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Dear Margaret, Hester (1873) seems to be a deceptive title: we may be under the impression that what we have in our hands is the coming of…… Read more “These women, who step out of their sphere,”
Tag: Novel
The most beautiful and most brittle of all human things
Dear Frances, It’s a truth universally acknowledged – or, at least, in the relatively small world of your Evelina, or the History of a Young Lady’s Entrance…… Read more “The most beautiful and most brittle of all human things”
My name, here, is the name of my fracture
Dear Albertine, Astragal (1965) opens with a leap into the sky, from one kind of prison to another – but our protagonist doesn’t know it yet. The…… Read more “My name, here, is the name of my fracture”
I shall have snow on my glassy fingers,
Dear Emily, Somewhere on the threshold of a novel and a prose poem, we have The Shutter of Snow (1930). When the book starts, we are told of…… Read more “I shall have snow on my glassy fingers,”
Hers was a nature with a wide range
Dear Sarah, In The Beth Book (1897), we feel that we are reading two very different, at times irreconcilable, books: a powerful coming of age novel and a…… Read more “Hers was a nature with a wide range”
I have tried to be honest with you,
Dear Penelope, The Pumpkin Eater (1962) is a disillusioned account of a woman’s emotional collapse, told from the fog of self-delusion and depression in which her mind seems…… Read more “I have tried to be honest with you,”
You cannot live in armour all your life
Dear Maria, In Belinda (first published in 1801, revised in 1810), we can almost feel the double-edged sword you are playing with: while championing the idea that…… Read more “You cannot live in armour all your life”
Otherwise let this mad world crush us now
Dear Elizabeth, The Morgesons (1862) is that rare thing: a 19th-century novel with a sceptical, areligious, and probably amoral heroine. It reads like a modernist fiction avant…… Read more “Otherwise let this mad world crush us now”
Sucked into the soft, light-filled sky
Tsushima-san, In Territory of Light, tr. Geraldine Harcourt (2018. Original: 光の領分, Hikari no ryōbun, 1979), you throw your protagonist in a room flooded from all corners with a harsh, shifting…… Read more “Sucked into the soft, light-filled sky”
Take her away and I’m half of whatever we are
Dear Dorothy, Cassandra at the Wedding (1962) is a nuanced, finely observed character study and comedy of manners, full of a dark, twisted sense of humour, which can…… Read more “Take her away and I’m half of whatever we are”
Kindness and lies are worth a thousand truths
Dear Henry, The Heart of the Matter (1948) is a book about a man caught in the vortex of a moral crisis – and, ultimately, torn apart and…… Read more “Kindness and lies are worth a thousand truths”
The smooth sea of that old life
Dear Elizabeth, North and South (1854-1855) balances itself beautifully in a space where different types of conflict intersect: the clashes between manufacturers and workers; rural and industrial…… Read more “The smooth sea of that old life”
A woman caught in a finely interwoven pattern of feelings and time
Dear Auður, In Butterflies in November, tr. Brian FitzGibbon (2013. Original: Rigning í nóvember, 2004), you play with our sense of reality, bringing into light what is fundamentally odd…… Read more “A woman caught in a finely interwoven pattern of feelings and time”
The all-seeing eye
Dear Claire, In Bitter Orange (2018), we are made accomplices of the main character’s voyeurism, caught in a claustrophobic atmosphere that grows ever more disturbing as we…… Read more “The all-seeing eye”
The view and the woods opening to a light that’s itself untrodden
Dear Ali, Winter (2017) is a novel full of the ambivalence embodied in this season: the dying of light that is also a promise of new light.…… Read more “The view and the woods opening to a light that’s itself untrodden”
I reach for it and reach for it, and it isn’t there
Dear Richard, The Easter Parade (1976) is inhabited by characters who are trapped in self-delusion and false appearances, constantly parading the lives they think they should be living.…… Read more “I reach for it and reach for it, and it isn’t there”
My past life would be but a dream,
Dear Ottessa, My Year of Rest and Relaxation (2018) seems to be a novel suffering from split personality: on the one hand, it is a book about…… Read more “My past life would be but a dream,”
Perhaps freedom has no meaning
Dear Iris, The Unicorn (1963) is a tale of imprisonment in a shared fantasy, where the cages, rotating on a blank axle, are full of longing. When…… Read more “Perhaps freedom has no meaning”
