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A review by savaging
Our Spoons Came from Woolworths by Barbara Comyns
4.0
I found Barbara Comyns through an articla by Taisia Kitaiskaia (https://www.bitchmedia.org/article/wild-enchantment/creatureliness-barbara-comyns). Kitaiskaia argues that Comyns is something of a 1950s british 'literary witch,' surrounded by newts and rodents and kitchen magic, even when she's telling a traditional story about being married with kids in London.
Kitaiskaia writes that Comyns's narrators "tell their tales as a mouse might, if you stopped it in its tracks: matter of factly and without self-pity." The sentences in this book remind me of something Joy Williams might write, curt but also whimsical.
That said: many of the pages are about things like making jam without burning it, or the payment plan for a divan. So, not a book for everyone. But I'm looking forward to reading Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead and The Vet's Daughter in the future.
Kitaiskaia writes that Comyns's narrators "tell their tales as a mouse might, if you stopped it in its tracks: matter of factly and without self-pity." The sentences in this book remind me of something Joy Williams might write, curt but also whimsical.
That said: many of the pages are about things like making jam without burning it, or the payment plan for a divan. So, not a book for everyone. But I'm looking forward to reading Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead and The Vet's Daughter in the future.