The Beguiled by Thomas Cullinan

Along with many other readers, I came to this book – first published in 1966 – via the recent film adaptation by Sofia Coppola. (There’s a good review of it here by The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw.) The novel itself is a brooding, tempestuous slice of Southern Gothic, a mood that is mirrored in Coppola’s adaptation, complete with its evocative Virginia setting. Even though the film had already shaped much of the visual imagery in my mind, it was still interesting to read Cullinan’s source novel to gain a greater insight into the characters. If the narrative is of interest, I would recommend both – although you might want to read the book first before watching the film.

For those of you unfamiliar with the premise, the story is set in a girls’ boarding school in Virginia in the midst of the American Civil War. As a consequence of the unrest, only five pupils remain at the school, along with the forthright headmistress, Miss Martha Farnsworth, her somewhat submissive sister, Harriet, and their perceptive cook/‘help’, Mattie. Miss Martha runs a tight, morally upstanding ship, aiming to educate her young ladies in both mind and spirit before they are released into the wider world.

As the novel opens, the school’s sheltered routine is interrupted when one of its pupils, Amelia Dabney, discovers a wounded Union soldier – Corporal John McBurney – while out picking mushrooms in the woods. In an effort to assist Corporal McBurney, Amelia helps him back to the school where he is taken in and treated by Miss Martha and the girls. At first, there is much discussion amongst the residents as to whether McBurney should be handed over to the Confederates; however, it is soon agreed that he should stay there covertly, at least until his severely injured leg has had time to heal. In essence, this seems to be the most charitable thing to do.

Corporal McBurney is a fascinating character, full of tall tales and Irish blarney which he uses to charm his carers, many of whom are beguiled by their charge. Almost immediately, his presence triggers a range of different sensations amongst the residents, unleashing points of conflict, sexual tensions and long-repressed emotions within the claustrophobic environment of the school. McBurney is clearly an unsettling presence in the house, one who delights in spreading his affections far and wide as he proceeds to play off one resident against another.

[Martha:] It was hard to dislike him. He had such an open and friendly look about him, that even when you knew for a positive fact that there was guile behind his innocence, it was difficult to think of it as anything but a boyish trick.

And the guile was there, no doubt about it. Whatever Corporal John McBurney said, you had to ask yourself – is this the way Corporal McBurney really feels? – or is this the way he wants you to think he feels? – or is he even more clever than you suppose and is allowing the edges of the trick to show, hoping that when you see it, it will make you feel superior to him in cleverness. And you’re really not. Or at least he thinks you’re not. Because what he really wants is your misjudgement of him.

How deep to the layers of deception go, I wondered one day but not that second day. (pp.80-81)

The story is told in retrospective from the point of view of each female character in the book, with the chapters alternating from one person’s perspective to the next. While this might sound a little confusing or repetitive, Cullinan handles it very well, moving the action forward a little with each change of the baton, also adding new dimensions and interpretations along the way. (Interestingly, we never hear directly from McBurney himself, although his dialogue and interactions with the residents are relayed through the other narratives.)

Miss Martha is particularly clearly defined as a character, clashing with McBurney on several occasions as her position of authority in the house is destabilised by his presence. It soon becomes clear that McBurney is in no hurry to leave his place of shelter, fearing reprisals from both sides in the ongoing war. Most of the girls are well differentiated from one another too, particularly the rather troubled Edwina Morrow, the provocative Alicia Simms, and the reclusive, nature-loving Amelia.

Right from the start there are hints of significant trouble to come following McBurney’s arrival; however, it would be unfair of me to reveal anything more about the plot at this stage, save to say that it becomes steadily more compelling as the narrative unfolds. (Some readers might find the pacing a little slow, so if you prefer fast-moving plots this probably isn’t the book for you.)

[Edwina:] I felt that he was attracted to me. […]

I can’t deny that I was flattered by it. I also can’t deny that I was attracted to him. […]

I felt at first that he had understood, as no one else around here ever had, the rather troubled and perhaps troublesome person that I am. I am not always the easiest person in the world to get along with, but I did feel that Corporal McBurney might possibly be someone who – even if he did not know all the reasons for my bitterness – would accept me the way I am with maybe the hope that affection might improve me. It might well have, you know. It really might have done so. (p.159)

The Beguiled is a thoroughly absorbing novel of deceits, secrets, sexuality and power. There’s plenty of dark melodrama here, the psychological nuances of which are nicely captured through Cullinan’s expressive prose. Definitely recommended, even if you’ve already seen the recent film. In fact, there’s a whole interracial dynamic going on in the novel which doesn’t appear to feature in Coppola’s adaptation – so it might be of interest for that alone.

