller, and I’ve got a strong notion that you’re the chap to put it there.”

“I’m here!” I said. “Why can’t you talk to me?”

My father leant over and patted Jake’s shoulder.

“Good luck,” he said. “Good luck, my boy, you need it.” (pp. 24-25)

The sections detailing the narrator’s father are especially revealing as we can see how her life was moulded by him from an early age. When she married Jake, her father dictated where the newlyweds should live, insisting that her older children be sent to boarding school to give Jake some breathing space at home. All this despite the fact that she was a grown woman in her late twenties with several children under her belt. Incidents from the narrator’s teenage years may also have played a role in shaping her current frustrations and emotional isolation. Mortimer reveals these brilliantly through memories without labouring her points, thereby allowing readers to reflect on these experiences themselves.

We also see how easily Jake slips into affairs with other women – often younger or more desirable than his wife – when these opportunities arise. At first, he lies to the narrator when confronted, but all too soon the truth comes tumbling out.

All this precipitates an emotional collapse that engulfs Mrs Armitage, culminating in a breakdown in Harrods’ linen department, of all places, which is heartbreaking to observe.

What did I come here for? Why did I walk, in the spring, along a mile of pavement? Do I want a bed rest, a barbecue, a clock like a plate or a satin stole or a pepper mill or a dozen Irish linen tea towels printed, most beautifully, with the months of the year? April brings the primrose sweet, scatters daisies at our feet. I am beginning to cry. I stand in the bloody great linen department and cry and cry quite soundlessly, sprinkling the stiff cloths with extraordinarily large tears. Oh, what has happened to you, Mrs. Enterprise, dear? Are your productions limited, your trusts faithless, and what of the company you keep? Think of all those lovely children, dear, and don’t cry as the world turns round holding you on its shoulders like a mouse. (pp. 47–48)

Jake’s response to his wife’s breakdown is typically self-absorbed and unsympathetic: “Do you think you’re going to get over this period of your life, because I find it awfully depressing?” (p. 48)

Unsurprisingly, the narrator’s doctor is a rather patronising man, someone who makes assumptions and posits hypotheses on his patient’s obsession with having children. For instance, at one point, he suggests Mrs Armitage fears sex as a means of experiencing pleasure; in other words, she finds sex without the aim of procreation disgusting, something that can only be sanctified by ‘incessant reproduction’. It’s an accusation she denies, but we wonder whether he believes her.

What emerges as the novel unfolds is a vivid picture of a woman in crisis, lonely and isolated in a tumultuous marriage in which her only viable role is to produce children and care for them – it’s all she seems to know how to do. Mrs Armitage is consumed by motherhood – and yet, she loves her children and misses them hugely when separated from them. There’s also a strong sense of her bristling against the cards life has dealt her and the lack of say she has had in these matters. In short, the narrator doesn’t know who she is anymore. She wants to be happy, to find a way to be happy, if only she knew how.

At one point, there is a crucial realisation. For the narrator’s marriage to survive, there needs to be a fundamental change; but the trouble is, Jake is highly unlikely to alter his ways, making it impossible for his wife to see a viable escape from her position. Instead, the cycle of arguments and Jake’s affairs continues, further isolating the narrator in her loneliness and fear.

So we were back at the beginning again. There was no end. You learn nothing by hurting others; you only learn by being hurt. Where I had been viable, ignorant, rash and loving I was now an accomplished bitch, creating an emptiness in which my own emptiness might survive. We should have been locked up while it lasted, or allowed to kill each other physically. But if the choice had been given, it would not have been each other we would have killed, it would have been ourselves. (p. 171)

In her excellent introduction to the NYRB Classics edition of The Pumpkin Eater, the writer and critic Daphne Merkin outlines just how much Mortimer drew from her own experiences – particularly her turbulent marriage to the writer and barrister John Mortimer – in writing this novel. Their early years together were vigorous and full of life, often punctuated by blazing rows and passionate reconciliations. John embarked on a series of love affairs, leaving Penelope heartbroken and robbed of her self-esteem – frequent bouts of severe depression duly followed. Like Mrs Armitage in the book, Penelope fell pregnant for the eighth time and ultimately agreed, at the behest of her husband and doctor, to an abortion and sterilisation procedure. These experiences also make their way into The Pumpkin Eater as Jake persuades the narrator to agree to an abortion and sterilisation to end her run of pregnancies. Naturally, there will be no problem in gaining the necessary medical authorisations for these interventions as she is being treated for depression.

