Helen Dunmore's Zennor in Darkness, published in 1993 when she was 40, was her first adult novel. Dunmore had previously published short stories and books for children, but the two novels she had written in her twenties weren't good enough, she felt. According to an article in the Guardian, she had been working on a short story and something clicked. She notes she had "taken off the brakes". "I wanted to write about a particular person, a particular time, a particular place." The person is D.H. Lawrence, the place Cornwall and the time is WWI.
In 1916-1917 D.H. Lawrence bought a cottage on the coast where he and his German-born wife Frieda settled. Of course the tumultuous period with the war and Lawrence being such a controversial figure makes for interesting reading. Zennor in Darknessis an ambitious novel, which I quite enjoyed though it was perhaps not (for me) a perfect novel. Still, it's an impressive start for a woman who later goes on to win the Orange Prize and be nominated for both the Booker and Whitbread. This first novel garnered her the McKitterick Prize (an award for a first novel for someone over 40).
The D.H. Lawrence Dumore writes about is not the author. Not exactly anyway. Although it goes unmentioned in the story he was at the time writing Women in Love (a novel I started reading but didn't finish. I wasn't ready for Lawrence, I think, but now really feel I must try harder to read him). Rather the Lawrence in this story is someone who is escaping the tensions of London. His novel The Rainbow had been published in 1915 and had been prosecuted in an obscenity trial resulting in all copies being removed and destroyed in England.
Zennor is meant to be a refuge, but it's a small place and the people look on outsiders as near-foreigners. A Londoner (though Lawrence was born in the Midlands) would be bad enough let alone a German woman who wears red stockings and hangs multicolored curtains in her windows. Surely a sign she must be sending signals to the U-boats stalking the Cornish coast. Lawrence spends his time working in his garden and lending a hand at a local farm. Frieda is slightly older and an unusual woman--passionate and bohemian without a care for what others think of her, which is enough to cause a stir amongst the people of Zennor.
Sharing the stage in this novel with the Lawrences is Clare Coyne, the only daughter of a widowed Catholic man born a gentleman but a lesser son. He married a lady's maid and returned with her to her native Cornwall where she died of TB when Clare was just a baby. Francis Coyne raises his daughter mostly alone. Their relationship is not exactly a close one, but they get on well enough. Clare cares for the house and cooks the meals, and Francis works on his book about local plant life, but they lead a starched existence with each other. She feels she can only relax with her mother's family, of which there is an abundance. Aunts and uncles and cousins.
And it is with her cousin Hannah and another friend, swimming in the sea one afternoon where the story begins. There's a celebratory feel in the air as Hannah's brother John William is coming home on leave. Clare is particularly close to both Hannah and John William, the three having grown up together and spent many happy hours in each other's company. Friendship blossoms into something more between Clare and John William, but there's the war which is consuming and destroying so many young men, even the ones who come home apparently so safe. Their romance is intense and secretive. So usual is it to see them together that no one, especially Clare's father, even realizes they share something more than everyday family ties. John William, despite his working class upbringing, has dreams and talents that he hopes to pursue. He has even risen in the ranks to become an officer, but no one understands that even after two years of war experience, coming through seemingly unscathed, he is not undamaged by it all.
As I was reading I couldn't decide whether this was Clare's story or D.H. Lawrence's, and therein lies the occasional disjointed feeling that I had while reading. I can never decide in a case like this whether it's fine to insert an actual person into a story or if a fictional creation would work just as well and facts were simply borrowed from reality. The characters are so inextricably linked, however, that the story could not play out without one or the other. The Lawrences befriend Clare, and prying eyes make assumptions that aren't always correct--especially when they see Clare with Lawerence who encourages her in her talent for drawing. There is rumor and innuendo in the air already because of the war, and there is also fear and mistrust. Young men are dying and some families, like Clare's uncles, are doing their best to keep their sons safe at home, but always the army's reach is long. Several years into the war and now even the rejected men are being called up. Into this swirl of family drama comes a misunderstanding that has repercussions that affect not only the Lawrences but Clare as well.
Despite that occasional uneven feel to the story, I really liked this book. The descriptions of Cornwall are lush and vivid and the place comes alive. I also loved the lyrical feel to the prose and it wasn't until well into the story that I realized that Dunmore writes in present tense, which I know some readers find irksome. For me it didn't detract or call attention to itself but I simply fell into the story and into the minds of the characters. Some of the best passages describe the rhythms of the sea and often the characters actions reflect that rhythm. There is much to like about this story, definitely one to look for if the place and period appeals to you.
I read Dunmore's A Spell of Winterin my pre-blogging days, which I recall liking, and hope to read more of her books eventually. I'm sure I have several more by her on my reading pile.
This was the first book in Caroline's 2012 Literature and War Readalong. You can read her thoughts on the book here. Next up is Sebastian Barry's A Long Long Way for February 27.