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3.5 AVERAGE
3.5 AVERAGE
adventurous
hopeful
reflective
medium-paced
adventurous
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
N/A
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
N/A
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
N/A
A quick romp set in WWI London. Half of the time I didn't know that the heck was going on, but there are some on the nose social criticisms in this book which have not aged a bit.
The more committees you belong to, the less of ordinary life you will understand.
Miss Ford was the ideal member of committee, and a committee, of course, exists for the purpose of damping enthusiasms.
The ferryman says that people who are content to be average are lowering the general standard.
But she was a person used to living alone, she could enjoy quite lonely romances, and never even envy real women, whose romances were always made for two.
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Content Warnings
Minor: Racial slurs, Antisemitism
It is unclear whether the author's use of antisemitic comments and the n-word was to critique their usage or merely emblematic of the language of the era. Nonetheless, the comments are there.
Originally published in 1919, Stella Benson's Living Alone is a charming fantasy set in World War 1 London and dealing with the effects on several members of a Committee on War Savings of an unexpected encounter with a witch, who is never named but turns all of their lives upside down, for a little while at least (and in the case of one member, the withdrawn and unhappy Sarah Brown, permanently). It's a whimsical book, not particularly plot-driven, and reminded me of some of Chesterton's more fantastic novels and Sylvia Townsend Warner's Lolly Willowes; it also contains some delightfully acerbic and witty social comedy, some of which feels just as apposite now as it did almost a century ago ('I suppose if you didn't have this big label sticking up in your harbour, you Americans might forget that America is the Home of Liberty' felt particularly on the nose in the current climate). I liked it a great deal.
This book is so hard to rate, because the brilliant parts are so brilliant that they outshine the fact that the author seems to have set out to write a novel apparently without ever having read one, like it completely fails to do what you expect it to, it doesn't fit together, the tone is constantly wandering everywhere...and yet it is full of these astonishing little moments that I was constantly copying out and emailing to friends.
Although the author herself does say in the introduction that:
This is not a real book. It does not deal with real people, nor should it be read by real people. But there are in the world so many real books already written for the benefit of real people, and there are still so many to be written, that I cannot believe that a little alien book such as this, written for the magically-inclined minority, can be considered too assertive a trespasser.
It's half a sort of feminist Wodehouse-ish satire of upper-middle-class ladies and their "good works" during WWI...and half a strange but lovable fantasy adventure about a witch who runs a boardinghouse for people who want to live alone.
Here is the first paragraph, which I immediately fell in love with:
There were six women, seven chairs, and a table in an otherwise unfurnished room in an unfashionable part of London. Three of the women were of the kind that has no life apart from committees. They need not be mentioned in detail. The names of two others were Miss Meta Mostyn Ford and Lady Arabel Higgins. Miss Ford was a good woman, as well as a lady. Her hands were beautiful because they paid a manicurist to keep them so, but she was too righteous to powder her nose. She was the sort of person a man would like his best friend to marry. Lady Arabel was older: she was virtuous to the same extent as Achilles was invulnerable. In the beginning, when her soul was being soaked in virtue, the heel of it was fortunately left dry. She had a husband, but no apparent tragedy in her life. These two women were obviously not native to their surroundings. Their eyelashes brought Bond Street—or at least Kensington—to mind; their shoes were mudless; their gloves had not been bought in the sales. Of the sixth woman the less said the better.
Although the author herself does say in the introduction that:
This is not a real book. It does not deal with real people, nor should it be read by real people. But there are in the world so many real books already written for the benefit of real people, and there are still so many to be written, that I cannot believe that a little alien book such as this, written for the magically-inclined minority, can be considered too assertive a trespasser.
It's half a sort of feminist Wodehouse-ish satire of upper-middle-class ladies and their "good works" during WWI...and half a strange but lovable fantasy adventure about a witch who runs a boardinghouse for people who want to live alone.
Here is the first paragraph, which I immediately fell in love with:
There were six women, seven chairs, and a table in an otherwise unfurnished room in an unfashionable part of London. Three of the women were of the kind that has no life apart from committees. They need not be mentioned in detail. The names of two others were Miss Meta Mostyn Ford and Lady Arabel Higgins. Miss Ford was a good woman, as well as a lady. Her hands were beautiful because they paid a manicurist to keep them so, but she was too righteous to powder her nose. She was the sort of person a man would like his best friend to marry. Lady Arabel was older: she was virtuous to the same extent as Achilles was invulnerable. In the beginning, when her soul was being soaked in virtue, the heel of it was fortunately left dry. She had a husband, but no apparent tragedy in her life. These two women were obviously not native to their surroundings. Their eyelashes brought Bond Street—or at least Kensington—to mind; their shoes were mudless; their gloves had not been bought in the sales. Of the sixth woman the less said the better.
This odd little tale is about a witch during WWI, and her surreal effects upon the various charity workers and soldiers she meets. It was written directly after the end of the Great War, which increases the oddity of the style. It is a patchy story, with very little in the way of plot or tension. The language is by turns infuriating and enchanting.
"Directly he spoke, one saw that he was making the usual effort of magic to appear real. Witches and wizards lead difficult lives because they have no ancestry working within them to prompt them in the little details. Whenever you see a person being unusually grown-up, suspect them of magic. You can always notice witches and wizards, for instance, after eight o'clock at night, pretending that they are not proud of sitting up late. It is all nonsense about witches being night birds; they often fly about at night, indeed, but only because they are like permanent children gloriously escaped for ever from their Nanas."
(Describing Faery):"Oak trees stood round the foot of that pale hill, and the general effect was rather that of parsley round a ham."
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/14907/14907-h/14907-h.htm
"Directly he spoke, one saw that he was making the usual effort of magic to appear real. Witches and wizards lead difficult lives because they have no ancestry working within them to prompt them in the little details. Whenever you see a person being unusually grown-up, suspect them of magic. You can always notice witches and wizards, for instance, after eight o'clock at night, pretending that they are not proud of sitting up late. It is all nonsense about witches being night birds; they often fly about at night, indeed, but only because they are like permanent children gloriously escaped for ever from their Nanas."
(Describing Faery):"Oak trees stood round the foot of that pale hill, and the general effect was rather that of parsley round a ham."
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/14907/14907-h/14907-h.htm
funny
sad
funny
inspiring
reflective