REREAD: Madensky Square
Madensky Square: Eva Ibbotson Arrow 1998 (reread)
As the title proclaims, this is a novel with a strong sense of place, namely a Viennese square in 1911-12. I first read the book in Paris, which is apt because protagonist and narrator Susanna is a genius dressmaker.
The conceit is that this is a month-by-month diary of sorts, a record of the daily life that Susanna never finds mundane. I thought the format of each partitioned chapter covering a month would help me in reading it, but Ibbotson is moreish, so I’d pick up again in the middle of months. I wasn’t in a position to devour it all in a short time.
In a sense, I didn’t want to. Besides knowing what would be slowly revealed allowing me to read in a more restrained manner, this book differs from the other books of hers that I’ve read. Apart from the format, Susanna is older than Ibbotson’s other heroines, in her late thirties. She owns her own shop and lives above it, partaking in the rich life of Madensky Square. Indeed, she’s a key part of the community.
This books differs from other romantic fiction, which you could describe it as if you use a very broad definition (I thought I saw one recently that I meant to quote, but I can’t find it.) It recreates its period of history better than many historical romances, but it’s not that. Rather, it’s that we gradually learn that Susanna is one of the Other Women, as is her best friend Alice. That is, both are the loving and beloved mistresses of married men. They always come second.
Ibbotson faces this directly. Susanna is a Catholic who regularly attends the church in the square, but will not attend confession, for various reasons. She wishes she were her lover’s wife, but pretends she doesn’t in front of him, and will not give up her independence to become a kept woman. Marriage is not portrayed in a rosy light, but as a state that varies for the different people in it. Rudi Sultzer’s wife is awful. Frau Eggers, a client of Susanna’s, would like to foist her horrid husband on to anyone willing to put up with his Nasty Little Habit so that she doesn’t have to.
Ibbotson is as witty and sympathetic as ever, and yet I found myself at a remove from her heroine because of this aspect of her life. Yes, Susanna is, in general, harder on herself than many others would be for something she did when she was much younger. Despite herself, she takes on waifs and strays, or their causes: motherless musical prodigy Sigi; stylish anarchist Nini; Edith who is oppressed by her own mother. The last two women both have more traditional romances, with one married and the other on her way to it. Furthermore they’re in their late teens or at most early twenties, a more usual age for an Ibbotson heroine.
There’s a lot about the writing I admire, like the way that Ibbotson cleverly invites us to come to different conclusions about Susanna than our narrator does about herself. But I couldn’t entirely go along with the way that adulterous love affairs were presented; I couldn’t feel so sorry for those poor, well-off men who didn’t love those wives they’d been forced by society or circumstance to marry as all that. I’ve taken other Ibbotson stories I had more literary issues with closer to heart. (My attitude was a little ‘Oh, this one,’ when I saw it was the next one she’d written chronologically and so the next one I should reread.)
This entry was originally posted at https://feather-ghyll.dreamwidth.org/151835.html. Please comment wherever you prefer to.
As the title proclaims, this is a novel with a strong sense of place, namely a Viennese square in 1911-12. I first read the book in Paris, which is apt because protagonist and narrator Susanna is a genius dressmaker.
The conceit is that this is a month-by-month diary of sorts, a record of the daily life that Susanna never finds mundane. I thought the format of each partitioned chapter covering a month would help me in reading it, but Ibbotson is moreish, so I’d pick up again in the middle of months. I wasn’t in a position to devour it all in a short time.
In a sense, I didn’t want to. Besides knowing what would be slowly revealed allowing me to read in a more restrained manner, this book differs from the other books of hers that I’ve read. Apart from the format, Susanna is older than Ibbotson’s other heroines, in her late thirties. She owns her own shop and lives above it, partaking in the rich life of Madensky Square. Indeed, she’s a key part of the community.
This books differs from other romantic fiction, which you could describe it as if you use a very broad definition (I thought I saw one recently that I meant to quote, but I can’t find it.) It recreates its period of history better than many historical romances, but it’s not that. Rather, it’s that we gradually learn that Susanna is one of the Other Women, as is her best friend Alice. That is, both are the loving and beloved mistresses of married men. They always come second.
Ibbotson faces this directly. Susanna is a Catholic who regularly attends the church in the square, but will not attend confession, for various reasons. She wishes she were her lover’s wife, but pretends she doesn’t in front of him, and will not give up her independence to become a kept woman. Marriage is not portrayed in a rosy light, but as a state that varies for the different people in it. Rudi Sultzer’s wife is awful. Frau Eggers, a client of Susanna’s, would like to foist her horrid husband on to anyone willing to put up with his Nasty Little Habit so that she doesn’t have to.
Ibbotson is as witty and sympathetic as ever, and yet I found myself at a remove from her heroine because of this aspect of her life. Yes, Susanna is, in general, harder on herself than many others would be for something she did when she was much younger. Despite herself, she takes on waifs and strays, or their causes: motherless musical prodigy Sigi; stylish anarchist Nini; Edith who is oppressed by her own mother. The last two women both have more traditional romances, with one married and the other on her way to it. Furthermore they’re in their late teens or at most early twenties, a more usual age for an Ibbotson heroine.
There’s a lot about the writing I admire, like the way that Ibbotson cleverly invites us to come to different conclusions about Susanna than our narrator does about herself. But I couldn’t entirely go along with the way that adulterous love affairs were presented; I couldn’t feel so sorry for those poor, well-off men who didn’t love those wives they’d been forced by society or circumstance to marry as all that. I’ve taken other Ibbotson stories I had more literary issues with closer to heart. (My attitude was a little ‘Oh, this one,’ when I saw it was the next one she’d written chronologically and so the next one I should reread.)
This entry was originally posted at https://feather-ghyll.dreamwidth.org/151835.html. Please comment wherever you prefer to.