I've just finished Margaret Forster's Diary of an Ordinary Woman. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about it. My emotions tended to run hot and cold while reading it. I really wanted to love it, but in the end I guess the most I can say is that I did like it very much with a few reservations. The novel is written in diary format by an "ordinary woman" born in 1901, whose life spans the 20th century. Millicent King is petulant as a child, and could be quite contrary as an adult. At times I thought her cold and prickly and other times I admired her. I suppose I felt a bit that she was more an observer of events (though at times she took little notice or interest in what was happening in the greater world) rather than a willing participant, but perhaps that's not entirely fair or accurate.
The story is a bit tricky as the reader is led to believe that Forster actually did base her story on an actual woman's diaries. Apparently the author had been promised a look at a British woman's diaries written during this same period, but in the end her family objected, so it never came to pass. She was so disappointed and taken with the idea of telling this story, she wrote a fictional account instead. There were meant to be armloads of journals that Millicent King wrote over the course of her long life, which she gave to Forster, and Forster pulled out the interesting bits and published them, with interjections and commentary on what had been left out.
What the reader is presented with is a snapshot, or really a series of snapshots of the 20th century as lived by one woman. Millicent is born into a fairly well-off, middle class British family. She's a bright young woman who's constricted by the attitudes of the times and two world wars from doing what she really wanted to do, though it's never entirely clear what her dreams were (one of my reservations, or I should maybe call them irritations). Perhaps had she been able to attend university, which was her expectation, her life would have turned out differently. Instead she has to mold herself to fit the times and do what she can to get by and map out a life for herself. Still, she's not entirely the prim and proper Edwardian young woman. She has her moments of feistiness, doing the unexpected.
I hate to give away any details of her life as that's the pleasure of this book, seeing how Millicent's life unfolds and how she reacts to the times. I did find myself irritated occasionally with Millicent's response to what was happening around her. I also at times found the author's interjections somewhat intrusive in the text, but I suppose they were necessary to fill in gaps. On more than one occasion Millicent would allude to some major event in her life or that of one of her family members, but annoyingly we wouldn't get the whole story. Forster would try and fill in details, but it was mostly innuendo. Surely this was meant to show its authenticity (how much does one share with a diary anyway), but it could be maddening not being able to hear the whole story. I feel like I'm being a bit nitpicky, so please don't let these little annoyances put you off reading the book. I loved the idea of what Forster was trying to do, and she did present a very plausible story. I especially liked the sections dealing with the Second World War. I've got a few other novels by Forster and I am looking forward to reading them, too.
I was all set to start reading Amanda Eyre Ward's, Forgive Me next, but the Forster novel has put me in the mood to read more from this period. I'm feeling the urge to choose one of my Persephones (I'm especially interested in Marghanita Laski's The Village). Or maybe Sarah Bower's The Needle in the Blood (okay, different time period, but still British historical fiction--and I've wanted to read it for ages, but keep putting it off). I'll have to read the first few pages of each and see which grabs me.