[Note: The novel was also filmed in 1971 with Clint Eastwood and Geraldine Page in the leading roles. Coppola’s version (made in 2017) stars Nicole Kidman, Colin Farrell and Kirsten Dunst. Both are worth watching, although my vote goes to the more recent female-centric adaptation for its evocative mood.]

The Beguiled is published by Penguin Books; personal copy.

Odd Girl Out by Elizabeth Jane Howard

I’m a bit hit-or-miss when it comes to Elizabeth Jane Howard, After Julius being the hit and The Long View the miss. (Getting It Right, which I read earlier this year and never got around to writing up at the time, fell somewhere between the two.) Odd Girl Out (1972) broadly fits into the ‘hit’ category for me, albeit with a few caveats here and there. It’s a novel about sexual attraction and secret relationships, largely played out against the comfortable background of the privileged middle classes in 1970s Berkshire.

Edmund and Anne Cornhill, both in their late thirties/early forties, have been happily married for ten years, content with themselves and one another in their own secluded world. Edmund travels to London each day where he works as an estate agent, a role that often involves the assessment of grand country houses. Meanwhile, Anne amuses herself by pottering in the garden, shopping for treats, and cooking delicious meals for Edmund to enjoy on his return.

As with any longstanding relationship, there are occasional niggles to be smoothed out. Anne wishes Edmund wouldn’t insist in bringing her breakfast in bed every morning (in truth she considers it a waste of valuable time), while Edmund promptly ignores Anne’s suggestions on which shirt-and-tie combination he should wear that day, preferring to select his own clothes instead. Nevertheless, the marriage is a comfortable one, both parties feeling fulfilled and contented.

All this begins to change when Arabella comes to stay, destabilising the Cornhills’ idyllic lifestyle in her own rather naïve and charming way. Arabella is young, beautiful and vulnerable, recovering as she is from the after-effects of a very recent abortion. (No spoilers here as this is made abundantly clear from the start.) The link between Arabella and the Cornhills is a somewhat tenuous one. In essence, she is the daughter of Edmund’s former stepmother, Clara, a frightful, self-centred woman who treats the girl like an unwanted appendage or nuisance to be dealt with, preferably by way of a convenient marriage.

Armed with her youth and progressive outlook, Arabella is more sexually liberated than either Edmund or Anne, a point that leads to the virtually inevitable affair. Edmund is utterly beguiled by Arabella, to the point that he starts behaving like a lovesick teenager in her presence, desperately trying to extend the time they can spend alone together. What is somewhat more surprising is Arabella’s impact on Anne, who also finds herself affected by the young girl’s presence in the house, albeit in a rather different, more unpredictable way.

It was extraordinary how she [Arabella] could stream with tears and go on looking beautiful and not have to blow her nose, Anne thought. She wanted to feel ‘poor little thing’, but there was something about Arabella’s appearance and state that went well beyond that. She put out her hand to stroke Arabella’s hair, and touching it, felt vaguely frightened. (p. 107)

Alongside the main narrative thread, there are some interesting secondary stories, too – perhaps most notably that of Janet, the downtrodden wife of Arabella’s former lover, Henry, an unsuccessful actor and prize brute. While Janet does her best to feed her children on little more than thin air, Henry proceeds to abuse her, making her life a misery at every possible opportunity. If anything, I would have liked a lot more of Janet, but sadly it wasn’t to be – a relatively minor quibble in the scheme of things, but a missed opportunity nonetheless. Anne’s backstory reveals another abusive relationship: a hasty previous marriage with a most unsuitable partner, Waldo, now fortunately out of the picture in Canada.

Overall, this is a very well-written novel about the fickle, complicated nature of love. As far as Arabella sees things, pretty much everything in life is simple – not necessarily easy, but simple. In reality, however, love, desire and sexual relationships are much more complicated than this – a point that Arabella eventually discovers to her peril. (I can’t help but wonder if this is another story that draws on some of EJH’s own rather bruising relationships with abusive, self-absorbed men – it wouldn’t surprise me in the least.)

The period detail is rather wonderful, too. There are some glorious touches from the late ‘60s/early ‘70s here, including martinis, Sancerre, salmon trout, chilled soup, kaftans, pant suits and holidays in Greece – like an upmarket version of Abigail’s Party in certain respects. As ever with EJH, the descriptions of settings, rooms, furnishings and other minutiae are perfectly observed.

