Mariana by Monica Dickens is a 'curl up on the sofa with a warm fuzzy blanket and a hot cup of cocoa sort of book'. It is the sort of book that you finish and feel happy and contented having read. Granted the last couple of days here have been hot and sunny, so no blanket or cocoa were required, but you get my meaning. It is the sort of comfort read I love to come back to again and again.
Mariana was Monica Dickens's second novel written when she was only twenty-four, and it is based on "her childhood and growing up". It begins with Mary (Mariana is actually the title of a poem by Tennyson, which Mary has the "pleasure" of reciting in drama school) staying in the countryside in a lonely cottage with just her dog, Bingo. Set during WWII, her husband is away fighting in the War. She tunes into the wireless only to discover the British destroyer her husband was on was sunk, and she has no idea whether he has survived. The story then flashes back to her childhood and adolescence. Beginning somewhere around age eleven we follow Mary to the countryside to her family's country home, Charbury, where she spends idyllic summers, and onwards to school, drama school and later to Paris where she learns to be a dressmaker.
It says in the introduction that critics were dismissive of the book due to its subject matter--"crushes, horses, school, raffish uncles, frocks, inconsequential jobs, love affairs." Personally this is what drew me to the book in the first place. Is it bad to want to read a book like this? It is like reading about a slice of life that no longer exists. I thought it quite charming and nostalgic. Mariana has been compared to Dusty Answer by Rosamond Lehmann, Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier, Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford, and I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith--the latter three I have read (and loved) and wouldn't mind rereading, and the first I have and am looking forward to reading. And yes, I would like to read more of Monica Dickens's work.
You have probably already guessed that Monica was Charles Dickens's granddaughter. He was not the only author in the family. Monica's first book One Pair of Hands was based on her experiences as a cook-general in wealthy British households in the 1930s. She went on to write something like 30 books, and was outsold only by Daphne Du Maurier at the time. It is curious that she started out as a debutante and was presented at court, but later ended up in a variety of professions--probably not entirely suited to her family's situation and station in life. Can you imagine what they must have thought? In any case, I am pleased she wrote about her experiences, because they are a delight to read.
This is my second Persephone Books selection. Earlier this year I read Marghanita Laski's very creepy The Victorian Chaise Longue. And while I am itching to choose another title from my growing collection of Persephones, I am going to try and resist and finish one of my other books first. We'll see how long I can hold out.