All of this sounds so up my street! Hope I have time to join in. My upcoming project is loosely about nuns in fact and fiction. Starting with Heloise's letters and then moving through to The Corner that Held Them, The Abbess of Crewe and one or two others. I have no desire to be a nun but I think I can see the attraction of the life before the reformation. Or can I ? Maybe that's what I want to find out.
Wow, that sounds great Liz. Looking forward to reading that. I am strangely attracted to memoirs by ex-nuns, most recently this one by Catherine Coldstream (haven't read it yet):
What a darling dog!!! I'm very interested in reading more (and more about) Elizabeth Bowen, such a fascinating woman and a profoundly elegant writer...
Thank you Laura, what he lacks in grooming he makes up for in affection. I do love The Death of the Heart so I am sorely tempted to re-read it. And as you say, Bowen is fascinating, and I've just been reading about her house in Ireland in Frances Partridge's Diaries.
Just finished Lolly this afternoon Ann. Oh my my!! No spoilers here. I just wanted to tell you that the whole novel rocked my socks off!!
Cant believe she wrote it in 1926, 3 years after my mom was born and I’m 71 so, of course, consider myself a feminist too…as did my mom, in her time, and my paternal grandmother as well….first woman to get a drivers licence in the 3 united counties!!! Each in her/our own time but this story supersedes all of our efforts & is way ahead of its time!
I also enjoyed her descriptions and did a lot of underlining. Such an acute set of senses. ‘Her neck moved as though there were pearls sliding under the surface of her skin’. WHO THINKS OF THIS…WOW! Can’t wait for your comments Ann! Thx for offering this book to us all.
Thanks Sheri-Lee for your wonderful comment! Nice of you not to mention spoilers for Lolly Willowes (ha!) and I've been trying to think how best to write about it... I think I'll divide it into 3 sections, then anyone who doesn't want to know what's coming can just read the first section. How interesting to hear that about your paternal grandmother being an early driver, I hope you'll write up her story! I do agree that STW's descriptions are just extraordinary and breathtaking, and really do show her poetic side.
Thanks so much, Ann, as ever! I will try to catch up with all these three, but it made me smile that you included a Fortnight in September, which I have not read yet, but gave it to my husband about ten years ago as he can relate to his childhood days with 3 siblings and parents in Bognor Regis, his Dad driving them down from Purley and leaving there with their Mum to play and run wild to their heart{s content. Sorry, I digress. I will get back with more feedback once I have read it!.
Well, I finished Fortnight in September about... a fortnight ago and like you, I set out to find out more about Sherrif. -no spoilers for your coming piece-. I found each character so well developed and cleverly explored. The fussy father overdoing his best to keep the family happy and "well provided", the small achievements he considered great ones while Dick finds them frustrating and limiting in a world that is changing before their eyes... Mrs Stevens's resignation and anxiety about being out of her comfort zone, which is her house and routine... There would be so much to say about the family, their interaction with neighbours, Mary's first encounter with love... -sexuality is implied-, Ernie'innocence... And yet, nothing very out of the ordinary takes place, which is where Sherriff's skill shines through. It made me think of Dubliners... where life is portrayed in such detail that we are genuinely transported to the era and the places without having to anticipate anything DRAMATIC. My husband grew up in Surrey and every summer his father would take the family to Bognor (parents and 4 children)... Sometimes, they stayed in a hotel or a B&B and other times, they stayed in a rented caravan "for fun", because it was "easier to have a quick shower before bed and snuggle up at the back, read a book with a torch long after being told to go to sleep and wake up to the immediate, irresistible smell of bacon before setting out to fight pirates on the beach". Phew, Sorry I overstayed my welcome :-). Looking forward to reading your piece on Sherriff. X
I love Fortnight in September and it led me into a wonderful investigation into the life of RC Sherriff and to read more of his books.
Bognor Regis was also our go-to seaside venue as children from our home in Surrey. For some still unexplained reason (decades later) a four-year-old me would spend hours getting buckets of water from the sea and cleaning the sand off the steps down to the beach...there’s a legendary photograph somewhere.
Fascinating! Just about to post my introduction to Sherriff's life, later today. I grew up in a coastal town in N.Ireland, which was lovely, but it meant we missed the excitement of going to the seaside together as a family. Bognor Regis sounds great fun.
I read that Jane Gardam died this week and have it in mind to read the Old Filth trilogy and The Green Tambourine again. I just joined today and am not sure if you have all read her recently. I am also interested in revisiting the work of Alice Thomas Elliot.
