Book Review: Love by Elizabeth von Arnim

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Thankfully for both Virago Reading Week and the TBR Dare, I actually had two Virago’s in my nightstand so I could participate in the former and stay true to the latter. I had a wonderful volume of Edith Sitwell letters and Love by Elizabeth von Arnim. I didn’t get to the Sitwell, but I did read this fascinating von Arnim.

[Aside: Somewhere outside my window right now there is a bird trilling away. Not sure what kind but it is making me really happy.]
The only other von Arnim book I have read is the wonderful The Enchanted April. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect with this one. Even after reading it, I am not sure what I think. I certainly enjoyed it, but have so many conflicting feelings about the story itself. The big theme of the book is the gender double standard when it comes to May-September relationships. A younger woman married to a much older man is acceptable, but the reverse, a younger man married to a much older woman, seems just short of a tragedy. Perhaps in the days of Demi and Ashton and the rise of Cougars, this isn’t so much the case today. But in 1925 it was certainly true. What makes the double standard even more glaring from this period (and earlier) is that the chronological gap in the ages of the young female and the older male is not just a matter of 10 or so years but more like 20 or 30. Can you imagine being married to someone 30 years your senior — or junior for that matter? At my age I would have to wait another seven years to find a partner since someone 30 years younger than me wouldn’t even come of legal age until 2018. Yikes. And what on earth would I ever have in common with this person? 
But I am getting a little ahead of myself. Forty-seven year old Catherine is assiduously courted (today we would say stalked) by 25-year-old Christopher. After doing her best to throw cold water on the situation Catherine finally gives in to the love and interest Christopher shows her and they end up marrying. Yes, he makes her feel young, but more than that she is starved for love and affection. The lack of which in her life isn’t apparent to her until she goes to stay with daughter and son-in-law and is made to feel like an unwanted third wheel. 
But here it gets complicated. Catherine’s much much older, now dead husband left her comfortable but somewhat poor so that in the event of his death a fortune seeker wouldn’t marry Catherine for all the wrong reasons. Instead he leaves his money to his daughter. Of course her husband controlling her life from beyond the grave is maddening enough. But the fact that her daughter has married a rather unpleasant vicar thirty years her senior and they now inhabit the house that was once hers adds insult to injury. Catherine never minds it as much as I did. The gall of a 49-year-old man, to marry a 19-year old who he has known since she was FIVE I find utterly repugnant. The 19-year-old Virginia may love the predator Stephen and be happy in the relationship but no one will convince me that it isn’t anything more than the Stockholm syndrome. The man was an active part of her life since she was young child and then he, and the other adults surrounding her think it acceptable for him to go in for the kill. It is disgusting. No 19-year old knows her self (or his self) well enough to enter into such a lopsided arrangement. But even here I digress, the issue in this book is not the age spread so much as it is the double standard.
Long story short, Catherine and Christopher get married. Despite loving each other very much, she looks and feels her age and it starts to bother him when an emotional crisis leads Catherine to forgo her expensive hair and make-up regimen that helps keep her looking younger. And the fool Christopher is repulsed by it.  Even during their courtship, Christopher often commented on how “tired” Catherine looked whenever he would see her in daylight. Well duh. Although the book ends on a hopeful, but ambiguous, note, I have a hard time seeing good days ahead for these two. There were so many wonderful moments in this book, some touching, some enlightening, and some humorous. But the facts of the story itself I find tragic.
I can’t wait to read more by von Arnim. Her writing and her stories are fascinating.

Sunday Painting: Moment Musicale by Charles Frederic Ulrich

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This could be a vintage Virago cover.

Moment Musicale, 1883
Charles Frederic Ulrich 1858-1908
de Young Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
In honor of the last day of Virago Reading Week, I thought I would choose a painting this week that looks like it could be a vintage Virago cover. I think this one fills the bill quite nicely. I don’t think Virago ever has (or will) publish any E. M. Forster titles, but the image image also reminds me of the scene in Forster’s A Room With A View where Lucy Honeychurch is playing piano in the Pension Bertolini in Florence.
It so happened that Lucy, who found daily life rather chaotic, entered a more solid world when she opened the piano. She was then no longer either deferential or patronizing; no longer either a rebel or a slave.
And of course the Reverend Mr. Beebe’s assessment of her playing:

If Miss Honeychurch ever takes to live as she plays, it will be very exciting — both for us and for her.

