Barbara Comyns has been high on my list of authors to continue reading, and specifically Viragos to pull from my shelves more regularly to read. I had high expectations for her writing and she indeed lived up to them. I only wish now I had written about A Touch of Mistletoe when I read it earlier in the year when the story was fresh in my mind, but my appreciation has not abated since. Impossible to cobble together a proper post about it, but it is so very worth mentioning now even if in brief since it is highly likely to end up on my favorites list next week. She is one of those writers who can so perfectly write a story that is inspired by her own life and do it amusingly and effectively. And it's the sort of quirky, early twentieth-century life that makes for good storytelling (at least the kind I am drawn to).
"Barbara Comyns is justly celebrated for her distinctive manner, her feeling for the oddity and insecurity of everyday life."
It's been far too long since I read her novel, The Skin Chairs, (can't you just imagine what kind of stories she must tell based on these two titles alone), but about her books is there an aura of eccentricity. And I mean that in every best possible sense of the word. Comyns, happily, was a fairly prolific author, and Mistletoe is her seventh novel published in 1967. The novel follows two sisters, who after the death of their father, have 'come down' in the world, though it is the elder sister narrating events. They embark on rather bohemian lives both in England and abroad, one sister a bit more conventional than the other.
"A Touch of Mistletoe is among the most purely engaging of Barbara Comyns's books, though it's not without its share of calamity and disagreeableness. It is especially abundant in comic detail--'a dog who looked like a mad rocking horse', a hanger-on of an author, alluded to in passing, who suddenly makes a go of selling secondhand prams--as well as containing a characteristic Comyns heroine, gifted with a kind of unobtrusive panache, he idiosyncratic assurance that underlies all the novels of this invaluable author."
(Quotes taken from the introduction to the Virago edition by Patricia Craig).
Perhaps I will start the year off with her Our Spoons Came from Woolworths, which I have from my NYRB subscription. Now there is killing two birds (reading all those unread NYRBs and more of Comyns) with one stone!
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For the reader who isn't sure they like historical fiction, or isn't convinced that it can be done really well, I give you Chantel Acevedo's excellent The Living Infinite (another favorites list contender). I have a trend going here, as this is another novel that is based on or inspired by the real life Bourban princess, the Infanta Eulalia. I shared a few teasers from the novel here in case you want a taste of Acevedo's prose. The story is not bogged down by lots of extraneous historical detail, yet it is set firmly in the time and place and the characters are solidly depicted.
Eulalia's life is inextricably linked to that of her wet nurse Amalia and Amalia's son Tomas. Perhaps her personality is the result of a changing world being born on the tail end of the 19th century or perhaps she is rebelling against the closed and conservative upbringing which kept her cloistered tightly within her royal family. But she is a right firebrand, railing against royal attitudes even while trying to live within its tight strictures. She knows her place, but doesn't like it. When she takes pen to paper and writes a revealing story of her family and its none too royal intimate lifestyle, she comes into her own. But Eulalia, independent thinker though she is, is also a wife and mother. Unhappy in her role, but far too familiar with what will happen if she publishes her memoir.
The story follows her from Spain, to Cuba and on to America, but also follows the fortunes of her wet nurse and Tomas. The story has a decidedly literary quality to it, both in the way it is written but in the story itself as Eulalia is a writer and Tomas a reader who comes to own a bookstore. He has a love of the works of Jules Verne and it is from one of Verne's novels that the title of this story comes.
"The sea is everything, Verne wrote. It is the Living Infinite. Tomas had always loved the phrase. There was so much possibility in it. The Living Infinite. As old as the sea was, he mused, it killed and reproduced with the stamina of youth."
This is a lyrical novel, one that came recommended by more than one source and now I can recommend it as well.
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I think Patricia Highsmith is a pretty amazing writer, but Carol (originally published as The Price of Salt in 1952) is kind of unique compared to her crime novels. Yet another book based on the author's own life experiences, her publisher would not touch it when she wrote it, since it was quite openly and unabashedly about a lesbian relationship. And not just that, but one of the women was also a wife and mother. It was picked up by a small press and published under a pseudonym. Her publisher might not have been ready to publish it, but the world was ready to read it as it sold almost a million copies.
"When Carol appeared, it didn't so much fill a niche as a gaping void. Back then, the only images of lesbians in literature were as miserable inverts or scandalous denizens of titillating pulp fiction. A novel that addressed a relationship between two women with seriousness, eroticism and classy prose was as exotic as a leopard in a Third Avenue deli."
(Quote from introduction by Val McDermid).
Therese is a young sales clerk in a department store with a boyfriend and aspirations for a career as a theater set designer. It's Christmas in New York ca. 1950 and Therese works the toy counter as a means to an end, but it is only meant to be temporary. In walks Carol, a sophisticated and elegant, looking for a particular doll for her daughter. Carol is self assured but maybe a little distracted, and Therese instantly falls for her. She takes the risky step of sending her a holiday card under the guise of a clerk following up on a sale, but the two begin a friendship that turns to romance.
Both women have partners, but both are unhappy in them. The stakes are higher for Carol as she is married with a daughter, whereas Therese is only in a staid relationship. Carol has something to lose, but in 1950 maybe Therese does too. What ensues is almost a road trip novel. Carol invites Therese to travel with her, and eventually the two realize they are being followed by a detective hired by her husband looking for inappropriate behavior.
Maybe equally as surprising for a lesbian novel at this time, is it has a hopeful ending. You might even call it happy, though the happiness does not come without cost. It was adapted to the big screen and looks by all accounts as lush and gorgeous as you would expect of a story set in NYC in the 50s. I plan on watching it (finally) very soon.