Books & Reviews Archive

It is the mid-1950s in England. Anna is a writer living off the royalties of her successful novel, set in Africa during the Second World War. Divorced after a brief, loveless marriage, she is the mother of a young daughter and a friend to Molly, who is likewise divorced from an immensely wealthy man and the mother of a twenty-year-old son. "Free women," independent, shouldering the burden of raising their children, yet destined for loneliness and relationships with men incapable of meeting women's needs: > women's emotions are still geared to a kind of society that no longer exists. My deep emotions, the truest ones, are about my relationships with men. One man. But I don't live that kind of life, and I know few women who do. I ought to be like a man, care more for work than for people; I ought to put my work before everything, and take men as they come, or find an ordinary but well-off man for financial support, but I won't do it, I can't be like that . Anna can no longer write and turns to a psychoanalyst, who advises her to keep a diary. *The Golden Notebook* consists of four notebooks: the black one, concerning Anna the writer; the red, for politics (Anna is a member of the British Communist Party); the yellow, for stories outside of real experience; and the blue, which attempts to be a genuine diary. A spiral unfolds in which reality blurs with imagination, a sort of descent into the depths of consciousness. It all unfolds unexpectedly, because > the things that are important in life advance furtively, by surprise; one doesn't expect them, they take no shape in the mind. They are recognized when they appear, that is how it is . The book becomes a sort of box which, when opened, > instead of beautiful things, there is a mass of fragments and pieces. Not a whole thing, broken into fragments, but little pieces from everywhere, from all over the world.... seeing the mass of horrible fragments was so painful that I could not look, and I closed the box . But what is so terrible within consciousness? The dissolution of human bonds, the pain that inexorably marks relationships between individuals, the chaos of a world hurtling toward destruction, and hence loneliness within chaos, from which the only possible remedy seems to be the aridification of emotion—erecting a defense against the destruction of human relationships, against their reduction purely to the forces "of property, money, and power." Anna’s is an existential and cosmic suffering that cannot but lead to madness. Yet at the end of the journey, Anna realizes that salvation is anchored in the deepest bonds: those of affection and care. At the climax of a deeply fraught passage, a simple sentence offers the alternative to death: "I can hear Janet (Anna’s daughter) coming up the stairs." It is a highly complex novel, philosophically as well, open to many readings: the exhaustion of hope for the future, of the grand ideologies; the culmination of a political and literary trajectory asserting female independence—one that began with Jane Austen's heroines and ends in Anna's profound solitude, where, in a passage unquestionably shocking for the era in which the book was written, she declares that she prefers masturbation to sex with men incapable of love; the theme of psychoanalysis and thus the discovery of one's unconscious; literature as imagination, but also as a search for self, as memory and nostalgia. What makes the book timely is its reflection on the repercussions of a world in destruction upon individual consciousness, the author’s ability to grasp how the absence of a broader hope has a devastating impact on human relationships themselves: one cannot be saved by retreating into the domestic sphere, nor, however, can one rely on outworn ideologies. The narrative is sustained by an elegant prose style, pleasurable to read. The multi-layered structure of the tale would have required a tremendous ability to maintain a compact narrative architecture, which instead fragmented and dissolved. That very intellectual richness, while often offering compelling food for thought, does not favor the frugality and concision of the narrative. Why not read it? A few pages hold up well, but the overall reading proves ponderous and prolix.

Georgette Heyer was one of the most popular twentieth-century English writers. *The Grand Sophy*, recently translated into Italian, chronicles the intrusion of an independent, daring, and willful young woman into a traditional family of the English upper nobility at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The novel opens with Sir Horace’s unexpected request to his sister, the mild-mannered Lady Ombersley, to host his seventeen-year-old daughter, Sophy, for several months. The reader is immediately introduced to the cast of characters and to the circumstances from which the narrative unfolds: the two eldest children, the authoritarian and short-tempered Charles and the “so typically English” Cecilia, a female figure straight out of Jane Austen; the family’s financial ruin following Lord Ombersley’s gambling debts; and the providential inheritance bequeathed to Charles, which has cast him in the role of head of the family, fostering an atmosphere of subservience and reverent dread among his brothers and numerous sisters. Then there are the impending marriages. Charles has engaged himself to Miss Wraxton, unquestionably of high breeding and moral standing, yet detested by the Ombersleys for her patent intention to impose order on a household management she considers far too lax and permissive. Cecilia has accepted Lord Charlbury’s suit, yet has become infatuated with a handsome, penniless young poet. Lady Ombersley’s anxieties are thus manifold; she initially attempts to resist her brother’s insistent pleas, but ultimately agrees to take Sophy in, expecting a timid adolescent eager to be welcomed into the warmth of a home, having been orphaned of her mother as a young child and raised by a father, Sir Horace, who was perpetually on the road. She is consequently left stunned and somewhat alarmed when, accompanied by a mountain of luggage, a greyhound, a small monkey, and a splendid black horse, there appears an imposing girl—not pretty, but > built on generous lines, tall, with a fine bosom, an intensely lively countenance, and a wealth of rich brown hair under one of the most dashing hats her cousins (the numerous young Ombersleys) had ever seen . Her appearance reveals the girl’s character: impatient of rules, stubborn, capricious, and generous all at once, but above all > Sophy could not see anyone in trouble without instantly wishing to discover the cause, and, if possible, to set it right . This attitude cannot fail to bring her into conflict with Charles, by now accustomed to commanding. The girl causes a scandal (driving unchaperoned through London in a racing carriage!), flouts his directives, and openly challenges his betrothed, a sanctimonious busybody. Above all, however, Sophy schemes to make people happy, brushing aside the dictates and conventions of polite society. Yet, as so often happens, strong personalities relish encountering minds capable of defying them, and gradually Charles falls in love with Sophy. Could it be that the girl had been maneuvering from the very outset to conquer her sullen and difficult cousin? The plot is the novel’s greatest strength: unexpected twists, brisk dialogue, and Sophy’s subtle machinations coming to fruition in the teeth of adversity, malicious gossip, and the opposition of Miss Wraxton—virtually the only character who makes a pitiful attempt to thwart her. One senses that quintessential self-critical complacency of English culture, which views itself as rigid and conventional in contrast to Continental culture, imagined conversely as nonconformist and free. It is a trope reflected in the overly schematic portrait of Sophy—monotonously self-consistent, far too assured and mature for her years—and in the profiling of the other characters, so formal and predictable. Cecilia and Charles are the exceptions. The former asserts her complete independence—unprompted, in this instance, by her exuberant cousin—the moment she declares that she does not love Charlbury, but intends to marry the dreamy, handsome poet. Yet it will ultimately be Sophy who plays precisely upon the girl’s ingrained English values—her regard for propriety and respectability—to lead her back to desiring her original betrothed. Charles, on the other hand, represents the synthesis. While it is true that he is mindful of society’s rules and conventions, there resides within him that Elizabethan vigor that underpinned the British Empire. He is, after all, the hero, and one is left to wonder whether it will be he who changes Sophy, molding her into the noblewoman her rank naturally calls her to be. The scene in which Charles and Sophy declare their love is so thoroughly dominated by him that it raises the apprehension that Sophy’s future may simply be to yield to the conformism that surrounds her. Why read it? The plot is full of twists—somewhat predictable, perhaps, but thoroughly entertaining.