Pomfret Towers by Angela Thirkell

My Angela Thirkell Read-A-Thon, begun last weekend, is at an end with my completion of Pomfret Towers. 

This book has a different tone than the breathlessness of August Folly and Summer Half. The story takes place at a weekend house party hosted by Lord and Lady Pomfret and attended by three sets of brothers and sisters, the heir to the Pomfret estate, an author and her publisher, and other guests thrown in for good measure.

Ms. Thirkell slowly rolls out the story and has a high old time poking fun at the posturings of authors, publishers, and artists. 

Here is an example:

Mr. Bungay is the present representative of the house in Paternoster Row founded some hundred years ago by his great-grandfather. In the middle of last century their most serious rival was the house of Bacon, who made a great hit with three-volume novels by people of fashion, but in 1887 an amalgamation took place, Messrs. Bungay taking over all the assets and liabilities of Messrs. Bacon, together with their copyright in the works of Arthur Pendennis Esq. and other well-known novelists of the day, works for which there is now no sale, and which from lying on twopenny stalls have almost risen to be collector's rarities. The present Mr. Bungay exploits freely every shade of passing political and religious opinion that may help his sales and is said to have the largest turnover in London. He admits freely that he publishes a great deal of rubbish, but he adds that he believes in giving the public what it wants.

The author paints a hilarious portrait of the domineering Mrs. Rivers who writes best-selling books that always feature an older woman married to a cold man who has a romance (not consummated) with some fellow in a foreign setting which Mrs. Rivers describes in such detail that her publishers refer to her (behind her back, of course) as the Baedeker Bitch.

I think it is really best to read Ms. Thirkell's books in order because she name-drops characters from her previous books. Mrs. Morland and her publisher (High Rising) are mentioned in Pomfret Towers as is Lady Emily Leslie (Wild Strawberries) who turns out to be Lord Pomfret's sister. I always feel like I am being let in on an inside joke when I recognize a name from another tale. 

Of course, as usual, all the romances in Pomfret Towers end well and the couples are perfectly matched. But the reader never knows until the end just how all that is going to come together.

Three for the Weekend

A nice long weekend ahead and I plan on finishing up two library books - Pomfret Towers by Angela Thirkell and Bitter Lemons by Lawrence Durrell. And, I downloaded Zoo Time by Howard Jacobson from the library's ebook collection which I hope to begin reading. 

Pomfret Towers is the name of the rather huge country home of Lord Pomfret and his semi-invalid wife. Here is how Ms. T describes it:

This pile, for no less a name is worthy of this vast medley of steep roofs, turrets, gables and chimney stacks, crowned by a Victorian clock tower, took four years to build and is said to have cost its owner first and last as many hundred thousand pounds.

It was computed, she writes, that an under footman might walk ten miles a day in the course of his duties.

Like I said, Huge.

The action takes place during a weekend house party (of which I am so fond). There are three sets of brothers and sisters in attendance: Alice and Guy Barton; Phoebe and Julian Rivers; and Sally and Roddy Wicklow. 

Also among the twenty or so guests is Mr. Foster who will eventually inherit the estate from Lord Pomfret, his uncle. 

The mothers of the first sets of siblings, Mrs. Barton and Mrs. Rivers, are both authors which gives Ms. Thirkell a chance to take a stab or two at writers and publishers and the economics of the book business. 

Alice Barton (age unknown but perhaps a young teenager) is terribly shy to the point of actually being a bit annoying. She has already fallen instantly in love with Julian Rivers who is an artist with dark hair, brooding eyes, and many affectations. 

Mrs. Rivers is the guest to be avoided as she is always trying to organize games for 'the young people' even though the young people are perfectly capable of entertaining themselves. Lord Pomfret is not exactly a warm and welcoming host and his only reason for having the party is to please his wife who for most of the time lives in Florence. 

