1975

A Woman’s Place 1910-1975 by Ruth Adam

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I have well over a hundred Persephone Books, and the hit rate of successes is astonishingly high. There’s a reason that they have the devotion and respect of legions of readers. And so why had I left A Woman’s Place 1910-1975 by Ruth Adam neglected since I bought it 2008(!)? Even after reading – and loving – Adam’s memoir A House in the Country in 2020, I didn’t race to my shelves and devour more by her. More fool me! Because A Woman’s Place 1910-1975 is a remarkable, and incredibly readable, achievement.

Over the course of the book, Adam traces the most significant societal changes affecting (and effected by) women in the UK. We see the fight for suffrage, the impact of two world wars, changing attitudes to sex and so much more. Adam covers an astonishing range of topics – divorce, abortion, equal pay, employment law, female MPs – and does so with a level of research that would be impressive with the internet. I’ve no idea how she has so many statistics, as well as anecdotes and quotations from major historical figures.

She is so good at putting her finger on significant moments, and she balances her research with a total accessibility. You can tell she is a novelist, because characters (albeit real people) are so well-drawn and impress, inspire, frustrate, or move us in turn. I’m going to end up quoting an awful lot of this book – let’s start with one of the moments that she demonstrates as seismic in altering women’s lives:

The change from a large nineteenth-century family to the small twentieth-century one, as a social custom, took place with startling speed, so that mothers could be shocked or envious (probably both) at the difference between the life of their married daughters and their own past. The transformation was brough about – not by a Lysistrata-type political campaign or by a change of heart on the part of the male sex – but, like most of the landmarks in women’s emancipation, by a material fact: which in this case was the invention of convenient birth-control equipment.

And I’m going to immediately move onto another quotation, about nursing, as it’s a very representative example of Adam’s approach to social history:

The second-largest professional women’s group was that of the nurses, who were 78,000 strong in 1911. Their record in the women’s struggle for work-status was less single-minded and less successful than that of teachers. One reason was that, since Florence Nightingale, they had been brainwashed about making sacrifices for their vocation, such as putting up with long hours, low pay and dismal working conditions, which was extremely convenient for their employers. The other, less creditable, reason was because the leaders of the profession wasted a lot of time and energy on in-fighting, mostly on the subject of class distinctions, when they should have been united against an all-male government which refused to give them even the standing of a recognised profession until it came to the point where they dare not refuse.

What makes it so representative? It’s partly because it combines a statistic with the stories of women behind the number – but it’s also a great example of the subjectivity she weaves into her history. She is unafraid of putting forward her own opinion, highlighting where people have acted poorly in history, or bringing out elements of the treatment of women that infuriate her. A Woman’s Place certainly isn’t dry. You can feel Adam’s passion throughout her record, and it makes for a much better book than if it had been otherwise.

To structure her book, Adam characterises decades by significant events and movements. It does mean that these get hermetically sealed within certain periods – so we see changing attitudes to sex in one chapter, or marriage in another, or the role of women in parliament in another, and so on. Naturally these are not things that begin and end within a decade, and you can find yourself thinking (in the middle of a section on divorce law, say) – what about the job market? It was a wise decision on Adam’s part to compartmentalise to an extent, so you just have to go with it.

While I knew a large amount of what Adam covers – as much of it overlaps with things I’ve studied in my own academic research – there was still an awful lot that was new to me. As one instance, I didn’t know about the way the suffrage movement turned their efforts fully to the war effort at the outbreak of the First World War – putting their original mission on hold in an instant. Adam describes Millicent Fawcett’s decision in a very evocative way: ‘Only the age-old obligation of women, to be self-effacing and self-sacrificing, to give up their own less important interests when a men’s crisis arose, still remained.’

Note that she says ‘obligation’ rather than ‘character’. This isn’t something that is inherent to Fawcett and her ilk – it is an expectation imposed on them, and to women throught this book. So much of this book is really a history of the way men have treated women – how their decisions and impositions either expanded or limited women’s lives. That’s not to do down the work women did to effect change (and a small group of men who battled alongside them) – just to comment that, sadly often, change happened when powerful men stopped being obstacles.

