A review by readingoverbreathing
The Victorian Chaise-Longue by Marghanita Laski

4.0

" . . . now they dimmed and faded, shimmering an instant in the fading vision, and at last there was nothing but darkness, and in the darkness the ecstasy, and after the ecstasy, death and life."

This a very short novel, hardly a novel at all really, but one that is hauntingly intense, with an atmospheric immediacy that will cling to you for days, even if you read it all in one sitting as I did.

Laski immediately drops you into the affluent and comfortable home of Melanie and her husband, an up-and-coming young barrister, at the edge of London in the 1950s, when the book is set. Melanie, who has recently had a baby, is on the mend from a respiratory illness and has been treated with the utmost caution and care, care that seems almost patronizing; both her doctor and her husband treat her more as a helpless child than as a grown woman.

I found it so interesting that the opening scene takes place largely from the doctor's perspective, so that we don't know much about Melanie's illness until her truly psychological inner narrative after she wakes up from a nap on her chaise-longue in the Victorian period. There is very little action from there on out, yet somehow Laski is able to foster a chilling intensity as Melanie struggles to piece together what has happened both to her and the Victorian woman whose body she now shares.

This book is very much in the vein of Kate Chopin's [b:The Awakening|58345|The Awakening|Kate Chopin|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1170507247l/58345._SY75_.jpg|1970518] and especially Charlotte Perkins Gilman's [b:The Yellow Wallpaper|8217236|The Yellow Wallpaper|Charlotte Perkins Gilman|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1276430319l/8217236._SX50_.jpg|17352354], but with a more modern comparison that makes it all the more striking. For all the twentieth century's advances, Laski reveals, for women, the treatment of sex, childbirth, and both mental and physical illness has made little progress.

This is a deeply thought-provoking read, the kind you'll want to turn over and start again as soon as you've finished it. I know I haven't been able to stop thinking about it since I did.