With Ms. Thirkell's ability to mete out the telling detail, I feel as if I am at the house party myself with its well-set dining room table 
"stretching away to infinity, covered with what looked to Alice like six thousand shining knives and forks and spoons, and more carnations in more silver vases than she had ever seen in her life."

Or having tea in its smaller drawing-room "decorated with green brocade and hung with pictures bought by the sixth earl (father of the present earl) from contemporary artists. The furniture was in the highest style of pre-Raphaelite discomfort; sofas apparently hewn from solid blocks of wood and armchairs suited to no known human frame, both with thin velvet cushions of extreme hardness." 

I won't even try to guess which romances will blossom and wither and which ones will bloom for all time. I will leave that puzzle in the very capable hands of the author.

Summer Half by Angela Thirkell

Here it is Tuesday and I am finished reading the second book in my Angela Thirkell Read-A-Thon which didn't go as quickly as I might have thought. But really, one cannot rush along Ms. Thirkell.

The goings on in Summer Half, which I didn't find quite as entertaining as August Folly, have to do with Southbridge, a boys public school (which is akin to our private school in America). Colin Keith has decided not to continue his studies to become a barrister and has taken a job as an assistant master at the school. The main cast of characters includes the headmaster Mr. Birkett; his oft-engaged daughter Rose and her fiance Philip Winter (who I wrote about yesterday); Colin's sisters Kate and the teenaged Lydia; housemaster Everard Carter; and, family friend and confirmed bachelor Noel Merton. Of course various others wander in and out of the story including Tony Morland, Mrs. Morland's son from High Rising. 

The plot of Summer Half is not important. Actually there isn't a complicated plot much past watching who ends up with whom in the romance department. As usual, it is all very amusing with many of Thirkell's asides, meanderings, and witty dialogue.

What I found most intriguing was reading about how the school was organized. And, that these boys all studied Ancient Greek and Latin. They translated Horace. One boy named his chameleon after Gibbon.  I doubt any students of today have ever heard of either. Or if they have, might think the names refer to a rock band.

Another interesting item is the occasional talk about the political climate of the day - this being published in 1937 leading up to World War II. Philip Winter is enamored with communism and is planning a trip to Russia. There is a mention of 'black shirts' (members of the British Union of Fascists) handing out pamphlets outside of a movie theater. These issues were apparently on Ms. Thirkell's, and the nation's, mind.


So now it is on to Pomfret Towers. I wonder what delights are in store for me there?

Our Rose from Thirkell's Summer Half

Here is a quote from Summer Half, the second book in my Angela Thirkell Read-A-Thon. It is a wonderful example of how Ms. Thirkell breathlessly paints the portrait of a character. 

The characters:
Mr. Birkett is the headmaster of Southbridge preparatory school; Rose is his 17-year-old daughter; and, Philip Winter is an assistant master at Southbridge.

Why the excellent and intelligent Birketts had produced an elder daughter who was a perfect sparrow-wit was a question freely discussed by the school, but no one had found an answer. Mrs. Birkett felt a little rebellious against Fate. She had thought of a pretty and useful daughter who would help her to entertain parents and visitors, perhaps play the cello, or write a book, collect materials for Mr. Birkett's projected History of Southbridge School, and marry at about twenty-five a successful professional man in London. 

Fate had not gone wholeheartedly into the matter. 

Rose was as pretty as she could be, but there Fate had broken down. Rose was frankly bored by parents and visitors, and always managed to escape when they arrived. She did play an instrument, but far from being the cello it was a piano-accordian, which she handled with a great deal of confidence, but poor technique. As for writing, she was always dashing off letters in a large illegible calligraphy to bosom friends, but her vocabulary was small and her spelling shaky. She was very lazy and was perfectly happy for hours doing her nails, or altering a dress. 

When she came back from Munich Philip Winter had fallen so suddenly and hopelessly in love that he had to propose to her almost before her trunks were unpacked. Rose had accepted his proposal gracefully, said it would be perfectly marvellous, and wrote to tell her bosom friends about it, spelling her affianced's Christian name with two l's.

