One of the things I love about my book group is how varied our book choices are – not just the latest hit novels, but ranging back over a century and more. Somebody suggested we read some Penelope Lively (she was a local, after all) and we landed on her second novel, Treasures of Time (1979).
The concept feels both modern and somehow very old-fashioned: a TV crew is making a documentary about a late archeologist, Hugh Paxton, and we witness what this exploration looks like in the lives of his widow, daughter, sister-in-law and so on. What makes it feel old-fashioned is how unintrusive the documentary crew is – they aren’t trying to sensationalise anything, and any secrets that are dug up will be a byproduct of a fairly earnest attempt to Hugh Paxton’s life. (The resultant documentary, which we see towards the end of the novel, seems laughably slow.)
But the late Hugh Paxton is not the most interesting person in this book, nor is his relationship with anybody paramount. To me, the most fascinating dynamic in this novel is between Hugh’s widow, Laura, and their daughter Kate. (Could Lively have chosen any more stereotypical middle-class white women’s names than Laura and Kate! Endless mid-century novels have one or the other.)
Laura is not a monster. To most of her acquaintance, she is probably considered charming and capable. But to Kate, she is often brutal – brutal with the polite kindness of a mother who ‘wants what’s best’ for her daughter and continually belittles her. She makes constantly clear that Kate is a disappointment: not beautiful enough, not successful enough, not elegant enough, not married enough. There is a very telling moment early on where Kate tries to decide what to wear to see her mother – knowing that she will be criticised if it is too casual (as being disrespectful and unflattering) and equally criticsed if she dresses up (silly and over the top). But she can’t help try, forever reframing her understanding of herself through her mother’s gaze.
Kate is no pushover herself. She is clearly damaged by her domineering, probably well-meaning mother – and it comes out as determination and bad decision making.
There are a scattering of sympathetic characters in Treasures of Time, with my favourite perhaps being the enthusiastic, wrong-footed documentary maker. But Lively isn’t very interested in whether people are sympathetic or not. Rather, she is searing in how she presents any human relationships – perhaps more at home when describing familial relationships than romantic ones.
Lively is also very good on class. I thought this was brilliant (and heaven knows I still encounter enough middle-class people desperate to be considered busy beyond belief in their very ordinary lives):
He had discovered with surprise, on his arrival in the southern white-collar counties, the furious busyness of the professional classes. You could not hold up your head in society, it seemed, if you were unable to claim intolerable pressures, both inside an occupation and, even more, outside it. At a sherry party in his supervisors house, he had listened with interest to a group of (he gathered) unemployed women vying with one another in their accounts of lives have never a spare moment to, dizzy in the service of Parent Teacher Associations, Conservation Societies, adult literacy campaigns and ornithology. Going home again, he found himself taking a new view of his parents’ untroubled appreciation of the eight hour day in the five day week. If he had asked his father if he was busy, he would have stared in incomprehension: if you were at work, you were at work, and if you were at home you were at home, and that was all there was to it.
This is all sounding like a very positive review, and I do admire a lot about Penelope Lively’s writing. But I’ll end by admitting that I do struggle to love her novels. I’ve read a handful, and indeed some with very overlapping themes (a biographer in According to Mark; reflections on a long life in Moon Tiger) and it can feel like I’ve looking through a clouded pane of class. It is expertly done, but I don’t quite feel connected to it. I admire, but I haven’t yet felt touched by her writing.
Though it is many years since I read these early novels, I did love them and have been nervous if returning to them in case I don’t feel the same. I found her later Consequences very moving – have you read that?
Oh I haven’t, thanks for the mention of it.
Hm, I’ve felt the same about hers, that she returns to the same topics a bit and is a bit distanced, maybe. But then I love other “cold” writers like Elizabeth Taylor. A bit of a mystery but I’m glad I’m not the only one who doesn’t love Lively! Pretty copy, though!
That’s a good point – it feels more deliberate in a Taylor novel, maybe? And yes, such a lovely edition – it was part of a decades-themed series they reprinted about ten years ago.
I really liked this one, and reviewed it back in 2009.
Yes, she’s perceptive on class, but also on the sidelining of women’s knowledge, literally in the case of Aunty Nellie, silenced not just by her stroke but also by the way they dismiss her because she’s an old woman.
But really, it’s the writing I like so much. Hers was an amazing generation of writers…
I’ve had the privilege of hearing her speak a couple of times, and she was so interesting.
For me, Lively is a writer who has become more human and easy to connect with as she has gotten older. The earlier novels and short stories are, as you say, beautifully written but there is always a sense of distance between both the reader and the subject and the author and her subject. Lovely work but not something that leaves any sort of emotional imprint on you.
Oh that’s interesting! I don’t think I’ve read anything she’s written in the past 20 years, so I won’t write those off.
I want to read more Lively so I’m interested in what you say about the distance. Unfortunately this isn’t one I have in the TBR, the story sounds very tempting!
She was PROLIFIC so I’m sure you’ll find some in your tbr to your taste!
I’ve never read Penelope Lively before, but this sounds rather interesting.
And that is a gorgeous cover!
Such a lovely cover, isn’t it!
I was feeling quite tempted by this until I got to near the end and then, almost with a sigh of relief, I felt that maybe I did not have to rush to find this after all! I agree with Deborah and Claire’s comments above about Lively’s writing becoming more empathic as she aged. I did like Heat Wave and Consequences but only admired Moon Tiger.
Gorgeous cover though!
Haha, yes, sometimes it is a relief to know there’s a book that doesn’t need to be found TOO urgently!
Penelope Lively is an excellent writer and she is still writing. I also find her novels rather ‘distant’, but her non fiction is definitely worth reading. ‘A House Unlocked’ is one of my favourite books. It is autobiography, mainly about her grandparents house Golsoncott near Rodhuish in Somerset and the stories of the house and it’s people. ‘Life in the Garden’ is about well…gardens , (lovely hardback cover). ‘Ammonites and Leaping Fish’ it’s ‘not a memoir, rather a view from old age’. ‘The Presence of the Past – an introduction to landscape history’ is on the TBR heap.