Thanks Evie, that's a great suggestion and I would love to read more Gardam. At the moment we're focussing on novels from the interwar period, but after this, we might change the chronology! I am also intrigued by what I've heard about Alice Thomas Elliott's novels, which have definitely dropped out of sight.
I definitely regret sending all my AT-E novels to the charity shop. I loved her back in the day and as a consequence and now trying to find them again.
I’ve just started re-reading this book. Sayers always denied she was a feminist and her characters often seemed at best two dimensional until Harriet Vane and in particular in Gaudi Night.
Does a mystery always need a solution to be a mystery?
It was reading about Harriet Vane as a (sort of) Sayers alter ego in Francesca Wade's Square Haunting that really drew me to Gaudy Night. I am curious as to why Sayers denied she was a feminist when everything she did suggested otherwise!
I've been reading about Sayers - I think maybe there was a bit of 'over-thinking' in her denial.
Interesting review (The New Yorker 2019) of Mo Moulton's, The Mutual Admiration Society: How Dorothy L. Sayers and Her Oxford Circle Remade the World for Women
Some strange comments about Sayers like 'She wasn't born A feminist but...." reminded me of my 6 yr old granddaughter's question "Can you be a feminist and a vegetarian at the same time?"
I'll look out for that review, thanks! I also reviewed it for the TLS a few years ago and your comment has reminded me to include this feminist/not feminist aspect of Sayers in my forthcoming post on Gaudy Night (mid June, I hope). Your granddaughter sounds extremely bright.
It’s April 22 in Goes Further when EMD takes her friend Felicity to visit famous novelist (it’s Carina not Chiara - sorry) & concludes with “Carina is cordial to the last, sees us into car, has to be told that that door won't open, will she try the other side, does so, shuts it briskly, and says that we must come again soon. Final view of her is with her arm round Miss P.'s shoulder, waving vigorously. What, I immediately enquire, did Felicity think of her? to which Felicity replies with some bitterness that it is not a very good moment for her to give an opinion, as Carina has just energetically slammed door of the car upon her foot.”
What a great list! Can I add to the list of possible authors for the future, E H Young? My absolute favourite is Miss Mole, although I suspect that more objective critics would say Chatterton Square is the best. A very underrated writer, in my view - she has a good deal in common with Elizabeth Bowen (or does it just feel that way because I read them all in green Virago uniform, except the ones I borrowed from my grandmother's shelves?) but is easier to read.
Thanks Emma, that's a great suggestion, and another reader has also praised E H Young. Both novels are definitely going on my list, and I will go to the library to discover more about her.
I'm looking forward to "The Fortnight in September." I have the ebook, but you may have convinced me I need the Persephone classic paperback. I do love those Persephone editions.
There's something so pleasing about the Persephone paperbacks... smooth paper, wide margins and the way that it stays open as you read. This one's in their 'classics' series which means it is slightly cheaper, with a picture on the front, but otherwise the same. Instead of the usual contemporary intro, there's a snippet from Sherriff's memoir.
I'd love to read The Death of The Heart with others. I've read The House in Paris, The Last September, The Hotel and To The North. The Death of the Heart and The Heat of The Day await. I do find her prose difficult and times. I think a shared read would be helpful for me!
I'm looking forward to A Fortnight in September, a third time of reading for me. It's brilliant!
So glad you've enjoyed A Fortnight in September, Claire, it's in a class of its own, isn't it - and thank you for recommending this, and the Elizabeth Bowen novels. The Death of the Heart is the only one I know, but I'd love to discover more.
All of this sounds so up my street! Hope I have time to join in. My upcoming project is loosely about nuns in fact and fiction. Starting with Heloise's letters and then moving through to The Corner that Held Them, The Abbess of Crewe and one or two others. I have no desire to be a nun but I think I can see the attraction of the life before the reformation. Or can I ? Maybe that's what I want to find out.
Wow, that sounds great Liz. Looking forward to reading that. I am strangely attracted to memoirs by ex-nuns, most recently this one by Catherine Coldstream (haven't read it yet):
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/feb/25/cloistered-my-years-as-a-nun-catherine-coldstream-extract
Oh! That sounds good. I read the Karen Armstrong books years ago about life in a convent in the sixties. I’m not sure you ever recover really…
What a darling dog!!! I'm very interested in reading more (and more about) Elizabeth Bowen, such a fascinating woman and a profoundly elegant writer...
