In which there are knowing one's place, and breaking free from convention
- Reading, books 2016, 159
156. Cluny Brown, by Margery Sharp, 1944 (during wartime paper rationing, and quickly reprinted too), but set before 1939, is another of Ms Sharp's offbeat novels. This is primarily our working class heroine Cluny Brown's bildungsroman, with her coming of age at around 21 as was customary, with a supporting character as the hero of a romantic comedy, but the author yet again manages anti-trope twists and turns from beginning to end. There is running away and there is running towards: Cluny Brown is another of Ms Sharp's unconventional heroines, like the wholly dissimilar heroine of the Nutmeg Tree, who is running towards life. (4.5/5)
• [A park bench encounter:] The lady had a book on her knee, but Mr. Porritt had left his paper in the 'bus, and was thus defenceless against the well known effects of proximity in a public park. Within five minutes the desire to confide in a stranger became irresistible. He uttered a preliminary cough, and remarked that it was uncommon mild for the time of year.
• [On the etiquette of attire:] The correct costume for a young lady going to fix a gentleman’s sink on a Sunday afternoon has never been authoritatively dealt with: Cluny had naturally to carry her uncle’s tool-bag, but as an offset wore her best clothes.
• [On the relative impact of politics:] Lady Carmel looked troubled. It was the thing to do, just then, at any mention of Europe, and indeed there had been moments, with Andrew still abroad, when she felt very troubled indeed. But now the expression was purely automatic, like looking reverent in church. Picking up a bough of rhododendron she tried its effect in a white crackle jar, and at once her brow cleared.
• [I've had this mood:] But Andrew, who was in a mood to make rapid journeys as often as possible, said he would go himself;
• [Our intro to Lady Carmel's spouse:] As his physical powers declined, making hunting impossible, Sir Henry had taken to the pen; all over the world the friends of his youth began to receive very long, very dull letters from him. To Rhodesia, Tanganyika, Singapore; Australia, India, New Zealand and the Bermudas - Sir Henry's epistles went forth; for he never considered it worth while to write to anyone nearer at hand. So the letters took a long time to get there, and the replies even longer to get back, and all the news was out of date; and this gave his correspondence a peculiar timeless quality which was very soothing.
• [Lady Carmel reports her son saying:] "we ought never to have supported Franco."
• [Sir Henry on foreigners in England in wartime:] "I remember in 'fourteen there was a fuss about the Colonel's governess, poor creature, because she was German. If it [war] should happen again, which God forbid, I won't have the Professor hounded." [Although the not-actually-a-professor is, in fact, Polish.]
• [On feeling the possessiveness of landed gentry:] They were a sort of moral appendix. He was suffering from moral appendicitis.
• [On excluding motherhood from a woman's prospects:] He thought their definition of a career had been too narrow.
• KIRKUS DIS ANGELA THIRKELL, YES... from the Kirkus review of Cluny Brown (1944): "She's always fun to read, is Margery Sharp. She knows both ends of the social ladder, and her maids and mistresses are equally convincing. She hints at 'social significance' with delicate innuendo, and a humor closer to general comprehension than her compatriot, Angela Thirkell, who seems a trifle out of this world today." Heh.
158. The Eye of Love, by Margery Sharp, 1957, but set in 1932, is a novel about the way human beings choose to see the things and people we love. Two of the main point of view characters are in an established romance (sort of), and the third is a nine year old girl who is artistic and might be on the autistic spectrum with Asperger syndrome (I note that Ms Sharp wrote about a girl with a more severe ASD or learning disability in a later novel, so developmentally different children are a theme in her work). One of the three pov characters and most of their major supporting characters are assimilated Jews, either Eastern European emigres or their children, and in the fur trade (see also Miss Pettigrew's beau Joe Blomfield who is in the rag trade in Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day). This is another of Ms Sharp's novels in which she introduces and arranges her characters very carefully before moving them in unexpected ways towards a satisfactory ending. The most serious and least quotable of the four novels I've read so far by this author but probably the best in literary terms, although it leans less towards my personal preferences. (4.5/5)
This entry was originally posted at http://spiralsheep.dreamwidth.org/597232.html and has
comments Please comment there using OpenID.
