Reading Wednesday 27/05
May. 27th, 2020 09:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livSo I'm basically not really reading fiction during lockdown. That's partly because there is no travel time, and partly because I am a bit nervous of reading anything poignant or otherwise emotionally intense. However, I reckoned rereading a Rose Macaulay was probably safe, and also I am getting exercise by spending half an hour on a stepper machine and I can just about read while I do that (unlike running on a treadmill, which is just too bouncy).
Recently read: The world my wilderness by Rose Macaulay. (c) The estate of Rose Macaulay 1958; Pub Virago 1983; ISBN 0-86068-340-0.
The world my wilderness is a moving portrait of a traumatized young woman finding a place in the immediate post-WW2 world.
Firstly, you should readmrissa's review because she explains much better than I can what is awesome about this book. Secondly, it is really time-specific; Macaulay wrote it in 1950 so I'm not sure why it ended up with a later copyright date. And it's specifically about the second half of the 1940s, which is something I've hardly ever seen treated in fiction, but without any hindsight at all, without any knowledge of how things will turn out.
It's almost purely a character piece. It would have been obvious to write about teenaged kids hanging out with the French resistance and getting into trouble with the occupying Nazis and their comrades killing their stepfather as a collaborator. But it's not about that, it's about how Barbary tries to re-adapt to normal life after the war. It does probably need a content warning for Nazis, torture and rape, but these things are mentioned only in passing. Which I think is a really fascinating choice; tWmW doesn't dwell on misery porn, nor does it portray Barbary as a Trauma Victim as if that were the only defining thing about her. She has what seems to me like a realistic level of mental health problems which are real and significant, not just adorably quirky; she's damaged, but she's not completely destroyed.
None of the characters are very sympathetic but none of them are awful people. (The Nazis are awful, but they don't get any viewpoint or page time.) Basically the adults in Barbary's life make their best attempt to parent her, but they know nothing at all about trauma, and even their best ideas of how to raise a teenaged girl aren't that great, by modern standards. And it's interesting that, for a book written in 1950, there are multiple parental figures. A divorced and remarried birth father, a remarried mother who also has a series of lovers who are more or less part of her children's lives. Barbary is prickly and acts out, and also finds a certain amount of happiness in her painting, and her bond with her not very traditionally maternal mother. You can see glimpses of how Barbary will eventually rebuild herself and find her own path, but no glimpses of what will happen to France or England, since Macaulay was familiar with people recovering from trauma but couldn't predict the societal-level consequences of WW2.
I don't really like the twist ending. It feels soap-opera-ish and I wish Macaulay had come up with some other way to close the British episode of Barbary's life.
Up next: I am sort of hoping to read either some more Murderbot (I've only read the first novella), or A memory called empire by Arkady Martine. I'm a bit blocked on being able to get them in a non-Amazon format, which is probably not actually a hard problem but given everything else that's going on it's enough to stop me from getting started on my next thing.
Recently read: The world my wilderness by Rose Macaulay. (c) The estate of Rose Macaulay 1958; Pub Virago 1983; ISBN 0-86068-340-0.
The world my wilderness is a moving portrait of a traumatized young woman finding a place in the immediate post-WW2 world.
Firstly, you should read
mrissa's review because she explains much better than I can what is awesome about this book. Secondly, it is really time-specific; Macaulay wrote it in 1950 so I'm not sure why it ended up with a later copyright date. And it's specifically about the second half of the 1940s, which is something I've hardly ever seen treated in fiction, but without any hindsight at all, without any knowledge of how things will turn out. It's almost purely a character piece. It would have been obvious to write about teenaged kids hanging out with the French resistance and getting into trouble with the occupying Nazis and their comrades killing their stepfather as a collaborator. But it's not about that, it's about how Barbary tries to re-adapt to normal life after the war. It does probably need a content warning for Nazis, torture and rape, but these things are mentioned only in passing. Which I think is a really fascinating choice; tWmW doesn't dwell on misery porn, nor does it portray Barbary as a Trauma Victim as if that were the only defining thing about her. She has what seems to me like a realistic level of mental health problems which are real and significant, not just adorably quirky; she's damaged, but she's not completely destroyed.
None of the characters are very sympathetic but none of them are awful people. (The Nazis are awful, but they don't get any viewpoint or page time.) Basically the adults in Barbary's life make their best attempt to parent her, but they know nothing at all about trauma, and even their best ideas of how to raise a teenaged girl aren't that great, by modern standards. And it's interesting that, for a book written in 1950, there are multiple parental figures. A divorced and remarried birth father, a remarried mother who also has a series of lovers who are more or less part of her children's lives. Barbary is prickly and acts out, and also finds a certain amount of happiness in her painting, and her bond with her not very traditionally maternal mother. You can see glimpses of how Barbary will eventually rebuild herself and find her own path, but no glimpses of what will happen to France or England, since Macaulay was familiar with people recovering from trauma but couldn't predict the societal-level consequences of WW2.
I don't really like the twist ending. It feels soap-opera-ish and I wish Macaulay had come up with some other way to close the British episode of Barbary's life.
Up next: I am sort of hoping to read either some more Murderbot (I've only read the first novella), or A memory called empire by Arkady Martine. I'm a bit blocked on being able to get them in a non-Amazon format, which is probably not actually a hard problem but given everything else that's going on it's enough to stop me from getting started on my next thing.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-05-27 10:03 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-05-28 04:48 am (UTC)(Although I do get a lot of my books from Amazon, this particular copy came from Forbidden Planet in the Before Times when C and I would go shop there after ice-skating lessons.)
(no subject)
Date: 2020-05-29 04:13 pm (UTC)FAOD I am not normally bothered by borrowing books that other people have bought from Amazon, I'm not boycotting them intensely, I'm just trying to prefer other retailers given the choice. I just hadn't considered borrowing as an option.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-05-28 12:06 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-05-29 04:11 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-05-28 12:57 pm (UTC)And yes, a lot of her endings are...
Well, I just end up wanting to use the time machine to kidnap her to a better place, because there is so much of "I CANNOT SEE MY WAY OUT OF HERE" that I just...oh, Rose. Rose, it's just over the hill. Keep going, Rose darling.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-05-28 01:14 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-05-28 01:20 pm (UTC)Rose Macaulay and anti-Semitism
Date: 2021-01-04 09:59 pm (UTC)Southernwood
Multiple Parental Figures
Date: 2021-01-04 09:40 pm (UTC)I wonder whether Rose Macaulay's introduction of multiple parental figures draws on her own personal experience. You will remember that she had an intense affair with Gerald O'Donovan from 1918 until his death in 1942. He was a former Irish Catholic priest, who had married and moved to London. For their whole time together, Gerald O'Donovan continued to live with his wife and their 3 children. (The youngest child of the marriage may have been born after Rose Macaulay started her relationship with him.)