Lovely to see Gaudy Night on your list.
Thank you Laura, what he lacks in grooming he makes up for in affection. I do love The Death of the Heart so I am sorely tempted to re-read it. And as you say, Bowen is fascinating, and I've just been reading about her house in Ireland in Frances Partridge's Diaries.
Interesting! Another book I've always meant to read... 😱
Just finished Lolly this afternoon Ann. Oh my my!! No spoilers here. I just wanted to tell you that the whole novel rocked my socks off!!
Cant believe she wrote it in 1926, 3 years after my mom was born and I’m 71 so, of course, consider myself a feminist too…as did my mom, in her time, and my paternal grandmother as well….first woman to get a drivers licence in the 3 united counties!!! Each in her/our own time but this story supersedes all of our efforts & is way ahead of its time!
I also enjoyed her descriptions and did a lot of underlining. Such an acute set of senses. ‘Her neck moved as though there were pearls sliding under the surface of her skin’. WHO THINKS OF THIS…WOW! Can’t wait for your comments Ann! Thx for offering this book to us all.
🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦
Thanks Sheri-Lee for your wonderful comment! Nice of you not to mention spoilers for Lolly Willowes (ha!) and I've been trying to think how best to write about it... I think I'll divide it into 3 sections, then anyone who doesn't want to know what's coming can just read the first section. How interesting to hear that about your paternal grandmother being an early driver, I hope you'll write up her story! I do agree that STW's descriptions are just extraordinary and breathtaking, and really do show her poetic side.
Thanks so much, Ann, as ever! I will try to catch up with all these three, but it made me smile that you included a Fortnight in September, which I have not read yet, but gave it to my husband about ten years ago as he can relate to his childhood days with 3 siblings and parents in Bognor Regis, his Dad driving them down from Purley and leaving there with their Mum to play and run wild to their heart{s content. Sorry, I digress. I will get back with more feedback once I have read it!.
I am intrigued, Christina, & hope to hear more. Thanks for this excellent digression!
Well, I finished Fortnight in September about... a fortnight ago and like you, I set out to find out more about Sherrif. -no spoilers for your coming piece-. I found each character so well developed and cleverly explored. The fussy father overdoing his best to keep the family happy and "well provided", the small achievements he considered great ones while Dick finds them frustrating and limiting in a world that is changing before their eyes... Mrs Stevens's resignation and anxiety about being out of her comfort zone, which is her house and routine... There would be so much to say about the family, their interaction with neighbours, Mary's first encounter with love... -sexuality is implied-, Ernie'innocence... And yet, nothing very out of the ordinary takes place, which is where Sherriff's skill shines through. It made me think of Dubliners... where life is portrayed in such detail that we are genuinely transported to the era and the places without having to anticipate anything DRAMATIC. My husband grew up in Surrey and every summer his father would take the family to Bognor (parents and 4 children)... Sometimes, they stayed in a hotel or a B&B and other times, they stayed in a rented caravan "for fun", because it was "easier to have a quick shower before bed and snuggle up at the back, read a book with a torch long after being told to go to sleep and wake up to the immediate, irresistible smell of bacon before setting out to fight pirates on the beach". Phew, Sorry I overstayed my welcome :-). Looking forward to reading your piece on Sherriff. X
I love Fortnight in September and it led me into a wonderful investigation into the life of RC Sherriff and to read more of his books.
Bognor Regis was also our go-to seaside venue as children from our home in Surrey. For some still unexplained reason (decades later) a four-year-old me would spend hours getting buckets of water from the sea and cleaning the sand off the steps down to the beach...there’s a legendary photograph somewhere.
Fascinating! Just about to post my introduction to Sherriff's life, later today. I grew up in a coastal town in N.Ireland, which was lovely, but it meant we missed the excitement of going to the seaside together as a family. Bognor Regis sounds great fun.
I'm so excited for an excuse to read Gaudy Night again - I read it for the first time a couple of years ago and I am now utterly obsessed.
So pleased to hear that, Kim! Planning to put up my post on DLS tomorrow.
I read that Jane Gardam died this week and have it in mind to read the Old Filth trilogy and The Green Tambourine again. I just joined today and am not sure if you have all read her recently. I am also interested in revisiting the work of Alice Thomas Elliot.
Thanks Evie, that's a great suggestion and I would love to read more Gardam. At the moment we're focussing on novels from the interwar period, but after this, we might change the chronology! I am also intrigued by what I've heard about Alice Thomas Elliott's novels, which have definitely dropped out of sight.