August Folly by Angela Thirkell

Book One of my Angela Thirkell Read-A-Thon: August Folly.

Ms. Thirkell does not disappoint. It is summer and the people in the small village of Worsted in Barsetshire are all focused on the upcoming amateur performance of the Greek tragedy Hippolytus...that is when they are not focused on love, heartbreak, tea, cooking, tennis, roadsters, reading, tending to twisted ankles, sewing costumes, stubborn donkeys, writing letters of news or apology, dinner parties, crossword puzzles, the fate of old school chums, preparing lectures, rehearsals, beauty creams, mending cart axles, cricket, swimming, encounters with bulls, rum omelettes, sherry-drinking cats, and more love and heartbreak. 

It is incredible the number of comic situations, conversations, misunderstandings, asides, meanderings, social comments, psychological insights, and cups of tea that Ms. Thirkell manages to cram into 170 pages. At once I was swept away to a place entirely of her making but so real that I could taste the mulberries that were ripening in the trees or hear the thwock of the tennis ball as it hit a racquet. Such fun.

Among the characters are Richard Tebben who has just gotten his 'third in Greats' at Oxford (which apparently is not that good of a showing) and is now home and at loose ends. He develops a crush on the older (almost 50) Mrs. Dean and spends late nights writing poetry about his love.

Mrs. Dean is the sister-in-law of Mrs. Palmer who is producing the play. Mrs. Dean and her husband have nine children: Laurence, Helen, and Betty (mentioned yesterday). Susan, Jessica, and Robin are along as well, while three of her sons are away serving in the military. The family, which normally lives in London, is spending the summer in Worsted.

More:  Richard's sister Margaret and their parents Winifred, who writes books on economic sociology, and her Norse-scholar husband Gilbert; the hard of hearing Rector, his two daughters, and the annoying curate Mr. Moxon (a deliberate typo for Moron?); Mr. Fanshawe who was Mrs. Tebben's tutor at Oxford and is a friend and distant family member of the Dean clan and is staying with them at Dower Manor. 

And let us not forget Modestine, the lazy donkey, and Gunnar the cat (who disconcertingly have two or three conversations with each other that add nothing to the novel).

Here are some of Ms. Thirkell's observations:

"Helen had the anxious expressive face of an animal that does not feel secure among humans."

"Susan and Robin had not yet passed the very trying age that thinks its valueless thoughts aloud."

"Mrs. Tebben could not bear to be outdone in arranging people's lives."

"Mr. Fanshawe, who like most of his sex would enthusiastically neglect any woman, however charming, to talk to any man, however dull, at once engaged Mr. Tebben in conversation."

Really, one could open to any page and find a sharply drawn character detail or witty bon mot.

And now I am on to the second book in the Thirkell omnibus, Summer Half. 

An Angela Thirkell Read-A-Thon

Angela Thirkell's Barsetshire

I found at the library an omnibus of three of Angela Thirkell's books: August Folly, Summer Half, and Pomfret Towers. Five hundred pages of Our Ms. Thirkell. These are the next, in order of course, of the Barsetshire novels after High Rising and Wild Strawberries which I have read and delighted in.

So I am going to hold my very own Angela Thirkell Read-A-Thon and settle in for a bit of armchair travel to Barsetshire this weekend. 

Note to self - Pick up a couple of cranberry-walnut scones to go with afternoon tea, just to keep your energy up.

I found the following teasers on a website devoted to Ms. Thirkell's books:

August Folly (1936) - Mrs. Palmer stages a Greek play, the actors fall in love, and general misunderstandings and family adventures occur.

Summer Half (1937) - Barsetshire sets the stage for the lovely Rose Pickett and her engagements.

Pomfret Towers (1938) - The Pomfrets and their heir, Gillie Foster, are the centerpiece of this Barsetshire story.

I had better get started! What are you reading this weekend?