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bobbygw's review against another edition
4.0
Compton-Burnett (abbreviated as CB hereafter) is one of the truly remarkable modernist writers, with a span of resonant fiction that she wrote from the 1920s through to the 1960s.
CB is reminiscent of other modernists through her principal and powerful focus on the use of dialogue in her fiction to convey in a dramatic way her characters' individual personalities, tensions, complexities, resentments, repressions and sometimes savage irony (she herself is a savage, i.e., a wonderful Swiftian ironist/satirist, scalpel-sharp).
In particular you are reminded of William Gaddis (The Recognitions, Carpenter's Gothic, and JR), Henry Green (Loving, Living, Party Going, Nothing, Doting, Blindness), the dialogue from the early plays of Harold Pinter (The Birthday Party, The Room, The Dumb Waiter) and sometimes Samuel Beckett.
As with her other fiction, she has a set of themes she returns to time and again - you could call them obsessions, in a way. From the Edwardian/Victorian repressive household settings, to the patriarchal, remote, powerfully domineering father/husband of the household, to the anaesthetised (dream-like state) wives, and the often fearful, sometimes subtly insubordinate - or otherwise self-serving, monstrously deceptive - children.
In the Edgeworth family in A House and its Head, published in 1935, you therefore have the archetypally representative CB family. The author often referred to it as one of the two of her most favourite works (the other being Manservant and Maidservant.
It opens with a conversation between husband and wife that is disconnected, disjointed, alienated and reminds you of Pinter's early work (The Room, The Birthday Party). While Duncan Edgeworth, the father, is without doubt a tyrant, dictating all terms to his family, there's a snake in the grass in the apparently-servile daughter, Sybil, who is more monstrous in other ways than him).
As with Gaddis' fiction, it can sometimes be difficult to identify the speaker of the dialogue, as CB rarely identifies the person; you come to recognise them through their individual natures and thereby the content of what they say. This is what makes her so identifiably such a modernist, and she remains a radical and remarkable one at that.
While challenging and radical in its use of conversation, the satire and precise, paper-cut language and characterisation make this and all her other fiction well worth the effort (never a painful effort, by the way; it just requires a participating, not passive, energy on the part of the reader). Moreover, as with her other novels, it leaves you intellectually and emotionally rewarded, and astonished by her brilliance.
For those who are keen to learn more about CB, I highly recommend three excellent sources:
1. A dedicated, very helpful website on CB, her work and her critics (https://brightlightsfilm.com/ivy/)
2. In this edition there is a superb afterword by Francine Prose, the National Book Award-nominated novelist (http://assets.nybooks.com/media/doc/2010/02/09/house-head-afterword.pdf); in it, she characterises CB's fiction rather wonderfully as '[...] less like conventional fictions than like the laboratory notes of a meticulous and rather mad scientist.'
3. Hilary Spurling's masterful biography, Ivy: The Life of Ivy Compton Burnett.
CB is reminiscent of other modernists through her principal and powerful focus on the use of dialogue in her fiction to convey in a dramatic way her characters' individual personalities, tensions, complexities, resentments, repressions and sometimes savage irony (she herself is a savage, i.e., a wonderful Swiftian ironist/satirist, scalpel-sharp).
In particular you are reminded of William Gaddis (The Recognitions, Carpenter's Gothic, and JR), Henry Green (Loving, Living, Party Going, Nothing, Doting, Blindness), the dialogue from the early plays of Harold Pinter (The Birthday Party, The Room, The Dumb Waiter) and sometimes Samuel Beckett.
As with her other fiction, she has a set of themes she returns to time and again - you could call them obsessions, in a way. From the Edwardian/Victorian repressive household settings, to the patriarchal, remote, powerfully domineering father/husband of the household, to the anaesthetised (dream-like state) wives, and the often fearful, sometimes subtly insubordinate - or otherwise self-serving, monstrously deceptive - children.
In the Edgeworth family in A House and its Head, published in 1935, you therefore have the archetypally representative CB family. The author often referred to it as one of the two of her most favourite works (the other being Manservant and Maidservant.
It opens with a conversation between husband and wife that is disconnected, disjointed, alienated and reminds you of Pinter's early work (The Room, The Birthday Party). While Duncan Edgeworth, the father, is without doubt a tyrant, dictating all terms to his family, there's a snake in the grass in the apparently-servile daughter, Sybil, who is more monstrous in other ways than him).
As with Gaddis' fiction, it can sometimes be difficult to identify the speaker of the dialogue, as CB rarely identifies the person; you come to recognise them through their individual natures and thereby the content of what they say. This is what makes her so identifiably such a modernist, and she remains a radical and remarkable one at that.
While challenging and radical in its use of conversation, the satire and precise, paper-cut language and characterisation make this and all her other fiction well worth the effort (never a painful effort, by the way; it just requires a participating, not passive, energy on the part of the reader). Moreover, as with her other novels, it leaves you intellectually and emotionally rewarded, and astonished by her brilliance.
For those who are keen to learn more about CB, I highly recommend three excellent sources:
1. A dedicated, very helpful website on CB, her work and her critics (https://brightlightsfilm.com/ivy/)
2. In this edition there is a superb afterword by Francine Prose, the National Book Award-nominated novelist (http://assets.nybooks.com/media/doc/2010/02/09/house-head-afterword.pdf); in it, she characterises CB's fiction rather wonderfully as '[...] less like conventional fictions than like the laboratory notes of a meticulous and rather mad scientist.'
3. Hilary Spurling's masterful biography, Ivy: The Life of Ivy Compton Burnett.
mrswythe89's review against another edition
3.0
The back cover said this was about late Victorians, but in the book the characters actually talk about the Victorians, which suggests that they aren't.
This book was hardcore! I found it interesting and maybe even impressive, but it doesn't really incline me to read more of her books. It was kind of hardgoing and, more importantly, supah depressing.
This book was hardcore! I found it interesting and maybe even impressive, but it doesn't really incline me to read more of her books. It was kind of hardgoing and, more importantly, supah depressing.
mininea's review against another edition
dark
funny
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
hein's review against another edition
challenging
dark
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Very strange, almost unique. Nearly entirely dialogue. Austen without romance.
Content Warnings
Minor: Emotional abuse
lawyergobblesbooks's review against another edition
5.0
This is tough to get into -- the book is almost all dialogue and it's very easy to miss characters moving from one place to another or, sometimes, divine exactly who's speaking. But it's absolutely worth it once you find your footing. I can't wait to read more Ivy Compton-Burnett.
bethtreasure's review against another edition
dark
funny
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
fearandtrembling's review against another edition
4.0
I don't know what I was expecting with this--maybe a tidy Victorian family drama. Instead what I got was a strange, dark, acerbic dialogue-heavy novel that reads like a play about the savagery of domestic life and family relations. On one level the language felt Shakespearian; on another level it read like some vicious Jacobean tragedy. I can't quite define this and I'm enthralled by the author's unorthodox mind.
And it gave me lowkey #spinsterlit vibes. Something about how the author is appalled by the bourgeois family and its ensuing heteropatriarchy. There's a blurb by Mary McCarthy that describes her as "one of the rare modern heretics" that I think kind of sums up the spirit of this book, as well.
And it gave me lowkey #spinsterlit vibes. Something about how the author is appalled by the bourgeois family and its ensuing heteropatriarchy. There's a blurb by Mary McCarthy that describes her as "one of the rare modern heretics" that I think kind of sums up the spirit of this book, as well.
alicehr's review against another edition
4.0
An unusual way of writing, worthwhile reading only for this. While witty and sly, at times difficult to put aside, it awoke no further feelings than interest.