In summary, this is an elegant novel with touches of real sadness and poignancy. Recommended to readers of relationship-driven fiction with a domestic setting.

This is the first of two pieces about EJH I’m planning to post over the next few weeks – more about my responses to another of her novels to follow.

Odd Girl Out is published by Picador; personal copy.

Arturo’s Island by Elsa Morante (tr. Ann Goldstein)

I have long wanted to read the Italian writer Elsa Morante, ever since I learned of her influence on Elena Ferrante (you can find my reviews of Ferrante’s work here). Arturo’s Island was Morante’s second novel, originally published in Italian in 1957, and now freshly translated by Ann Goldstein for this Pushkin Press edition (my thanks to the publishers for kindly providing a review copy). It is a beautifully-observed, passionate coming-of-age story, one that captures the pain and confusion of adolescence in an imaginative, poetic style.

The narrative is told from the viewpoint of Arturo Gerace as he looks back on his teenage years spent on the remote island of Procida in the Bay of Naples – a tumultuous, troubling time in this young individual’s life.

At fourteen, Arturo spends most of his days roaming around the island, dreaming of great adventures with pirates, kings and other enigmatic figures from tales of fantasy. His father, Wilhelm, is a restless wanderer who frequently leaves the island for long periods with no planned date of return. With his unpredictable nature and temperament, Wilhelm is prone to frequent outbursts, displaying little thought for the feelings and sensitivities of those around him. In spite of this, Arturo idolises his father unquestioningly, eagerly anticipating the day when he is old enough to join Wilhelm on his seemingly intrepid travels.

Every act of his, every speech, had a dramatic fatality for me. In fact, he was the image of certainty, and everything he said or did was the verdict of a universal law from which I deduced the first commandments of my life. Here was the greatest seduction of his company. (p. 24)

Life for young Arturo is a solitary one, with his father often away and his mother no longer alive following her death in childbirth. He yearns for some much-needed love and affection, the kind fuelled by his romantic imagination – the absence of Arturo’s mother is very keenly felt.

She was a person invented by my regrets, and so she had, for me, every wished-for kindness, and different expressions, different voices. But, above all, in the impossible longing I had for her, I thought of her as faithfulness, intimacy, conversation: in other words, all that fathers were not, in my experience. (p. 44)

Moreover, young Arturo is largely in charge of the Geraces’ home, a somewhat run-down, castle-like building bequeathed to Wilhelm by an old friend – a man with an intense dislike of women and their ‘ugly’ appearances. As such, Arturo has had very little exposure to girls or women during his life, particularly given the isolated nature of his upbringing.

One day, Wilhelm returns unexpectedly to Procida with his new bride, Nunziata – a rather hesitant young girl from Naples who has been pushed into marriage by her mother, Violante. At sixteen, Nunziata is barely older than Arturo, a situation that leaves our protagonist struggling to understand this sudden change in dynamics and everything it represents. For the first time in his life, Arturo has a rival for his father’s affections, one who is almost as inexperienced and naïve as the young boy himself.

When I passed my father’s room, I heard from behind the closed door an excited whispering. I was almost running when I reached my room: I suddenly had the sharp, incomprehensible sensation that I had received from someone (whom I couldn’t yet recognise) an inhuman insult, impossible to avenge. I undressed quickly and, as I threw myself into bed, wrapping myself in the covers up to my head, a cry from her reached me through the walls: tender, strangely fierce, and childlike. (p. 124)

Virtually as soon as he has arrived home, Wilhelm becomes restless again, seeking the company of Nunziata and Arturo one minute and then shunning it the next. It’s not long before Wilhelm begins to view Nunziata as an appendage, akin to a tiresome relative of little interest or importance. Consequently, Arturo and Nunziata – the latter now pregnant with Wilhelm’s child – are left mostly on their own at the Casa dei Guaglioni while Wilhelm continues his erratic travels abroad.

At first, Arturo wants as little as possible to do with his new stepmother, shunning her company in favour of wandering around the island.

My antipathy towards my stepmother, meanwhile, didn’t diminish but became fiercer every day. And as a result of the life she led with me during my father’s absence from the island was certainly not very happy. I never spoke to her except to give her orders. If I was outside and wanted to summon her to the window to give her some command, or warn her of my arrival, I used to simply whistle. (p. 158)

Then, all of a sudden, he experiences a dramatic change of heart, prompted by the belief that Nunziata’s life may be in danger during the birth of her child, Carminiello. From this point onwards, Arturo begins to see his stepmother in a new light, viewing her as more beautiful and graceful than before. Meanwhile, Nunziata devotes herself to caring for the new baby, mainly at the expense of any consideration for Arturo or his potential needs – a situation that leaves Arturo feeling somewhat jealous of his new stepbrother.

