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賯丕卮賯鈥屬囏й屬呚з� 乇丕 丕夭 賮乇賵卮诏丕賴 賵賵賱賵乇鬲 禺乇蹖丿蹖賲
亘賴 禺賵丿賲 诏賮鬲賲: 芦丿丕乇賲 賲蹖鈥屬呟屫辟� 賵 賴乇 乇賵夭 賵 賴乇 賱丨馗賴 倬蹖卮 禺丿丕 禺賵丕賴賲 亘賵丿.禄 禺丿丕 乇丕 倬蹖乇賲乇丿蹖 禺乇賮鬲 賵 毓氐亘丕賳蹖 亘丕 賲賵賴丕蹖 丌卮賮鬲賴 鬲氐賵乇 賲蹖鈥屭┴必� 讴賴 倬鬲賵蹖蹖 乇丕賴鈥屫必з� 丿賵乇 禺賵丿卮 倬蹖趩蹖丿賴 丕爻鬲. 蹖丕丿賲 賲蹖鈥屫①呚� 丕賳诏丕乇 賯亘賱丕賸 鬲賵蹖 讴鬲丕亘 賲賯丿爻 禺賵丕賳丿賴鈥屫з� 讴賴 倬丕賴丕蹖蹖 丕夭 噩賳爻 亘購乇賳夭 丿丕乇丿. 倬蹖卮 禺賵丿賲 賮讴乇 賲蹖鈥屭┴必� 亘賴卮鬲 噩丕蹖 乇丕丨鬲蹖 賳蹖爻鬲 賵 丕夭 鬲禺鬲禺賵丕亘貙 丌鬲卮貙 禺賵乇卮蹖丿貙 讴鬲丕亘 賵 睾匕丕 禺亘乇蹖 賳蹖爻鬲貨 丌賳噩丕 賴賲賴鈥屭嗃屫� 丿乇 丨丕賱 爻讴賵賳 丕爻鬲 賵 亘乇诏 丿乇禺鬲鈥屬囏� 亘丕 賵夭卮 亘丕丿 鬲讴丕賳 賳賲蹖鈥屫堌必� 賲賵爻蹖 賴賲 丌賳噩丕爻鬲 賵 丌賳 倬丕賴丕蹖 鬲乇爻賳丕讴 亘購乇賳夭蹖. 禺胤丕亘 亘賴 禺丿丕 诏賮鬲賲: 芦賱胤賮丕賸 賲賳 乇賵 賳亘乇 亘賴 亘賴卮鬲. 亘匕丕乇 鬲賵蹖 賯亘乇賲 亘賲賵賳賲 賵 丌乇丕賲卮 丿丕卮鬲賴 亘丕卮賲.禄 丕賲丕 賲蹖鈥屫з嗀池� 賴賲趩賵 趩蹖夭蹖 乇丕 賯亘賵賱 賳賲蹖鈥屭┵嗀�. 亘丕蹖丿 亘賴鈥屫ж坟辟� 賴賲賴贁 诏賳丕賴丕賳蹖 讴賴 賲乇鬲讴亘 卮丿賴 亘賵丿賲 賲噩丕夭丕鬲 賲蹖鈥屫簇呚� 丕蹖賳 亘丕乇 诏賮鬲賲: 芦禺丿丕蹖丕 賱胤賮丕賸 亘匕丕乇 夭賳丿賴 亘賲賵賳賲 賵 鬲賵蹖 賴賲蹖賳 丿賳蹖丕 鬲丕賵丕賳 讴丕乇賴丕賲 乇賵 亘丿賲. 亘毓丿卮 賴賲 賵丕乇丿 亘賴卮鬲 賳卮賲 賵 賴賲賵賳鈥屫� 鬲賵蹖 賯亘乇賲 丌乇賵賲 亘禺賵丕亘賲.禄
讴丕賲蹖賳夭貙 賴賳乇賲賳丿 賲鬲禺氐氐 丿賵乇賴贁 乇讴賵丿 丕賯鬲氐丕丿蹖貙 亘賴 賮賯乇 賮賱噩鈥屭┵嗁嗀囐� 丌賳 丿賵乇賴貙 噩賳爻蹖鬲鈥屫藏屬� 賱賳丿賳 賵 丌丿賲鈥屬囏й� 賳丕賲鬲毓丕乇賮 賵 丨丕卮蹖賴鈥屫й� 賳诏丕賴蹖 毓賲蹖賯 丿丕乇丿. 亘禺卮 丕毓馗賲 丿丕爻鬲丕賳 丿乇亘丕乇賴贁 鬲賵丕賱丿 賵 鬲賳丕爻賱貙 讴丕乇賽 禺丕賳賴 賵 丕蹖噩丕丿 卮丿賳 賮乇氐鬲鈥屬囏й� 丕賯鬲氐丕丿蹖 丕爻鬲貙 丕賲賵乇蹖 讴賴 賮賲蹖賳蹖爻鬲鈥屬囏й� 賲毓丕氐乇 丌賳賴丕 乇丕 賲爻丕卅賱蹖 丿乇 夭賲蹖賳賴贁 毓丿丕賱鬲 賵 亘乇丕亘乇蹖 禺賵丕賴賳丿 丿丕賳爻鬲.
(賲噩賱賴贁 讴賽乇讴賽爻)
讴丕賲蹖賳夭貙 賴賳乇賲賳丿 賲鬲禺氐氐 丿賵乇賴贁 乇讴賵丿 丕賯鬲氐丕丿蹖貙 亘賴 賮賯乇 賮賱噩鈥屭┵嗁嗀囐� 丌賳 丿賵乇賴貙 噩賳爻蹖鬲鈥屫藏屬� 賱賳丿賳 賵 丌丿賲鈥屬囏й� 賳丕賲鬲毓丕乇賮 賵 丨丕卮蹖賴鈥屫й� 賳诏丕賴蹖 毓賲蹖賯 丿丕乇丿. 亘禺卮 丕毓馗賲 丿丕爻鬲丕賳 丿乇亘丕乇賴贁 鬲賵丕賱丿 賵 鬲賳丕爻賱貙 讴丕乇賽 禺丕賳賴 賵 丕蹖噩丕丿 卮丿賳 賮乇氐鬲鈥屬囏й� 丕賯鬲氐丕丿蹖 丕爻鬲貙 丕賲賵乇蹖 讴賴 賮賲蹖賳蹖爻鬲鈥屬囏й� 賲毓丕氐乇 丌賳賴丕 乇丕 賲爻丕卅賱蹖 丿乇 夭賲蹖賳賴贁 毓丿丕賱鬲 賵 亘乇丕亘乇蹖 禺賵丕賴賳丿 丿丕賳爻鬲.
(賲噩賱賴贁 讴賽乇讴賽爻)
265 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1950
172 people are currently reading
7087 people want to read
About the author
Barbara Comyns
12听books335听followersBarbara Comyns was educated mainly by governesses until she went to art schools in Stratford-upon-Avon and London. Her father was a semi-retired managing director of a Midland chemical firm. She was one of six children and they lived in a house on the banks of the Avon in Warwickshire. She started writing fiction at the age of ten and her first novel, Sisters by a River, was published in 1947. She also worked in an advertising agency, a typewriting bureau, dealt in old cars and antique furniture, bred poodles, converted and let flats, and exhibited pictures in The London Group. She first married in 1931, to an artist, and for the second time in 1945. With her second husband she lived in Spain for eighteen years.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 626 reviews
October 19, 2020
A Celebration of Repetitive Failure
Two young people who are reasonably content on their own decide to create a life of misery for themselves and others by joining forces. It happens every day. Is this a matter of stupidity, wilful ignorance, a lack of imagination, or species-wide psychic disorder?
In Our Spoons, a naive, hapless, probably slightly retarded (but solvent) 17 year old girls gets married to a witless, unemployed, somewhat passive-aggressive (but reasonably well-fed) artist in Depression-era London. What possibly could go wrong?
Well for starters, of course, the merger creates a medical burden. She finds that thinking very hard about not getting pregnant is an inadequate form of contraception. He finds the facts of life a complete and unwelcome surprise, and considers the pregnancy a betrayal. The net level of misery in the world鈥檚 population has been increased substantially.
To call her experience of childbirth medieval would be an affront to primitive medical practice. Her labour and delivery are part of an industrialised process as impersonal as it is humiliating. The real function of this process obviously is to encourage those who were forced to participate in it not to have any further need for it. This warning about expanding the world鈥檚 population of the miserable will undoubtedly be ignored.
Grinding poverty does just that: grind whatever unique personality there might be into uniform fragments of various needs. His need is to remove himself from responsibility. Her need is to protect her child from his irresponsibility. He lives on denial; she on hope; the child on almost nothing. Misery expands outward from its epicentre to make any number of family and social relationships untenable. It moves like a disease vector throughout a large population with no immunity.
But poverty is not the most lethal source of misery. It only seems that way to those trapped within it. There鈥檚 the botched abortion and the doomed affair with an older man, and the estrangement between mother and child, and yet another pregnancy, father uncertain. None of these things are driven by poverty but by self-delusion.
The self-delusion also suggests a number of obvious but futile solutions - a change of air, a new flat, running away with the children. Meanwhile the gas gets cut off, then the telephone, then the electricity. But even these events don鈥檛 suggest to her that reality is other than what鈥檚 perceived. The death of an infant child from exposure does raise a glimmer of recognition that perhaps not all one鈥檚 life-decisions have been life-affirming.
And despite all this experience, she starts it all over again in middle age. Nought stranger than folk.
By the way is it Woolworths or Woolworth鈥檚? I can argue both ways and am confused... as usual.
Two young people who are reasonably content on their own decide to create a life of misery for themselves and others by joining forces. It happens every day. Is this a matter of stupidity, wilful ignorance, a lack of imagination, or species-wide psychic disorder?
In Our Spoons, a naive, hapless, probably slightly retarded (but solvent) 17 year old girls gets married to a witless, unemployed, somewhat passive-aggressive (but reasonably well-fed) artist in Depression-era London. What possibly could go wrong?
Well for starters, of course, the merger creates a medical burden. She finds that thinking very hard about not getting pregnant is an inadequate form of contraception. He finds the facts of life a complete and unwelcome surprise, and considers the pregnancy a betrayal. The net level of misery in the world鈥檚 population has been increased substantially.
