"A subtle and beautiful book .... Very few authors combine her acute psychological insight with her grace and style. There is plenty of life in the modern novel, plenty of authors who will shock, amuse, amaze you - but who will put on the page a beautiful sentence, a sentence you will want to read twice?"
So writes Hilary Mantel of Elizabeth Jenkins' 1954 novel The Tortoise and the Hare and it was that comment together with Amanda Craig's review
It is the portrait of a marriage and of a particular period and social milieu, but done with "descriptive grace and narrative pulse, dry humour and moral discrimination, tempered elegance and emotional force" - Hilary Mantel again. The poised and beautiful Imogen is married to Evelyn Gresham, a successful barrister, but her place in his affections is under threat due to their neighbour Blanche Silcox, middle-aged, ungainly, competent countrywoman - the very opposite of the soignée wife. What will be the outcome?
For those unfamiliar with Elizabeth Jenkins, this article makes interesting reading. The book is currently available in a recent Virago edition, and my checks suggest that libraries may have that or an older version. Both Amazon US and UK stock it, as does The Book Depository (with free delivery worldwide).
Next Saturday (the 29th. ) we shall be talking about The Nice and the Good, but let's come back to discuss The Tortoise and the Hare on Saturday, 26th. September. I hope we'll have a large turnout!