I felt I could never have peace if she didn’t return to being, toward me, at least, the same as she had been before the fatal arrival of my stepbrother; and yet at no cost did I want to betray that longing to her. So I looked desperately for a means that, without wounding my pride, would force her to be concerned with me, or to manifest once and for all, her irredeemable indifference towards Arturo Gerace. (p. 233)

As the months slip by, Arturo must try to make sense of his emotions as they oscillate between an idealised form of first love for Nunziata and abject disillusionment – his demonstrations of affection are swiftly rejected. He tries, somewhat in vain, to grapple with new and confusing situations in this abrupt exposure to the complexities of the adult world.

Arturo’s Island is an emotionally-rich novel, frequently punctuated with passages of profound depth. Morante skilfully captures the vulnerabilities of youth, the maelstrom of emotions that characterises Arturo’s adolescence – the young boy’s experiences are very keenly felt. The author’s style is perfectly matched to the subject matter at hand: lyrical, intuitive and painfully perceptive. While the main thrust of the narrative takes places in the run-up to WW2, there is a timeless feel to this story, akin to a classic myth or fable.

With its imposing penitentiary, Procida is painted as an isolated, mysterious place, one with elements of menace and darkness, albeit lightened by the allure of the natural world. Morante’s descriptions of the island’s environment are beautifully expressed.

As this excellent novel draws to a close, Arturo must contend with emotions of antipathy, lust, jealousy and disillusionment. Morante’s portrayal of the young boy’s experiences is both intimate and compelling, tackling themes of forbidden love and ambiguous sexuality with insight and sensitivity. Alongside the struggle to reconcile his feelings for Nunziata, Arturo must also come to terms with a new, rather disturbing vision of his father – a discovery that will leave a mark on his character forever.

This is a layered, emotionally-rich novel, one that will likely suit lovers of interior-driven fiction with a strong sense of place. The pace is leisurely, reflecting the rhythm of life on the island – definitely a slow burner, but one that will reward the reader’s patience and emotional investment.

I read this book for Biblibio’s #WITMonth, which is running throughout August. For an interesting companion piece dealing with similar themes, see Agostino (1944) by Alberto Moravia, Elsa Morante’s husband – also very highly recommended indeed.

Territory of Light by Yuko Tsushima (tr. Gillian Harcourt)

I loved this. A beautiful, dreamlike novella shot through with a strong sense of isolation that permeates the mind.

First published in the late 1970s as a series of interlinked short stories, Territory of Light focuses on a year in the life of a young mother, recently separated from her somewhat ambivalent husband. As the story opens, the unnamed woman – who narrates the novella – and her three-year-old daughter are newly established in a fourth-floor apartment with windows on all sides, thereby forming the ‘territory of light’ of the title.

Tsushima poignantly depicts the young woman’s pain in adjusting to life as a single parent, no longer sure of her own sense of self or future existence. The husband, Fujino, is in a new relationship, unable or unwilling to contribute financially to his daughter’s upbringing – a situation that leaves the narrator trying to cope with the unsettling transition taking place.

This man was my daughter’s father and my husband, but he knew nothing of the life I had been leading for over a month now – an existence that was uneventful enough in its way, and yet the tranquillity of the days ahead only fed my apprehension – and I could give him no idea of that life. I felt as though I had before me an invisible, rickety, misshapen mass that not only kept its precarious balance but was actually sending out roots and even tentative new shoots that only my eyes could see. Having been presented with this unstable object, I’m starting to grow too attached to it to be able to slip back into married life with Fujino as if nothing had happened. The way he spoke to me, as my husband, didn’t feel right anymore. (pp. 22-23)

There are times when the narrator oscillates between openly trying to prevent her husband from spending time with his daughter and secretly wishing they could all get back together – to coexist as a typical family unit, whatever form that may take.

I longed to have my old life back. But there was no going back now, nor any way out. I couldn’t decide whether I’d done this to myself or fallen for a ruse of unknown origin. What I’d failed to see so far, it turned out, it was my own cruelty. (p. 59)

In the meantime, she must juggle the needs of a lively three-year-old alongside her job as an archivist in an audio library, relying on the support of a day-care centre for childcare during the week. As the demands of single parenthood increase, there is a sense of this woman receding into the darkness, giving rise to feelings of guilt, fear, annoyance and fatigue. Her nights are haunted by anxiety-fuelled dreams and fragments of memories, frequently punctuated by the toddler’s persistent cries – something the narrator tries to block out through an increasing reliance on alcohol.

