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This blog makes liberal use of AB's journals, letters, travel notes, and other sources.


And make sure to visit The Arnold Bennett Society for expert information and comment on all aspects of the life and work of AB.

Thursday 3 January 2019

Varied


Thursday, January 3rd., Yeolden House, North Devon

Plenty of walking today. Strolled about Tiverton this morning. Woodland walk later. By the sea this afternoon. A varied and enjoyable day, though cold. Still, I've been colder! Nothing out of the ordinary occurred, which is good. It won't be memorable, but it doesn't need to be.

I have been reading Salley Vickers. What a very versatile writer she is. After about fifty pages of "Dancing Backwards" I was convinced that this was a 'comic' novel, and in a way it is, but the writer's more serious intent gradually became clear. I suppose that the common denominator in Vickers' books is the quest for personal authenticity - at least that is how they seem to me. But this is very different in style, if not in purpose, from say "Where Three Roads Meet" my favourite of Vickers' fiction so far. Different also from "Instances of the Number 3" which is the one that recurs most frequently to my memory.

Violet, the 'heroine', is a woman of late middle age, still physically attractive we gather but recovering from the recent death of her husband and on a transatlantic voyage to New York to renew acquaintance with an old friend. I'm not sure that Violet is quite plausible - isn't she too intelligent and experienced to be quite so ready to accommodate herself to other people? Still she is decidedly likeable and seems to have a gift for drawing out other people. During the course of the voyage she reflects on the events of her early years which have significantly contributed to her becoming the person she is now, and gradually comes to realise where and why things went wrong. She also takes up dancing which is clearly a metaphor for her self-emancipation.

The novel is populated with a cast of interesting, if rather two-dimensional, characters who interact in ways to reinforce the message that we must be honest with and about ourselves, and that if we are unhappy we only have ourselves to blame. It put me in mind of "The History of Mr Polly" - if you don't like your life then you can change it! Vickers is clearly erudite but never pretentious. I particularly like Violet's occasional literary references which are generally not picked up by her interlocutors.

This is an easy and rewarding book to read - it made me smile, and it made me think. No small feat!









2 comments:

  1. Confused on this entry…AB died in 1931, Vickers published
    "Dancing Backwards" in 2009. 'Liberal' use of Bennett's
    journals here!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Well you see the blog specifies use of journals, travel notes, letters and other sources. The latter may be my own thoughts and experiences. My aim if reviewing a book in the blog (and I have done several) is to write it as I think AB would have done. One might think of the blog as a conflation; is a reader like yourself able to tell what is me and what is AB? If the lack of authenticity spoils it for you then I can only offer apologies. Best wishes.

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