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. 

A Read-A-Thon Progress Report

Angela Thirkell is in her usual high spirits with August Folly. She has such an amusing way of introducing her characters. In the beginning of her story she may introduce a bunch of them all at once. She will give the reader their names and some telling detail or quirk about each one. Then she slowly doles out more details. I find it helpful to keep a cast of characters list.  

For instance, in the Dean family - one of the principal group of characters in this novel -  right away we become acquainted with certain members, brother Laurence and his sisters Helen and Betty. Immediately upon meeting Betty the reader learns that Betty is 18. Many pages pass before we are told that Helen is seven years older than Betty. OK, so that makes her 25. And, we were told when first introduced to Laurence that he was a year older than Helen but at that point we didn't know how old Helen was so that information was useless but now we can figure out that Laurence is 26. 

Whew!

It is all quite fun adding these little bits and pieces. She does the same with names. For 25 pages she may refer to a character as Mrs. Tebben and then all of a sudden we learn that her first name is Winifred. 

This may irritate or confuse some readers, but I find it to be clever and enjoy adding - clues? - about each character to my list. 

And I bet she had fun naming the towns that run along the railway in this little tale. The opening sentences: 

The little village of Worsted, some sixty miles west of London, is still, owing to the very defective railway system which hardly attempts to serve it, to a great extent unspoilt. To reach it you must change at Winter Overcotes where two railway lines cross.

Then a passenger comes upon Shearing, Winter Underclose, Lambton, Fleece, and finally Woolram. 

I bet she was giggling to herself as she created those villages.

Unfortunately, I got a bit of a late start on my Thirkell Read-A-Thon and am not yet finished with August Folly. I was hoping to at least have it read by this afternoon, but somehow life intervened and I found I had a few other things to do but laze about with the book in my hands.

It doesn't matter. I am having a jolly good time.

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?