Interestingly, Tsushima doesn’t shy away from illustrating the fragile nature of the young woman’s state of mind, characterised by her increasing consumption of drink, a tendency to oversleep on weekdays, a lack of care for the apartment, and – most worryingly of all – her neglect of the child’s wellbeing. Even though it is clear that the narrator loves her child very much, the practicalities of the situation remain stark and unadorned.

As one might expect from the title, imagery plays a significant role in the novella, contributing significantly to the mood and atmosphere of the piece. Tsushima’s prose has a fluid, poetic quality, particularly when depicting the play of light within the building itself.

No one else must know about this place that made me yearn to dissolve until I became a particle of light myself. The way that light cohered in one place was unearthly. I gazed at its stillness without ever going in through the gate. (p. 119)

The narrative is punctuated with beguiling images, each one possible to visualise in the mind – perhaps best illustrated by the mosaic of bright colours ‘like a burst of bright flowers’ that suddenly appears on the roof next door.

The unexpected sight of bright colours on that weathered tiled roof set my heart racing with sudden foreboding. I leaned out of the window and took a closer look. They were coloured paper squares. Red ones. Blue ones. Green, yellow…I could only conclude that every sheet in the pack of origami paper I had bought my daughter a few days earlier had floated down, one after the other, taking its time and enjoying the breeze, on to the tiled floor roof below. I pictured a small hand pluck one square at a time from the pack, reach out the window, and release it in midair. My daughter, who had just turned three, would have been laughing out loud with pleasure as she watched the different colours wafting down. (p. 47)

Territory of Light is a quiet, contemplative novella – strangely unsettling in tone yet thoroughly compelling. There is a sense of intimacy and honesty in the portrayal of the narrator’s feelings, something that adds to the undoubted power of the book. Themes of isolation, alienation and disassociation are heightened by the somewhat ghostly nature of the setting, the apartment being located in a commercial building where the mother and child are the sole occupants at night. Tsushima’s focus on the day-to-day minutiae of life is a powerful one, forcing us to contemplate how we would cope in similar circumstances, how our own failings and vulnerabilities might be exposed.

Moreover, the spectre of death runs through the narrative – from the young boy who falls to his death accidentally while playing, to a suicide on the railways, to the funerals glimpsed in the street, the concept of our ephemerality is keenly felt. Tsushima’s own father – the Japanese novelist Osamu Dazai – took his own life when she was just one year old, a point that adds another layer of emotional intensity to story reflected here. Nevertheless, there are moments of brightness too – the simple pleasures that motherhood can bring in spite of the myriad of challenges.

By the end of the book, there are tentative signs of some kind of acclimatisation on the part of the mother, the glimpse of a new beginning on the horizon. Nevertheless, the delicate balance between darkness and light remains, a point that serves to remind us of our own fallibilities in life.

This is my second piece for #WITMonth (women in translation) which runs throughout August. Several other bloggers have written about this book. Here are links to relevant posts by Grant and Dorian.

Territory of Light is published by Penguin Books; personal copy.

Voices in the Evening by Natalia Ginzburg (tr. D. M. Low)

Born in Palermo in 1916, the Italian writer Natalia Ginzburg is perhaps best known for her autobiographical novel Family Lexicon, winner of the Strega Prize for fiction in 1963. Voices in the Evening is an earlier novel, first published in Italian in 1961 and translated into English in 1963.

In many respects, Voices is an episodic work, a series of interconnected vignettes depicting the lives and loves of various members of one particular family, all set in a small Italian village, viewed from the perspective of the years following WW2.

Central to the novel is Elsa, an unmarried twenty-seven-year-old woman who lives with her parents in the watchful village community, a place where gossip and arbitrary judgments are prevalent, adding colour to the inhabitants’ day-to-day activities. The narrative is bookended by two ‘conversations’ between Elsa and her mother. I use the term ‘conversation’ with caution as the dialogue is in effect a monologue with Elsa remaining silent in the face of her mother’s barbed musings and pointed observations.

‘One can see that there is a party somewhere,’ she added, ‘at the Terenzis’ very likely. Everyone who goes has to take something. Nowadays many people do that.’

She said, ‘But they don’t invite you, do they?

