Reviews

I am not sure what to make of this book, and in the end I compromised and gave it four stars. On the one hand - and importantly - this novel was way ahead of it’s time, written in 1936. It deals with an adulterous love affair, and, when that goes wrong, an abortion. Both subjects, especially the abortion, that the publishers tried to persuade the author to cut out. It is a really important early feminist novel. But on the other hand, the style it is written in is stream of consciousness, and that really puts me off. I dislike the style, and found it hard going. I would have enjoyed the book far more if it were written ‘straight’. But I kept going because of the subject matter. An important book, however, and overall I am glad I read it.

tstockwell86's review against another edition

Go to review page

3.0

If part two had been edited properly, it would have been a 4*, easily. What's wrong with part two? Well:

You see it was...perhaps it might have been...yes - Adrian and Simon - oh what a lark...you see they'd come up with Anna and George, to stay at Jocelyn's place, and we'd gone swimming the river, radiant washing over, oh I remembered...

It's like when you talk to someone, and they go on and on and on about people you've never met. Lehmann does that here, and dedicates far too much time to inconsequential characters such as Anna and Simon, who really add nothing to the story. Structurally part two makes sense from the point of view of Olivia's mindset, but it dragged and I found myself skipping and skipping and skipping (and again in part four, any time it mentioned Anna and Simon). Lehmann seems to expect the reader to have some sort of emotional attachment to characters who don't add anything to the story.

I've never seen an author overuse ellipsis and dashes so much, nor place so many bizarre stresses on words as per the overuse of italics whenever Etty and Lady Spencer have dialogue, either. Plus the propensity for multiple characters when speaking to...no not quite...never finish a...

This isn't to say that the book was a total disaster - I wouldn't have given it three stars if it was! I found it a very realistic view of an affair (or so I'd imagine!), or just loving someone that you know you ultimately can't have. Olivia's conversations with Kate were probably my favourite, and the book as a whole was very progressive for the 1930's - Kate's candid take on motherhood for example, and the allusions to homosexuality (Marigold, I see you!) Lehmann clearly has an ear for dialogue, and the reactions of the characters to said dialogue are realistic and believable.

Parts of this were glorious, but ultimately it got bogged down at times by erratic punctuation and stylistic choices. Had it been slimmed down and just focused on the core of Olivia-Rollo-Kate-Lady Spencer-Marigold and done away dedicating so much page space to the superfluous additional characters, then it would have been a lot more successful in my humble opinion.