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em_beddedinbooks's review against another edition
4.0
A very slow paced book with nothing happening other than the showcasing of the almost stand-still lives of the inmates of the Rose Inn at Thames Lockdon, a sleepy hamlet off the river Thames, nearby London. World War II is in process, and it has affected the inmates only in terms of blackout and the unavailability of day to day utilities, and poor functioning of amenities. Miss Roach, the central figure is a retired school mistress, who is now working for a small time publisher in London, and who has lodged here for relative safety. The other inmates include Mr. Thwaite, a nasty old man who is always antagonizing Miss Roach, Miss Steel, Miss Barron, and the proprieteress, Miss Payne, who is a strict lady. American Lieutenants enter the scene, and Miss Roach becomes friendly with one of them. Her German friend, Vicky, who has settled in England for the past 15 odd years also gets into the Inn. Initially friendly and subservient, Vicky slowly shows her true colors, and trouble starts...
This book was a rich portrait of human emotions, foibles and prejudices, and succeeded in presenting an almost complete picture of the human mind.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.
This book was a rich portrait of human emotions, foibles and prejudices, and succeeded in presenting an almost complete picture of the human mind.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.
john_bizzell's review against another edition
3.0
Hamilton’s writing here is masterful as usual, but it’s as suffocating and repetitive as the lives of his characters. Maybe that’s the point, but it doesn’t make for a particularly satisfying read.
bent's review against another edition
4.0
I quite enjoyed this book. It's a small story about a woman living in an English boarding house during the second World War, and her fellow boarders, but I found it amusing and felt a real sympathy for the main character.
jlmb's review against another edition
2.0
This was an odd book. I chose it because it was written in the late 1940's & set in 1943 & I enjoy reading novels set during that time period. It seemed extra cool to read something written so soon after the war. I figured I would get fresh insights into the war. Plus, I had read in a review that it was a funny book & who doesn't like to laugh?
First of all, it's not a funny book. It is a melancholy book, a sad book - quite frankly a downer. Oh, there are a few bits of wry black humor scattered throughout, but certainly not enough to offset the darkness of the book.
As far as it being set during the war, it strangely is very remote from the war. One of the characters is an American lieutenant but Miss Roach, the main character, never has a single conversation with him about his role in the war, how he feels about being away from home etc. None of the characters have any jobs -volunteer or paid - related to the war effort at all. It's strange. They all just sit around, filled with torpor and ennui. It's very boring to read about. Maybe that is the author's point? For the reader to feel as bored as his characters?
At the very, very end of the book the story starts to come to life but then - boom - the book ends just as it starts to get interesting. Strange.
First of all, it's not a funny book. It is a melancholy book, a sad book - quite frankly a downer. Oh, there are a few bits of wry black humor scattered throughout, but certainly not enough to offset the darkness of the book.
As far as it being set during the war, it strangely is very remote from the war. One of the characters is an American lieutenant but Miss Roach, the main character, never has a single conversation with him about his role in the war, how he feels about being away from home etc. None of the characters have any jobs -volunteer or paid - related to the war effort at all. It's strange. They all just sit around, filled with torpor and ennui. It's very boring to read about. Maybe that is the author's point? For the reader to feel as bored as his characters?
At the very, very end of the book the story starts to come to life but then - boom - the book ends just as it starts to get interesting. Strange.
dubiousdeeds's review against another edition
4.0
Bitter, sarcastic and cynical, full of conversations that make your skin crawl and all this under the pressure of the war. Brilliantly written and full of eloquent spite
ruthiella's review against another edition
3.0
Have you ever been cornered at an office party by an obnoxious co-worker or at a wedding by a dull guest from whom you were desperate to escape? I have, and usually such experiences remind me of the quote “Hell is other people”. Well, if you know what I am talking about, you will have a deja vu experience when reading The Slaves of Solitude. Which makes it sound like a horrible book and it isn’t. It is actually quite good. Let me try again. Slaves of Solitude is about a lonely, mild, middle age spinster, Enid Roach, who is living in a shabby boarding house in a village outside of London having been bombed out of her London flat. Miss Roach is verbally tormented daily by one of her fellow lodgers, Mr. Thwaits, who gets a sadistic pleasure out her discomfort. Her only escape is her weekday commute to her job in London and her dubious relationship with a drunken American lieutenant quartered in the village. None of the characters display any of the grim stoicism or gung-ho heroics in facing hardship which often typify WWII novels. In fact, if it weren’t for the rationing and the blackout, one could almost forget there was a war going on at all; the only battleground is the boarding house, meek Miss Roach vs. the overbearing Mr. Thwaits. Who will triumph? Hamilton balances the tension and tedium with ironic humor.