During the war, women’s lives changed dramatically: they were not only allowed to start working, but actually encouraged to. Adam turns her attention to the ways this worked, particularly on the question of equal pay. It’s a theme that recurs throughout A Woman’s Place – and I hope you’re prepared to be infuriated by the different, feeble reasons that powerful men gave to avoid passing equal pay legislation, and the similarly callous ways that they evaded paying it once legislation was passed. From the outset, though, two workplaces offered equal pay without quibble. I could have guessed for a week and I don’t think I’d have come up with the correct two:

The London bus conductresses were one of the only two groups of women workers who were given equal pay for equal work at once, without question. The others were the women welders, who had been trained by an organisation set up by the one-time London Society for Women’s Suffrage

Speaking of war, Adam says ‘a quick change of character has been demanded of them [women] every ten years or so of this century. Men are not required to be flexible in the same way.’ That seemed a rare misfire in A Woman’s Place. What greater ‘flexibility’ could be required then to be taken from your office job or factory and be told you have to start killing people in a foreign trench? There is no onus on A Woman’s Place to cover men’s 20th-century experiences, but – while I see what she’s getting at – this is quite a silly statement.

And the downside to a book that relishes in its subjectivity is, of course, that it might date horribly. Surprisingly little of substance has dated in the book since it’s 1975 publication – the two things that struck me were the assumption that there would be no minimum wage, and the other assumption that university education was free. But then there are paragraphs like this, about the high death count in the First World War leading to large numbers of unmarried women:

The war years, which had yielded such a rich harvest to the women struggling for sex equality, had cost them too much. All the gains in status and freedom and independence were, in the end, arid and tasteless without their men there to witness them. It meant that young women and girls had to face the prospect of forced virginity, and parents the long boredom of waiting for death without grandchildren to give any meaning to their old age.

This earned three pencilled exclamation marks in my margin! Women’s independence is ‘arid and tasteless’ without men?? Old people have no meaning in their life without grandchildren??? Yikes, Ruth Adam, yikes. I’ll charitably assume you are doing a bit of character work, here. (And let’s not get started on her statement that ‘The Lesbians’ – her capitals – were ‘partly a product of the mutilated society; that is, young women pairing together as a second-best because there were not enough men to go round.’)

But these are minor quibbles in a book that is an extraordinary achievement. I’d bought it, as I will buy any Persephone Book, but I hadn’t been particularly enthusiastic about actually reading it. If it weren’t for A Century of Books, A Woman’s Place could have lived on my shelves for many more years – but I’m so glad it didn’t. Ruth Adam combines an incredible amount of thorough research with a real gift for storytelling. Of course this book doesn’t tell the whole story of British women over the course of 65 years – how could it? – but it is a detailed, captivating portrait of a sizeable portion of that population. Or, to be more accurate, of the expectations they faced and the achievements they managed in the face of them. I’ll close with Adam’s final paragraph:

A woman born at the turn of the century could have lived through two periods when it was her moral duty to devote herself, obsessively, to her children; three when it was her duty to society to neglect them; two when it was right to be seductively ‘feminine’ and three when it was a pressing social obligation to be the reverse; three separate periods in which she was a bad wife, mother and citizen for wanting to go out and earn her own living, and three others when she was an even worse wife, mother and citizen for not being eager to do so.

The Great Victorian Collection by Brian Moore

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2021 is 100 years since the novelist Brian Moore was born – and 22 since he died – and Cathy at 746 Books is helping lead a year of celebrations in the blogging world. You can read the details of that over on her blog, including a schedule of books to read. She’s picked a good representation of his books, but the only Moore novel I had unread on my shelves was The Great Victorian Collection (1975) – this isn’t in the schedule, so I decided to read it whenever. And that time came about now.

(The only other book I’ve read by him is The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne, which is extraordinarily good.)

