Cornflower Books

Dangerous Ages

   

    My first book from the British Library's Women Writers series (for which the excellent Simon is series consultant and writer of the Afterword) is Rose Macaulay's Dangerous Ages, a family study originally published in 1921.

    It covers four generations from Gerda in her early 20s to her great-grandmother, Grandmamma, 60 years older, taking in Gerda's mother, Neville, her aunt, Nan, and her grandmother Mrs. Hilary. The men of the family are dead or largely absent and need not concern the reader, but the women are an interesting bunch, each in her own way trying to reconcile her ideals with her reality, and make more of her future than she has done of her past.

    Of them all, Grandmamma is the most settled. She has led a fulfilling life and now eases into her last years, comfortable and content. Mrs. Hilary, widowed and in her early 60s, hovers over her long grown-up children, anxious for their wellbeing but all too willing to try to direct their lives. She is the least grounded of the five, bored and directionless, turning in the end to psychoanalysis not so much as a means to greater happiness but as a chance to talk about herself to a willing listener. Neville, now in her 40s, happily married to an MP but with little of significance to do, seeks to recommence the medical studies she gave up years earlier. Her sister Nan is ten years younger and toys with life, but there's a streak of bitter emptiness within her which recalls her mother, Mrs. Hilary, and her brittle nature is especially evident, if not to say poignant, when things don't go her own way. Gerda is serious and sure of herself, but she finds that even the clear-sightedness and confidence of youth aren't enough to tackle life head on and walk away unscathed.

    For all that it was written a hundred years ago, Dangerous Ages  - "all ages are dangerous to all people in this dangerous life we live" - is a timeless story, remarkably modern even. At its heart, this lively and enjoyable story of family dynamics is about self-realisation, frustration, and recognition, and the need to live wisely and well, not least to avoid the existential bankruptcy of the carelessly 'overspent'. It's a lesson to us all.

When life gets too fraught ...

... reach for pure romantic escapism.

    So says Dorothy Dunnett, born on this day in 1923 (and thanks to Alice for the reminder). No apologies for again posting this lovely interview by Jenny Brown which puts me in awe of Lady Dunnett's industry, her research skills, and of course her ability as writer and storyteller.

    Should you not know her work there's a short post on The Game of Kings, the first of the Lymond Chronicles, here, but Alice recommends the House of Niccolò series so to mark the writer's birthday I've ordered a copy of Niccolò Rising from Blackwell's.

    For more of the lady herself listen to her Desert Island Discs here.

To the bookshop

    Lovely to browse in a bookshop* again!

(If you follow the link to Topping & Co., do scroll down for some interesting recommendations.)

Overheard

    Two ladies (in a literary festival queue) discussing Jane Austen: "... pages of trivia; I gave up."

Revisiting

 

    I've been listening again to the back catalogue of The Slightly Foxed Podcast, which is always engaging and manages to be both stimulating and restful at the same time.   

      Episodes cover everything from a focus on a particular writer - for example George Mackay Brown, Margaret Drabble, Evelyn Waugh, and Tim Pears* - to more general discussions of reading resolutions, bookshops, travel writing and so on, but whatever the subject they are elegant, eloquent, and entertaining, and I recommend them wholeheartedly.

 

    *His outstanding West Country Trilogy is covered here, here, and here.

A garden

 

    "A garden gives you a protected physical space which helps your sense of mental space and it gives you quiet, so you can hear your own thoughts. The more you immerse yourself in working with your hands, the more free you are internally to sort feelings out and work them through. These days, I turn to gardening as a way of calming and decompressing my mind. Somehow, the jangle of competing thoughts inside my head clears and settles as the weed bucket fills up. Ideas that have been lying dormant come to the surface and thoughts that are barely formed sometimes come together and unexpectedly take shape. At times like these, it feels as if alongside all the physical activity, I am also gardening my mind."

    Sue Stuart-Smith, The Well Gardened Mind.

(Sue is a psychiatrist and psychotherapist, and wife of Tom Stuart-Smith.)