To call her experience of childbirth medieval would be an affront to primitive medical practice. Her labour and delivery are part of an industrialised process as impersonal as it is humiliating. The real function of this process obviously is to encourage those who were forced to participate in it not to have any further need for it. This warning about expanding the world鈥檚 population of the miserable will undoubtedly be ignored.
Grinding poverty does just that: grind whatever unique personality there might be into uniform fragments of various needs. His need is to remove himself from responsibility. Her need is to protect her child from his irresponsibility. He lives on denial; she on hope; the child on almost nothing. Misery expands outward from its epicentre to make any number of family and social relationships untenable. It moves like a disease vector throughout a large population with no immunity.
But poverty is not the most lethal source of misery. It only seems that way to those trapped within it. There鈥檚 the botched abortion and the doomed affair with an older man, and the estrangement between mother and child, and yet another pregnancy, father uncertain. None of these things are driven by poverty but by self-delusion.
The self-delusion also suggests a number of obvious but futile solutions - a change of air, a new flat, running away with the children. Meanwhile the gas gets cut off, then the telephone, then the electricity. But even these events don鈥檛 suggest to her that reality is other than what鈥檚 perceived. The death of an infant child from exposure does raise a glimmer of recognition that perhaps not all one鈥檚 life-decisions have been life-affirming.
And despite all this experience, she starts it all over again in middle age. Nought stranger than folk.
By the way is it Woolworths or Woolworth鈥檚? I can argue both ways and am confused... as usual.
July 8, 2022
Titles like this are positively enticing to a book nerd like me! It went straight to my list a few years ago for that reason alone. Three years later I bought the NYRB edition which I love. Now here I am another four years later with the book finally read. In any case, I鈥檝e fond memories of my own local Woolworths. You see, Grandma used to give us some spending money in August so that we could buy new clothes for the start of the school year. She would sit patiently on a bench inside the local mall while my sister and I did a bit of shopping. Then she would treat us to lunch at the Woolworths lunch counter. Afterwards, we would browse the beauty aisle of the store and choose a shiny new lip gloss or maybe a sparkling nail polish. Nothing too garish or mom wouldn鈥檛 allow us to actually use it. Grandma didn鈥檛 care though 鈥� spoiling her grandchildren was her biggest joy in life!
The similarities between my own life and that of Sophia, the main character and narrator of Comyns鈥� novel, pretty much end with the trait of naivet茅, however. The setting is 1930s London. Sophia and Charles fall in love and marry at the age of twenty-one. Life seems just swell as it often does for the newly married. What could go wrong? Well, more mature souls might ask, what could possibly go right in the middle of the Depression when a young couple marries rather hastily?! Did I mention that Charles is an artist? And that he detests the domestic life? He鈥檇 rather paint and spend the meager money his wife makes on gatherings with his friends than on paying the heating bill. We get a hint that not everything will turn out the way young Sophia hopes right from the start.
鈥淲e had a proper tea-set from Waring and Gillow, and a lot of blue plates from Woolworths; our cooking things came from there, too. I had hoped they would give us a set of real silver teaspoons when we bought the wedding-ring, but the jeweler we went to wouldn鈥檛, so our spoons came from Woolworths, too.鈥�
The tone of the novel is actually rather light considering the subject matter. Told from Sophia鈥檚 point of view, the prose is often simple. Lying beneath the surface, however, is something much darker. There is extreme poverty, the humiliation of childbirth in a public hospital setting, and the talk of grave risks and costs surrounding the practice of abortion. Charles refuses to take any responsibility for the poor circumstances in which they eventually land. It鈥檚 the childlike Sophia that carries the burden.
鈥淚 had begun to think it was a disgraceful wicked thing to do 鈥� to have a baby鈥� People would never dream of doing such a thing to an animal. I think the ideal way to have a baby would be in a dark, quiet room, all alone and not hurried.鈥�
I鈥檓 not going to say much more about this novel. I think if it interests you at all, give it a try. There鈥檚 nothing new here, though the timing of my reading combined with the recent developments concerning women鈥檚 rights in the U.S. made it seem more relevant than I could ever have imagined. Suddenly, the 1930s don鈥檛 seem to be so very far in the past. I can only hope that young women today don鈥檛 find themselves in Sophia鈥檚 shoes. Her limited choices were scary prospects indeed, but not that many people would really give a damn when it comes down to it.
鈥淚 know this will never be a real book that business men in trains will read, the kind of business men that wear stiff hats with curly brims and little breathing holes let in the side.鈥�
The similarities between my own life and that of Sophia, the main character and narrator of Comyns鈥� novel, pretty much end with the trait of naivet茅, however. The setting is 1930s London. Sophia and Charles fall in love and marry at the age of twenty-one. Life seems just swell as it often does for the newly married. What could go wrong? Well, more mature souls might ask, what could possibly go right in the middle of the Depression when a young couple marries rather hastily?! Did I mention that Charles is an artist? And that he detests the domestic life? He鈥檇 rather paint and spend the meager money his wife makes on gatherings with his friends than on paying the heating bill. We get a hint that not everything will turn out the way young Sophia hopes right from the start.
鈥淲e had a proper tea-set from Waring and Gillow, and a lot of blue plates from Woolworths; our cooking things came from there, too. I had hoped they would give us a set of real silver teaspoons when we bought the wedding-ring, but the jeweler we went to wouldn鈥檛, so our spoons came from Woolworths, too.鈥�
The tone of the novel is actually rather light considering the subject matter. Told from Sophia鈥檚 point of view, the prose is often simple. Lying beneath the surface, however, is something much darker. There is extreme poverty, the humiliation of childbirth in a public hospital setting, and the talk of grave risks and costs surrounding the practice of abortion. Charles refuses to take any responsibility for the poor circumstances in which they eventually land. It鈥檚 the childlike Sophia that carries the burden.
鈥淚 had begun to think it was a disgraceful wicked thing to do 鈥� to have a baby鈥� People would never dream of doing such a thing to an animal. I think the ideal way to have a baby would be in a dark, quiet room, all alone and not hurried.鈥�
I鈥檓 not going to say much more about this novel. I think if it interests you at all, give it a try. There鈥檚 nothing new here, though the timing of my reading combined with the recent developments concerning women鈥檚 rights in the U.S. made it seem more relevant than I could ever have imagined. Suddenly, the 1930s don鈥檛 seem to be so very far in the past. I can only hope that young women today don鈥檛 find themselves in Sophia鈥檚 shoes. Her limited choices were scary prospects indeed, but not that many people would really give a damn when it comes down to it.
鈥淚 know this will never be a real book that business men in trains will read, the kind of business men that wear stiff hats with curly brims and little breathing holes let in the side.鈥�
Read
May 6, 2024On page forty of this novel, the narrator says: This book does not seem to be growing very large although I have got to Chapter Nine. I think this is partly because there isn't any conversation.
I sat up and paid attention when I read that 鈥� I'd been skim reading Sophia's prattling narrative up until then. She went on to add:
I could just fill pages like this:
'I'm sure it is true,' said Phyllis.
'I cannot agree with you,' answered Nigel.
'Oh, but I know I am right,' she replied.
'I beg to differ,' said Nigel sternly.
Great, I thought. The narrator has introduced two new characters to comment on how her story is being written 鈥� I love when a writer creates a situation like that. But then I read what followed:
That is the kind of stuff that appears in real people's books. I know this will never be a real book that business men in trains will read, the kind of business men that wear stiff hats with curly brims and little breathing holes let in the side. I wish I knew words. Also I wish so much I had learnt my lessons at school. I never did and have found it such a disadvantage ever since.
So Phyllis and Nigel hadn't been discussing whether the novel should have more dialogue in it. They hadn't been discussing the novel at all, and they had no significance apart from offering Sophia a chance to regret that her account of her life would never be good enough for business men to read (though I think she is mistaken about the quality of business men's reading choices (and why would she want to be read by businessmen in the first place?)).
I read on despite Phyllis and Nigel's disappointing interruption. By Chapter Nine, in any case, I'd grown used to Sophia's naive voice, and her doubt about her writerly abilities was endearing in a way, especially as I began to realize that her situation and experiences mirrored the author's own, and that she was simply a slightly older version of the child narrator of the autobiographical .
鈥︹赌︹赌︹赌︹赌︹赌︹赌�.鈥︹赌︹赌︹赌︹赌︹赌︹赌︹赌︹赌︹赌︹赌︹赌�
One of the things I love about Barbara Comyns' books is the way the titles are like stories in themselves. Take , for example. Seven words that say so much. Before I read it, I imagined it would refer to the destruction wrought by WWI. Even after I'd read it and realised that war is never mentioned, though the story is set in the second decade of the twentieth century and tells of a biblical-type tragedy hitting an English village, I still thought it might be an allegory of what war does to a community (but perhaps I read too much into Barbara Comyns' titles).
is another example of a great title. It evokes very strange images, and there are indeed a few strange scenes inside the book to match the atmosphere conjured by the title. But perhaps the book that best demonstrates the notion of a story encapsulated in the words of a title is Our Spoons came from Woolworths, especially as it is set in London in the late 1920s when most people, rich or poor, owned cutlery that had been passed on from parents to their children and so had no need to buy any. When you are aware of that, the five words in the title speak volumes, or at least one volume of approximately 200 pages. The word 'Our' told me of a family unit; 'spoons' being mentioned rather than 'cutlery' made me think of a young and naive narrator; the reference to 'Woolworths', a dime store recently imported from the US, implied very reduced circumstances. And there you have it: this book is indeed the story of a very naive young couple, cut off from family and living in dire poverty.
But for all her naivety, Sophia survives those very tough times, and she makes some interesting points as she tells us her story. Without spelling it out, she reveals the contrast between the unhelpful extended family and the kindness of strangers: philanthropists, doctors, and particularly, a milkman who continues to leave milk on the doorstep though his bill is never paid. She also reveals the contrast in thinking between her twenty-one year-old husband and herself about the attachment babies are capable of feeling. He wants to give their babies away to anyone who will take them, she wants to keep them close no matter the poverty they must live in. And although she continually allows herself to be governed by the men in her life (she drifts into an affair at one point, hoping an older lover might provide a home for her and her two children), she depicts men as very spineless creatures who have no stamina when it comes to hardship.
In fact the creature with the most stamina in this story is Sophia's pet newt: he survives a lot better than some of the humans.
I sat up and paid attention when I read that 鈥� I'd been skim reading Sophia's prattling narrative up until then. She went on to add:
I could just fill pages like this:
'I'm sure it is true,' said Phyllis.
'I cannot agree with you,' answered Nigel.
