The harsh voice (Rebecca West)

It's been a bit of a while since I've posted - but do not fear, I am determined to continue my quest to read all of the Virago Modern Classics. My husband is building me shelves at the moment to house my collection in all their glory, and I can't wait to display them again after having them piled up in the spare room since we moved :(

I do have my VMC TBR handy, and so I picked off The harsh voice by Rebecca West, mainly because I am feeling guilty about this book as I accidentally bought it twice. I've passed on the extra copy to a friend who is more keen on Rebecca West than I am, but I still felt I should read it sooner rather than later, given that I had spent twice the amount of money on it!

The harsh voice is actually 4 novellas, mostly with some connection to America, described in the blurb as exploring "the lives and relationships of rich women and men who are ruled by "the harsh voice we hear when money talks, or hate"".

I found the first story, "Life Sentence" in the book distinctly disquieting. It opens with a couple who are about to be married, only the groom announces two days beforehand that he does not want to go through with it. His future wife talks him into it since he has said that he will go ahead if she desires; but the reader feels unsettled and knows that nothing good could possibly come of that situation, particularly given the title of the story. Their marriage seems to start off happily but it is definitely fated, and the woman's obsession with money leads quickly to its breakdown. It did not make happy reading on the 3rd week anniversary of my wedding day.

In another, "The salt of the earth", the character Alice has an opinion on how to change everyone (but herself) for the better, which leads her husband to relieve everyone by poisoning her nighttime drink.

The book was distinctly unsettling and certainly not a feel-good read. I suppose it is in the grain of all of the Rebecca West novels that I have read that they are not terribly happy.

You can find a fuller review of the book here, on the Pages Turned blog. And, I also found this review by Edith Wharton in 1935 - I thought that was fascinating, one VMC lady's take on another.

This book has just been published once as a VMC with an original green cover.

Sunflower (West)

As I've said before, I have a somewhat mixed relationship with stalwart Virago Modern Classic author Rebecca West. So I wasn't quite sure whether or not I would like Sunflower, especially as it seemed to be somewhat different to some of her other novels. It's described as an unfinished fragment, although it is just as long as any of her other books. Where it differs I think, is the extent to which it is autobiographical.

Sunflower, of the title, is an actress and mistress to Lord Essington ("Sunflower" is his private name for her); she leads a glamourous life, but really wants to settle down in domesticity, and this leads her to pursue a millionaire politician named Francis Pitt who she believes will help her to attain this.

Apparently, this is a portrait of Rebecca West's relationship with HG Wells (Essington) and her doomed obsessive love for the politician Beaverbrook. The afterword says that those who knew West would not have recognised her as Sunflower, but surely, in a novel like this you would want to describe yourself as you would like to be? I found the novel quite absorbing although I couldn't quite decide whether I sympathised with Sunflower or not, but I think I was fascinated by the idea that it was based on real life.

It's just been published once by Virago with the original green cover - I can't help feeling disappointed that Virago didn't use an appropriate Vincent Van Gogh for it.

New edition of The fountain overflows

Hot on the heels of the rerelease of The Diary of a Provincial Lady in the VMC list is another rerelease of a title from their back catalogue, The fountain overflows by Rebecca West, the first of a trilogy of books, which is released at the end of march.

Like the Provincial Lady, I'd read this pre-blogging, so the post I wrote here is a little minimal.

But here's the synopsis from the press release that Virago sent me to whet your appetite. I'm looking forward to reading the new introduction by Amanda Craig, whose books I greatly admire.

"Rose Aubrey is one of a family of four children. Their father, Piers, is the disgraced son of an Irish landowning family, a violent, noble and quite unscrupulous leader of popular causes. His Scottish wife, Clare, is an artist, a tower of strength, fanatically devoted to a musical future for her daughters. This is the story of their life in south London, a life threatened by Piers's streak of tragic folly which keeps them on the verge of financial ruin and social disgrace . . ."

I rather like the pastel shades combined with silouettes chosen for the cover. I don't know if there are plans to do the rest of the trilogy, but hope they would be done to match.

Return of the soldier (West)

I was slightly surprised to recieve a new edition of The return of the soldier by Rebecca West in the mail - it is the latest Virago Modern Classic. It wasn't on the list of VMCs for 2010, but I think that the last one of 2010 has been delayed to 2011. I was also surprised when I put it on the shelf, as I already have a "modern" edition of the book (but sadly not the original green edition).

It's coming out next month, but it was timely to recieve it on Remembrance weekend. Nymeth wrote about it last week, and you can see my original post on it here. (It doesn't seem to have been given an additional VMC number though).