The Great Victorian Collection features a Canadian professor with the absurd name Tony Maloney. He is staying in a fairly mediocre hotel in Carmel, California, when he has a dream. Don’t worry, dull as it is to hear the dreams of others, this is a necessary step to the plot. Tony’s dream is that he climbs out of his bedroom window and discovers a sort of Victorian fair…

I unfastened the catch of the window, opened it, climbed out on the sill, and eased myself on to a wooden outdoor staircase, which led down to the lot some twenty feet below. I began to walk along what seemed to be the central aisle of the market, an aisle dominated by a glittering crystal fountain, its columns of polished glass soaring to the height of a telegraph pole. Laid out on the stalls and in partially enclosed exhibits resembling furniture showrooms was the most astonishing collection of Victorian artefacts, objets d’art, furniture, household appliances, paintings, jewellery, scientific instruments, toys, tapestries, sculpture, handicrafts, woollen and linen samples, industrial machinery, ceramics, silverware, books, furs, men’s and women’s clothing, musical instruments, a huge telescope mounted on a pedestal, a railway locomotive, marine equipment, small arms, looms, bric-a-brac, and curiosa.

When he awakes – the fair is there, outside the window, just as he dreamed. As he explores it, he discovers it isn’t just a collection of Victoriana – it includes the foremost antiques from that era. Tony’s hobby is Victoriana, and so he recognises the various artefacts – and Moore presumably knows what he is talking about when he lists them, though it is far from my area of expertise. There are one-off chairs designed by the greatest designers of the period; there are the finest jewels and ornaments. There are even items that have long since vanished, and are only described in books – whereas others should exist only in museums. And Tony has apparently dreamed them all into existence.

Moore then takes us onto the various things that might well happen, given this bizarre premise. The strength of any fantastic novel lies in how they take us beyond surprise and into the narrative – and the best way to do that, in my opinion, is by making everything else that follows logical. So Moore is, first and foremost, berated by the hotel owner for unauthorised occupation of his yard.

When his story starts to spread, there is a kind and ambitious journalist who takes his side – partly for the exposure it might give to his own career – and there are some more sceptical ones. The debate wages about whether or not they are fakes, with a couple of academics trying to put the kybosh on it, and Tony trying to explain the idea of simultaneous originals. It’s an intriguing concept, and Moore’s exploration of the miracle’s reception rings true.

Perhaps less interesting, to me at least, is the romantic strand of the novel. Tony starts to fall in love with an enthusiastic woman who supports him, but who also has a boyfriend. Etc etc. I know the novel can’t just be a short story, and it’s useful to have a secondary plot, but I didn’t find this one had the necessary depth and vitality to let it stand next to the powerful central conceit.

The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne was such a brilliant novel that it’s hard to compare. The Great Victorian Collection certainly doesn’t have the same psychological depth, but nor is it trying to. I think it has enough originality to stand on its own merits, as long as you don’t come expecting Moore to replicate that masterpiece. It is something different, odd, quirky, curiously grounded, and – though I won’t spoil it – with an ending that perfectly fits and adjusts the tone of everything that went before.

25 Books in 25 Days: #13 Turtle Diary

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I first heard of Turtle Diary (1975) by Russell Hoban when looking for films made in the year I was born (the adaptation was made in 1985). I didn’t watch it in the end, but it did make me pick up the book a couple of years ago – and, of course, I couldn’t resist a lovely NYRB Classics edition.

The novel is told in alternate chapters by Neaera H and William G, two middle-aged people who are feeling rather lost. Neaera writes and illustrates children’s books and has a pet water beetle; William is feeling lonely as he tries to get used to being divorced and living in a boarding house. Both are drawn to London Zoo – particularly to the turtle enclosure. And both want to set the turtles free into the ocean.

This is exactly what happens – they get a sympathetic zookeeper on side, hire a van, and take the turtles to the ocean in Cornwall. What’s so brilliant about Hoban’s novel is that this isn’t a joyful passage of discovery, or a road trip where they learn to love each other. They both remain awkward and with their unhappinesses. The moment is not as life-changing as they think – it is not the culmination of the novel; we see the anti-climax afterwards. It is a very human story of real people, who cannot shed their disillusions, however extraordinary a moment in their lives may be.