'Oh, but I know I am right,' she replied.
'I beg to differ,' said Nigel sternly.
Great, I thought. The narrator has introduced two new characters to comment on how her story is being written 鈥� I love when a writer creates a situation like that. But then I read what followed:
That is the kind of stuff that appears in real people's books. I know this will never be a real book that business men in trains will read, the kind of business men that wear stiff hats with curly brims and little breathing holes let in the side. I wish I knew words. Also I wish so much I had learnt my lessons at school. I never did and have found it such a disadvantage ever since.
So Phyllis and Nigel hadn't been discussing whether the novel should have more dialogue in it. They hadn't been discussing the novel at all, and they had no significance apart from offering Sophia a chance to regret that her account of her life would never be good enough for business men to read (though I think she is mistaken about the quality of business men's reading choices (and why would she want to be read by businessmen in the first place?)).
I read on despite Phyllis and Nigel's disappointing interruption. By Chapter Nine, in any case, I'd grown used to Sophia's naive voice, and her doubt about her writerly abilities was endearing in a way, especially as I began to realize that her situation and experiences mirrored the author's own, and that she was simply a slightly older version of the child narrator of the autobiographical .
鈥︹赌︹赌︹赌︹赌︹赌︹赌�.鈥︹赌︹赌︹赌︹赌︹赌︹赌︹赌︹赌︹赌︹赌︹赌�
One of the things I love about Barbara Comyns' books is the way the titles are like stories in themselves. Take , for example. Seven words that say so much. Before I read it, I imagined it would refer to the destruction wrought by WWI. Even after I'd read it and realised that war is never mentioned, though the story is set in the second decade of the twentieth century and tells of a biblical-type tragedy hitting an English village, I still thought it might be an allegory of what war does to a community (but perhaps I read too much into Barbara Comyns' titles).
is another example of a great title. It evokes very strange images, and there are indeed a few strange scenes inside the book to match the atmosphere conjured by the title. But perhaps the book that best demonstrates the notion of a story encapsulated in the words of a title is Our Spoons came from Woolworths, especially as it is set in London in the late 1920s when most people, rich or poor, owned cutlery that had been passed on from parents to their children and so had no need to buy any. When you are aware of that, the five words in the title speak volumes, or at least one volume of approximately 200 pages. The word 'Our' told me of a family unit; 'spoons' being mentioned rather than 'cutlery' made me think of a young and naive narrator; the reference to 'Woolworths', a dime store recently imported from the US, implied very reduced circumstances. And there you have it: this book is indeed the story of a very naive young couple, cut off from family and living in dire poverty.
But for all her naivety, Sophia survives those very tough times, and she makes some interesting points as she tells us her story. Without spelling it out, she reveals the contrast between the unhelpful extended family and the kindness of strangers: philanthropists, doctors, and particularly, a milkman who continues to leave milk on the doorstep though his bill is never paid. She also reveals the contrast in thinking between her twenty-one year-old husband and herself about the attachment babies are capable of feeling. He wants to give their babies away to anyone who will take them, she wants to keep them close no matter the poverty they must live in. And although she continually allows herself to be governed by the men in her life (she drifts into an affair at one point, hoping an older lover might provide a home for her and her two children), she depicts men as very spineless creatures who have no stamina when it comes to hardship.
In fact the creature with the most stamina in this story is Sophia's pet newt: he survives a lot better than some of the humans.
August 14, 2024
賯丕卮賯鈥屬囏й屬呚з� 丕夭 賵賵賱賵乇鬲 禺乇蹖丿蹖賲 讴鬲丕亘蹖 丕蹖爻鬲 丕夭 亘丕乇亘丕乇丕 讴丕賲蹖賳夭 貙 賳賵蹖爻賳丿賴 丕賳诏賱蹖爻蹖 . 讴鬲丕亘 丕賵 讴賴 亘賴 夭亘丕賳蹖 爻丕丿賴 賵 亘賴 胤賳夭 賳賵卮鬲賴 卮丿賴 貙 丿丕爻鬲丕賳 鬲賱禺 賵 卮蹖乇蹖賳 丿乇亘丕乇賴 夭賳丿诏蹖 倬乇 丌卮賵亘 蹖讴 夭賳 噩賵丕賳 賵 丕夭丿賵丕噩卮 丕爻鬲 .
丿丕爻鬲丕賳 丿乇亘丕乇賴 爻賵賮蹖丕貙 夭賳 噩賵丕賳 爻丕丿賴 賵 亘蹖鈥屫必ㄙ団€� 賵 丕夭丿賵丕噩 丕賵 亘丕 蹖讴 賴賳乇賲賳丿 賲亘鬲丿蹖 賵 鬲丕夭賴 讴丕乇 亘賴 賳丕賲 趩丕乇賱夭 丕爻鬲 . 夭賳丿诏蹖 賲卮鬲乇讴 丌賳鈥屬囏� 亘丕 賲卮讴賱丕鬲 賲丕賱蹖貙 丌卮賮鬲诏蹖 禺丕賳诏蹖 賵 賲噩賲賵毓賴 丕蹖 丕夭 丕卮鬲亘丕賴丕鬲 丕丨賲賯丕賳賴 蹖丕 丨賲丕賯鬲 賴丕蹖 賲賳丨氐乇 亘賴 賮乇丿 賴賲乇丕賴 丕爻鬲 . 丕賵噩 丕蹖賳 丨賲丕賯鬲 賴丕 乇丕 賲蹖 鬲賵丕賳 丿乇 趩诏賵賳诏蹖 亘趩賴 丿丕乇 卮丿賳 丌賳賴丕 丿蹖丿 . 爻賵賮蹖丕 讴賴 丕夭 亘丕乇丿丕乇蹖 爻乇蹖毓 禺賵丿 倬爻 丕夭 丕夭丿賵丕噩 亘爻蹖丕乇 賲鬲毓噩亘 丕爻鬲 賮讴乇 賲蹖 讴賳丿 讴賴 丕诏乇 丌丿賲 匕賴賳卮 乇丕 賲鬲賲乇讴夭 讴賳丿 賵 亘丕 噩丿蹖鬲 鬲賲丕賲 亘丕 禺賵丿卮 鬲讴乇丕乇 讴賳丿 讴賴 亘趩賴鈥屫ж� 賳禺賵丕賴丿 卮丿 貙 倬爻 丨鬲賲丕 亘趩賴 丿丕乇 賳禺賵丕賴丿 卮丿 .
丕夭丿賵丕噩 賵 倬蹖趩蹖丿诏蹖鈥屬囏й� 丌賳 貙 賮賯乇 賵 胤亘賯賴 丕噩鬲賲丕毓蹖 賵 賲亘丕乇夭賴 賮賯乇丕 亘乇丕蹖 夭賳丿賴 賲丕賳丿賳 貙 鬲丕孬蹖乇 爻禺鬲蹖 賴丕蹖 賲丕賱蹖 亘乇 乇賵丕亘胤 貙 爻賱丕賲鬲 乇賵丕賳 賵 賳丕丕賲蹖丿蹖 丕夭 亘賴亘賵丿 卮乇丕蹖胤 乇丕 賲蹖 鬲賵丕賳 賲賵囟賵毓丕鬲 丕氐賱蹖 讴鬲丕亘 丿丕賳爻鬲 .
讴丕賲蹖賳夭 亘丕 氐丿丕賯鬲蹖 丌賲蹖禺鬲賴 亘賴 胤賳夭 賵 亘賴 诏賵賳賴 丕蹖 丌卮讴丕乇 亘賴 噩夭卅蹖丕鬲 賲爻丕卅賱 賵 賲卮讴賱丕鬲 夭賳丿诏蹖 夭賳丕卮賵蹖蹖 貙 禺蹖丕賳鬲 賵賮賯乇 倬乇丿丕禺鬲賴 . 诏賵蹖蹖 丕賵 丕夭 賳卮丕賳 丿丕丿賳 夭卮鬲蹖鈥屬囏й� 夭賳丿诏蹖 賵丕賴賲賴鈥屫й� 賳丿丕乇丿 . 丿乇 丿賱 丿丕爻鬲丕賳貙 胤賳夭蹖 鬲賱禺 賵 诏夭賳丿賴 賵噩賵丿 丿丕乇丿 讴賴 禺賵丕賳賳丿賴 乇丕 賴賲 賲蹖鈥屫嗀з嗀� 賵 賴賲 亘賴 賮讴乇 賮乇賵 賲蹖鈥屫ㄘ必�. 丕蹖賳 胤賳夭貙 亘賴 賵蹖跇賴 丿乇 鬲賵氐蹖賮 賲賵賯毓蹖鬲鈥屬囏й� 丿卮賵丕乇 賵 胤賳夭丌賲蹖夭 夭賳丿诏蹖 乇賵夭賲乇賴貙 亘爻蹖丕乇 亘乇噩爻鬲賴 賵 賯賵蹖 丕爻鬲. 讴丕賲蹖賳夭 亘丕 夭亘丕賳蹖 爻丕丿賴 賵 乇賵丕賳貙 丿賳蹖丕蹖蹖 倬蹖趩蹖丿賴 乇丕 亘賴 鬲氐賵蹖乇 讴卮蹖丿賴. 丕賵 丕夭 讴賱賲丕鬲 倬蹖趩蹖丿賴 賵 丌乇丕蹖賴鈥屬囏й� 丕丿亘蹖 丕睾乇丕賯鈥屫①呟屫� 丕爻鬲賮丕丿賴 賳讴乇丿賴 賵 賴賲蹖賳 爻丕丿诏蹖貙 亘乇 毓賲賯 丕丨爻丕爻丕鬲 卮禺氐蹖鬲鈥屬囏� 丕賮夭賵丿賴 丕爻鬲 .
讴丕賲蹖賳夭 讴賵卮蹖丿賴 鬲囟丕丿 卮丿蹖丿 賲蹖丕賳 丕賳鬲馗丕乇丕鬲 乇賵蹖丕蹖蹖 賵 乇賲丕賳鬲蹖讴 倬蹖卮 丕夭 丕賳鬲馗丕乇 賵 鬲氐賵蹖乇 賵丕賯毓蹖 夭賳丿诏蹖 倬爻 丕夭 丕夭丿賵丕噩 乇丕 賳卮丕賳 丿賴丿 . 卮丕蹖丿 禺賵丿 毓賳賵丕賳 讴鬲丕亘 乇丕 賴賲 亘丕蹖丿 賳卮丕賳鈥屫囐嗀� 卮乇賵毓 爻丕丿賴 夭賳丿诏蹖 丕蹖賳 夭賵噩 賵 鬲囟丕丿 卮丿蹖丿 亘蹖賳 丌乇夭賵賴丕蹖卮丕賳 賵 賵丕賯毓蹖鬲 丿丕賳爻鬲.
