I had never heard of Penelope Mortimer until I saw her name in reference to Lynne Reid Banks's The L Shaped Room. It's not surprising really as both books were written in the early 1960s and deal with motherhood, though Mortimer takes things a step further. The L Shaped Room is about a young unmarried woman who unapologetically decides to keep her baby after an unplanned pregnancy and must deal with narrow-minded attitudes and and prejudices. Penelope Mortimer's novel, The Pumpkin Eater, is slightly more psychological as the mother in this story is on the verge of an emotional breakdown, though she's unapologetic in not having just one child but an entire brood of them. For me one book led to the other and both were excellent reads. NYRB Classics is reissuing The Pumpkin Eater next spring, but if you're like me and can't wait, there are plenty of library copies to be had to read sooner rather than later.
Penelope Mortimer sounds like she was a fascinating woman, the facts of her life I've cobbled together mostly through obituaries of all things. She was born in Wales in 1918 and passed away in 1999. It sounds as though she had a difficult childhood. The daughter of an Anglican clergyman who lost his faith, she was supposedly sexually abused by him. Doesn't that sound a little like Lorna Sage's biography, Bad Blood? She married barrister John Mortimer of Rumpole fame, though they had a rocky marriage as both were serial adulterers. They were a fashionable London couple, though they would later divorce. She had six children by four men and tried to commit suicide, so she writes from experience it seems. Penelope Mortimer wrote a number of novels, short stories for the New Yorker, two volumes of autobiography, and a famous biography of the Queen Mother, which caused quite a stir at the time.
She was apparently fond of a quote by Raymond Chandler; "Scarcely anything in literature is worth a damn except what is written between the lines." This explains a lot as she doesn't give over anything very easily in her work. The reading is absolutely compelling, but she leaves it all up to the reader to muddle out. At least this is the sense I get and have been largely supported in what I've read about her. The story is not very linear, but it is all connected and builds on what comes before, so you piece together the protagonist's life and try to puzzle out just how she comes to the point she comes to. Honestly I'm still not sure I have it all worked out, but in the end it seems to me a tragic tale and no wonder she was pushed to the edge. But like women have always had to do, she gets back up, dusts off and continues on. What does happiness have to do with anything.
"I don't know who I am, I don't know what I'm like, how can I know what I want? I only know that whether I'm good or bad, whether I'm a bitch or not, whether I'm strong or weak or contemptible or a bloody martyr--I mean whether I'm fat or thin, tall or short, because I don't know--I want to be happy. I want to find a way to be happy, I don't care what it is. You see, everything I say sounds absurd, Like a child talking, I don't even believe it myself."
Mortimer's heroine has no name, neither do most of her children--the exact number of which is uncertain. She does have a voice, though it seems even that is stifled in the end. The story begins in a psychiatrist's office and ends in a glass tower in the countryside.
"'Well,' I said, 'I will try to be honest with you, although I suppose really what you're more interested in is my not being honest, if you see what I mean'."
By the time we meet her she is on husband number four, Jake Armitage, a successful filmmaker. They began their lives together happily and very middle class, but as the number of children increase Jake is forced to make more money and spend time away from home. The "I" of the story (as the book blurb refers to her) wasn't especially unhappy in any of her previous marriages, two ending in divorce and one in death, but when she met Jake that was it. As a matter of fact she was probably most happy when she had little money but could always care for and provide for the children. As her family increases so too do the doubts that she is doing the right thing--doubts that everyone shares including husband(s), parents, and doctors but never the protagonist.
"He [Jake] knows what's wrong with me. He's given me all the wrong things. Material things. He's neglected me. Perhaps this is true. He has never spoken like this before: rather too solemn, a bit too pompous. He feels about this. He means it. Jake is trying to say something he means. Because of this short-sightedness of his, I came to feel my life was pointless and empty. Quite rightly. So it was. I was perfectly right to feel like that. And since he was no help to me, I took the only way out that I knew: I decided to have another child."
Part of the protagonist's problem is Jake's extracurricular amorous activities, which he sees as a matter of course and not particularly important, but unsurprisingly she sees as a big deal indeed. When she finds she is expecting once again, she agrees to a solution that will bring her no pleasure but she hopes will bring Jake back into the fold, but everything ends in very ironic circumstances. I'm sorry to be so vague here, but giving away the plot would be no fun for the next reader, so I'll leave my description off here--somewhat unresolved.
The Pumpkin Eater was made into a film in 1964, which I would be curious to see, but I'm not sure how faithfully it follows the novel. I plan on reading more of Penelope Mortimer's books. Persephone Books has reissued her novel, Daddy's Gone A-Hunting. Unfortunately everything else seems to be out of print. Has anyone read her? Any suggestions or thoughts on her work?