‘They don’t invite you,’ she said, ‘because they think that you give yourself airs. You have never been to the tennis club either. If one does not go about and show oneself, people say that such a person is giving himself airs, and they don’t seek one out anymore…’ (p.4)

These opening and closing vignettes set the tone for the novel, emphasising the sense of distance between Elsa and her mother, a feeling of separation between the generations. There is a touch of wry humour in these passages too, a note of irony in Ginzburg’s prose as Elsa must endure her mother’s complaints.

Voices can also be thought of as a novel of conflicts or tensions – conflicts between mothers and daughters, men and women, and ultimately those between different values and ideals. The first half of the narrative explores the troubled lives and loves of the most influential family in the village, a household headed up by old Balotta (or Little Ball), the owner of the local cloth factory where Elsa’s father works as an accountant. Old Balotta has five children, most of whom are unlucky in love. There is also another family member to contend with: Purillo, the patriarch’s adopted son.

Gemmina, Balotta’s eldest daughter, is in love with Nebbia, a man who rejects her advances in favour of marriage to a foolish young girl from a nearby village. Next in line are Balotta’s sons, Vincenzio and Mario – the former a bit of a misfit, the latter cheerful and sociable.

The Balotta family dynamics are disturbed when Mario decides to marry Xenia, an artist he meets during a business trip to Munich. Xenia appears somewhat aloof with her expensive tastes in clothes, food and other accoutrements. There is even a concern on the part of Balotta that Xenia might be a spy – the girl’s lack of interest in learning Italian is another point against her.

The family’s relationships are characterised by various flaws and failings – more specifically, unrequited love, marriages of convenience, and unions founded on acceptability at the expense of emotion.

The final vignette is the most emotionally compelling in the sequence, the story of a doomed love affair between Elsa and the last of Old Balotta’s sons, a young man by the name of Tommasino. Every Wednesday afternoon, Elsa and Tommasino spend time together in a nearby town, a place where they can experience a sense of freedom, unburdened by the weight of familial ties or expectations. Their meetings are conducted in secret, mostly in a rented room on the Via Gorizia.

At heart, Tommasino is not a romantic; his demeanour is a solitary one, reflecting a reluctance to be tied down. However, everything changes when Tommasino visits Elsa at home one evening, a move which soon results in the young couple’s engagement. As Elsa’s family begin to make preparations for the wedding, Tommasino glimpses the life of responsibility and domesticity that lies ahead. It is a world that does not appeal to him, far removed from the atmosphere of Via Gorizia with all its simplicity and seclusion. As a consequence, Tommasino cannot help but make his true feelings known to Elsa.

There was something, all the same, something intimate and delicate, and it had its own fulfilment and its own freedom. You and I, up there in the Via Gorizia, alone, without any plans for the future, without anything at all, have been happy in some fashion of our own. We had something there; it was not much but it was something. It was something very slight, very fragile, ready to break up at the first puff of wind. It was something which could not be captured and bought to the light or it would die. We have brought it to the light and it is dead, and we shall never recover it any more. (pp. 142-143)

Voices in the Evening is a simple yet subtle novel, one that explores the tension and discontentment in relationships between men and women, particularly those living in a small, close-knit community. There is a strong sense of estrangement running through the novel, a feeling of separateness and isolation in a shifting world. The shadow of war also looms in the background, accentuating a feeling of unease and instability.

Ginzburg’s prose is direct and unadorned in a way that leaves quite a bit of space in the narrative, maybe too much. If I had a criticism, it would be to say that the novel as a whole feels a little slight, particularly given the episodic structure and shift in focus from one character to another. Nevertheless, in some instances, what is left unsaid between individuals can seem just as significant as what is shared. Plus, I’m significantly impressed to want to read Ginzburg’s highly-regarded autobiographical work, Family Lexicon.

This is my first post for Biblibio’s Women in Translation event, which is running during August. (It just so happens that my #WITMonth has started a little early this year.)

Voices in the Evening is published by Daunt Books; my thanks to the publishers for kindly providing a review copy.

The Patrick Melrose novels by Edward St Aubyn – part 2, the individual books

Earlier this week, I posted a piece with some overarching thoughts on Edward St Aubyn’s five-part sequence of books, The Patrick Melrose novels. (If you missed this, do consider going back to read it – you can find the link here.) In short, the series charts the turbulent life of the central character, Patrick Melrose, from his lowest and darkest moments to something approaching recovery and self-repair. It’s also one of the highlights of my reading year so far.