I definitely regret sending all my AT-E novels to the charity shop. I loved her back in the day and as a consequence and now trying to find them again.
Another good reason to visit secondhand bookshops!
I’ve just started re-reading this book. Sayers always denied she was a feminist and her characters often seemed at best two dimensional until Harriet Vane and in particular in Gaudi Night.
Does a mystery always need a solution to be a mystery?
It was reading about Harriet Vane as a (sort of) Sayers alter ego in Francesca Wade's Square Haunting that really drew me to Gaudy Night. I am curious as to why Sayers denied she was a feminist when everything she did suggested otherwise!
I've been reading about Sayers - I think maybe there was a bit of 'over-thinking' in her denial.
Interesting review (The New Yorker 2019) of Mo Moulton's, The Mutual Admiration Society: How Dorothy L. Sayers and Her Oxford Circle Remade the World for Women
Some strange comments about Sayers like 'She wasn't born A feminist but...." reminded me of my 6 yr old granddaughter's question "Can you be a feminist and a vegetarian at the same time?"
I'll look out for that review, thanks! I also reviewed it for the TLS a few years ago and your comment has reminded me to include this feminist/not feminist aspect of Sayers in my forthcoming post on Gaudy Night (mid June, I hope). Your granddaughter sounds extremely bright.
two vegetarian feminist mothers
ooooh....Dorothy Sayers! Rah!
Good to hear, Jill (I am guessing that is approval!)
You betcha
Sylvia Townsend Warner must be the lesbian novelist EM Delafield visits in her Provincial Lady - called “Chiara”
It’s April 22 in Goes Further when EMD takes her friend Felicity to visit famous novelist (it’s Carina not Chiara - sorry) & concludes with “Carina is cordial to the last, sees us into car, has to be told that that door won't open, will she try the other side, does so, shuts it briskly, and says that we must come again soon. Final view of her is with her arm round Miss P.'s shoulder, waving vigorously. What, I immediately enquire, did Felicity think of her? to which Felicity replies with some bitterness that it is not a very good moment for her to give an opinion, as Carina has just energetically slammed door of the car upon her foot.”
Ah! It sounds very droll, Nicholas. Carina is pretty close.
Intriguing! Thanks, Nicholas, I must look that up.
What a great list! Can I add to the list of possible authors for the future, E H Young? My absolute favourite is Miss Mole, although I suspect that more objective critics would say Chatterton Square is the best. A very underrated writer, in my view - she has a good deal in common with Elizabeth Bowen (or does it just feel that way because I read them all in green Virago uniform, except the ones I borrowed from my grandmother's shelves?) but is easier to read.
Thanks Emma, that's a great suggestion, and another reader has also praised E H Young. Both novels are definitely going on my list, and I will go to the library to discover more about her.
I'm looking forward to "The Fortnight in September." I have the ebook, but you may have convinced me I need the Persephone classic paperback. I do love those Persephone editions.
There's something so pleasing about the Persephone paperbacks... smooth paper, wide margins and the way that it stays open as you read. This one's in their 'classics' series which means it is slightly cheaper, with a picture on the front, but otherwise the same. Instead of the usual contemporary intro, there's a snippet from Sherriff's memoir.
Such an interesting list! I shall try to join....
Thanks for all your great recommendations June, & I hope so!
I'd love to read The Death of The Heart with others. I've read The House in Paris, The Last September, The Hotel and To The North. The Death of the Heart and The Heat of The Day await. I do find her prose difficult and times. I think a shared read would be helpful for me!
I'm looking forward to A Fortnight in September, a third time of reading for me. It's brilliant!
So glad you've enjoyed A Fortnight in September, Claire, it's in a class of its own, isn't it - and thank you for recommending this, and the Elizabeth Bowen novels. The Death of the Heart is the only one I know, but I'd love to discover more.
Very excited about Gaudy Night, I love that book so much! Apparently the detail about the tissues in the gown sleeves was 100% true (yuk)
So funny. I will seek out that quotation & beware of any rented gowns I encounter here.
I can hardly wait for June and Gaudy Night. Such a great detective story (and more) and there’s not a single corpse in sight.
Oh that’s good Jon. Some of it is a bit creepy as I recall… nasty notes etc!
Yes, and it takes a toll on a lot of people. I won’t say too much because of potential spoilers for those who haven’t read it.
I do know what you mean – the hidden threats among people in this idyllic college world who trust one another feel sinister.
Thanks Tracy!