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A review by evelyn261999
Dusty Answer by Rosamond Lehmann
4.0
While reading ‘Dusty Answer’, it is remarkable how well Lehmann seems to prefigure contemporary #depression humour. Most major characters profess some kind of suicidal impulse (‘Heavenly, heavenly annihilation’), while Judith herself goes around thinking things like ‘one did not commit suicide in other people’s houses: that was the ultimate error of taste’ and ‘Oh, to slip into the water and become something minute and non-sentient, a sort of fresh water amoeba’. This comedy relies on Lehmann’s rendering of the experience of mental illness in ways uncannily familiar (to my experiences at least).
There are also moments where Judith’s overt awareness of her construction of her own memories into a narrative (particularly in her explication of the already symbolically heavy-handed recurrence of a rabbit’s death) is so ridiculous that I can only take it as comedic. Further, ‘Dusty Answer’ often reads like a satire of the Gothic: there’s the house beset by memories, the use of night as a site of revelation (which Judith again draws explicit attention to), the madness (aforementioned), the destabilisation (mockery) of institutions like Cambridge and the Church, even the incest.
This last also forms part of a troublingly fascistic streak through some of Judith’s thoughts, as her romantic entanglements centre on the genetically insular Fyfe family, who, not incidentally, are repeatedly described as tall and pale. Judith herself is conspicuously obsessed by beauty and physical prowess, and explicitly finds deviation from this, especially in the character of the disabled, ugly lesbian Mabel, absolutely repulsive. While Judith herself is sympathetically portrayed as bisexual, Mabel’s rejection of men precludes her from reproduction in ways that make her useless to an Aryan ethnostate. Likewise, Julian is portrayed as acceptable to Judith, because he manages to 'overcome' his asthma in order to play tennis with Judith. Through this lens, Lehmann’s seemingly constant listing of British flora becomes sinister. While Judith is not directly challenged on her views, the degree to which we are clearly meant to read Judith as unreliable and self-serious, makes it unlikely that Lehmann (a writer with Jewish heritage who would go on to be an antifascist advocate) could have gone further in her critique without breaking the immersion of Judith’s viewpoint, upon which ‘Dusty Answer’ is totally reliant. Further, the implication of British/European literature and culture being rooted in the same elements that would give rise, in their worst iteration, to Nazism is compelling.
Despite its surface simplicity, Lehmann’s writing skilfully operates on seemingly divergent registers and 'Dusty Answer' reveals itself to be amenable to various readings.
There are also moments where Judith’s overt awareness of her construction of her own memories into a narrative (particularly in her explication of the already symbolically heavy-handed recurrence of a rabbit’s death) is so ridiculous that I can only take it as comedic. Further, ‘Dusty Answer’ often reads like a satire of the Gothic: there’s the house beset by memories, the use of night as a site of revelation (which Judith again draws explicit attention to), the madness (aforementioned), the destabilisation (mockery) of institutions like Cambridge and the Church, even the incest.
This last also forms part of a troublingly fascistic streak through some of Judith’s thoughts, as her romantic entanglements centre on the genetically insular Fyfe family, who, not incidentally, are repeatedly described as tall and pale. Judith herself is conspicuously obsessed by beauty and physical prowess, and explicitly finds deviation from this, especially in the character of the disabled, ugly lesbian Mabel, absolutely repulsive. While Judith herself is sympathetically portrayed as bisexual, Mabel’s rejection of men precludes her from reproduction in ways that make her useless to an Aryan ethnostate. Likewise, Julian is portrayed as acceptable to Judith, because he manages to 'overcome' his asthma in order to play tennis with Judith. Through this lens, Lehmann’s seemingly constant listing of British flora becomes sinister. While Judith is not directly challenged on her views, the degree to which we are clearly meant to read Judith as unreliable and self-serious, makes it unlikely that Lehmann (a writer with Jewish heritage who would go on to be an antifascist advocate) could have gone further in her critique without breaking the immersion of Judith’s viewpoint, upon which ‘Dusty Answer’ is totally reliant. Further, the implication of British/European literature and culture being rooted in the same elements that would give rise, in their worst iteration, to Nazism is compelling.
Despite its surface simplicity, Lehmann’s writing skilfully operates on seemingly divergent registers and 'Dusty Answer' reveals itself to be amenable to various readings.