I feel a re-read of this book coming on. But given my TBR Dare, I can’t until after April 1st. Then again I could watch the film for the 400th time.

Another Virago Giveway. This one requires much less effort.

Thomas16 Comments

  

I must have figured this out when I arranged the books on the shelves, but it wasn’t until I posted this picture earlier this week that I remembered that I have two copies of The Lost Traveller by Antonia White. I believe it is the third of a trilogy, but not having read them yet, I can’t say whether one should read the other two first.

In any case, it will be available to one lucky reader by random drawing. Just leave a comment on this post by midnight EST on Sunday, January 30, 2010 to be eligible. Will ship anywhere.
 

An interruption in Virago Reading Week cuts both ways

Thomas16 Comments

    
Until 1:30 this morning, we were without power for 31 hours. Thanks to about six inches of very wet and heavy snow, our neighborhood was again in the dark, and cold. It was a chilly 52 degrees F (11C) in our house last night when we went to bed. Needless to say, we were without the Internet for that same period which eliminated my ability to keep up with VRW online. But it did give me plenty of time to finish a Virago Modern Classic yesterday. All things considered, I would have preferred not to lose power.

The other thing that made it difficult is that we weren’t prepared for a storm and so both of our work Blackberries and my personal mobile were almost out of battery charge. And since we have cordless phones that require electricity to operate we felt really cut off. Then about 20 hours into the outage I remembered that we have a hardwired phone in the basement. So at least we had the comfort of being able to communicate with the outside world.

Besides having time to read–at least as long as it was daylight–we also got lots of time to snuggle with Lucy.

Last night to get out of the cold we went to see a movie. When we got to the theater the only thing playing that we thought would be tolerable was a film called No Strings with Ashton Kutcher and Natalie Portman (I think that’s who it was.) We were wrong, it wasn’t tolerable. It was awful. This is the kind of movie that convinces me that Hollywood should no longer make movies. Full of all kinds of inappropriate messages.

And I am so sick of Hollywood pandering to the straight man’s desire to see two women kiss/have sex. Which brings me back to the wonderful world of Virago Modern Classics. A world where if the women are kissing or having sex with each other, it is because they are Lesbians or at least are doing it for their own enjoyment, not for the prurient interests of salivating straight men.

Thankfully I am connected again and can continue reading all the other great VRW posts around the Intertubes.

Here are the Viragos I won’t be reading this week

Thomas7 Comments
  

     

Day three of Virago Reading Week has me lamenting the Viragos I won’t be reading this week. Since I am determined to stick to the TBR dare until April 1st, I can only read the books that are currently in my nightstand.
So here are the books I won’t be reading this week. For those of you looking crosseyed at those black spines, I understand that there was a time when Viragos were published in the US by The Dial Press with these black liveries but otherwise looking like Viragos. Keen eyes might also note that some of those green Viragos have penguins on them. At another time, Penguin published Viragos in the US.  Virago experts: if I have any of this wrong, please let me know.

Some of you may remember this post where I talked about finding all these Viragos for cheap at an otherwise pricey second hand bookshop here in DC.

A Virago Reading Week Giveaway

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In honor of day two of Virago Reading Week, I have decided to hold a giveaway. But this is no simple giveaway, this one requires a bit of work on your part.  I will buy any VMC book currently in print for the person who can identify the Virago book cover art on the VRW banner/button I created.

Here are the rules.

1. The person with the most correct titles wins. Ties will be decided by random drawing.

2. I am looking for the title of the Virago book that had these paintings on their covers. Remember I am looking for the book title, not the title of the work of art.

3. Since I don’t want any of you giving away the answers in your comments, you must EMAIL your guesses to me at:   onmyporch [at] hotmail [dot] com

4. Guesses must be submitted no later than midnight U.S. Eastern Standard Time on Sunday, January 30, 2011.

5. Once declared, the winner will have one week to choose a Virago currently in print they want me to send. I will ship anywhere in the world, the south side of the moon, and select postal codes on Mars.

UPDATE: Out of the blue, and totally unsolicited, Little Brown and Company (UK), the parent company of Virago, have offered to fulfill the prize for this giveaway on my behalf. So cheers to the generous folks at Virago!