In this follow-up post, I’m going to touch on the individual novels, just to highlight one or two points about each one. Inevitably, this will include the broad arc of Patrick’s story. However, the traditional notion of plot is not the main driving force here; instead, the series is more about character, personal experience and psychological insight. If you’re thinking of reading the series, hopefully this will give you an idea of what to expect from it.

The first book, Never Mind, explores Patrick’s childhood – in particular, the torturous summer he spends with his sadistic father, David Melrose, and wealthy, alcoholic mother, Eleanor, at the family’s (or rather Eleanor’s) house in the South of France – Patrick is just five years old at this point. It is a shallow, privileged world, one in which disdain, ignorance and abject neglect are allowed to flourish and fester.

There are a number of key incidents in this book, most notably Patrick’s first experience of sexual abuse at the hands of his father – a practice that continues unchallenged for the next three years. Eleanor, on the other hand, is either too week or drunk to intervene. (There is a suggestion in the books that Eleanor is aware of David’s ongoing abuse of her son but is too frightened to do anything to stop it.)

Naturally, on account of the subject matter, this is a difficult book to read, devastating in its emotional intensity and impact. The abuse scene is all the more powerful for its subtlety and understated nature, a technique that leaves it to the reader’s imagination to complete the distressing picture.

Max has already written an excellent review of this book, which I would encourage you to read as it delves into many of the book’s strengths. Before moving on, I’d just like to highlight one aspect of St Aubyn’s style that stood out for me – namely, his ability to convey such astute insights into character through the smallest of actions or details.

…he [David] leaned over and picked up a half-smoked Montecristo cigar. One was ‘supposed’ to remove the paper band from the cigar, and so David left it on. To break even the smallest rules by which others convinced themselves that they were behaving correctly gave him great pleasure. His disdain for vulgarity included the vulgarity of wanting to avoid the appearance of being vulgar. (p. 90, Never Mind)

Book two, Bad News, finds Patrick at twenty-two, flying to New York to collect his father’s ashes whilst in the throes of multiple addictions. Strung out on various cocktails of speed, cocaine, heroin and alcohol, Patrick tries to reconcile his feelings about David’s death, a process that takes him to a nightmarish abyss, characterised by the relentless chorus of voices that haunt his hallucinatory dreams.

There is some brilliant writing about the physical and emotional impact of drug addiction here, particularly given the pernicious demons from Patrick’s past. However, it is the acerbic gallows humour that really stands out for me – passages such as the following in which Patrick discusses his father’s argumentative nature with an old family friend, Anne, following a viewing of the body at the funeral parlour.

‘So you liked being with him in a place he didn’t complain about.’

‘Exactly,’ said Patrick. ‘I couldn’t believe my luck, and for a while I expected him to sit up in his coffin, like a vampire at sunset, and say, “The service here is intolerable.” Then we would have had to go to three or four other funeral parlours. Mind you, the service was intolerable. They sent me to the wrong corpse.’

‘The wrong corpse!’ exclaimed Anne.

‘Yes, I wound up at a jaunty Jewish cocktail party given for a Mr Hermann Newton. I wish I could have stayed; they seemed to be having such fun…’ (p. 41, Bad News)

By book three, Some Hope, thirty-year-old Patrick has experienced some success in conquering his drug addiction, a habit he now recognises as concealing a deeper struggle – the fight to avoid turning into his father.

In many ways, this novel reminds me very much of Anthony Powell’s marvellous series, A Dance to the Music of Time, which I have written about here. Some Hope revolves around a glamorous party hosted by the Melroses’ old acquaintance, Bridget – also present at the house during that fateful summer portrayed in Never Mind.

It is, in one sense, a biting social satire in the style of Powell and Waugh, replete with casual cruelties and cutting remarks. The guest of honour at the party is Princess Margaret, a woman who behaves in the most callously to various guests, particularly the French Ambassador, who comes close to creating a diplomatic incident, and Bridget’s young daughter, Belinda. To accentuate the Powell comparison even further, there is even a scene featuring a painting by Poussin – surely a nod to the title of Dance.

In book four, Mother’s Milk, we find Patrick in his early forties, living with his kind and grounded wife, Mary, and their two young children, Robert and Thomas. It is a book about mothers and the influence they bring to bear on their children. More specifically, Eleanor’s failures of Patrick throughout his life; the negative impact of Patrick’s maternal grandmother on Eleanor herself; and finally, Mary’s very different approach to motherhood, one that reflects her nurturing nature and unbridled capacity for love.