156. Cluny Brown, by Margery Sharp, 1944 (during wartime paper rationing, and quickly reprinted too), but set before 1939, is another of Ms Sharp's offbeat novels. This is primarily our working class heroine Cluny Brown's bildungsroman, with her coming of age at around 21 as was customary, with a supporting character as the hero of a romantic comedy, but the author yet again manages anti-trope twists and turns from beginning to end. There is running away and there is running towards: Cluny Brown is another of Ms Sharp's unconventional heroines, like the wholly dissimilar heroine of the Nutmeg Tree, who is running towards life. (4.5/5)
• [A park bench encounter:] The lady had a book on her knee, but Mr. Porritt had left his paper in the 'bus, and was thus defenceless against the well known effects of proximity in a public park. Within five minutes the desire to confide in a stranger became irresistible. He uttered a preliminary cough, and remarked that it was uncommon mild for the time of year.
• [On the etiquette of attire:] The correct costume for a young lady going to fix a gentleman’s sink on a Sunday afternoon has never been authoritatively dealt with: Cluny had naturally to carry her uncle’s tool-bag, but as an offset wore her best clothes.
• [On the relative impact of politics:] Lady Carmel looked troubled. It was the thing to do, just then, at any mention of Europe, and indeed there had been moments, with Andrew still abroad, when she felt very troubled indeed. But now the expression was purely automatic, like looking reverent in church. Picking up a bough of rhododendron she tried its effect in a white crackle jar, and at once her brow cleared.
• [I've had this mood:] But Andrew, who was in a mood to make rapid journeys as often as possible, said he would go himself;
• [Our intro to Lady Carmel's spouse:] As his physical powers declined, making hunting impossible, Sir Henry had taken to the pen; all over the world the friends of his youth began to receive very long, very dull letters from him. To Rhodesia, Tanganyika, Singapore; Australia, India, New Zealand and the Bermudas - Sir Henry's epistles went forth; for he never considered it worth while to write to anyone nearer at hand. So the letters took a long time to get there, and the replies even longer to get back, and all the news was out of date; and this gave his correspondence a peculiar timeless quality which was very soothing.
• [Lady Carmel reports her son saying:] "we ought never to have supported Franco."
• [Sir Henry on foreigners in England in wartime:] "I remember in 'fourteen there was a fuss about the Colonel's governess, poor creature, because she was German. If it [war] should happen again, which God forbid, I won't have the Professor hounded." [Although the not-actually-a-professor is, in fact, Polish.]
• [On feeling the possessiveness of landed gentry:] They were a sort of moral appendix. He was suffering from moral appendicitis.
• [On excluding motherhood from a woman's prospects:] He thought their definition of a career had been too narrow.
• KIRKUS DIS ANGELA THIRKELL, YES... from the Kirkus review of Cluny Brown (1944): "She's always fun to read, is Margery Sharp. She knows both ends of the social ladder, and her maids and mistresses are equally convincing. She hints at 'social significance' with delicate innuendo, and a humor closer to general comprehension than her compatriot, Angela Thirkell, who seems a trifle out of this world today." Heh.
158. The Eye of Love, by Margery Sharp, 1957, but set in 1932, is a novel about the way human beings choose to see the things and people we love. Two of the main point of view characters are in an established romance (sort of), and the third is a nine year old girl who is artistic and might be on the autistic spectrum with Asperger syndrome (I note that Ms Sharp wrote about a girl with a more severe ASD or learning disability in a later novel, so developmentally different children are a theme in her work). One of the three pov characters and most of their major supporting characters are assimilated Jews, either Eastern European emigres or their children, and in the fur trade (see also Miss Pettigrew's beau Joe Blomfield who is in the rag trade in Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day). This is another of Ms Sharp's novels in which she introduces and arranges her characters very carefully before moving them in unexpected ways towards a satisfactory ending. The most serious and least quotable of the four novels I've read so far by this author but probably the best in literary terms, although it leans less towards my personal preferences. (4.5/5)
This entry was originally posted at http://spiralsheep.dreamwidth.org/597232.html and has
comments Please comment there using OpenID.