The writing voice is clear and distinctive as a bell from the very start, a stream of consciousness which runs through the novel which is set within the space of a single day, very much in the Mrs Dalloway style. The protagonist, our first-person narrator from New England, has just lost her beloved mother, and the family house had been put up for sale. The protagonist has decided to bring herself to London for a break, where she had only a few years before visited with her mother.
The novel is full of flashbacks, of twists and turns of explanations, of the inner alleys and byways within the narrator’s mind, and the meander for a reader is charming, nuanced, well paced even if not a lot is actually happening except for a day wandering through the main sites in London – St Paul’s, the London Eye, the Millennium Bridge, etc. London is observed through her American eyes –
“[…] I also believed, like any American, that Fahrenheit was superior. Beautiful, even. There’s not enough room in Celsius for beauty” (p96)
– with appreciation and interest, but mostly serving as a pleasing backdrop to her own ruminations.
The narrator may be physically in London, but her thoughts are very much with her family, particularly with her mother. She is clearly descended from a remarkable line of high achieving women. Her grandmother, for example, was the first woman to graduate from Benjamin Harrison Law School in the class of 1927,
president of her sisterhood, travelled as a public speaker, needlepointed, knit, took photographs and developed them, was a small-business consultant, silk-screened table clothes, once build a table…” (p44).
She had a doctorate and was an academic in Boston University (both parents were, and both were avid readers and collectors of books and antiques). The narrator is clearly in awe of her mother,
“If it had been a stranger in the bed, I might have guessed at them. But my mother’s thoughts were her own and I didn’t dare try” (p62).
However, although the narrator holds her mother in great awe, she also is clearly deeply attached to her mother. They were loving even if not demonstrative, but it is clear the narrator’s mother has her in some kind of thrall. This book – although the narrator mentions she has been married, has had children, and also that her father was quite a character in his own right – is almost exclusively dedicated to celebrating her mother, who is centre staged, literally, the hero of the book.
The writing voice is nuanced, whimsical at times, thoughtful always. The narrator is in her early 60s at this stage, a writer by trade, private but not shy, and extremely contentious when she feels misunderstood.
“I am unable to render my own character in words, having no idea what my character is, beyond certain bad habits. My understanding of my own soul is preliterate. Wife, daughter, mother, friend, some people write in their social-media biographies. Why on earth? Applying any words to who I am feels like a straight pin aimed at my insect self. I won’t have it. I can’t do it” (p37).
There are quite a few places in the narrative where she plays with words and concepts, for example,
“I am dogged; you are stubborn; she is pigheaded” (p21); I am a purist; you are unimaginative; he is an old stick-in-the-mud” (p132).
It is not the sort of novel that goes anywhere, or gets anywhere. It is the sort of novel where you share the narrator’s mindspace, enjoy her unique personality, share her memories and salient life experiences (a chosen few), and relish her particular take on things. It is more about the language and the telling, the meander of the mind, rather than a plot which develops from point A to B. But the writing is so strong and so original that it pulls this off very well, making this an entrancing read from page 1 all the way through. The characters described – all part of the narrator’s life – are all extremely privileged people in privileged spaces, and seem to have led privileged lives, but are not less interesting for all that. There is a bit of navel-gazing/self-reflection going on, but to an acceptable degree; it never gets so introspective it loses touch with reality. It is just a very particular space being occupied by the narrator in her society and in her times, which is no less pertinent or real for being privileged and particular.
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