I am particularly looking forward to reading the new introduction by Sadie Jones, as she has written rather well on more recent conflict in Small wars.

The birds fall down (West) 235

I've had varied success with Rebecca West, I loved The return of the soldier, didn't get on with either Harriet Hume or The thinking reed, and wasn't hugely fussed, but found ok, her Cousin Rosamund trilogy. I was intrigued by what I read about The birds fall down and was hugely pleased to discover that I quite enjoyed reading this mix of political thriller and family story, and didn't even mind the philosophical elements (which were what I struggled with in Harriet Hume and The thinking reed) although it was very long winded and is really quite difficult to write about.

The book is based around the character of eighteen-year-old Laura. Her father is a British MP, her mother, Tania, is the daughter of an exiled Russian royalist. Laura and Tania set out for France to stay with Tania's parents. Tania's mother is ill, and so Laura is then dispatched with her grandfather to stay on the coast. Whilst they make the journey by train, their carriage is invaded by a Russian who subjects the pair to a long diatribe about Russia and suggests that the Tsar is making schemes to protect himself, getting rid of others in the process. Essentially, this is all somewhat of a precursor to the Russian revolution.

The best things about the book for me was reading about Laura; the worst things were the long bits of dialogue dealing with politics - there is a scene set on the train (which West claims was a depiction of real events) which goes on for over 100 pages!

It's been published three times by Virago, and I had the second, italic green edition, from the library. Apparently the BBC also made it into a TV serial.

Return of the soldier (West) 32

The return of the soldier was Rebecca West's first novel, and I have to say that this slim volume is the one I've enjoyed most out of all of her books which I've read so far. It felt like quite a different sort of work to her Cousin Rosamund trilogy or to Harriet Hume.

The soldier in question is Chris; he has been fighting in the first world war, his return is marred by shell shock and the fact that he cannot remember the last 15 years of his life. The last fifteen years include his marriage to Kitty, his beautiful wife; he remembers himself as still being in love with his childhood sweetheart Margaret. The women involved have the choice as to whether to leave him as he is, with this huge gap in his memory, or try to effect some sort of "cure".

The book is narrated by his cousin Jenny, herself also somewhat in love with Chris, and her narration provides West with a means to explore the consequences of the damages of war. It is this which makes the book very much more than just a simple return from war/love story, and thus the basis for West's more philosophically books. The prose is absolutely beautiful, so I would definitely recommend this one, especially to those, like me with an interest in the World Wars and their consequences.

The novel has been published three times by Virago; my copy bought from Amazon is the most recent edition, I wish very much it had been the older green one to complement my two other original green Rebecca Wests - I think the oldest one is by far the nicest cover. It has also been published prolifically by other publishers, obviously indicating its popularity.

Richer, the poorer (West) 430

Having loved The Wedding by Dorothy West, I was keen to read more of her work, and when I spotted this anthology of her essays and short stories on ebay, it didn't take much to get me to buy it! The first half comprises short stories, based on similar situations to that of The wedding - i.e. the themes of African and American life, originally published in magazines. The second half of the book was the part that I found most interesting, being some autobiographical skethces which enabled me to build up a picture of West and understand a bit more about how she came to be a writer, for example insisting on a lock on her door age 8 so that she could write in peace. Apparently West is best known for her short stories, but I am keen to read her other novel, The living is easy now as I do prefer sustained narratives.

It's just been published the once by Virago.

3*

The thinking reed (West)

I'm slightly indifferent about Rebecca West. I've enjoyed some of her books; her Fountain overflows trilogy was quite a good read, and I am looking forward to getting hold of a copy of The return of the soldier. But I didn't really "get" Harriet Hume, and I felt similarly about The thinking reed; the story just didn't grab me at all.

The thinking reed is the story of Isabel, an American who leaves for Paris in 1928 in search of love, and ideally a husband. She has three potential suitors, but ends up marrying Marc. I suppose the themes were quite similar to Harriet Hume, principally the differences between men and women, and it seems that West is suggesting that these can never be reconciled.

Published just the once with an original green cover which I own.

Harriet Hume (West) 34

Last week I went to London for the day, so I picked up some London-themed reading from my VMC pile. Harriet Hume by Rebecca West is set predominantly in Kensington and is subtitled "A London fantasy".

The book is about two characters, Harriet, a pianist with powers of intiution, and Arnold, an ambitious and aspiring politician who is effectively Harriet's opposite. We first meet them after they have been making love in Harriet's flat, which provided a delightful start to the novel. However, Harriet's power to read Arnold's mind means that she discovers that even though they have just had a wonderful time together, his career is far more important to him, and reluctantly she lets him walk out of her life. The pair meet again several times, 6 years later, and 20 years later. Arnold's career is now in ruins, and he blames Harriet for not sharing any intuitive knowledge of his downfall with him; he sets out to kill her...