As this brilliant, brutally honest novel draws to a close, the countryside tower being built for the family is finally completed, but we sense that it will not provide the idyllic future the Armitages originally anticipated. Instead, it looks ‘bleak and foolish, like a monument to a disgraced hero, a folly built for some cancelled celebration’.

 I’ll finish with a final quote from this beautifully written novel, one that seems fitting as a passage to close with. I’ll be thinking about Mrs Armitage and her entrapment for many months to come…

I seemed to be alone in the world. My past, at last, was over. I had given it up; set it free; sent it back where it belonged, to fit into other people’s lives. […] I had found, or had created, a neutrality between the past that I had lost and the future that I feared: an interminable hour which passed under my feet like the shadow of moving stairs, each stair recurring again and again, flattening to meet the next, a perfect circle of isolation captive between yesterday and tomorrow, between two illusions. Yesterday had never been. Tomorrow would never come. (p. 212)

Lucian Freud: Drawing Into Painting

26 Replies

Time for another of my occasional posts on art exhibitions and accompanying catalogues – in this instance, the fascinating Lucian Freud ‘Drawing into Painting’ exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery (NPG) in London, one of my favourites in recent months. The show closed at the beginning of May 2026, but the beautifully produced catalogue, pictured below, is still available to buy from the gallery and other outlets.

Exhibition catalogue

Freud is widely considered one of Britain’s leading figurative artists of the 20th century, specialising in raw, intensely observed portraits and nude studies that shed light on the inner lives of his sitters. Many of his paintings are infused with a penetrating quality, an uncanny ability to capture (and possibly expose) a person’s vulnerabilities for the world to see.

Head of a Girl (1982), oil on canvas

I find them fascinating to look at, especially up close, mostly due to Freud’s excellent use of colour and form to craft these portraits, many of which were new to me.

Last Portrait (1974-7), oil on canvas

The exhibition showcased Freud’s lifelong fascination with human faces and figures, covering several different types of drawings – from pencil, pen, and ink portraits to charcoal works and etchings. In addition, several paintings were also included in the exhibition to illustrate the relationship between Freud’s works on paper and those on canvas. Interestingly, Freud rarely used drawings as preparatory sketches for paintings; instead, he often produced them in parallel or afterwards, almost as another way of capturing an individual. He liked the spontaneity of life and how embracing its unpredictability can heighten the intensity. This probably explains the edginess and forceful nature of some of his works, and probably their directness, too.

Girl With Roses (1947-8), oil on canvas

As Victoria Siddall, Director of the NPG, explains in her introduction  to the exhibition catalogue, Freud ‘steadfastly swam against the tide in the 20th century. He never made an abstract work, instead choosing a frank representational approach drawn from life, which encourages the viewer to scrutinise the details of his sitter’s flesh, hair and anatomies, often with discomfiting intimacy’.

Head of a Man (1986), charcoal on paper

Works from all stages of Freud’s career were on show, including childhood drawings and early pieces from his student days. I loved some of his drawings from the mid-1940s, such as Drawing of a Young Man (1944) and Boy in Red and Blue Jacket (1945).

Boy in Red and Blue Jacket (1954)

I was especially struck by Freud’s paintings of his wives and lovers, from his first wife, fellow artist Kitty Garman, to his second wife, the writer Caroline Blackwood (author of the excellent novel The Fate of Mary Rose), to his lover, the socialite Jacquetta Eliot. The artworks featuring Garman pay close attention to minute details, from her hair and eyes to the textures of her clothing.

Girl in a Dark Jacket (1947), oil on canvas

They are bold and unsettling, as are Freud’s portraits of Caroline Blackwood, with their disconcertingly large eyes and their aura of vulnerability.

Girl in a Green Dress (1954), tempera on board

Hotel Bedroom (1954) is particularly disturbing, depicting Freud shrouded in darkness, staring down at Caroline, lying in bed looking distressed. Although both are in the same room, the two lovers appear physically and emotionally distanced from one another, and it is this sense of separateness that gives the painting its disquieting mood.

Hotel Bedroom (1954), oil on canvas

Suzy Boyt and Celia Paul were also represented in Freud’s portraits, including one of his most ambitious works, Large Interior, W11 (after Watteau), 1981, which riffs on Watteau’s 18th-century painting Pierrot Content, in which Pierrot sits near the centre of the picture, flanked by a man and two women, one of whom is playing a guitar.

