I bought The Millstone (1965) by Margaret Drabble in 2009, in Chester, but I think that must just have been based on name recognition – and on this extraordinary cover. Penguin really did have some interesting cover designs in the 1960s. But what made me pick it up recently is how often people have told me that it is very similar to my much-loved The L-Shaped Room by Lynne Reid Banks. I recently re-read it, and it seemed like a good time to tackle The Millstone. And, man, it’s similar.
I’m glad I’m so familiar with The L-Shaped Room, otherwise reading them so close to each other would have confused me a lot. Both are about young pregnant women; both are living alone; both are pregnant after their first and only sexual encounter (and didn’t particularly enjoy that); both consider doing a makeshift abortion by getting drunk on gin. It’s hard not to think that Drabble might have got inspiration from Banks. But there are certainly differences too.
My career has always been marked by a strange mixture of confidence and cowardice: almost, one might say, made by it. Take, for instance, the first time I tried spending a night a man in a hotel. I was nineteen at the time, an age appropriate for such adventures, and needless to say I was not married. I am still not married, a fact of some significance,but more of that later. The name of the boy, if I remember rightly, was Hamish. I do remember rightly. I really must try not to be deprecating. Confidence, not cowardice, is the part of myself which I admire, after all.
This is the opening paragraph, and the first person narrator is Rosamund. She is dealing with this pregnancy alone – but only because her parents have taken a convenient extended trip abroad. She is not in an l-shaped room; she is in her parents’ large home in a posh area. Her sister is not helpful, and she doesn’t want Hamish in the picture, but her friends are good and she can continue writing her thesis about Elizabethan poets. (The least realistic section of The Millstone is how easily Rosamund eventually gets her thesis published and then immediately gets a job in academia – perhaps this sort of thing was possible in the 1960s, but it certainly isn’t now. But I’m getting ahead of myself.)
Again, like The L-Shaped Room, there is not much plot. It is, instead, more of an emotional portrait – seeing how Rosamund copes with every stage of this new life. Unlike Banks’ novel, the birth of the child is not the end but the middle – we also see how she copes with being a new mother, with its own crises. There are certainly funny moments, or perhaps rather a wry tone, but what makes The Millstone impressive is the nuanced and interesting way Drabble takes us on Rosamund’s journey. There is very little dramatic, but there is a lot of life – not idealised, certainly, and Rosamund is too real to be wholly sympathetic, but I really enjoyed it. A great deal more than the only other Drabble novel I’ve read, The Garrick Year, which was rather tedious. Drabble is much better on motherhood than casual adultery, it turns out.
Is it as good as The L-Shaped Room? To my heart, no. It couldn’t be. And I think perhaps to my mind, too – but it’s still rather good and has made me want to explore more of her novels. Any recommendations?
I just noticed this weekend that thre’s a copy at my local library. Sadly though it doesn’t have that brilliant cover. It certainly sounds like an interesting book to try. I loved The L-shaped Room so should like this as well.
I really ought to read the L-shaped room – I do have my Mum’s old copy. I have read a couple of Drabbles, but for the life of me, I can’t remember which!
I haven’t read any by Drabble yet but I have The Radiant Way and its sequel which I keep meaning to read. I can’t remember if I read the sequels to The L-shaped Room – it’s probably time for a re-read anyway.
Do try The L-Shaped Room, Annabel! And yes, Jonathan, I think you’d like this based on that :)
I agree the subject matter of both books is very similar, but the tone and setting are so very different. I found it fascinating to see the same situation in the same time period treated so differently. LRB is brutal in her prose, unsparing and unreservedly plain-spoken. The urban setting is gritty and unforgiving, but she begins to understand that the bond between the people can relieve the harshness of the poverty and finds love when least expecting it. Drabble is so much more elegiac, her heroine a middle class well brought up girl in very comfortable circumstances (studying for a higher degree in poetry!) who doesn’t suffer any privations from her situation, not financial, not professional, not even social ostracism. She falls in love with her daughter and has no need to marry. It is interesting that both women seek the experience of sex because it is almost expected of them in the hippy spirit of free love in swinging Sixties London. Neither of them enjoy it or directly benefit from it in the short term, though the message is that the experience has enriched and fulfilled them both in ways they could not have foreseen over the long term. I think that these books are perfect to read together. They both contrast and reaffirm each other. Surely Rachel can’t hold out much longer…?!
That’s not quite how I remember my reading of this novel. Yes, she was middle class and her privations might not seem like much, but this was the 1960s when unmarried motherhood signalled the end of marriageability. Rosamund has a quiet kind of courage in deciding to reject a man she doesn’t want and she is a forerunner of the women who chose to keep their babies despite the social ostracism that entailed. I liked her self-deprecating humour, her courage and independence, and her determination to do things well for the child. But I think the question of whether Octavia turns out to be a millstone remains unresolved, because it was, after all, the 1960s.
PS I really liked The Pure Gold Baby which tackles the same subject from a slightly different angle – but was written decades later in 2013, and also The Radiant Way (1987) but was less keen on The Dark Flood Rises (2016): See my reviews of these at https://anzlitlovers.com/category/writers-aust-nz-in-capitals/drabble-margaret//
I thought the millstone quote was a Biblical reference about how anyone who would hurt or reject a child should have a millstone around their neck and be thrown into the sea, rather than the child itself being a millstone? I could be wrong about that. I agree it’s ambiguous but I don’t think Rosamund sees her daughter as a millstone. You’re right that she is no longer marriage material, but I think she is still happy without a conventional marriage. I guess we read it differently!
Interesting discussion, both! Squeak – I don’t think the Biblical reference is made overt in the novel, though I could have missed it. I read it more as the child being a potential millstone, but I like that it could be either option.
And I messaged Rachel about your first comment, that she shouldn’t hold out longer, but she didn’t reply… :p
What a cover!! I remember reading these two very close together in my teens and it remains the Drabble I like the best.
It’s quite something, isn’t it? I definitely like her more when she’s not writing tediously about love affairs, so I shall pick my Drabbles carefully…
I do like Margaret Drabble and both this book and The L-shaped Room had an enormous impact on me as I was growing up, as you might imagine. Also in the same vein (and influential: The Radiant Way, The Garrick Year and The Needle’s Eye.
I’m sure I used to have a copy of this, but I don’t anymore and I haven’t read it (or the L shaped Room actually). I clearly should have read it because it sounds excellent. I have read two or three Drabble novels though quite some time ago. She is definitely a writer I need to explore.