丿乇 倬丕蹖丕賳 賯丕卮賯鈥屬囏й屬呚з� 丕夭 賵賵賱賵乇鬲 禺乇蹖丿蹖賲 鬲氐賵蹖乇蹖 亘蹖鈥屫必呚з嗁� 丕夭 趩丕賱卮鈥屬囏й� 丕夭丿賵丕噩 賵 賲丕丿乇蹖 丿乇 丕賳诏賱爻鬲丕賳 乇丕 賳卮丕賳 丿丕丿賴. 丕诏乇趩賴 丕蹖賳 乇賲丕賳 丕睾賱亘 爻蹖丕賴 賵 鬲丕乇蹖讴 丕爻鬲貙 丕賲丕 亘丕 賱丨馗丕鬲 胤賳夭 爻蹖丕賴 賵 賴賲丿賱蹖 賲賳丨氐乇 亘賴 賮乇丿 亘丕 卮禺氐蹖鬲鈥屬囏й屫� 丌賲蹖禺鬲賴 卮丿賴 丕爻鬲.
丿丕爻鬲丕賳 丿乇亘丕乇賴 爻賵賮蹖丕貙 夭賳 噩賵丕賳 爻丕丿賴 賵 亘蹖鈥屫必ㄙ団€� 賵 丕夭丿賵丕噩 丕賵 亘丕 蹖讴 賴賳乇賲賳丿 賲亘鬲丿蹖 賵 鬲丕夭賴 讴丕乇 亘賴 賳丕賲 趩丕乇賱夭 丕爻鬲 . 夭賳丿诏蹖 賲卮鬲乇讴 丌賳鈥屬囏� 亘丕 賲卮讴賱丕鬲 賲丕賱蹖貙 丌卮賮鬲诏蹖 禺丕賳诏蹖 賵 賲噩賲賵毓賴 丕蹖 丕夭 丕卮鬲亘丕賴丕鬲 丕丨賲賯丕賳賴 蹖丕 丨賲丕賯鬲 賴丕蹖 賲賳丨氐乇 亘賴 賮乇丿 賴賲乇丕賴 丕爻鬲 . 丕賵噩 丕蹖賳 丨賲丕賯鬲 賴丕 乇丕 賲蹖 鬲賵丕賳 丿乇 趩诏賵賳诏蹖 亘趩賴 丿丕乇 卮丿賳 丌賳賴丕 丿蹖丿 . 爻賵賮蹖丕 讴賴 丕夭 亘丕乇丿丕乇蹖 爻乇蹖毓 禺賵丿 倬爻 丕夭 丕夭丿賵丕噩 亘爻蹖丕乇 賲鬲毓噩亘 丕爻鬲 賮讴乇 賲蹖 讴賳丿 讴賴 丕诏乇 丌丿賲 匕賴賳卮 乇丕 賲鬲賲乇讴夭 讴賳丿 賵 亘丕 噩丿蹖鬲 鬲賲丕賲 亘丕 禺賵丿卮 鬲讴乇丕乇 讴賳丿 讴賴 亘趩賴鈥屫ж� 賳禺賵丕賴丿 卮丿 貙 倬爻 丨鬲賲丕 亘趩賴 丿丕乇 賳禺賵丕賴丿 卮丿 .
丕夭丿賵丕噩 賵 倬蹖趩蹖丿诏蹖鈥屬囏й� 丌賳 貙 賮賯乇 賵 胤亘賯賴 丕噩鬲賲丕毓蹖 賵 賲亘丕乇夭賴 賮賯乇丕 亘乇丕蹖 夭賳丿賴 賲丕賳丿賳 貙 鬲丕孬蹖乇 爻禺鬲蹖 賴丕蹖 賲丕賱蹖 亘乇 乇賵丕亘胤 貙 爻賱丕賲鬲 乇賵丕賳 賵 賳丕丕賲蹖丿蹖 丕夭 亘賴亘賵丿 卮乇丕蹖胤 乇丕 賲蹖 鬲賵丕賳 賲賵囟賵毓丕鬲 丕氐賱蹖 讴鬲丕亘 丿丕賳爻鬲 .
讴丕賲蹖賳夭 亘丕 氐丿丕賯鬲蹖 丌賲蹖禺鬲賴 亘賴 胤賳夭 賵 亘賴 诏賵賳賴 丕蹖 丌卮讴丕乇 亘賴 噩夭卅蹖丕鬲 賲爻丕卅賱 賵 賲卮讴賱丕鬲 夭賳丿诏蹖 夭賳丕卮賵蹖蹖 貙 禺蹖丕賳鬲 賵賮賯乇 倬乇丿丕禺鬲賴 . 诏賵蹖蹖 丕賵 丕夭 賳卮丕賳 丿丕丿賳 夭卮鬲蹖鈥屬囏й� 夭賳丿诏蹖 賵丕賴賲賴鈥屫й� 賳丿丕乇丿 . 丿乇 丿賱 丿丕爻鬲丕賳貙 胤賳夭蹖 鬲賱禺 賵 诏夭賳丿賴 賵噩賵丿 丿丕乇丿 讴賴 禺賵丕賳賳丿賴 乇丕 賴賲 賲蹖鈥屫嗀з嗀� 賵 賴賲 亘賴 賮讴乇 賮乇賵 賲蹖鈥屫ㄘ必�. 丕蹖賳 胤賳夭貙 亘賴 賵蹖跇賴 丿乇 鬲賵氐蹖賮 賲賵賯毓蹖鬲鈥屬囏й� 丿卮賵丕乇 賵 胤賳夭丌賲蹖夭 夭賳丿诏蹖 乇賵夭賲乇賴貙 亘爻蹖丕乇 亘乇噩爻鬲賴 賵 賯賵蹖 丕爻鬲. 讴丕賲蹖賳夭 亘丕 夭亘丕賳蹖 爻丕丿賴 賵 乇賵丕賳貙 丿賳蹖丕蹖蹖 倬蹖趩蹖丿賴 乇丕 亘賴 鬲氐賵蹖乇 讴卮蹖丿賴. 丕賵 丕夭 讴賱賲丕鬲 倬蹖趩蹖丿賴 賵 丌乇丕蹖賴鈥屬囏й� 丕丿亘蹖 丕睾乇丕賯鈥屫①呟屫� 丕爻鬲賮丕丿賴 賳讴乇丿賴 賵 賴賲蹖賳 爻丕丿诏蹖貙 亘乇 毓賲賯 丕丨爻丕爻丕鬲 卮禺氐蹖鬲鈥屬囏� 丕賮夭賵丿賴 丕爻鬲 .
讴丕賲蹖賳夭 讴賵卮蹖丿賴 鬲囟丕丿 卮丿蹖丿 賲蹖丕賳 丕賳鬲馗丕乇丕鬲 乇賵蹖丕蹖蹖 賵 乇賲丕賳鬲蹖讴 倬蹖卮 丕夭 丕賳鬲馗丕乇 賵 鬲氐賵蹖乇 賵丕賯毓蹖 夭賳丿诏蹖 倬爻 丕夭 丕夭丿賵丕噩 乇丕 賳卮丕賳 丿賴丿 . 卮丕蹖丿 禺賵丿 毓賳賵丕賳 讴鬲丕亘 乇丕 賴賲 亘丕蹖丿 賳卮丕賳鈥屫囐嗀� 卮乇賵毓 爻丕丿賴 夭賳丿诏蹖 丕蹖賳 夭賵噩 賵 鬲囟丕丿 卮丿蹖丿 亘蹖賳 丌乇夭賵賴丕蹖卮丕賳 賵 賵丕賯毓蹖鬲 丿丕賳爻鬲.
丿乇 倬丕蹖丕賳 賯丕卮賯鈥屬囏й屬呚з� 丕夭 賵賵賱賵乇鬲 禺乇蹖丿蹖賲 鬲氐賵蹖乇蹖 亘蹖鈥屫必呚з嗁� 丕夭 趩丕賱卮鈥屬囏й� 丕夭丿賵丕噩 賵 賲丕丿乇蹖 丿乇 丕賳诏賱爻鬲丕賳 乇丕 賳卮丕賳 丿丕丿賴. 丕诏乇趩賴 丕蹖賳 乇賲丕賳 丕睾賱亘 爻蹖丕賴 賵 鬲丕乇蹖讴 丕爻鬲貙 丕賲丕 亘丕 賱丨馗丕鬲 胤賳夭 爻蹖丕賴 賵 賴賲丿賱蹖 賲賳丨氐乇 亘賴 賮乇丿 亘丕 卮禺氐蹖鬲鈥屬囏й屫� 丌賲蹖禺鬲賴 卮丿賴 丕爻鬲.
December 1, 2022
This is my sixth novel by Comyns and another virago publication. This is the usual weird and wonderful world Comyns creates, although with much less of the magic realism that suffuses some of her novels. This is set around the time of the Great Depression (written in 1950). It is loosely based on Comyns鈥檚 marriage to artist John Pemberton which ended in 1935. The novel concerns Sophia, a young and na茂ve woman of twenty-one with no domestic skills at all. She marries aspiring artist Charles and this is the story of her life with him and the workings of their marriage until its end. That isn鈥檛 a spoiler, it鈥檚 on the first page of the book as Sophia is looking back. It鈥檚 a first person novel and the concerns are those of an everyday life; poverty, children, unemployment loss, falling in and out of love, the nature of happiness and relationships.
