Loving without tears (Keane) 286

As regular readers will know, I've struggled to get into Keane's writing and remain indifferent about her - it was only spotting a lovely original green edition of Loving without tears with a really lovely cover image (see below) which convinced me to pick it up (ok, yes, I'm a sucker for book as object as well as book as something to read...)

It was a reasonably enjoyable read - like many of other Keane's books it centres around a family living in a country house. Angel, the mother of Slaney (a girl!) and Julian, is widowed and relies on her family and servants to run her life according to her desires. Julian went away as a result of the war, and when he returns, it is with an American fiance. This is not what Angel planned, and the book develops the story of Angel discovering that she can't necessarily run things exactly as she wants them. I didn't find Angel particularly likeable, but at the same time, she wasn't especially dislikeable - she was a bit of a nothingness, but I was relieved to find nonetheless that she did get some comeuppance at the end.

It's only been published twice by Virago, it doesn't seem to have made it into the recent highly coloured reprints that some of her other work has seen.

The rising tide (Keane)

I haven't hugely enjoyed the Molly Keane novels that I have read before, but The rising tide was recommended to me by Rachel from BookSnob and I have to say that I enjoyed it more than the other ones that I have read, mainly for the insight it gave into life for women living in country houses before the First World War. I'm still not a huge Keane fan - I don't especially enjoy her writing style or particularly what her novels are about.

The Rising Tide tells the story of the family at Garonlea at the start of the twentieth century. The lives of the four daughters is ruled by their mother, Lady Charlotte:

"Pain they endured and accepted.
Endless Chaperonage.
Supervision of their correspondence.
The fact that Mother Knew Best.
That Father says so.
That there is no more to be said on the subject, they accepted.
They accepted their leisure without boredom.
They accepted having occupations found for their leisure"

It was certainly a restricted life. As the book proceeds however, life relaxes, particularly after one of the sons marries Cynthia, who introduces another personality, as strong as that of Lady Charlotte into the household. And of course as time passes and the war happens, society itself changes and becomes less restrictive.

It's been published three times by Virago, and I borrowed the most recent pink edition from the library. 3*.

Two days in Aragon (Keane) 193

Like other books by Keane, Two days in Aragon is centred on a house; Keane seems to use this as a vehicle for bringing her characters and plot together. The house belongs to an Anglo-Irish family and shows how they are influenced by the changes of the 1920s over the period of two days. I'm not a huge fan of Keane but I like her characterisations, particularly this description of one of the main characters:
"Grania was a fat little blonde with pretty bones under her flesh; rather a slut and inclined to wear party shoes with her old tweeds. She would be in her bath and forget to wash very much, but she was a great hand at curling up her blonde hair of which she was very vain"

This has been published twice by Virago; I picked up the second version for only 50p earlier this year. 2.5*

Taking chances (Keane) 255

I'm not quite sure why I picked up Taking chances in a charity shop, except that it was a VMC for my collection and it was cheap. My previous experience with Molly Keane hadn't been hugely enjoyable, but I'm glad that I did get this one as it gave me the chance to give her another go, and I quite liked this one.

The book is set in Ireland in Sorristown, a large country house in the early 20th century where the siblings Roguey, Maeve and Jer have lived together since the death of their parents. We meet them a week before Maeve is due to marry Rowley, a neighbouring squire, and leave the home. The situation is unsettled when Jer's friend Mary arrives to be Maeve's bridesmaid and quite literally turns the lives of the other four upside down over the next week, with consequences rippling into the next year.

Two Virago copies - my charity shop purchase was the second more recent one.