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A bouquet of Rose Macaulay
Aug. 22nd, 2022 07:01 pmThis post has been in progress for longer than you would think possible: as you can tell by the fact that it's about holiday reading. After a rather eccentric start to my holiday reading, I moved on to a more conventional selection. First a piece of detective fiction purchased locally (from the excellent Stromness Bookshop), Laurie R. King's Riviera Gold, pure fun and holiday sunshine. And then what I wanted to write about here, a binge-read of goodies stashed on my Kindle, two novels by Rose Macaulay Dangerous Ages and The Furnace. That brought me home, but I wasn't quite ready to stop, so I picked a favourite, The World My Wilderness, off the shelf, and read that.
By chance, this selection spanned Macaulay's long career: The Furnace, published in 1907, was her second novel (after Abbots Verney) and The World My Wilderness, published in 1950, was last but one (followed only by Towers of Trebizond in 1956).
( Dangerous Ages )
I could go on talking about Dangerous Ages - but that's how I got bogged down in this post-in-perpetual-progress. Instead, I'll try to say rather less about the other two books ...
( The Furnace )
That wasn't noticeably briefer - it suffers from an overload of thinking aloud, I think. I should be on solider ground with The World My Wilderness, an old favourite, about which I could say many things, but can, thank goodness, prioritise just three that I want to talk about today. Edited, though, to add in the light of the small-hours-of-the-morning thought, that there are some fairly dark things lurking in the background of this story. I haven't talked about them because those are not what I wanted to talk about on this occasion, not only because I don't want to tackle head-on what Macaulay writes about obliquely - but if you would rather not read about traumatised adolescents, or about occupied France, the resistance and its aftermath, proceed with caution.
( Three things about 'The World My Wilderness' )
PS: We went to the market on Thursday - I persist in thinking of the third Thursday of the month as 'Farmers' Market', but that's really not the case. Among he scattering of outdoor stalls, though, was Cordelia the bookshop van. Collected books sell books by women authors, and I bought a copy of Rose Macaulay's Keeping up Appearances. The bookseller asked whether I had read many titles in this series (the British Library Women Writers series)? No, I said, but I had read quite a lot of Rose Macaulay...
By chance, this selection spanned Macaulay's long career: The Furnace, published in 1907, was her second novel (after Abbots Verney) and The World My Wilderness, published in 1950, was last but one (followed only by Towers of Trebizond in 1956).
( Dangerous Ages )
I could go on talking about Dangerous Ages - but that's how I got bogged down in this post-in-perpetual-progress. Instead, I'll try to say rather less about the other two books ...
( The Furnace )
That wasn't noticeably briefer - it suffers from an overload of thinking aloud, I think. I should be on solider ground with The World My Wilderness, an old favourite, about which I could say many things, but can, thank goodness, prioritise just three that I want to talk about today. Edited, though, to add in the light of the small-hours-of-the-morning thought, that there are some fairly dark things lurking in the background of this story. I haven't talked about them because those are not what I wanted to talk about on this occasion, not only because I don't want to tackle head-on what Macaulay writes about obliquely - but if you would rather not read about traumatised adolescents, or about occupied France, the resistance and its aftermath, proceed with caution.
( Three things about 'The World My Wilderness' )
PS: We went to the market on Thursday - I persist in thinking of the third Thursday of the month as 'Farmers' Market', but that's really not the case. Among he scattering of outdoor stalls, though, was Cordelia the bookshop van. Collected books sell books by women authors, and I bought a copy of Rose Macaulay's Keeping up Appearances. The bookseller asked whether I had read many titles in this series (the British Library Women Writers series)? No, I said, but I had read quite a lot of Rose Macaulay...
