1936 Club: The Other Day by Dorothy Whipple

 

I love books written in the inter-war period; I love memoirs; and I love the middlebrow author Dorothy Whipple, so One Fine Day checks off so many boxes for me! It is the perfect read for Kaggsy and Simon's 1936 Club. 

Born in 1893, in Blackburn, Lancashire, Whipple was the eldest child of what would be eventually a large family of seven children. She seemed to have a mostly idyllic childhood, though there would be heartaches. Young Dorothy especially loved the countryside and was fascinated by stories and folktales from a young age. 

. . . the tales Kate told us got mixed up with the tales I told myself, so I could not sort them out, and walking over the wet roads between the low black stone walls and looking out to the far splendid hills with the cloud-shadows going over, I felt a deep satisfaction that the world should be so full of tales, of things that had happened and were happening. Anything seemed possible in those days, and I should not have been at all surprised if a great antediluvian beast had appeared among the browsing cows in the field, or if Mistress Nutter had overtaken us on a broomstick.

However, schools for girls in the early part of the century were spotty, and Dorothy had some pretty horrific school experiences -- a particularly nasty math teacher was constantly berating her, and at one point she's accused of plagiarizing a short story she'd written, which is so infuriating! (Obviously, her talent for writing began at a young age, since the teachers didn't believe a child could have written such a good story.

Finally her father decided to send her to a convent school, which he announced casually at the dinner table. 

It was at meals that we mostly saw him. Vital changes in our young lives have been announced to the accompaniment of knives and forks clattering on plates, the gurgle of water being poured from glasses, and requests for more bread from unconcerned parties. While being helped to vegetables one's dearest hopes would fall between dish and plate never to be recovered, or on the other hand, one would be raised to the seventh heaven of delight by some promise made while waiting for the pudding to come in.

The news of Dorothy's new school came as shock but she grew to love it, though it was difficult as a Protestant in a school run by a Belgian order of nuns, with nearly all Catholic classmates. Naturally there are some funny and embarrassing school anecdotes. 

A 1950 paperback edition cover

The book really only includes Dorothy's childhood, up to the age of twelve when the family moves permanently to the countryside. Of course Whipple was only in her forties when she wrote the memoir, but I would have loved to learn more about her coming-of-age and her life as a writer. Before The Other Day, Whipple had written four novels and a book short stories, which doesn't include some of her most popular works. 

I've been a Whipple fan since I read The Priory, one of my very first Persephones, and it's thanks to Persephone that I have a pretty big collection of of her work, nearly every book in print and out of print. Nearly all of them are reprinted by Persephone, but not this one, and I'm sorry to say that copies are scarce and quite spendy when they do come on the market. I did pay rather a lot for this one, though not nearly as much as I've seen recently. I really do hope Persephone or one of the other publishers reprints this little gem! 

And thanks again to Kaggsy and Simon for organizing the 1936 reading week, it's been so lovely reading about all the wonderful books published that year. 

Someone at a Distance by Dorothy Whipple

At last, Persephone Reading Weekend!  I knew I had to read at least one book this weekend by Dorothy Whipple.  After I read The Priory last December, I knew I wanted to read more of her books, and I got three for Christmas! When it came time to choose the next one I just decided to go with the one I'd bought first.  I know this isn't everyone's favorite Whipple, but I just loved it. I loved everything about it -- except the characters I hated, but I was supposed to hate them.

Essentially, this is a story about a marriage in 1950s Britain, and how it suddenly dissolves.  Avery and Ellen North are an upper-class couple living in the country outside London.  He's in publishing but has inherited wealth; she's a busy housewife who loves to garden, and they have two lovely children.  The oldest, Hugh, is doing compulsory military service before he goes off to university, and the younger, Anne is a horse-crazy teenager at boarding school.  On the surface, they seem like the ideal family.

However, Mr. North's widowed mother, who is wealthy and lives in a large estate, is dissatisfied.  No one's giving her enough attention, so she answers an advertisement from a young Frenchwoman, Louise, and hires her to come and stay as a sort of live-in companion and French tutor.  Louise is bored to death living in a provincial town, and angry at having been thrown over by her secret lover for a more socially advanced fiancee.  Staying with the Dowager North is her ticket out.  She is an interloper, and one thing leads to another, but in a really interesting way.

The beautiful endpapers from the dove-grey Persephone edition
(which, sadly, I do not own).

If you read Dorothy Whipple expecting a lot of plot or action, you will be disappointed, as they're extremely character-driven.  But somehow I never notice this.  Her characters are so beautifully realized that I get sucked in to their world and I want to know more about them.  Even though not much happens on the surface, this book raises a lot of questions about marriages and family dynamics, and what motivates people to do the things they do.  Whipple is really good at getting into characters and letting the reader in on what makes them tick.  They're really dimensional -- when she's writing about the characters you're meant to dislike, she is somehow still able to make them somewhat sympathetic.

My one complaint about this book was that so much time was spent setting up the story and developing the characters, the ending seemed a little rushed in comparison.  After two Whipples, I'm beginning to suspect endings might not be her strong point; in retrospect, I realized The Priory had the same problem.  I did like that it was somewhat ambivalent, and not a completely Hollywood happy ending.  It left open the possibility that the characters might be happy, someday.

I really wish my library had this book and that there were enough copies that I could recommend it for a book group, because I think it would be great for a discussion.  This is a book that I will probably buy and give as gifts to other people, simply so I can discuss it with someone else.  My mother is coming to visit in a couple of weeks and I'm quite sure I will be forcing this on her so we can discuss it -- hopefully before she leaves!  If we do, I'll post her thoughts as well. Mom, if you're reading this, prepare for a guest posting.

This is one of the ten Persephone Classics that are available in here in the U.S.  You might not be able to walk into Barnes & Noble and find it on the shelf, but you can order it online without too much trouble.

P.S. I'll be writing about Persephones all weekend, and don't forget about my dove-grey giveaway in the previous post!  I'm planning another giveaway this weekend as well, so please check back.