I really thought that I was going to like this book. England post WWI, village setting, charming concept - two young men invent an old lady and tell someone about her. And she arrives in their village and proceeds to wreak havoc. The synopsis makes it sound funny and charming and mysterious. It is not funny or charming at ALL. It is stressful and unpleasant and every single character in the novel is unsympathetic. The beginning and the end of the book show a bit of promise, but the entire middle section is just dreadful. I couldn't finish this fast enough. Two young men, Norman and Henry, lead fairly uneventful lives in the Thames Valley cathedral city of Cornford. As Miss Hargreaves was first published in 1940, the story presumably takes place not long before. But there is no sense of great and terrible events looming, and almost no sense of any world outside of the quiet town, where Norman works in his father’s bookshop, and sings in the choir of Cornford Cathedral. His friend Henry leads a scarcely more challenging existence, working as he does in his father’s garage. All in all, the two men lead quiet lives, enlivened by little more than a few pints in their local, a spot of fishing, and Norman’s rather desultory courtship of his girlfriend Marjorie. All seems peaceful and pleasant down there by the Thames.But this is a novel subtitled “A Fantasy”. (Maybe the generally serene setting and the characters’ tranquil lives were fantastic enough by the time Miss Hargreaves was published -- and that may have also contributed to the book’s success.) Fantasy can mean dreaming, using the imagination, and whimsical speculation. And this novel is nothing if not all about the consequences of doing just that – of “making things up”.Having the opportunity to take a break from their enjoyable but routine lives, Norman and Henry spend their holidays in Lusk, a village in Northern Ireland. On impulse, Henry drags Norman to the local church to have a look around what looks like a thoroughly undistinguished Victorian building. There they meet the sexton, who insists on giving them a guided tour. Wanting to do anything to liven up what turns out to be an interminable catalogue of second-rate furnishings and third-rate art, Norman and Henry, on the spur of the moment, pretend that they had heard of the late Vicar, the Reverend Mr Archer. Starting from a narrow base in reality, and the sexton’s manifest enthusiasm, Mr Archer’s daughters and some of their friends are soon invoked. And from there, it all soon spirals out of control. Fiction has entered the young men’s souls. Eventually, Mr Archer’s childhood friend Miss Connie Hargreaves is created, complete with a fictional address in Rutland. Later, the two friends spend a boozy evening making up even more details about Miss Hargreaves, her life and times, her poetry and music, and even her odd assortment of pets. Finally, the next morning, to get the most out of the joke, Norman writes to Miss Hargreaves, telling her about their visit to Lusk church, and inviting her to stay with his family in Cornford whenever she wants to. All Miss Hargreaves has to do is to send a card to say when she is coming.Back home again, Norman certainly never expected to get a reply.At the beginning, when he is looking back at the start of it all, Norman remembers some childhood advice that his father had given him: “Always be careful, my boy, what you make up. Life’s more full of things made up on the Spur of the Moment than most people realise. Beware of the Spur of the Moment. It may turn and rend you.” Now with Miss Hargreaves’ impending visit, The “Spur of the Moment” has indeed turned on its prime creator. As the time of Miss Hargreaves’ appearance nears, it is as if she starts to cast shadows before her. A copy of her collection of verses, Wayside Bundle, is discovered in Norman’s father’s bookshop. Norman and Henry had decided that Miss Hargreaves played the harp; and shortly before she is due to turn up on the train a harp is delivered to Norman’s house. As soon as she arrives, Norman’s visitor cuts a swathe through Cornford. For a few pages, Miss Hargreaves almost becomes a classic farce, with the dialogue sparking and glinting even more than it usually does throughout the entire novel. (It is so easy to imagine Margaret Rutherford in her role in the 1953 stage adaptation tantalisingly mentioned in the Introduction. And the likes of the late Joan Hickson, or the luckily still un-late Annette Crosbie or Patricia Routledge also come to mind as potential future Miss Hargreaveses. You get the idea.) Norman quickly becomes rather proud of his new friend, although for a moment, when “into her eyes fell a steely glint”, he does begin to be conscious of a feeling of fear...Miss Hargreaves is a witty and comic novel, although it is not generally a comedy, despite its expert forays into it. (Also, for example, the poems quoted from Wayside Bundle are priceless.) There is a definite “edge” to the humour as well, a dark and unsettling undercurrent that contrasts with the calm and totally mundane setting. Norman and Miss Hargreaves soon develop a sort of affectionate respect for each other – but there is also mutual exasperation and the further consequences of the Spur of the Moment. As Miss Hargreaves becomes a part of Cornford society, tensions grow between her and Norman, and he is torn between wanting her to go, and yet being unable to exercise the power that he presumably has in order to get rid of her. For better or worse, Miss Hargreaves has become an unexpected ingredient of Norman’s life, and despite everything, a sad look from her can break his heart.When Norman does eventually make Miss Hargreaves leave Cornford he immediately regrets it. And when she reappears, unbidden, her need for the society and approval of her creator is as pitiful and heart-rending as it sometimes seems almost parasitic to him. When, after many adventures with Miss Hargreaves, Norman sends her away a second time, it seems that their story has ended at last. Until, several weeks later, Cornford starts to buzz with the news that a Lady Hargreaves is buying and restoring a large house in the city...The ambiguities in the relationship between Norman and Miss Hargreaves, of creator and creation, are the constant true theme of the novel. The main questions of who actually depends on who, and who is responsible for who, are explored, but rightly are never fully answered, for they are morally complex. Although the creator is theoretically in charge and responsible, he shows himself to be vulnerable, again and again -- both to his own abuse of his power, and to the character that he created. How much of a life Miss Hargreaves really has of her own when she is out of Norman’s presence cannot be determined, but their interdependence, even so, echoes the fruitful ambivalence of the best and most creative art. Those who write fiction can, if they are lucky, testify at least once to a time when a character almost seems to take over, and the author emerges from a writing story with little sense of how it came to be finished. It seems to have been that the characters have been doing the dictating, deciding their own motivations and actions, with the supposed creator only being there to take notes. Successful stories are often the ones that seem to have thus “written themselves” in this way. Yet that can also be a rather unsettling experience for an author, to say the least. The controller doesn’t seem to be in control after all. So imagine the sense of powerlessness and unease when it isn’t merely a character in a story taking on a life of its own, but an apparently real flesh-and-blood person, notwithstanding that it is one sprung from the half-shell of the mind!Glen Cavaliero’s Introduction gives a valuable overview of Frank Baker’s life and work, and many insights, as well as putting Miss Hargreaves into its context. Cavaliero rightly says that Miss Hargreaves has taken on her share of immortality. And as ever, Tartarus Press puts out a top-quality product. The publishers have even reproduced Baker’s brief Note at the beginning of the novel, in which he insists, on doubtful grounds, that “Hargreaves” should be pronounced “Hargrayves”. On that basis, Miss Hargreaves is certainly a superb “rayd”! But the author’s decision is final – isn’t it?
What do You think about La Señorita Hargreaves (1940)?
Decent writing but still a very, very strange book.
—suni
