More Olivia Manning

Somebody seems to be donating all their Olivia Manning Virago Modern Classics to my local second hand bookshop. Keep them coming please! After the completion of The Balkan Trilogy Manning wanted to write a contemporary novel which captured the spirit of the 1960's. The Play Room was published in 1969. The cover shows the painting Daisy Fairy by Peter Blake.

Fifteen-year old Laura is bullied at school, deeply insecure about the way she looks and worships her classmate, the beautiful Vicky. When Vicky's best friend Gilda goes abroad for the summer Laura becomes close to Vicky and the two of them spend Saturday nights at the local disco where they enjoy their power to attract local men until Vicky takes things too far.

I do like coming-of-age stories and Manning has drawn on her own adolescent experiences to create a convincing portrayal of teen angst. There are some disturbing sexual elements to this story but it is sometimes good to read outside of your comfort zone. I like this extract, where Laura goes shopping for clothes with her mother:

They went on a Thursday to a South Camperlea chain store where dresses of metallic brilliance hung on a line marked 'STRAIGHT FROM CARNABY STREET', Laura went behind a screen and came out wearing a shift made of polyvinylchloride treated to look like gold. It had trimmings of yellow, purple and pink, and it looked to Mrs Fletcher like a cruel joke played on youth.

The Balkan Trilogy

Harriet and Guy Pringle are a newly-married young couple living in Rumania in the late 1930's. Guy is an English lecturer at the local university. Left-wing, idealistic and tolerant, he exasperates Harriet who begins to realise she comes quite low on his list of priorities. There is also the added irritation of Sophie, a young Rumanian girl who had hoped to marry Guy and can't abide Harriet.

Based on Manning's own experiences in Rumania this novel contains a lot of political, historical and geographical detail about the events leading up to the second world war and Hitler's advance across Europe, but the story of Harriet and Guy is always foregrounded. Memorable episodes in the trilogy include Guy's university production of Troilus and Cressida, the exploits of the debt-ridden bon viveur Yakimov and the English friends sitting around a table in an outdoor cafe listening to Churchill's 'never surrender' speech on the radio.

At just over 1,030 pages, reading this book is quite an undertaking but I very much enjoyed it. Of course, I now want to read a biography of Olivia Manning.

The luxury of time to read

When you work long hours you appreciate time to read for the luxury it is.

Reading Curtis Sittenfeld's American Wife a couple of weeks ago I completely identified with this phrase.

Monday to Thursday I can do little more than a couple of pages early in the morning and a chapter or two late at night. I don't work on a Friday and I have been known to see my girls off to school and then *blush* go back to bed with a book and read for a good three or four hours.

I've been deeply engrossed in Olivia Manning's excellent The Balkan Trilogy all weekend.

Reading plans

I have to say that American Wife is one of the best contemporary novels I've ever read. I just couldn't put it down. It examines how a woman, married to a powerful man, retains as sense of her own identity. It follows the life of Alice Lindgren from teenager to mature woman. I really liked the part of the book which was set in the 70's. Sittenfeld portrays the fashions, popular books and spirit of the decade without you ever getting the sense that it has been over-researched (one of my pet hates in novels). I also liked the fact that Alice resembles Sabrina from Charlie's Angels! Obviously this is a fictionalised account of the life of Laura Bush and that has caused some controversy, but it's a great book.

I now want to read another weighty and substantial novel, so I'm going to tackle Olivia Manning's The Balkan Trilogy. Wish me luck!

Olivia Manning

It's always good to discover a pristine Virago in a second-hand book store. I'm unfamiliar with the work of Olivia Manning although I know she wrote The Balkan Trilogy which became the BBC series The Fortunes of War.

The Wind Changes is set in the troubled Dublin of 1921. Elizabeth, a young artist has a sexual relationship with a cold-hearted English writer, Arion and then begins a relationship with the equally indifferent political activist, Sean. This girl doesn't learn! This is a thoughtful and reflective book and Manning's writing is beautifully descriptive of nature and the sea:

All the houses there faced the sea. It would have been funny to have lived in one that did not. It would have been like sitting with your back to the driver in a bus. In the winter the spray was flung over the roofs and flooded the back gardens. Her cousins used to roll their trousers up to their knees and bale the yard with buckets. The salt killed nearly all the plants. Only the aconite lived through the winter and in the spring its leaves would glitter with salt as thick as hoar frost.