Three Thirkell Novels

By -
Lovely new issues!
The Demon in the House
Growing Up
Pomfret Towers, by Angela Thirkell

At the beginning of the summer, I read Summer Half and just had so much fun with it; it was ages since I'd read any Thirkell, and lots of bloggers seemed to be reading her, which put me in the mood.  I told a friend about it and lent her Pomfret Towers, and then I checked a couple more out of the library -- two titles I've enjoyed but do not own.  On the trip to Utah, I found out that Thirkell was just right for fitting into the corners of the days, and since my friend (also my Utah hostess) was done with the one I'd lent her, I had two to read.  All of which is to say that I've had kind of a Thirkelly summer and it's been lovely.

The Demon in the House is a bit unusual, because it's about Tony Morland, who is a little boy of twelve.  He is the youngest son of Mrs. Morland, a popular recurring Barsetshire character and a novelist who writes spy thrillers set in a fashionable dressmakers' establishment.  Tony wreaks havoc wherever he goes, and he is a wonderful portrait of thoughtless, selfish, completely lovable boyness.

Growing Up is a favorite of mine, so I need a copy of my own!  It's set in 1942, and the Lydia who was an Amazon-esque teenager is now a young married woman, considerably more civilized but still the same Lydia.  She and her officer husband (whose romance is told in an earlier novel I cannot name) are boarding with Sir Harry and Lady Waring, who are living cosily in their old servants' quarters while most of the manor house is let to a government outfit.  They are also hosting their niece Leslie, who has overworked herself and then gotten torpedoed, and who needs some recovery time.  A really enjoyable novel.

What does this even mean??
Pomfret Towers is set much earlier, in about 1938.  Alice Barton, delicate and debilitatingly shy, is invited to a country house weekend with Lord and Lady Pomfret, and she would rather die than go, but go she must.  Luckily an older girl takes her under her wing, and Alice learns to deal with society and falls romantically in love with a brooding artist while everybody else has their adventures too.  This one is another favorite of mine, which is why I recommended it to my friend.  Despite the really astoundingly hideous cover on my 80s paperback.  Get the new edition, is my advice!


Comments

  1. Amy MarieAugust 16, 2018 at 6:59 AM

    Thanks for the heads up! I've only read one Thirkell and I enjoyed it...I think it was called The Headmistress.

    ReplyDelete
  2. BronaAugust 20, 2018 at 5:04 AM

    I’m getting excited about the Thirkell journey still ahead of me. I’ve acquired 3 more since reading my first 2 months ago. Although of course, I’m now trying to go back & read in chronological order!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Joy Weese MollAugust 23, 2018 at 2:26 PM

    That does sound like a delightful way to enjoy the summer!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

I'd love to know what you think, so please comment!

Popular posts from this blog

The Four Ages of Poetry

By -
Image
  "The Four Ages of Poetry," by Thomas Love Peacock I am becoming fond of Thomas Love Peacock.  Besides his unbeatable name, he was a lot of fun.  Peacock was a minor literary figure of the early 19th century; he tried his hand at poetry but mainly succeeded in satire.  I read his short novel Nightmare Abbey last year, but at the time I didn't know that the young hero of the story, Scythrop, was modeled on Peacock's good friend Percy Shelley.  He and Shelley were quite close and Peacock was the executor of Shelley's will. Thomas Love Peacock Percy Bysshe Shelley "The Four Ages of Poetry," a tongue-in-cheek essay on the history and development of poetry, was published in 1820 in a new magazine called Literary Miscellany , which promptly died.  It would probably have been completely obscure and unknown--it nearly is anyway--but for Shelley.  Peacock sent a copy to his friend, who I guess didn't really have much of a sense of
Read more

A few short stories in Urdu

By -
Image
 Back in August, I got hold of a book of Urdu short stories translated into English.  It's a large book, so I wanted to read just the women authors for WIT, and that would still be a good amount.  August got away from me, and I only read one or two stories back then, but I've continued reading them since.  I've now finished all the short stories in the book that were written by women (luckily for me, there are short biographies in an appendix, since I could only tell from the name about half the time).  I'll just highlight a couple: "The Wagon," by Khalida Asghar, is a hallucinatory, apocalyptic story.  The narrator meets three strange men who are watching the evening sky and point out that it has become red.  No one had noticed until they said so, but the sky is now strangely red.  Then a smell arrives, so offensive and sickening that it causes real pain -- but only once it's pointed out.  And finally, a mysterious wagon, which may be the source of the s
Read more

Faerie Queen Readalong I: Redcrosse, the Knight of Holiness

By -
Image
I did it, I read all of Book I!  My minimum requirement was two cantos a day, but I managed three a couple of times.  I'm hoping to read ahead, because I'll be gone for two weeks in the middle of this event and I'd like to be able to prep a post ahead of time...but the schedule is already pretty demanding.  The reading is not terribly difficult, but it is slow.  I keep thinking that I've read a large chunk, only to look back and realize that in fact I have read six verses.  So here we go with analysis... Each book in the Faerie Queene features a knight, and a story, about a particular virtue.  The Redcrosse Knight, to be known as St. George after he accomplishes his feats, is all about Holinesse .  This does not mean that Redcrosse already exemplifies holiness; he doesn't.  Holiness is what he's working towards and struggling with.  His foes symbolize various forms of unholiness, and he falls into their clutches at least as often as he defeats or avoids th
Read more