Cousin Rosamund

Cousin Rosamund is the third novel in West's trilogy. Written against failing health, it is perhaps not as polished as the first two but I have to say that I really enjoyed re-reading it.

Rose and Mary are now wealthy and acclaimed concert pianists with an international schedule. Rosamund appalls the Aubrey twins by marrying (apparently) for money. Rose marries the musician Oliver Wood. Kate, now elderly, still works as a housekeeper for the two sisters wearing a long dark dress with a cameo brooch at her neck which delights Mr Morpurgo who thinks she resembles a character from a Bronte novel.

West's inimitable style is both literary and feminine. She describes the rise of the fashion house of Chanel, the perfumes of the day, Patou and Vigny's Golliwog, the flowers and boxes of marrons glace presented to the Aubrey sisters after each concert and sets this against the aftermath of the first world war, the loss of thousands of young men and the ability of musicians to sense impending tragedy through their art.

I wish there were more of Cordelia in this novel. She surfaces with her husband occasionally at parties and manages to irritate both of her sisters but there are none of the spectacular rows of the first two novels or the the comedy arising from Cordelia's inability to play the violin.

Sadly we will never know the reasons for Rosamund's bizarre marriage as West died before the trilogy - or possibly quatrain - was complete although she did leave a synopsis. Perhaps it is best that we are left wanting more of this wonderful story.

Virago Modern Classics 2011

Sorry for late replies to comments on my last post but my computer - which was held together by little more than elastic bands and string - finally called it a day last month. As I've said before to me the internet is all about communication and to interact with other readers via comments is one of the greatest pleasures of book blogging. After re-reading the Rebecca West trilogy I found it difficult to settle down to reading anything else. Started The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins for book club but I prefer to read Victorian novels in the winter. Started The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende, but within a few pages I knew it wasn't for me.

It was therefore very timely of Virago to re-issue five modern classics in hardback for the summer. Even better that they included Elizabeth Jenkins The Tortoise and the Hare which I've wanted to read ever since it was reviewed by Roses Over a Cottage Door, A few of my favourite books (now Lavender Tisane) Books and Chocolate and A Book Sanctuary

I loved this book. Although it is a sad story - beautiful woman who lives to please her wealthy husband cannot believe he is cheating on her with a dowdy spinster much older than herself - the writing and detail are beautiful with echoes of Jane Austen. There is also an excellent introduction by Hilary Mantel and an illuminating afterword by Carmen Callil. The cover design is Japanese Floral by Florence Broadhurst. A perfect summer read.

This Real Night

Rosamund was sitting up, resting on one hand, and looking round her. 'Forgive me if I go on about blue flowers, she was saying. 'I do so love them. Where was it, that place you went and stayed, where there was an old house high above the sea, and there was a flower bed built up on the edge of the cliff, so that you looked at blue flowers rising to blue sea, and above that there was blue sky? Somewhere in the West Country?' Rebecca West, This Real Night

This Real Night is the second novel in Rebecca West's trilogy. It is also a perfect novel in its own right. In fact, I think it is darker and more powerful than The Fountain Overflows.

This Real Night moves from the end of the Edwardian era to the outbreak of the Great War. Rose and Mary are getting public engagements as concert pianists, establishing a name for themselves as musicians and earning money. Cordelia is as obnoxious as ever and after flirting with the idea of becoming an art historian - which requires another expensive course - she gets married. Rosamund is nursing and Richard Quin enlists as a soldier. The wonderful Mrs Aubrey is now in decline and characters familiar from The Fountain Overflows resurface. Mr Morpurgo provides financial support, Kate is the loyal servant with a gift for clairvoyance, Nancy Philips pays a visit and Aunt Lily continues to dress in a way which causes small boys to point at her in the street.

I won't give the ending away but keep a tissue handy!

The Fountain Overflows

Rebecca West is remembered for many things - the novel Return of the Soldier written when she was just 26, an early career as a radical young journalist and suffragette, her affair with HG Wells and her extensive writing and travelling. Curiously, she is rarely remembered for the terrific novel she wrote in later life The Fountain Overflows which reflects upon an Edwardian childhood and the events leading up to the Great War.

Thank goodness for Virago Modern Classics who have re-issued West's finest novel with a cover appropriate to the story. Rose Aubrey is as charming a young narrator as Cassandra Mortmain in I Capture the Castle. Rose and her twin, Mary, are talented pianists who are taught at home by their mother a former concert pianist. Although the family live in abject poverty their mother knows their art will earn them a living one day. There is also a beautiful and tortured older sister, Cordelia, who cannot accept that she is not and never will be musical, a brilliant but largely absent father and a delightful little brother, Richard Quin.

West created a whole trilogy around the artistic, bohemian and female-centred Aubrey family. I'm hoping for good weather so that I can sit in the garden over the summer to re-read it.

The Summer without Men

I'm a sucker for any book that says 'By turns, funny, moving and erudite, playfully reminding us of a contemporary Jane Austen' on the cover. Does Siri Husvedt's writing remind us of a contemporary Jane Austen? I'd say not. Austen's genius was very rare. Did I like this book? Well yes, with some reservations.

It's a depressingly familiar story. Husband leaves ageing wife for younger colleague. Wife goes briefly crazy and then takes herself off for the summer to teach poetry to teenagers and visit her elderly mother. Mia engages with the adolescent girls she teaches, her mother's sparky elderly friends and a young woman with a family and troublesome husband who live next door.

There are lots of literary diversions - discourses on the nature of mental illness, directly addressing the reader a la Charlotte Bronte and experiments with the narrative. I really liked the creative writing class and I thought the novel was excellent on newly teenage girls and the bullying, competitiveness and vulnerability of that age group.

Three contemporary novels in a row. Now I really am ready to go back to my beloved vintage literature.

Summer reading

I remember listening to an archive Radio 4 interview with the writer Storm Jameson. I can't quote her words exactly but she said the while many intelligent, articulate and perceptive people can write a good book it is not the same as writing a great book.

This is how I felt about Every Last One by Anna Quindlen. Good but not great. It starts off as a portrayal of family life. Middle-aged mother Mary Beth Latham runs her own gardening business. Three teenage children, reliable husband, nice house in New England and comfortable finances. Quindlen is good on the conflicts between work and motherhood and the difficulties of maintaining a relationship with teenagers.

About half way through the novel there is a completely unexpected event which this reader certainly did not anticipate. Again Quindlen is very good at writing about the fractured nature of a crisis and the grief, guilt, gossip and small-town claustrophobia that follows. I think it was the continuous present tense that irked me - 'I'm sitting on the screened porch, I'm at the garden centre, I pull into the driveway ...' That said, I would read more Quindlen.

Having read two contemporary novels in a row I now need some Austen. Mansfield Park is on my mind ...

Beach Read

Last week we had a family holiday in beautiful Polperro, Cornwall. I took Barbara Trapido's Sex and Stravinsky after a good review in The Sunday Times caught my eye.

Loosely based on the ballet Pulcinella it is a story of family life with lost identities, coincidences and lovers re-united. I did enjoy it. I particularly liked ballet-mad Zoe who desperately wants to dance, begs her mother for lessons and devours ballet stories for girls. I also liked her mother, Caroline, a remarkably resourceful woman who makes a little money stretch a long way. Caroline's complete personality change after discovering a secret her own mother had kept from her was a little far-fetched but it kept me turning the pages. There is also the fascinating backstory of Josh and Ida Silver, humanists and activists in South Africa and parents of Zoe's father, Josh.

If you are looking for a superior holiday read, you may like this.