Jaen-Antoine Watteau: Pierrot Content (c. 1712), oil on canvas

In Freud’s equivalent, his daughter, Bella, plays the mandolin, alongside his former lover, Suzy Boyt, their son, Kai, and Freud’s lover at the time, the artist Celia Paul. Sadly, this painting wasn’t on show, just the reproduction shown below, but it was enough to see what Fraud produced.

Some of the most touching and tender works in the exhibition were those depicting Freud’s mother, Lucie, in the twilight of her life. As a young man, Freud had a challenging relationship with Lucie, whom he found overbearing; however, following her husband’s death, Lucie experienced severe depression and her relationship with Lucian somehow improved, thus enabling the artist to complete an intimate series of paintings before her death.  

The Painter’s Mother Reading (1975), oil on canvas

Freud’s self-portraits were also strongly represented – particularly fascinating as a means of illustrating his evolving style from the 1940s to the mid-2000s.

Man at Night (Self-Portrait) (1947-8), ink on paper
Self-Portrait (1963), oil on canvas
Self-Portrait, Reflection (2002), oil on canvas

The exhibition closed with portraits of Freud’s friends, family members and acquaintances, including fellow artist David Hockney, the restaurateur Jeremy King, and Lucian’s son, Frank Paul. The portrait of Hockney, painted in 2002, feels particularly poignant in light of his recent death.

David Hockney (2002), oil on canvas

All in all, a fascinating exhibition of Lucian Freud’s artwork, expertly curated by Sarah Howgate, Senior Curator of Contemporary Collections at the NPG, and David Dawson, artist and Director of the Lucian Freud Archive. The accompanying catalogue (published by National Portrait Gallery Publications) is well worth the investment if you’re a fan of Freud’s work.

Portrait of a Young Man (1944), black crayon and chalk on paper

Operation Heartbreak by Duff Cooper

28 Replies

What a beautiful, bittersweet novella this is, the heartbreaking story of a man whose moment appeared to have passed, only for providence to intervene to grant him another chance. First published in 1950, when the losses suffered in WWII were still fresh in people’s minds, Operation Heartbreak was inspired by real events, but the less you know about those beforehand the better. It’s a deeply moving story about hopes and expectations, disappointments and dashed dreams, and the emotional pull of love and war.

Cooper’s protagonist is Willie Maryngton, who wants nothing more than to fight for his country in the cut and thrust of war. Born into a military family at the dawn of the 20th century, Willie loses his mother in childbirth, leaving his father, a career soldier, as his only living relative. When his father and nominated guardian, Osborne, are both killed in the Great War, Willie is taken in by Osborne’s wife, who integrates the boy into her family home. Willie bonds well with the three Osborne children, Garnet, Felicity and Horatio (Horry), who are fairly close to him in age.

Even after his father’s death, Willie retains a romantic view of the Cavalry regiment and the powerful allure of war. His good nature, strong work ethic and steadfast reliability make him popular with the other cadets in training; nevertheless, despite entering Sandhurst at seventeen, Willie just misses out on being drafted to the front. Three days before he is due to leave, the end of the war is declared, dashing all his dreams.

What Willie feared was not defeat but that the war should end before he crossed the Channel. It was not unnatural. During the four most formative years of his life he had had only one ambition. To go into battle with his regiment had been for him the summit of human desire. (p. 16)

Meanwhile, the Osborne siblings are getting on with their respective lives. After training to be a doctor, Garnet joined the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC), where he has already been awarded two Victoria Crosses. Horry, on the other hand, abhors the idea of war and just wants to have fun, preferably as an actor, while Felicity’s aims are harder to pin down.

With little to keep him in England, Willie leaves for the continent to join his regiment two days after the Armistice is signed, but his time with the army of occupation is all rather dispiriting. Many of his fellow soldiers are restless and discontented, eager to return to Britain to resume their civilian lives. The enemy also proves something of a disappointment to Willie. In place of the fierce, brutal foes of his imagination, he finds them clumsy, sullen and often too anxious to please in defeat. It’s a far cry from the romantic visions of his dreams, and he soon returns home. Hunting and horse riding prove pleasant enough distractions, but the hunger for military service and battle remains steadfast.