Comyns usual wry humour is still there, here is a relative giving advice on managing food when poor:
鈥淪he cleared her throat once or twice, and said something about poor people should eat a lot of herrings, as they were most nutritious, also she had heard poor people eat heaps of sheeps鈥� heads and she went on to ask if I ever cooked them. I said I would rather be dead than cook or eat a sheep鈥檚 head; I鈥檇 seen them in butchers鈥� shops with awful eyes and bits of wool sticking to their skulls. After that helpful hints for the poor were forgotten.鈥�
And the mechanics of pregnancy:
鈥淚 had a kind of idea if you controlled your mind and said 鈥業 won鈥檛 have any babies鈥� very hard, they most likely wouldn鈥檛 come.鈥�
Comyns can slip easily into the tragic and horrific very easily:
鈥渁bout my father eating a wasp in the jam when we were having tea in the garden under the trees, and how he swallowed the wasp and it stung him as it went down and he was dead in twenty-four hours.鈥�
There is also the horror of the commonplace, the descriptions of giving birth in a public hospital are shocking, more so because they were common to the majority of women:
鈥淏esides being very uncomfortable it made me feel dreadfully shamed and exposed. People would not dream of doing such a thing to an animal. I think the ideal way to have a baby would be in a dark, quiet room, all alone and not hurried.鈥�
Again Comyns has a perceptive way of analysing relationships and men in particular, here talking about the reaction of her husband Charles to their new born son:
鈥淐harles still disliked him, but in spite of this made some drawings of us together, so I hoped eventually he would get used to him. At the moment I felt I had most unreasonably brought some awful animal home, and that I was in disgrace for not taking it back to the shop where it came from.鈥�
Comyns has the ability of drawing a certain type of humour from the difficult whilst maintaining the sense of how awful it is. Here Sophia gets a job:
鈥淭he first day there, I had to walk to work because we had no money in the house. Charles promised he would bring some in time for lunch, but, of course, didn鈥檛, and I was too shy of the other girls to borrow any, so I became rather hungry and when it was time to leave I waited to see if he would come to fetch me, but again he failed me, so I had to walk home, getting more and more hungry on the way, and angry, too. When I arrived home I saw Charles through the uncurtained window. He was sitting reading with a tray of tea-things beside him. He looked so comfortable, I became even more angry, and dashed in like a whirlwind and picked up a chair and hit him with it. He did look startled. It was the first time I had done anything like that, and he was disgusted with me. I was ashamed of myself, too, but felt too tired to apologise, so just went to bed and wished I was dead.鈥�
As you can see Comyns is very quotable. The novel was certainly realistic about the lives of women and it is a story of survival and the things many women had to do to get by. Although I felt the ending was a bit of a cop out, I did enjoy this, but then I am already a fan of Comyns. This is an early novel and not her best, although it seems to be the best known.
Comyns usual wry humour is still there, here is a relative giving advice on managing food when poor:
鈥淪he cleared her throat once or twice, and said something about poor people should eat a lot of herrings, as they were most nutritious, also she had heard poor people eat heaps of sheeps鈥� heads and she went on to ask if I ever cooked them. I said I would rather be dead than cook or eat a sheep鈥檚 head; I鈥檇 seen them in butchers鈥� shops with awful eyes and bits of wool sticking to their skulls. After that helpful hints for the poor were forgotten.鈥�
And the mechanics of pregnancy:
鈥淚 had a kind of idea if you controlled your mind and said 鈥業 won鈥檛 have any babies鈥� very hard, they most likely wouldn鈥檛 come.鈥�
Comyns can slip easily into the tragic and horrific very easily:
鈥渁bout my father eating a wasp in the jam when we were having tea in the garden under the trees, and how he swallowed the wasp and it stung him as it went down and he was dead in twenty-four hours.鈥�
There is also the horror of the commonplace, the descriptions of giving birth in a public hospital are shocking, more so because they were common to the majority of women:
鈥淏esides being very uncomfortable it made me feel dreadfully shamed and exposed. People would not dream of doing such a thing to an animal. I think the ideal way to have a baby would be in a dark, quiet room, all alone and not hurried.鈥�
Again Comyns has a perceptive way of analysing relationships and men in particular, here talking about the reaction of her husband Charles to their new born son:
鈥淐harles still disliked him, but in spite of this made some drawings of us together, so I hoped eventually he would get used to him. At the moment I felt I had most unreasonably brought some awful animal home, and that I was in disgrace for not taking it back to the shop where it came from.鈥�
Comyns has the ability of drawing a certain type of humour from the difficult whilst maintaining the sense of how awful it is. Here Sophia gets a job:
鈥淭he first day there, I had to walk to work because we had no money in the house. Charles promised he would bring some in time for lunch, but, of course, didn鈥檛, and I was too shy of the other girls to borrow any, so I became rather hungry and when it was time to leave I waited to see if he would come to fetch me, but again he failed me, so I had to walk home, getting more and more hungry on the way, and angry, too. When I arrived home I saw Charles through the uncurtained window. He was sitting reading with a tray of tea-things beside him. He looked so comfortable, I became even more angry, and dashed in like a whirlwind and picked up a chair and hit him with it. He did look startled. It was the first time I had done anything like that, and he was disgusted with me. I was ashamed of myself, too, but felt too tired to apologise, so just went to bed and wished I was dead.鈥�
As you can see Comyns is very quotable. The novel was certainly realistic about the lives of women and it is a story of survival and the things many women had to do to get by. Although I felt the ending was a bit of a cop out, I did enjoy this, but then I am already a fan of Comyns. This is an early novel and not her best, although it seems to be the best known.
January 24, 2018
I love these Virago Modern Classic books. Anytime I see these distinctive green or black spines with beautiful artwork on their covers at book sales, I pick them up without looking at the titles, because I already know how good they'll be. By women authors sometimes long out of print, they are rescued by Virago and brought back into circulation for a new generation. Novels by women, about women, of all ages and walks of life; I haven't read one yet I didn't like.
From a note by the author on the title page: "The only things true in this story are the wedding and Chapters 10, 11 and 12 and the poverty ". Those chapters are about the birth of her first child in a charity hospital, which must have been a godawful place in the 1930's in London. The poverty was because her stupid, childish, selfish husband refused to work to support his family, because he devoted himself to his art. This story has a happy, storybook ending, which we know from the first paragraph, but the journey to get us there is special because of the voice of Sophia, a naive young girl who believes that love is all you need, but comes to find out that's not quite true. She is so funny and eccentric and honest that you want to leap into the pages to save her from herself. This goes back on to my Virago shelf, with its sisters, to maybe be re-read at some future date, but if not, then just to give me satisfaction when I see it sitting there.
From a note by the author on the title page: "The only things true in this story are the wedding and Chapters 10, 11 and 12 and the poverty ". Those chapters are about the birth of her first child in a charity hospital, which must have been a godawful place in the 1930's in London. The poverty was because her stupid, childish, selfish husband refused to work to support his family, because he devoted himself to his art. This story has a happy, storybook ending, which we know from the first paragraph, but the journey to get us there is special because of the voice of Sophia, a naive young girl who believes that love is all you need, but comes to find out that's not quite true. She is so funny and eccentric and honest that you want to leap into the pages to save her from herself. This goes back on to my Virago shelf, with its sisters, to maybe be re-read at some future date, but if not, then just to give me satisfaction when I see it sitting there.
October 19, 2020
I think鈥ctually, I know my impression of this book was affected by my very strong assumption that the book I was reading was another book written by Stella Gibbons (author of 鈥楥old Comfort Farm鈥�)鈥hich I loved and gave it 5 stars. I found that book to be so funny! And for a while there was nothing to challenge my assumption. But then things started happening in the novel and well...I鈥檒l write down my notes that I took to give you a feel for what was going through my head at the time鈥�
鈥� She (Jim: Sophia, the main protagonist and narrator) only has two relatives. Sad sentence on p. 21 - end of chapter. So far this is v(ery) good.
鈥� They were hoping for a miscarriage!
鈥� She tells us in chapter 9 that this is a book and she鈥檚 in chapter 9. P41
鈥� Wow this is supposed to be funny? P46-7 Charles is an a^^hole.
I finished the book in one sitting because 1) it was a Sunday morning and I had plenty of leisure time and 2) I wanted to get this book in and out of my system ASAP.
So if I had taken a break from this book, maybe say halfway through and thought about it some, I would have realized that my impression that Stella Gibbons wrote this was discombobulated. Rather, Barbara Comyns, who wrote 鈥楾he Vet鈥檚 Daughter鈥� among other books, wrote this. And if I had known that, my reading of the rest of the book would have probably been altered by that factoid. That book was extremely dark, and sad, and this book too is quite dark. I had to cogitate on my review of that book overnight it was so disturbing, but I ended up giving it 3.5 stars because it was written, to my mind, so well. As I said in my review of 鈥楾he Vet鈥檚 Daughter鈥�: 鈥溾€he book is incredibly dark鈥o that isn鈥檛 too bad. It鈥檚 just that it is incredibly incredibly dark (I guess I am repeating myself). But that doesn鈥檛 mean a book is bad. I guess this is not the sort of reading I would want to regularly immerse myself in鈥︹€�
So, likewise I am giving this book 3.5 stars, because the writing is damn good. And it held my attention throughout.
There was humor scattered here and there throughout the book. Here is a description of a large woman that Sophia (the main protagonist in this novel) encounters:
鈥� He brought a 鈥榞reat woman鈥� with him, who really was a great woman. She was quite six feet tall and very beautiful in a totem-pole kind of way, with huge staring eyes, like head-lamps.
I found that funny鈥n a totem-pole kind of way. 馃檭
But even some of the humor is dark:
鈥� 鈥淚 told him鈥bout my father eating a wasp in the jam when we were having tea in the garden under the trees, and how he swallowed the wasp and it stung him as it went down and how he was dead in twenty-four hours鈥︹€� (Jim: well, I鈥檓 not saying that was funny, per se鈥� 馃槵)
So: if you are in the mood for a dark book that is well-written, I would heartily recommend this book. Conversely, if you have had a bad day and feel a bit low, avoid this book like the coronavirus 馃槓
Reviews:
鈥� This is a review of Barbara Comyn鈥檚 oeuvre and her life and I found it to be very good鈥 would give the piece of writing 5 stars:
鈥� This is the intro from the New York Review of Books re-issue, so if you get that version, you might want to read the intro afterwards鈥t was also published in the Paris Review:
鈥� What a bizarre review鈥t appears to be written by a 14-year old鈥nd it is supposedly under 鈥榗hildren鈥檚 books鈥�. This most definitely is not a children鈥檚 book!:
鈥� (written by Lauren Goldenberg, Deputy Director of the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at The New York Public Library)
鈥� She (Jim: Sophia, the main protagonist and narrator) only has two relatives. Sad sentence on p. 21 - end of chapter. So far this is v(ery) good.
鈥� They were hoping for a miscarriage!
鈥� She tells us in chapter 9 that this is a book and she鈥檚 in chapter 9. P41
鈥� Wow this is supposed to be funny? P46-7 Charles is an a^^hole.
I finished the book in one sitting because 1) it was a Sunday morning and I had plenty of leisure time and 2) I wanted to get this book in and out of my system ASAP.
