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A review by flappermyrtle
Mariana by Monica Dickens
4.0
Rereading Mariana for my MLitt dissertation was nothing short of a joy. Though obligatory reading can turn a wonderful book into a drag, I cannot think of anything that would make Mariana a boring read.
A novel that some - and with some I do perhaps think more of men than women - might think very uneventful and unimportant, Mariana sketches a wonderful picture of women's lives between the World Wars. While we get Mariana's rather traditional outset in life, to marry and be blissfully happy, we also see other types of women - Mariana's mother working as a dressmaker and eventually owning her own shop, Mariana's female teachers at college, her friends who try to make a career on the stage, and so on. It is clear that many options were open, but Mariana is never really judged for her preference for marriage and to keep house for her husband.
Something that caught my attention that I kind of missed last time is the omnipresence of female environments. Writing my dissertation on the woman's novel, a novel perhaps unintelligible to most men because it deals with women's lives and tells a story for women about women, with the importance of details not to be overstated, I realised that much of Mary's childhood and adolescence is played out in female-only communities. From her youth spent with her mother when uncle Geoffrey leaves for America, the all-girls St Martins, the almost exclusively female dressmaker's college in Paris and the household she stays in with a mother and two daughters - the world of men and women is rather separate in this novel, and indeed, in this era, something also very acute when Mary visits Denys at Oxford for a ball, where all the boys are at home and the girls effectively outsiders.
While Mariana is not always right and I, as a twenty-first century feminist, have some issues with her insistence on getting married rather than at the very least trying to learn how to do a job so she may take care of herself if needed, it is I feel very strongly a spirit of the times she lives in. One shudders to think what would have become of Mary had Sam indeed died in the marine accident, for she is truly unprepared to be independent.
One of Persephone's longer novels, Mariana is nevertheless a breezy read as the reader is propelled along as Mary grows up. Flawed but essentially a nice girl trying her best, I rooted for Mary to find her knight in shining armour - and their dramatic first encounter is sure worth the wait. Recommended for holidays, be they winter or summer, since one can easily float in and out of Mary's narrative on a beach or a couch with a hot water bottle.
A novel that some - and with some I do perhaps think more of men than women - might think very uneventful and unimportant, Mariana sketches a wonderful picture of women's lives between the World Wars. While we get Mariana's rather traditional outset in life, to marry and be blissfully happy, we also see other types of women - Mariana's mother working as a dressmaker and eventually owning her own shop, Mariana's female teachers at college, her friends who try to make a career on the stage, and so on. It is clear that many options were open, but Mariana is never really judged for her preference for marriage and to keep house for her husband.
Something that caught my attention that I kind of missed last time is the omnipresence of female environments. Writing my dissertation on the woman's novel, a novel perhaps unintelligible to most men because it deals with women's lives and tells a story for women about women, with the importance of details not to be overstated, I realised that much of Mary's childhood and adolescence is played out in female-only communities. From her youth spent with her mother when uncle Geoffrey leaves for America, the all-girls St Martins, the almost exclusively female dressmaker's college in Paris and the household she stays in with a mother and two daughters - the world of men and women is rather separate in this novel, and indeed, in this era, something also very acute when Mary visits Denys at Oxford for a ball, where all the boys are at home and the girls effectively outsiders.
While Mariana is not always right and I, as a twenty-first century feminist, have some issues with her insistence on getting married rather than at the very least trying to learn how to do a job so she may take care of herself if needed, it is I feel very strongly a spirit of the times she lives in. One shudders to think what would have become of Mary had Sam indeed died in the marine accident, for she is truly unprepared to be independent.
One of Persephone's longer novels, Mariana is nevertheless a breezy read as the reader is propelled along as Mary grows up. Flawed but essentially a nice girl trying her best, I rooted for Mary to find her knight in shining armour - and their dramatic first encounter is sure worth the wait. Recommended for holidays, be they winter or summer, since one can easily float in and out of Mary's narrative on a beach or a couch with a hot water bottle.