Having enjoyed The Return of the Soldier, I picked this up in a charity shop, without realising it was the second of a trilogy until after I started reading it. Fortunately, it still works as a standalone book.This is a coming of age novel, set in in the run up to WW1: "I wanted to make friends... to be part of the general web, to be linked with boys and girls and men and women who were not yet what they would be in the end."PLOTClare Aubrey, a retired concert pianist, has been abandoned by her gambling husband and is raising their teenage children: Cordelia (the oldest and least warm), twins Rose (the narrator) and Mary (both destined to follow in their mother's musical footsteps), and Richard Quinn (charming, bright, wise and still at school). Cousin Rosamund and her mother, Constance, live with them, too. They are upper-middle class, and by selling some paintings, on the advice of Mr Morpurgo, family finances are now reasonably secure. As the family rebuild their lives, they relish small victories such as being able to afford flowers to plant in the garden, "We were able to do the things that other people could do". But as they progress, the shadow of war looms, and "we saw a fungoid bloom of ruin slowly creep across the familiar objects among which we had been reared".At times, it's a little florid, mannered and self-consciously erudite - like a diluted version of Ivy Compton-Burnett. There is not much plot (though there is a murder), but there is some sharp wit, especially at the expense of the dreadful Mrs Morpurgo. CLASSThe Aubreys are a little adrift: they have the background, tastes and education of the elite, but not quite the income. The mother has become (or maybe always was) oblivious to many social cues, and their friendships cross boundaries in a way that may have shocked some: Mr Morpurgo is a wealthy and generous Jewish art dealer, but they also regularly stay in a pub on the Thames, where they're related by marriage to the landlord.This can cause awkwardness: "Like all people brought up in households destitute of manservants, we regarded them as implacable enemies... who could implement their ill-will by means of supernatural powers which enabled them to see through a guest's pretensions."Appropriate clothing is a potential pitfall, but also a source of wry observation. For a prison visit, a man wore "clothes which suggested he had not made up his mind whether he was going to a funeral or to Ascot."RADICAL FOR HER TIMEWest was a member of the Bloomsbury set, that also included Virginia Woolf, John Maynard Keynes and E M Forster. They were known for their progressive attitudes to women and relationships amongst other things, and although this is not a radical novel, there are glimpses of this aspect of West's thinking. She portrays strong, independent women, and although she doesn't suggest all men are feckless or dangerous, the twins do have such fears, which is one reason why they are determined not to marry. But there are admirable men in the story, with Richard Quin held up as the ideal man - even before he's a man. (view spoiler)[The fact he dies in the war demonstrates teh futile waste of war. (hide spoiler)]
This REal Night is the second book in the trilogy, taking up where the first leaves off pretty much. The lines are blurred, as if she lost her notes and a copy of her first books. Some events are reserved, as if we didn't already read of them. We now find the two pianist sisters beginning their studies in earnest and playing a little for money at concerts. They realize they aren't even the best of their class as they had assumed. One sister marries, a cousin goes to nursing school and dear brother worries them all by seeming aimless. Then two horrible miserable events occur at the end that felt rather gratuitous. I think I might have had a happier life if only I had skipped the last chapter. But seeing as how I'm all attached and invested in this goofy family, I suppose I'll even find the last book of the trilogy and continue nursing my heartbreak till it comes. Sigh. Curse you Rebecca West.
What do You think about This Real Night (1986)?
This Real Night is the sequel to The Fountain Overflows, taking the Aubrey family through about 5 years after their dad disappears from the picture and the family begins to find its way along. It's an uneven book: the first part d---r----a----g----g----e----d---- along, with huge paragraphs of description and monologues by Richard Quin on all kinds of issues. The ending was devastatingly sad but suddenly intensely powerful, giving a vivid picture into what it was like to be the ones who stayed at home during the start of WWI, and also providing an intense, detailed, and weirdly involving look into a death in a close-knit family (those two events are unrelated. I'm not giving anything away) when such things always occurred at home, not in a hospital. So the mid-range evaluation is an average of "didn't like it" at the start to "it was amazing" (but not cheerful) at the end. . . . Now I"m torn about reading the third one, but I bet I will, just to tie up the loose ends.
—Knitme23