During these years, although it may be said that he had found his place in the world and was occupying it with confidence, he never forgot what he had missed, or ceased to regret it. A chance question from a neighbour at a dinner-party, ‘Where were you in the war?’ a chance remark from an old member in the club, ‘You young fellows who’ve been through the war,’ would bring back a pang of the anguish he had felt when he was first told of the Armistice. And now that he was beginning to meet, as grown men, those who had been still at school on that day, he felt that they also had an advantage over him. (p. 30)

In time, Willie is sent to India with his regiment, and while it’s not quite the cut and thrust of battle he was hoping for, this posting is a fairly happy one. Moreover, it is here in India that Willie falls in love, but in the end, his romantic endeavours prove just as ill-fated as his military ones. In his naivety and innocence, Willie is enchanted by Daisy, an attractive, fluffy girl who was at school with Felicity Osborne. Nevertheless, following their swift engagement, Daisy does a runner, suddenly absconding with Coper Caffin, an officer in her father’s regiment, leaving Willie lonely and disappointed. With the benefit of hindsight, however, the warning signs were there to see.

She [Daisy] had given him something that he had not possessed before, and now that it was gone, he missed it. He had come to look forward to life with a companion. Now the companion has vanished and he was feeling lonelier than he had felt before. (p. 52)

A similar, albeit less enjoyable spell in Egypt duly follows, but the Army seems less important here, leaving Willie somewhat out on a limb. In truth, England seems to suit him best, and after many years away, he finally re-establishes contact with the Osborne siblings, who remain his surrogate family.

Willie’s days revolve around horses (both training and riding), spending time at his club and catching up with the Osbornes, particularly Horry and Felicity. Horry has carved out a relatively successful career as an actor, while Felicity proves to be as fickle and hard to pin down as ever. Once again, Willie finds himself falling in love with the wrong woman as Felicity’s free-spirited lifestyle has no room for the commitment and constraints of marriage.

[Felicity:] ‘Willie, I refuse to be cross-questioned. You might make me angry, which I have no wish to be. You ought to know me better by now. You love me and you must try to understand me. I know it’s hard, I am unreliable. I am wanton. I am ruled by my moods. I suppose that I am very selfish, and that alone would make me a bad wife. But I can’t change and I don’t want to. You must take me or leave me as I am.’ (p. 112)

As the years pass, one disappointment after another take its toll on Willie as his once amiable nature gives way to feelings of resentment, bitterness and suspicion. Having been passed over for promotion on several occasions, he has remained a Captain, while other, younger but possibly less eager Officers have whizzed past him in rank and direct military experience. The final straw comes with the advent of WWII, when Willie is deemed too old for military action in the initial phase of the campaign. Instead, he must remain behind in Britain to help train new recruits before they leave for battle. In fact, things spiral downwards so quickly that Garnet Osborne, now working as a doctor at military hospitals in Britain, is worried about his friend’s physical and mental health.

Willie was determined not to be sensitive. He fought against it, but he was like a man with some physical blemish at which he feels that others must always be looking. He felt that these young officers must despise him – a dreary old dug-out who had never seen a shot fired in battle. And feeling so, he began to imagine things and to detect sneers where none were intended. He became suspicious and distrustful. He took unreasonable dislikes and began to find pleasure in exerting his authority and snubbing his juniors. He lost the happy gift of inspiring affection which he had unconsciously enjoyed all his life. He was no longer popular, and he knew it. (p. 113)

Somewhat ironically, everyone Willie encounters seems to have had more experience of the war than he has, from Garnet, with his role in the RAMC, to Felicity, who has joined the Auxiliary Fire Service. Even Horry has now signed up to fight on the front.

However, just when the outlook is at its bleakest for Willie, the hand of providence intervenes, granting him an opportunity like never before. After a lifetime of crushed hopes and dashed dreams, now Willie’s time has come, but only if everything goes to plan…

I don’t want to reveal anything more about the story, save to say that the ending, when it comes, is poignant, fitting and hugely satisfying. Duff Cooper has crafted a beautiful novella here, eliciting the reader’s sympathy for Willie, despite his naiveté, bitterness and misplaced passions. He is a man caught between two generations, too young for WWI yet too old for WWII until fate intervenes. With his literary skill and flair, Cooper paints Willie as a decent man battling against the weight of his own expectations in a world where events around him have moved on.

It was a strange love affair, but Willie was beginning to become reconciled to it, as he was beginning to become reconciled to his existence. It seemed to be his fate, he sometimes thought, to be a soldier who never went to war, and a lover who never lay with his mistress. (p. 76)

It’s a sensitive depiction, as are the portraits of the Osborne siblings, especially Felicity, who has a few secrets of her own. Very highly recommended indeed, and another possible contender for my books of the year list!

Operation Heartbreak is published by Penguin Books and McNally Editions; personal copy.