I think Vita Sackville-West is a really underrated writer – because she is still chiefly remembered for her connection with Virginia Woolf. No, she isn’t in Woolf’s league as a writer – who is? – but she is very good indeed. Except, erm, in her first novel, Heritage (1919). This is my first real disappointment of Novellas in November.
Here are some thoughts in bullet points…
- The novella is about Ruth Pennistan, a characterful farmer’s daughter who is torn between a conventional husband option and a wild Heathcliff-type. And a third character, who narrates – sort of. More on that in a mo.
- It is very, very of it’s time. The sort of bucolic novel where rural folk are all tempestuous or stupid, and say things like this: ”I sometimes feel I can’t escape Rawdon,” she cried out. ”He’s always been there since I can remember, I think he always will be there. There’s something between us; it may be fancy; but there’s something between us.”
- It’s a layered narrative – the actual narrator is relating something an acquaintance, Malory, told him once in Italy – so we get all the dialogue given at one remove. I really dislike the device which assumes someone has memorised days and days of conversation, and relays it, and the rest of the narrative, in an enormous monologue.
- The middle section IS the narrator visiting the farm himself – that felt much more immediate, and did work better for me…
- …but the third section is a letter, written by Malory, and we’re back to the weird distancing effect.
- All the emotion is heightened and a bit silly – I wonder if Sackville-West had been on a diet of D.H. Lawrence, without his lyricism – or Mary Webb, without her dialect.
- (The best thing Heritage has in its favour is that there isn’t any dialect.)
I should say, plenty of reviews online disagree with me and think this is a fine novel. I think she hadn’t found her voice as a writer at all yet, and this is a derivative and emotionally alienating novella that shows little of the promise of the brilliant novelist Sackville-West would become. Well, she got it out of her system, and only three years later she would publish the extraordinary novella The Heir. My advice: skip over Heritage and seek out her best work.
I am going to be going back through all your November posts for books to add to my novella list. (And this one probably won’t go on it. But it is good to know you mostly like her writing.)
Excellent! Some brilliant ones popping up this month, but you can safely leave this one, I think…
Apart from The Heir that you’ve already recommended, what else do you recommend as ‘her best work’? After reading what you said I’d like to read some of hers, up to now I’ve only heard of ‘All Passion Spent’ – would that be a good one to start with? Thanks
All Passion Spent is definitely up there! The Edwardians is also great.
Well, I didn’t much care for the one Woolf I read, so maybe I’ll like Sackville-West better.
Maybe!
I’m sure I own this, but I’ve not read it – and I shan’t rush it to the top of the pile. Like you, I loved The Heir – a perfect little book. Vita can obviously be very, very good but I guess you’re right that she was still learning her trade here!
Yes, I think she was too affected by the contemporary styles and hadn’t quite found her own voice – but did soon enough.
I remembered reading it but nothing about it – and when I looked up my review, I agreed with you (I called it farm-gothic of genre. I think I invented that genre). https://librofulltime.wordpress.com/2013/10/18/book-reviews-81/
Farm-gothic! Perfect!
I’m interested to read this actually and then The Heir. I get muddled sometimes with different narrative styles and this seems a very good way of seeing them at work, I also find it quite appealing that a writer’s first novel is a bit rubbish!
Hah yes, it is a bit reassuring somehow!
I loved The Heir (which I believe I read because you rec’d it) and No Passion Spent (which has been a longtime favourite). I liked The Easter Party. And I think I have a copy of this one here, somewhere, too.