So if I had taken a break from this book, maybe say halfway through and thought about it some, I would have realized that my impression that Stella Gibbons wrote this was discombobulated. Rather, Barbara Comyns, who wrote 鈥楾he Vet鈥檚 Daughter鈥� among other books, wrote this. And if I had known that, my reading of the rest of the book would have probably been altered by that factoid. That book was extremely dark, and sad, and this book too is quite dark. I had to cogitate on my review of that book overnight it was so disturbing, but I ended up giving it 3.5 stars because it was written, to my mind, so well. As I said in my review of 鈥楾he Vet鈥檚 Daughter鈥�: 鈥溾€he book is incredibly dark鈥o that isn鈥檛 too bad. It鈥檚 just that it is incredibly incredibly dark (I guess I am repeating myself). But that doesn鈥檛 mean a book is bad. I guess this is not the sort of reading I would want to regularly immerse myself in鈥︹€�
So, likewise I am giving this book 3.5 stars, because the writing is damn good. And it held my attention throughout.
There was humor scattered here and there throughout the book. Here is a description of a large woman that Sophia (the main protagonist in this novel) encounters:
鈥� He brought a 鈥榞reat woman鈥� with him, who really was a great woman. She was quite six feet tall and very beautiful in a totem-pole kind of way, with huge staring eyes, like head-lamps.
I found that funny鈥n a totem-pole kind of way. 馃檭
But even some of the humor is dark:
鈥� 鈥淚 told him鈥bout my father eating a wasp in the jam when we were having tea in the garden under the trees, and how he swallowed the wasp and it stung him as it went down and how he was dead in twenty-four hours鈥︹€� (Jim: well, I鈥檓 not saying that was funny, per se鈥� 馃槵)
So: if you are in the mood for a dark book that is well-written, I would heartily recommend this book. Conversely, if you have had a bad day and feel a bit low, avoid this book like the coronavirus 馃槓
Reviews:
鈥� This is a review of Barbara Comyn鈥檚 oeuvre and her life and I found it to be very good鈥 would give the piece of writing 5 stars:
鈥� This is the intro from the New York Review of Books re-issue, so if you get that version, you might want to read the intro afterwards鈥t was also published in the Paris Review:
鈥� What a bizarre review鈥t appears to be written by a 14-year old鈥nd it is supposedly under 鈥榗hildren鈥檚 books鈥�. This most definitely is not a children鈥檚 book!:
鈥� (written by Lauren Goldenberg, Deputy Director of the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at The New York Public Library)
June 6, 2020
3.5
For some reason, I鈥檓 not feeling much of a review after finishing this, so I鈥檒l point you toward a friend鈥檚 review, with which I wholeheartedly agree: /review/show...
I鈥檒l just add that, after some reflection, I can only guess that the precipitousness of the ending was how the first-person narrator felt about it鈥攁s well as its showing (maybe) that what came before was much more important. I was a bit perplexed and then remembered the first line of the novel: 鈥淚 told Helen my story and she went home and cried.鈥� She cried about what happened in the middle, not the end.
I have Comyns鈥� up next.
For some reason, I鈥檓 not feeling much of a review after finishing this, so I鈥檒l point you toward a friend鈥檚 review, with which I wholeheartedly agree: /review/show...
I鈥檒l just add that, after some reflection, I can only guess that the precipitousness of the ending was how the first-person narrator felt about it鈥攁s well as its showing (maybe) that what came before was much more important. I was a bit perplexed and then remembered the first line of the novel: 鈥淚 told Helen my story and she went home and cried.鈥� She cried about what happened in the middle, not the end.
I have Comyns鈥� up next.
April 10, 2014
One of my pet hates (and my followers will know this) is a writer who writes outside their characters sensibilities. For instance, we think we know a character but then the author uses observations, allusions and metaphors beyond that character's thought processes. Thankfully this isn't the case with the very quirky and unconventional Our Spoons Came From Woolworths.
Sophia is a young commercial artist who marries, in haste, an artist called Charles. The novel begins quite simply: "I told Helen my story and she went home and cried." Most of the novel is narrated in this matter of fact way, yet by concentrating on often incongruent details, Comyns brings what must be an early example of magic realism to the book.
"Then the morning came and it was light. There were half-packed suitcases all around my bed. The posters that had disguised the ugly wallpaper were lying about in long white scrolls. Great Warty looked at me from his glass house, so I took him out and let him walk up my arm until he fell in the bed, then I made tunnels out of the bedclothes for him to walk slowly through and he looked prehistoric."
Wonderful!
When Sophia talks about what happens to her as she goes into labour, we realise (as readers in the 21st century), the deplorable state of affairs of maternity wards in the 1930s. She is not only treated with rudeness and an uncaring attitude but she is forced to carry her suitcase from one ward room to another whilst in the early stages of labour. It is not in Sophia's nature to question this and be appalled at the system, nor later to really question her husband's selfish attitude towards her and the children. It's just the way things are. As a reader I couldn't help enjoy Sophia's take on life, especially her sojourn in the country, and applaud Comyns for her originality. Highly recommended!
Sophia is a young commercial artist who marries, in haste, an artist called Charles. The novel begins quite simply: "I told Helen my story and she went home and cried." Most of the novel is narrated in this matter of fact way, yet by concentrating on often incongruent details, Comyns brings what must be an early example of magic realism to the book.
"Then the morning came and it was light. There were half-packed suitcases all around my bed. The posters that had disguised the ugly wallpaper were lying about in long white scrolls. Great Warty looked at me from his glass house, so I took him out and let him walk up my arm until he fell in the bed, then I made tunnels out of the bedclothes for him to walk slowly through and he looked prehistoric."
Wonderful!
When Sophia talks about what happens to her as she goes into labour, we realise (as readers in the 21st century), the deplorable state of affairs of maternity wards in the 1930s. She is not only treated with rudeness and an uncaring attitude but she is forced to carry her suitcase from one ward room to another whilst in the early stages of labour. It is not in Sophia's nature to question this and be appalled at the system, nor later to really question her husband's selfish attitude towards her and the children. It's just the way things are. As a reader I couldn't help enjoy Sophia's take on life, especially her sojourn in the country, and applaud Comyns for her originality. Highly recommended!
July 8, 2023
丿乇 爻乇 賲爻鬲蹖 鬲賲賵賲 讴乇丿賳卮 賮毓賱丕 倬賳噩 賲蹖鈥屫�.
爻賵賮蹖丕 賮乇讴賱丕賮 爻乇诏匕卮鬲 禺賵丿卮 乇賵 鬲賵蹖 丿賴賴鈥屰� 爻蹖 賱賳丿賳 鬲毓乇蹖賮 賲蹖鈥屭┵嗁�. 鬲賵蹖 賴賲賵賳 賮氐賱 丕賵賱 賲蹖鈥屭� 讴賴 趩賴鈥屫堌臂� 亘丕 趩丕乇賱夭 丌卮賳丕 卮丿賴 賵 鬲氐賲蹖賲 賲蹖鈥屭屫辟� 倬賳賴丕賳蹖 丕夭丿賵丕噩 讴賳賳. 賵 丕鬲賮丕賯鈥屸€屬囏й� 夭賳丿诏蹖卮 乇賵 丕夭 亘毓丿 丕賵賳 鬲毓乇蹖賮 賲蹖鈥屭┵嗁�. 乇丕賵蹖 丕賵賱 賮氐賱 侃 賲蹖鈥屭� [賳賯賱 亘賴 賲囟賲賵賳]: "讴鬲丕亘蹖 讴賴 丿爻鬲鬲賵賳 丿丕乇蹖賳 乇賲丕賳 賯胤賵乇蹖 賳禺賵丕賴丿 卮丿貙 卮丕蹖丿 趩賵賳 丿蹖丕賱賵诏蹖 亘蹖賳 卮禺氐蹖鬲鈥屬囏� 丕鬲賮丕賯 賳賲蹖賮鬲賴. 賲蹖鈥屫堎嗀池� 讴鬲丕亘 乇賵 亘丕 賮賱丕賳蹖 丿賵 賳賯胤賴 诏賮鬲貙 賮賱丕賳蹖 丿賵 賳賯胤賴 噩賵丕亘 丿丕丿 倬乇 讴賳賲. 趩蹖夭賴丕蹖蹖 讴賴 鬲賵蹖 讴鬲丕亘鈥屬囏й� 賵丕賯毓蹖 賲蹖鈥屫ㄛ屬嗃屬�. 丕蹖 讴丕卮 夭亘丕賳鈥屸€屫з� 亘賴鬲乇蹖 亘賵丿賲 賵 丿乇爻鈥屬囏й屬� 乇賵 亘賴鬲乇 賲蹖鈥屫堎嗀�. 丕蹖賳 乇賵 毓蹖亘 禺賵丿賲 賲蹖鈥屫堎嗁�." 鬲賵蹖 賲賯丿賲賴鈥屰� 禺丕賳賲 丕賲蹖賱蹖 诏賵賱丿 賲蹖鈥屬佡囐呟屬� 讴賴 賳丕卮乇 讴鬲丕亘 丕賵賱 賳賵蹖爻賳丿賴貙 賳賴 鬲賳賴丕 睾賱胤鈥屬囏й� 丕賲賱丕蹖蹖 讴鬲丕亘 乇賵 賵蹖乇丕爻鬲丕乇蹖 賳讴乇丿賴 讴賴 趩丕賴丕乇 鬲丕 賴賲 乇賵卮 诏匕丕卮鬲賴 讴賴 亘賴 噩匕丕亘蹖鬲 賳孬乇 賳丕倬禺鬲賴鈥� 賵 爻丕丿賴鈥屰� 讴鬲丕亘 丕囟丕賮賴 讴賳賴. 賲賳 賲賵賯毓 禺賵賳丿賳 賮讴乇 賳讴乇丿賲 讴賴 賳孬乇 賳丕倬禺鬲賴鈥屫�. 亘賳馗乇賲 賴賵卮賲賳丿丕賳賴 賵 禺蹖賱蹖 讴丕乇 卮丿賴 亘賵丿. 賳賯胤賴鈥屬嗀肛� 氐丕丿賯丕賳賴 賵 爻丕丿賴鈥屫й� 丿丕乇賴 丿乇 賲賯丕亘賱 丕鬲賮丕賯丕鬲 賵 丕蹖賳 胤賳夭 丿乇禺卮丕賳蹖 乇賵 賲蹖鈥屫池ж操� 丿乇 乇賵丕蹖鬲 賵 賲賵賯毓蹖鬲鈥屬囏�. 丕夭 賴賲蹖賳賴 讴賴 禺賵丕賳賳丿賴 鬲賱禺蹖鈥屬囏� 乇賵 鬲丕亘 賲蹖丕乇賴 賵 丕丿丕賲賴 賲蹖鈥屫�. 丌亘 賵 鬲丕亘 丕賱讴蹖 賳賲锟斤拷鈥屫� 丿乇毓蹖賳 丨丕賱 噩夭卅蹖丕鬲 倬乇鬲氐賵蹖乇 賵 賵丕賯毓蹖鈥屫й� 丕夭 賮賯乇 賵 爻禺鬲蹖 夭賳丿诏蹖 丕賵賳 爻丕賱鈥屬囏й� 賱賳丿賳 丿丕乇賴. 爻賴 賮氐賱 讴鬲丕亘 丿乇亘丕乇賴鈥屰� 夭丕蹖賲丕賳 鬲賵蹖 亘蹖賲丕乇爻鬲丕賳 丿賵賱鬲蹖 賴賲 丿丕乇賴 讴賴 賴賲賵賳鈥屫堌� 讴賴 丿乇 賲賯丿賲賴 诏賮鬲賴 賲蹖禺讴賵亘鈥屭┵嗁嗀団€屫�. 禺賱丕氐賴 讴賴 趩丕賱卮 丿丕乇蹖賳 丕诏賴 亘丕 賮氐賱 丕賵賱 賴賲乇丕賴 卮丿蹖賳 亘禺賵丕蹖賳 讴鬲丕亘 乇賵 夭賲蹖賳 亘匕丕乇蹖賳.