Hoban is a fantastic writer. I enjoyed how often literary and movie references were brought in, remembered or half-remembered by the respective narrators. And he has such an observational turn of phrase and clever use of simile. Not just for the human characters but, aptly enough, for the animals – so I’ll leave you with this depiction of a sandpiper:

At the Waders Aviary a little sandpiper who would never have allowed me to come that close in real life perched on a sign a foot away from me and stared. He knew that he was safe because the wire mesh of the cage was between us. He has lost his innocence. He appeared to have lost a leg as well, and for a long time stood steadfastly on the one very slender remaining member whilst looking at me through half-closed eyes. Having kept me there for nearly half an hour he revealed a second leg that matched that other perfectly, then flew down to the sand and entertained a lady sandpiper with an elegant little dance that seemed done less for the lady than for the thing itself. He made his legs even longer and thinner than they were, drew himself up quite tall in his small way, spread his wings, wound himself up and produced a noise like a tiny paddle-wheel boat whilst flapping his wings stiffly and with formal regularity. At the same time he executed some very subtle steps almost absent-mindedly, with the air of one who could be blindingly nimble if he let himself go. The lady watched attentively. At a certain point, as if by mutual agreement that the proprieties had been observed, he stopped dancing, she stopped watching. They went their separate ways like two people at a cocktail party.

The Secret Orchard of Roger Ackerley by Diana Petre

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Secret OrchardMore from Shiny New Books! And it is becoming almost a tradition for me to read one of Slightly Foxed’s beautiful memoirs in almost every issue – this time an author I’d never heard of. It’s a brilliant memoir about a distant mother/daughter relationship – sometimes literally distant – and discovering that someone Diana thought was a family friend was actually her father. And it more of a study of those around her than a memoir, really, as she remains an enigma to the end. Heartily recommend!

As usual, here’s the start of what I wrote, and you can read the whole thing at SNB.

I am always unable to pass on the chance to read a Slightly Foxed Edition and, having re-loved 84, Charing Cross Road in the last issue of Shiny New Books, it was fun to go and read something about which I knew absolutely nothing. Who was Roger Ackerley? Who, for that matter, was Diana Petre? And what was this orchard? The answers weren’t what I was expecting, but this memoir is none the less brilliant for that.

A Diet of Dame Agatha

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For the sake of updating my Century of Books, and because I have precious little else to update Stuck-in-a-Book with at the moment, here’s a rundown of the Agatha Christies I’ve been reading of late. I imagine there will be another update to come soon, but hopefully I can extend my reading range a bit soon, as I need to read Asleep in the Sun by Adolfo Bioy Casares for book group next week!

It’s difficult to write properly about detective fiction, and it’s even more difficult to write differently about lots of detective fiction, so I’ll just give you a couple of impressions per book.

The Seven Dials Mystery (1929)
Very Wodehousian beginning, and Christie does humour well.  But I never like Agatha as much when she’s doing gangs and spy rings and all that.  (I also wonder how recently she’d read The Man Who Was Thursday.)

Elephants Can Remember (1972)
I was warned off this one after I’d started, but I actually loved large chunks of it – Ariadne Oliver (a detective novelist with a famous Finnish detective) is a wonderful opportunity for Agatha Christie to talk about her own career wittily, and (having met her for my first time in Hallowe’en Party) I loved seeing her again.  But the plot was pretty flimsy.

Curtain (1975)
Poirot’s last case, written some decades earlier, it’s amusingly anachronistic at times, but has a good plot and the ever-wonderful Captain Hastings.

Mrs McGinty’s Dead (1952)
More Poirot, more Ariadne Oliver! And a good plot, although perhaps not one of the very best. Or perhaps I’m just saying that because I guessed part of the ending, and I always prefer to be fooled.

Murder in the Mews (1937)
Four novella length stories about Poirot, one of which (the longest) was very good, ‘Dead Man’s Mirror’. The others were fine, but I got the impression that Christie hadn’t considered the ideas good enough for a full-length book.

I have four more Christies out of the library, so I’ll fill you in when I’ve rushed through those… and then hopefully I’ll have broken my Reader’s Block!  Thank goodness there is an author I can turn to during those periods, where it seems inconceivable that anybody could actually finish reading a book (so many WORDS!) as otherwise I’d be going mad.

