Recent reading

The Flint Anchor by Sylvia Townsend Warner (1954). You can always count on Sylvia Townsend Warner to be interesting, unexpected and always very much herself—every book of hers I read blends the new and familiar so pleasingly. This one is about the life of John Barnard, a rich merchant from the Norfolk coast, and his family, in the nineteenth century: it opens by describing his memorial plaque as it looks in the modern day, and then ranges back over his life, with the life presenting something of an ironic contrast to the conventionally-worded plaque. The whole thing is a fascinating exploration of character, place, duty and memory. John Barnard is not really a bad person—he's well-intentioned and conscientious in his way—and yet the book describes in painstaking detail how he, in trying to live an honourable and upstanding life and do his duty in society, slowly crushes the life out of his family by a constant stern, gloomy oppression. It's pretty horrifying in its quiet way, and a brilliant criticism of patriarchy in the literal sense. I couldn't exactly like John, but I certainly felt for him.

The story meanders along through much of the nineteenth century without any specific plot, and brings in various bits of historical detail—the economic depressions of the 1810s and 1840s and the better times of the 1850s, news of foreign wars, changing fashions, the Tractarian and Evangelical movements. From time to time the oppressive atmosphere of the Barnard household is relieved by passages describing the background of the town of Loseby and the fisher-folk who live there, and it's here that the reason the book came to my attention is brought in. Homosexuality among the fishermen is definitely there and becomes fairly important to the plot at one point, but it's not a large part of the book by any means. The fisher-folk's acceptance of it is presented as one element in their being a people apart, with a separate culture from their inland neighbours—which general fact, interestingly, is something that came up several times while I was doing research for my Yuletide fic 'But Give Me Wings Like Noah's Dove', although I don't know how much historical basis there is for this interpretation of it.

(Also, the Virago edition which I read has a very appropriate classic painting cover image—they tend to be a bit random, but this one is spot-on!)

Some Tame Gazelle by Barbara Pym (1950). Pym's first book—I thought I'd go back to the beginning for some re-reading! Written in the 1930s, it follows middle-aged spinster Belinda Bede, who lives in a geographically-vague country village with her sister Harriet, and across the street from the Archdeacon, Henry Hoccleve, with whom Belinda has been in unrequited love for thirty years. During the course of the book a new curate arrives in the village—much to the excitement of Harriet, who dotes on curates—the Archdeacon's wife goes away on holiday, various other interesting people turn up and cause various sorts of social disruption and a great deal of poetry, some of it unsuitable, is quoted. And there's a lot of emotionally significant knitting! It's the sort of quiet social comedy that Pym does very well, and really enjoyable to read. And it does a lot of things with the portrayal of unrequited love. Belinda's love for the Archdeacon (who, frankly, doesn't deserve it), hopeless as it is, is shown as something meaningful, living, perhaps even fulfilling in its way. It's all terribly poignant, and written with all of Pym's warm sympathy that's always just on the right side of pathetic. And lots more good stuff to read on this one on the Barbara Pym Society website—I knew that Belinda was something of a self-insert, but apparently the main characters were all closely based on people she knew, which is certainly an interesting thing to keep in mind while reading this book.

Tuscan Folk-lore and Sketches by Isabella M. Anderton (1905). Read as research for my Raffles WIP (I was looking for historical writing on Elba that wasn't all about Napoleon—the Elba section of this book is only half about him!). It's a somewhat miscellaneous collection of Anderton's writings put together by her family after her death: it includes fairytales told to her by her Tuscan peasant friends, descriptions of countryside scenes and historical sites and some literary criticism. Anderton herself, a scholar and teacher of literature who grew up in England and lived much of her life in Italy, sounds an interesting sort of person, and I enjoyed her various writings. They've certainly given me plenty of descriptive colour and detail for the fic.