爻賵賮蹖丕 賮乇讴賱丕賮 爻乇诏匕卮鬲 禺賵丿卮 乇賵 鬲賵蹖 丿賴賴鈥屰� 爻蹖 賱賳丿賳 鬲毓乇蹖賮 賲蹖鈥屭┵嗁�. 鬲賵蹖 賴賲賵賳 賮氐賱 丕賵賱 賲蹖鈥屭� 讴賴 趩賴鈥屫堌臂� 亘丕 趩丕乇賱夭 丌卮賳丕 卮丿賴 賵 鬲氐賲蹖賲 賲蹖鈥屭屫辟� 倬賳賴丕賳蹖 丕夭丿賵丕噩 讴賳賳. 賵 丕鬲賮丕賯鈥屸€屬囏й� 夭賳丿诏蹖卮 乇賵 丕夭 亘毓丿 丕賵賳 鬲毓乇蹖賮 賲蹖鈥屭┵嗁�. 乇丕賵蹖 丕賵賱 賮氐賱 侃 賲蹖鈥屭� [賳賯賱 亘賴 賲囟賲賵賳]: "讴鬲丕亘蹖 讴賴 丿爻鬲鬲賵賳 丿丕乇蹖賳 乇賲丕賳 賯胤賵乇蹖 賳禺賵丕賴丿 卮丿貙 卮丕蹖丿 趩賵賳 丿蹖丕賱賵诏蹖 亘蹖賳 卮禺氐蹖鬲鈥屬囏� 丕鬲賮丕賯 賳賲蹖賮鬲賴. 賲蹖鈥屫堎嗀池� 讴鬲丕亘 乇賵 亘丕 賮賱丕賳蹖 丿賵 賳賯胤賴 诏賮鬲貙 賮賱丕賳蹖 丿賵 賳賯胤賴 噩賵丕亘 丿丕丿 倬乇 讴賳賲. 趩蹖夭賴丕蹖蹖 讴賴 鬲賵蹖 讴鬲丕亘鈥屬囏й� 賵丕賯毓蹖 賲蹖鈥屫ㄛ屬嗃屬�. 丕蹖 讴丕卮 夭亘丕賳鈥屸€屫з� 亘賴鬲乇蹖 亘賵丿賲 賵 丿乇爻鈥屬囏й屬� 乇賵 亘賴鬲乇 賲蹖鈥屫堎嗀�. 丕蹖賳 乇賵 毓蹖亘 禺賵丿賲 賲蹖鈥屫堎嗁�." 鬲賵蹖 賲賯丿賲賴鈥屰� 禺丕賳賲 丕賲蹖賱蹖 诏賵賱丿 賲蹖鈥屬佡囐呟屬� 讴賴 賳丕卮乇 讴鬲丕亘 丕賵賱 賳賵蹖爻賳丿賴貙 賳賴 鬲賳賴丕 睾賱胤鈥屬囏й� 丕賲賱丕蹖蹖 讴鬲丕亘 乇賵 賵蹖乇丕爻鬲丕乇蹖 賳讴乇丿賴 讴賴 趩丕賴丕乇 鬲丕 賴賲 乇賵卮 诏匕丕卮鬲賴 讴賴 亘賴 噩匕丕亘蹖鬲 賳孬乇 賳丕倬禺鬲賴鈥� 賵 爻丕丿賴鈥屰� 讴鬲丕亘 丕囟丕賮賴 讴賳賴. 賲賳 賲賵賯毓 禺賵賳丿賳 賮讴乇 賳讴乇丿賲 讴賴 賳孬乇 賳丕倬禺鬲賴鈥屫�. 亘賳馗乇賲 賴賵卮賲賳丿丕賳賴 賵 禺蹖賱蹖 讴丕乇 卮丿賴 亘賵丿. 賳賯胤賴鈥屬嗀肛� 氐丕丿賯丕賳賴 賵 爻丕丿賴鈥屫й� 丿丕乇賴 丿乇 賲賯丕亘賱 丕鬲賮丕賯丕鬲 賵 丕蹖賳 胤賳夭 丿乇禺卮丕賳蹖 乇賵 賲蹖鈥屫池ж操� 丿乇 乇賵丕蹖鬲 賵 賲賵賯毓蹖鬲鈥屬囏�. 丕夭 賴賲蹖賳賴 讴賴 禺賵丕賳賳丿賴 鬲賱禺蹖鈥屬囏� 乇賵 鬲丕亘 賲蹖丕乇賴 賵 丕丿丕賲賴 賲蹖鈥屫�. 丌亘 賵 鬲丕亘 丕賱讴蹖 賳賲锟斤拷鈥屫� 丿乇毓蹖賳 丨丕賱 噩夭卅蹖丕鬲 倬乇鬲氐賵蹖乇 賵 賵丕賯毓蹖鈥屫й� 丕夭 賮賯乇 賵 爻禺鬲蹖 夭賳丿诏蹖 丕賵賳 爻丕賱鈥屬囏й� 賱賳丿賳 丿丕乇賴. 爻賴 賮氐賱 讴鬲丕亘 丿乇亘丕乇賴鈥屰� 夭丕蹖賲丕賳 鬲賵蹖 亘蹖賲丕乇爻鬲丕賳 丿賵賱鬲蹖 賴賲 丿丕乇賴 讴賴 賴賲賵賳鈥屫堌� 讴賴 丿乇 賲賯丿賲賴 诏賮鬲賴 賲蹖禺讴賵亘鈥屭┵嗁嗀団€屫�. 禺賱丕氐賴 讴賴 趩丕賱卮 丿丕乇蹖賳 丕诏賴 亘丕 賮氐賱 丕賵賱 賴賲乇丕賴 卮丿蹖賳 亘禺賵丕蹖賳 讴鬲丕亘 乇賵 夭賲蹖賳 亘匕丕乇蹖賳.
March 9, 2017
Read entirely aloud over Skype with Maya while we're on different continents. Probably the slightest of Comyns' novels I've come across yet (but it's just her second). Even so, she has such a perfect yet completely unaffected and conversational turn of phrase that she's always a pleasure. Plus:
Social realism -- the precise details of class and place and social atmosphere in depression-era England are spot-on and create a vivid portrait. She crams the pages with perfect particulars. Right down to the title.
Social surrealism -- and as with Comyns' best works, things can get nonchalantly weird and horrific, blindsiding the reader and then going on as if nothing much had happened.
And through those details, those structural rhythms, Comyns has a kind of social purpose. Not exactly feminist here as the narrator wouldn't have possibly considered things on those terms, but her strength of character, and Comyns', draw attention to subtle, and not-so-subtle, realities and gender politics in a constant undercurrent. Now if only the protagonist had been able to make her own way out of her troubles an not required the neat ending that this reaches, but again, such was likely outside her (the character's, not Comyns') imagination in those times.
Social realism -- the precise details of class and place and social atmosphere in depression-era England are spot-on and create a vivid portrait. She crams the pages with perfect particulars. Right down to the title.
Social surrealism -- and as with Comyns' best works, things can get nonchalantly weird and horrific, blindsiding the reader and then going on as if nothing much had happened.
And through those details, those structural rhythms, Comyns has a kind of social purpose. Not exactly feminist here as the narrator wouldn't have possibly considered things on those terms, but her strength of character, and Comyns', draw attention to subtle, and not-so-subtle, realities and gender politics in a constant undercurrent. Now if only the protagonist had been able to make her own way out of her troubles an not required the neat ending that this reaches, but again, such was likely outside her (the character's, not Comyns') imagination in those times.
June 19, 2024
丕诏乇 禺蹖賱蹖 賵賯鬲賴 賳鬲賵賳爻鬲蹖賳 讴鬲丕亘 亘禺賵賳蹖賳貙 禺爻鬲賴鈥屫й屬� 賵 丨賵氐賱賴鈥屰� 讴鬲丕亘 賳丿丕乇蹖賳貙 丕蹖賳 讴鬲丕亘 乇賵 亘禺賵賳蹖賳. 丕賳賯丿乇 爻丕丿賴 賵 乇賵賵賳 賵 卮蹖乇蹖賳賴 讴賴 賲賵賯毓 禺賵賳丿賳卮 賱亘禺賳丿 丕夭 賱亘賲 賳賲蹖乇賮鬲. 丿乇 賲賵乇丿 爻賵賮蹖丕貙 丿禺鬲乇蹖賴 讴賴 丿乇 郾鄯 爻丕賱诏蹖 亘丕 蹖讴 倬爻乇 鄄郯 爻丕賱賴鈥屰� 賳賯丕卮 丕夭丿賵丕噩 賲蹖讴賳賴. 夭賳丿诏蹖 乇賵 丿乇 賮賯乇 卮乇賵毓 賲蹖讴賳賳 賵 亘丕賱丕 倬丕蹖蹖賳 夭賳丿诏蹖 乇賵 鬲噩乇亘賴 賲蹖讴賳賳.