While Patrick knows he has already passed on some of his preoccupations and anxieties to Robert, there may still be time to take a different approach with Thomas, one that prevents the toxic fallout from tainting the life of his youngest son.

He [Patrick] was obsessed, it was true, with stopping the flow of poison from one generation to the next, but he already felt that he had failed. Determined not to inflict the causes of his suffering on his children, he couldn’t protect them from the consequences. Patrick had buried his own father twenty years ago and hardly ever thought about him. At the peak of his kindness David had been rude, cold, sarcastic, easily bored; compulsively raising the hurdle at the last moment to make sure that Patrick cracked his shins. It would have been too flagrant for Patrick to become a disastrous father, or to get a divorce, or to disinherit his children; instead they had to live with the furious, sleepless consequence of those things. (pp. 88-89, Mother’s Milk)

As the series draws to a close with the final book, At Last, there are signs that Patrick may be able to find some kind of way forward, a sense of release from the traumas and frustrations of the past. At the age of forty-five, he is attending his mother’s funeral, an opportunity to let go of longstanding anger and resentment. Surely his mother’s passion for philanthropy, for using her money to try and save the disadvantaged children of the world, stemmed from a subconscious feeling that she had failed to protect her own son. As the full horror of Eleanor’s life with David is finally revealed, Patrick realises that it is not the end of closeness but the end of longing for such feelings of intimacy and protection that he must mourn.

By turns astute, painful, shocking and excruciatingly funny, this series is a masterpiece of modern fiction. Very highly recommended indeed.

The Patrick Melrose novels are published by Picador; personal copies.

The Patrick Melrose novels by Edward St Aubyn – some overall thoughts

Something a little different from me today. Not a review as such, but some overarching reflections on this exceptional series of novels, which I gobbled up over the course of a week back in April during my recovery from a major fracture. I’d already had a bit of a false start back in February with the first book in the series, Never Mind; but then again, a six-hour session in A&E was probably not the ideal environment in which to read a story as brutal and hard-hitting as this. (Perversely, it was the only book I had with me at the time of my accident; but to be honest, I was grateful for any form of distraction from the pain.)

Anyway, back to the books. For those of you unfamiliar with the series, it charts the turbulent life of the central character, Patrick Melrose, from his lowest and darkest moments to something approaching recovery and self-repair. Along the way, the novels delve into child abuse, marital rape, drug addiction, alcohol misuse, abject cruelty and neglect, and all manner of other sadistic behaviours. It is a story in which the sins and failures of both fathers and mothers shape the lives of their children in the most destructive of ways. (Sounds great, doesn’t it? I know – I’m really selling it here.)

However, it’s not all doom and gloom. Far from it in fact. With the possible exception of book one, Never Mind, the novels are shot through with a wickedly funny, caustic seam of humour, much of which stems from Patrick’s inherent cynicism and fiercely cutting sense of wit.

The books are also superbly written; not a word wasted or out of place. St Aubyn is clearly one of our finest prose stylists, a writer with the ability to convey the sharpest of feelings in just a sentence or two.

The first drink centred him for about twenty minutes and then the rest brought his night mind rushing over the landscape like the dark blade of an eclipse. (p. 225, Mother’s Milk)

When read as a series, the novels are immensely satisfying as they give the reader such a deep insight into Patrick’s inner life, complete with its anxieties, complexities and self-destructive tendencies. There is something very humane and profound about these novels, the sense that by examining the various generations of his family in this way, St Aubyn is attempting to exorcise the ghosts of his past, to banish the demons of his early life and painful existence. (The books are clearly semi-autobiographical.) And yet they are about as far from the conventional misery memoir as you are ever likely to get. The combination of fierce intelligence and sharp, sardonic wit sets them apart from anything as formulaic as this.

In a follow-up post to go out later this week, I’m planning to touch on the individual novels, just to highlight one or two points about each one. Inevitably, this will include the broad arc of Patrick’s story. However, the traditional notion of plot is not the main driving force here; instead, the series is more about character, personal experience and psychological insight.

In the meantime, I’ll wrap up with the following thoughts…

Razor-sharp, fiercely intelligent and emotionally penetrating in its examination of dysfunctional families, this series is a masterpiece of English fiction. I’m so glad I returned to it in a more conducive environment.

Viewed individually, the books are by turns astute, painful, shocking and excruciatingly funny. Perseverance may well be the key here – if you get past the first two volumes, you’re almost certainly home free. More on the individual instalments in my next post, hopefully later this week…

The Patrick Melrose novels are published by Picador; personal copies.