giovannnaz's review against another edition
4.0
Funny, claustrophobic, painful at times...strange to think about the boarding house society, something that I suppose doesn't really exist anymore. Is there a modern equivalent? And those characters--Thwaites with his horrendous Troth talk (I'll have to watch myself in the coming days), the Lieutenant and his whisky, and the horrendously manipulative Vicky. I guess they are a bit one-sided, but I didn't mind.
literarychef's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
adiamond's review against another edition
4.0
Patrick Hamilton’s The Slaves of Solitude is set in a boarding house in the London suburb of Thames Lockdon during the winter of 1943. A number of Londoners have abandoned the city after the German blitz and taken up residence in the Rosamund Tea Rooms, where they live under the weight of the war and government-imposed nighttime blackouts.
The book presents a cast of characters forced together by the war who would never have come together on their own. The protagonist, from whose perspective we see most of the action, is the prim, repressed, highly observant and highly sensitive Miss Enid Roach. Her sometime love interest is the heavy-drinking, good-natured American lieutenant Dayton Pike. Her rival and nemesis is the conniving and underhanded Vicki Kugelman, and her tormentor is the hilariously boorish, cringe-inducing bully, Mr. Thwaites.
The overall atmosphere of the book is one of repression, claustrophobia, and forced closeness. But it’s still one of the funniest books I’ve read in a long time. The inhabitants of the Rosamund Tea Rooms have sunk into a toxic atmosphere of sniping and resentment, and the house is dominated by the boastful, pompous, and impossibly obnoxious Mr. Thwaites, a Dickensian comic character whose sole joy in life is to torment everyone around him.
His favorite target is the meek and even-tempered Miss Roach, who tries to maintain a sense of dignity as she absorbs his abuse. This would be depressing if it weren’t so funny. Because no one in the boarding house will stand up to Thwaites, he freely expresses his ill-informed opinions on everything, in the most obnoxious ways possible.
This scene gives a good flavor of the character and the writing. By this point in the book, we know that neither Mr. Thwaites nor any of the other characters has ever been wealthy. They’re are all stuck at the boarding house precisely because they can’t afford to go anywhere else.
In the close atmosphere of the story, the narrator spends a lot of time parsing the statements and subtle actions of the characters, as in the passage above. Sometimes the close parsing is funny, sometimes it’s revealing and insightful, and often it’s all of those things at once.
Though she sees quite clearly, poor Miss Roach is too modest and retiring to assert herself, and life seems to happen to her in confusing ways. She’s as ambivalent toward her American lieutenant as he is toward her, and for a long time, she can’t decide whether or the German provocateur Vicki Kugelman is evil or simply coarse, obtuse, and ill-mannered.
It isn’t until the end of the book that Miss Roach begins to see what the reader sees quite clearly in the beginning and then loses sight of: that the primary causes of her being so stuck in life are first, the impossible, smothering situation into which the war has forced the residents of London and its environs; and second, the fundamental elements of her character that make her so maddening and empathetic. Anyone as observant, sensitive, and unassertive as she will be pushed around by life.
Still, you can’t help liking her, especially when the narrator reveals her thoughts, as in this scene, where she returns home from drinks with Vicki:
Patrick Hamilton is today most famous for his play Gaslight. Charles Boyer and Ingrid Bergman starred in the 1944 film version, from which comes the term gaslighting, which means to psychologically manipulate a person (usually a woman) in such a subtle and thorough way that they begin to doubt their own judgment, perception, and sanity. Hamilton was an acute observer of human motives, psychology, and social interaction. The Slaves of Solitude puts a comic twist on his sharp and accurate observations. It’s a wonder, and a shame, that the book is not more widely read.
The book presents a cast of characters forced together by the war who would never have come together on their own. The protagonist, from whose perspective we see most of the action, is the prim, repressed, highly observant and highly sensitive Miss Enid Roach. Her sometime love interest is the heavy-drinking, good-natured American lieutenant Dayton Pike. Her rival and nemesis is the conniving and underhanded Vicki Kugelman, and her tormentor is the hilariously boorish, cringe-inducing bully, Mr. Thwaites.