All Passion Spent: My First Virago Modern Classic

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Riding the Tube with Vita Sackville-West.
Today is the first day of Virago reading week being hosted by Rachel and Carolyn. It seems appropriate to kick-off my participation by writing about the first Virago I ever read.
In 1992 I lived within walking distance of Charing Cross Road and the myriad bookshops on, and adjacent to, that famed stretch of book lovers’ London. I was certainly bookish back then, but two things conspired to keep me out of those shops. The first was that I had no money to buy books. I made just over 500 pounds a month and most of that went to housing, food, and transport. What little money I had left over I would use to buy tickets for concerts at the South Bank Centre and a season ticket to the Proms. The second was that I was 21 years old and living in a hostel with 27 other people my age. Who had time to spend in bookshops when there were all those hormones flying around?  That doesn’t mean I never went into them. Just not as often as I would today if given the same proximity.
One day while combing through the cheapish paperbacks in the basement of the old Quinto Bookshop I came across All Passion Spent by Vita Sackville-West in a Virago Modern Classics edition. I don’t remember why I chose it, but I do remember very vividly reading it. There is a scene in the book where the protagonist, Lady Slane is making her way to Hampstead on the Northern Line of the Underground. The narrative intersperses her progress on the Tube with her thought process. Paragraphs of text are separated by indications of which stop the train is passing through as she thinks each thought. The reason I remember this so clearly is because as I read it, I was also on the Northern Line–passing through the very same stations the fictional Lady Slane had passed through 70 years earlier (Tottenham Court Road, Goodge Street, Warren Street, etc.).
The novel is the quiet, lovely, somewhat joyful and melancholy story of Lady Slane being independent–emancipated by the death of her husband–at the ripe age of 88. I thoroughly enjoyed reading All Passion Spent. It was a type of novel that I hadn’t really encountered before. And the back cover of the green banded Virago edition suggested that there were legions of similar works by women authors just waiting for me. Over the years I picked them up here and there, but it wasn’t until into my 30s that I really began to appreciate the niche that Virago filled. I am no expert on Virago, but it seemed like there was a time when they focused on out of print, hard to find works. But today it seems they even publish the likes of Margaret Atwood. So that niche, if indeed it ever was exclusively their focus, seems not to be as tightly focused as I originally thought.
Since Viragos, especially newer editions, aren’t really sold new in the US, I am unlikely to become a devotee of their newer offerings. I am happy to maintain, however, my interest in their older titles. This probably explains why I remain equally devoted to their older cover designs, but more on that later in the week.
Interesting to note that the first version of the now iconic diagrammatic map of the London Underground was created by Harry Beck in 1931, the same year All Passion Spent was published. This means that Lady Slane would have been looking at a map quite different from the one I looked at in 1992. 
A rather pretty Underground map from 1920. While maps as early as 1908 simplified or removed geography
to make the maps easier to read. Still, this pocket map by MacDonald Gill aims to depict some
of the geography in terms of the location of stations in relation to other stations. The use of cursive
lettering was unusual for the Underground which had been using the iconic Johnston sans serif typeface since 1916.
This 1925 map by Fred Stingmore is even less geographically correct to make the map
easier to read. The use of the more common Johnston typeface also improves clarity.
This is probably the map that Lady Slane would have consulted in 1931.
First sketched out in 1931, Harry Beck’s highly diagrammatic version of the Underground map system
is depicted here in a 1933 foldout map. What little evidence there is of geography, basically just
adherence to north/south/east/west and the Thames is highly stylized to maximize legibility.
This is the map that not only set the standard for the Underground to the present, it also prompted
hundreds of less than perfect adaptations in other cities as well as frequent references in popular culture.

War of the book buttons

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Tomorrow begins Virago Reading Week, but I am also in the midst of the TBR dare where I can only read from the TBR pile in my nightstand until April 1st.

How will this bookish face off end? Which of these book buttons will be victorious? Stay tuned.

UPDATE: The buttons aren’t really fighting. I was just trying to be cute. The fight is between the lure of Virago Reading Week and the need to stay true to the TBR dare.

(By the way, I couldn’t find a button for VRW, so I made my own. Feel free to use if you are participating.)

vs.

Dogs In Motion

Thomas14 Comments

   
If you don’t like looking at endless pictures of other people’s dogs, you may want to scroll on down to something more bookish.

If, on the other hand, you can’t get enough of canine cuteness, look no further. We took the camera along to the dog park yesterday and Lucy had a ball.

Saying hello.

Gettin’ it goin’

Full flight

Home stretch

Coming in for a landing

Contemplating whether or not to say hello to this friend