An Unsuitable Attachment is Barbara Pym's seventh novel. She sent it to her usual publisher, Jonathan Cape, in February 1963, and to her embarrassment and distress they rejected it, and her, as being too behind the times, no longer likely to sell. Her confidant Philip Larkin was as annoyed as she was, but she wouldn't … Continue reading Barbara Pym, An Unsuitable Attachment
Was this the original baggy monster of a novel? It's huge, and quite baggy, and has no place on my shelves now that I've read it, because its vastness is not matched by re-readability. However, some parts are very good indeed, so it's a patchy reading experience. I found myself skipping the rather tedious romance … Continue reading Arnold Bennett, Imperial Palace
Ann Leckie’s new novel, following the triumphant success of her multiple award-winning novels Ancillary Justice, Ancillary Sword and Ancillary Mercy, is Provenance, and it is not at the same level. Her invention and world-building are still top quality, but the plot of Provenance sags, and the characters feel like marionettes, moving without feeling. Yet I read to … Continue reading Ann Leckie’s Provenance
This is a memoir by the first female professor in the UK, Edith Morley, Professor of English Language at the University of Reading. It’s an essential read for anyone exploring the history of women’s higher education in Britain, and for those keen on reliving the struggles of women to make headway in a profession that … Continue reading Edith Morley’s Before and After. Reminiscences of a Working Life
John Lehmann begins this issue by announcing that he’s dropping my favourite part of the magazine, The Living Moment. The reason for what he rightly calls this ‘freakish editorial decision’ is that the articles suitable for this section —commissioned reportage of changing post-war life — are getting scarce. However, despite this annoying beginning, I think … Continue reading Penguin New Writing 35: The sound of idols smashing
Lady Baltimore, by Owen Wister, is an extraordinary novel. It wasn’t written as a historical novel, but it certainly is one now: a 1905 depiction of the American South at the turn of the twentieth century, on how life would have been so much better if the South hadn’t lost the Civil War. I had to … Continue reading Fantasies of the undefeated South: Owen Wister’s Lady Baltimore
A highly satisfying novel of wish fulfillment bounds onto your screen in this Really Like This Book podcast scripts catch-up. In Arnold Bennett’s The Regent (1913), a wealthy provincial magnate builds a London theatre by whose success he confounds the city folk who know better than he does. There are no agonies and no tense little scenes … Continue reading Arnold Bennett builds a theatre: The Regent