Sweet William – Beryl Bainbridge

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Sweet William is my second Bainbridge novel, published in 1975 – so, a couple years before Injury Time, which I reviewed earlier this week.  I’ve read both as part of Gaskella‘s Beryl Bainbridge Reading Week – and I’m very grateful that she prompted me in this direction.  Although I’ve only read two, I feel like I’m getting a greater sense of Bainbridge’s range.

Unlike Injury Time, Sweet William isn’t an out-and-out comedy.  There is a certainly a lot of humour in it, but it’s a darker humour – where the darkness isn’t merely incidental, but brings with it tones of genuine hurt and despair.  But it’s far from bleak – Bainbridge throws in enough of the surreal and unexpected to prevent this being a Hardyesque paean to misery.

Ann is a BBC secretary, recently – impulsively – engaged to Gerald, who is heading off to America as the novel begins.  She has rather a fiery relationship with her mother, who invariably cows or embarrasses her, and is equally sick of putting up with her cousin Pamela.  She is attending a children’s performance on behalf of her landlady (as you do) when she first encounters William…

Her first impression was that she had been mistaken for someone else.  She looked behind her but there was no one in the open doorway.  The stranger was beckoning and indicating the empty chair beside his own.  His eyes held such an expression of certainty and recognition that she began to smile apologetically.  It was as if he had been watching the door for a long time and Ann had kept him waiting.  She did notice, as she excused herself along the row of seated mothers, that he had yellow curls and a flattish nose like a prize fighter.  He was dressed appallingly in some sort of sweater with writing on the chest.  On his feet he wore very soiled tennis pumps without laces.
Not entirely the most beguiling of portraits, is it?  But William definitely has a way with women, and it isn’t long at all before Ann and William have, er, become better acquainted – all thoughts of Gerald apparently banished.

Only William isn’t the world’s most faithful of men.

It gets a bit dizzying, trying to work out how many women – and, Bainbridge hints but never states explicitly, men – are besotted with William – and he certainly isn’t slow to reciprocate.  Sweet William is only 160 pages long, but in that space Bainbridge manages to wind and weave quite a complex tangle of relationships – in fact, the complexity is mostly due to the fact that William is far from honest.  He says he’s going to certain places; he’s actually elsewhere.  He doesn’t even mention some of the people he’s having dalliances with, until much later.  It’s a little confusing for the reader, but that helps get us in Ann’s frame of mind – and Bainbridge’s style is never confusing.  It’s a very organised, precise confusion, if you understand what I mean.

William reminded me quite a bit of Dougal Douglas in Muriel Spark’s The Ballad of Peckham Rye (which I read for Muriel Spark Reading Week, and reviewed here) – and not just because he’s Scottish.  They’re both deceptively charming men who appear suddenly and create havoc, never telling much of the truth.  We see Sweet William from the woman’s point of view, and so it does have some of the frustration and heartbreak woven in.  Me and my sensitive heart, ahem, I callously preferred the conversations between Ann and her mother – who is strident and occasionally rather hysterical.  (Spoiler ahead, by the way.)

Voice beginning to rise in pitch, her mother said, “His wife should be told.”

“She has been,” Ann said.  “She thinks William’s a beautiful person.”

“Shooting’s too good for him,” said her mother shrilly.  It was as if she’d promised herself, or someone else, that she would not shout recriminations at Ann and was now relieved that there were others on whom she could vent her feelings.
All in all, I didn’t love this as much as Injury Time, because I thought Bainbridge managed farce so beautifully there.  Sweet William is a different kettle of fish, and it’s not fair to fault Bainbridge for not achieving something she didn’t set out to achieve – indeed, I imagine a lot of people would prefer the subtler narrative in Sweet William where actions matter and feelings can get hurt, unlike the surreal hostage-situation in Injury Time.  Whichever one comes out on top, they’re both fantastic novels.  I can definitely see why Bainbridge is mentioned in the same breath as Spark, and I’m intrigued to read more.

And now I’m wondering whether or not Bainbridge wrote any novels without mistresses in them?