The overall atmosphere of the book is one of repression, claustrophobia, and forced closeness. But it’s still one of the funniest books I’ve read in a long time. The inhabitants of the Rosamund Tea Rooms have sunk into a toxic atmosphere of sniping and resentment, and the house is dominated by the boastful, pompous, and impossibly obnoxious Mr. Thwaites, a Dickensian comic character whose sole joy in life is to torment everyone around him.
His favorite target is the meek and even-tempered Miss Roach, who tries to maintain a sense of dignity as she absorbs his abuse. This would be depressing if it weren’t so funny. Because no one in the boarding house will stand up to Thwaites, he freely expresses his ill-informed opinions on everything, in the most obnoxious ways possible.
This scene gives a good flavor of the character and the writing. By this point in the book, we know that neither Mr. Thwaites nor any of the other characters has ever been wealthy. They’re are all stuck at the boarding house precisely because they can’t afford to go anywhere else.
The meal was breakfast: the subject, utility clothing. “As for the stuff they’re turning out for men nowadays,” said Mr. Thwaites bitterly, “I wouldn’t give it to my Valet.”
Mr. Thwaites’ valet was quite an old friend. An unearthly, flitting presence, whose shape, character, age and appearance could only be dimly conceived, he had been turning up every now and again ever since Miss Roach had known Mr. Thwaites. Mostly he was summoned into being as one from whom all second-rate, shoddy, or inferior articles were withheld. But sometimes things were good enough for Mr. Thwaites’ valet, but would not do for Mr. Thwaites. Mr. Thwaites’ spiritual valet endowed Mr. Thwaites with a certain lustre and grandeur, giving the impression that he had had a material valet in the past, or meant to have a material valet in the future. Mr. Thwaites also occasionally used, for the same purposes, a spiritual butler, a spiritual footman, and in moments of supreme content, a spiritual stable-boy. He had at his disposal a whole spiritual estate in the country.
In the close atmosphere of the story, the narrator spends a lot of time parsing the statements and subtle actions of the characters, as in the passage above. Sometimes the close parsing is funny, sometimes it’s revealing and insightful, and often it’s all of those things at once.
Though she sees quite clearly, poor Miss Roach is too modest and retiring to assert herself, and life seems to happen to her in confusing ways. She’s as ambivalent toward her American lieutenant as he is toward her, and for a long time, she can’t decide whether or the German provocateur Vicki Kugelman is evil or simply coarse, obtuse, and ill-mannered.
It isn’t until the end of the book that Miss Roach begins to see what the reader sees quite clearly in the beginning and then loses sight of: that the primary causes of her being so stuck in life are first, the impossible, smothering situation into which the war has forced the residents of London and its environs; and second, the fundamental elements of her character that make her so maddening and empathetic. Anyone as observant, sensitive, and unassertive as she will be pushed around by life.
Still, you can’t help liking her, especially when the narrator reveals her thoughts, as in this scene, where she returns home from drinks with Vicki:
The thought of these three drinks, as she let herself into the Rosamund Tea Rooms, accidentally brought to her mind another thought–the thought that whereas she had paid for two out of these three drinks, Vicki had paid for only one, and that this unequal division of payment had taken place, actually, on three other occasions. She rebuked herself for this thought.
She was, she saw, always having thoughts for which she rebuked herself. It then flashed across her mind that the thoughts for which she rebuked herself seldom turned out to be other than shrewd and fruitful thoughts: and she rebuked herself for this as well.
Patrick Hamilton is today most famous for his play Gaslight. Charles Boyer and Ingrid Bergman starred in the 1944 film version, from which comes the term gaslighting, which means to psychologically manipulate a person (usually a woman) in such a subtle and thorough way that they begin to doubt their own judgment, perception, and sanity. Hamilton was an acute observer of human motives, psychology, and social interaction. The Slaves of Solitude puts a comic twist on his sharp and accurate observations. It’s a wonder, and a shame, that the book is not more widely read.
yeahcheers's review against another edition
4.0
This one's a great story on different manifestations of loneliness. What comes off the page unsaid is remarkable. Hamilton at times has his main character-- I think-- over-analyze some of her experiences, which can be a little tiring to read (mostly settles down later in the book with this) -- but she's a great character and the book will fly along at the end. Easily recommended, and happy to have read it.