While I quite enjoyed her Cousin Rosamund trilogy which I wrote about yesterday, I did not enjoy this one so much. The plot sounds interesting but the writing was not for me; there were many long "speeches" by the principle characters which went on for pages and pages, which just bored me. Harriet started to irritate me, and Arnold's thoughts on politics just annoyed me.

Just the one cover, above, which I rather liked as not only was it a nice painting, but it evoked the feeling of Harriet's rather haphazard living arrangements.

Rebecca West catch-up 143, 270, 303

Earlier in the year I read a trilogy of books by Rebecca West, known informally as The cousin Rosamund trilogy. It consists of The fountain overflows (probably one of the most well known of West's work), This real night and Cousin Rosamund.

It is a while since I read them so I shall content myself with showing you the covers, and asking if anyone has read any other Rebecca West novels as there are a number published as VMCs.

The fountain overflows has been published four times:
This real night, published three times:
and Cousin Rosamund (which only seems to have been published twice in original green and more modern photograph):

She done him wrong (West) 401

Originally a play, then a film, and then a novel, She done him wrong went through a number of versions before it became the book that I read. I wanted to widen my VMC reading again, having enjoyed a couple of other non-English-middle-class VMCs recently, so I picked this one up from my VMC TBR. I had heard of Mae West as an actress and was surprised to tie her together with the author of this book, but the introduction by Kathy Lette explained that she wrote a number of plays and a couple of novels as well. She was famous for her curvaceous figure: during the Second World War soldiers called their inflatable life preservers "Mae Wests", partly because they were rhyming slang for breasts, but also because their shape resembled her body!

In fact, Mae West's theatrical background came out strongly in this novel; the scenes were vividly painted and the whole reminded me of a stage-show like Chicago.

She done him wrong is a story about Lil Diamond (namef from the diamonds she gains from suitors, since they are more valuable and reliable than men), a girl living in New York in the Gay Nineties; she sings and is surrounded by men and loosely involved in the trade of prostitutes. However, she falls in love with a Salvation Army Officer, Captain Cummings, and is determined to seduce him, despite the differences in their lifestyles.

Much more famous as a movie than the book, the book is full of the same wonderful one-liners that make the film so entertaining. Here's a quote (from the film!) where Diamond Lil (played by West) tries to get Cummings (played by Cary Grant) to come out on a date.

West: "Why don't you come up some time, see me? I'm here every night."
Grant: "Yeah, but I'm busy every night."
West: "What're you tryin' to do, insult me?... You can be had."

One of West's other novels, The constant sinner, is also published as a VMC and I will be interested to see how that compares.

Just the one VMC publication, in a green cover above. Definitely worth a read whether you've seen the film or not.

The wedding (West) 431

One of the great things about the series of Virago Modern Classics is firstly what diverse backgrounds the writers come from and inspire the writing, and secondly how this introduces one to books that one might not otherwise have encountered. With the exception of a couple of Australian novels, my reading for this challenge has thus far been set in England or what I might term "middle-class" America. Until this weekend, I had not yet read anything set in the deep South.

Having attended a wedding on Saturday, I wanted some wedding-themed reading, and since The wedding was on my Virago TBR pile it was natural to pick it up, even though I was apprehensive about reading a book set in a situation that I knew nothing about. Happily, the "risk" of reading it paid off as I greatly enjoyed it.

Set in The Oval, an elite African-American community in Martha's Vineyard, it centres around the impending marriage of Shelby to a struggling white musician. It is a controversial match - some members of her family are for it, hoping that if they continue to marry white people, eventually there will be no trace of their coloured skin in their descendants - others are against it believing that Shelby is betraying her heritage. The book traces other people's lives and issues; Shelby's sister was lost as a child but only found after considerable time had elapsed because everyone was looking for a "coloured" child, perceiving this to be a completely black child with negroid features, rather than one who was essentially white.

Rather than a "story" I felt that this book was an exploration of race and racial prejudice; social standing to this community was much more about the tone of one's skin than money as we are often used to. West draws a number of wonderful characters and reading this book immersed me for a morning in the lives of the Ovalites gaining an insight into a world of which I knew very little.

This book was West's first for fifty years, and I am intrigued to read the other two titles she has written published as VMCs - The living is easy, and The richer, the poorer (this is a volume of memoirs I believe).

Just the one Virago cover, which is the one that I own, above.