賲賳 禺蹖賱蹖 丿賵爻鬲卮 丿丕卮鬲賲. 丕夭 禺賵賳丿賳卮 賱匕鬲 亘乇丿賲 賵 丿賵爻鬲 丿丕乇賲 鬲丕賱蹖賮鈥屬囏й� 丿蹖诏賴鈥屰� 賳賵蹖爻賳丿賴 賵 鬲乇噩賲賴鈥屬囏й� 賲鬲乇噩賲 乇賵 丿賳亘丕賱 讴賳賲. 鬲乇噩賲賴鈥屰� 禺蹖賱蹖 鬲賲蹖夭 賵 禺賵亘蹖 亘賵丿.
賲賳 禺蹖賱蹖 丿賵爻鬲卮 丿丕卮鬲賲. 丕夭 禺賵賳丿賳卮 賱匕鬲 亘乇丿賲 賵 丿賵爻鬲 丿丕乇賲 鬲丕賱蹖賮鈥屬囏й� 丿蹖诏賴鈥屰� 賳賵蹖爻賳丿賴 賵 鬲乇噩賲賴鈥屬囏й� 賲鬲乇噩賲 乇賵 丿賳亘丕賱 讴賳賲. 鬲乇噩賲賴鈥屰� 禺蹖賱蹖 鬲賲蹖夭 賵 禺賵亘蹖 亘賵丿.
March 24, 2015
I was quickly drawn into this strange novel. It is narrated by Sophia in her youthful, passive voice. She meets a man called Charles on a train, they are both carrying artists' portfolios, and they soon decide to marry. We are given an insight into the life of 1930's bohemian London and their personal decline into financial despair and poverty. Sophia and Charles marry in haste and live a chaotic and ungrounded life. It is written in a chatty, conversational way as she describes happy and sad events. There is an isolated feel to her words as she struggles to understand her new life. The novel touches on a variety of themes including marriage and love, happiness and fulfilment. It is not as grim as it sounds and there are uplifting, amusing, loving moments too. Sophia gains in experience and grows into a young, optimistic woman. It is a very quirky book written in quite a unique style but I found it an intriguing and gripping one.
May 6, 2017
On the copyright page of Our Spoons Came from Woolworths is the italicized comment "The only things that are true in this story are the wedding and Chapters 10, 11 and 12 and the poverty." Despite the disclaimer I suspect many dimensions of this novel are autobiographical. There are some parallels in Sophia Fairclough's story of a bohemian and artistic life between the wars and that of her creator, Barbara Comyns. I believe the poverty, especially, is real; I think of this as a novel about poverty.
It's told in Sophia's voice made infectiously innocent by Comyns. It's the strength of the novel, I think, and what makes this novel an infectious read. And yet some of the choices Sophia make are those of someone not so innocent, someone possessing a sturdy determination and practicality. Even if the story of a young woman's passage to happiness has been told countless times, Comyns makes it interesting. The only quibble I have with it is the almost headlong careening into a storybook ending. I didn't mind the ending itself but thought it needed more development so that it would not be too good to be true. But then I remind myself the ending is not included in the truths Comyns claims for the novel in her famous disavowal on the copyright page.
It's told in Sophia's voice made infectiously innocent by Comyns. It's the strength of the novel, I think, and what makes this novel an infectious read. And yet some of the choices Sophia make are those of someone not so innocent, someone possessing a sturdy determination and practicality. Even if the story of a young woman's passage to happiness has been told countless times, Comyns makes it interesting. The only quibble I have with it is the almost headlong careening into a storybook ending. I didn't mind the ending itself but thought it needed more development so that it would not be too good to be true. But then I remind myself the ending is not included in the truths Comyns claims for the novel in her famous disavowal on the copyright page.
November 25, 2024
丕蹖賳 乇賲丕賳 賳賵卮鬲賴 禺丕賳賲 亘丕乇亘丕乇丕 讴丕賲蹖賳夭貙 賳孬乇蹖 乇賵丕賳 賵 爻丕丿賴 丿丕乇賴 讴賴 丿乇 丌賳 爻賵賮蹖丕 賮乇讴賱丕賮 丿丕爻鬲丕賳 夭賳丿诏蹖卮 乇賵 丿乇 丿賴賴 鄢郯 賲蹖賱丕丿蹖 丿乇 賱賳丿賳 鬲毓乇蹖賮 賲蹖讴賳賴貙 丕夭 丕夭丿賵丕噩 丿乇 爻賳 讴賲 亘丕 趩丕乇賱夭 賵 鬲賱禺蹖 賵 爻禺鬲蹖 賴丕蹖蹖 讴賴 丿乇 夭賳丿诏蹖 亘丕 賮賯乇 亘丕 丕賵賳 賴丕 乇賵 亘賴 乇賵 賲蹖卮賴 賵 丕賱亘鬲賴 鬲賲丕賲 丿丕爻鬲丕賳 乇賵 亘丕 胤賳夭蹖 丿乇禺卮丕賳 趩賳丕賳 鬲賵氐蹖賮 賲蹖讴賳賴 亘賴 胤賵乇蹖 讴賴 睾賲 丕賳诏蹖夭 亘賵丿賳 丕賵賳 賴丕 乇賵 禺賵丕賳賳丿賴 讴賲鬲乇 丕丨爻丕爻 賲蹖 讴賳賴 賵 丨鬲蹖 诏丕賴蹖 賱亘禺賳丿蹖 賴賲 亘乇 乇賵蹖 賱亘丕賳卮 賲蹖丕丿.
March 23, 2024
This was a fun read. I got to the half-way point, and was feeling fed-up with her endless simple sentences - they do go on and on. And then - dramatic second half, with a princess-type happy ending. It's not the story or the style, it's the voice that carries this book. I was surprised how much I liked her - Comyns, her unflustered observations on life. Of course she becomes super flustered at certain points, but there is a lot to be said for her general optimism and good cheer - in-spite of the unrelenting poverty of her life with Charles. She herself rightfully designates him a Peter-Pan partner.
The book was first published in 1950, but it refers back to 1930s, London. I read the latest edition from Virago published in 2013, with an introduction by Maggie O'Farrell, that I didn't read, because I am not overly keen on her. I suppose I mention these dates because Comyn's book really allows us to see how control over reproduction was so important for women, to have freedom and independence.
I'll probably go back and re-try , which I gave up at the 50% mark due to the weird spelling and the simple sentences. Mistletoe was published in 1967, so a later work, but I think it precedes the time period of Our Spoons, I remember a vaguely Charles-like figure entering the life of one of the girls.
Here is a short passage that demonstrates how little support Sophia receives, when she is pregnant with the second baby:
Charles's family were deeply shocked when they heard about us having another baby. Paul wrote and said he would cancel all future help, but as he had only given us twelve pounds in the last three years, we didn't worry. Eva said I had no consideration for Charles. I must control myself and put a stop to all these babies, and in this case, I felt her remarks were quite justified.
The book was first published in 1950, but it refers back to 1930s, London. I read the latest edition from Virago published in 2013, with an introduction by Maggie O'Farrell, that I didn't read, because I am not overly keen on her. I suppose I mention these dates because Comyn's book really allows us to see how control over reproduction was so important for women, to have freedom and independence.
I'll probably go back and re-try , which I gave up at the 50% mark due to the weird spelling and the simple sentences. Mistletoe was published in 1967, so a later work, but I think it precedes the time period of Our Spoons, I remember a vaguely Charles-like figure entering the life of one of the girls.
Here is a short passage that demonstrates how little support Sophia receives, when she is pregnant with the second baby:
Charles's family were deeply shocked when they heard about us having another baby. Paul wrote and said he would cancel all future help, but as he had only given us twelve pounds in the last three years, we didn't worry. Eva said I had no consideration for Charles. I must control myself and put a stop to all these babies, and in this case, I felt her remarks were quite justified.
January 21, 2019
Published in 1950, Our Spoons Came From Woolworths is told in the first person by Sophia Fairclough, who meets and marries Charles in the beginning of the book. Her winsome, stream of consciousness narrative is misleading - the early part of the book beguiles the reader into thinking that this is a piece of cheery, lively fiction about a young married couple starting their lives. Charles is an artist, with firmly middle class roots; Sophia is parentless, with a couple of rather uncaring siblings. The book is set in the 1930's, during the global depression between the two wars.
That sense of optimism rapidly devolves into something more akin to horror. Sophia conceives, and having never received even the tiniest bit of education about the reproduction process, is surprised. She believed that just wishing to NOT have a baby would work to counteract conception. No one is happy about this baby - they are too young and too poor and no one is willing to see Charles clearly for what he is.
Which is a dead loss as a human being. He, initially, lives off of Sophia, his father having stopped his allowance once he married. Sophia is working at a commercial studio, and is fired once she has to admit she is pregnant. Her sense of pride prevents her from admitting that this is a terrible hardship. Even after she is let go, Charles does nothing to try to contribute the family coffers.
His family is terrible, blaming Sophia both for the pregnancy, as though she managed that on her own, and for interfering with his ability to develop his great artistic talent. Everyone, including Sophia, seems to accept that it is Sophia's responsibility to keep the young couple in food and housing. This is infuriating, because it literally never seems to occur to anyone that a man should not allow his wife and child to starve, especially during a time period which does not allow pregnant women/young mothers of Sophia's class to work.
The chapters that address the birth of Sophia's son, Sandro, are harrowing. Comyns describes the process of labor in a charity hospital in both explicit and horrifying detail. She is dragged from room to room, never told what to expect, and subjected to the most awful indignities, and once the birth is over, her son is removed to the infant room and she doesn't see him for two days.
It actually gets worse from here. Her marriage is a disaster, her husband is a loser, and their extended family is completely blind to the poverty and hunger that she suffers. Through it all, Sophia's voice remains mostly optimistic and always convincing.
This is, more or less, a book about poverty - about how it grinds and about the experience of being completely powerless due to structural inequalities, such as male supremacy and class-based oppression. Reading it pissed me off, I was so angry at everyone: Charles, for being such an irredeemable asshole; Charles's family for being so monstrously uncaring, and, even, Sophia, for not seeming to find her situation as intolerable as I did. She was so captive to her own circumstances that it seemingly never occurred to her that she should've been able to expect more from her husband and family.
There is one briefly satisfying moment when she loses her temper. She has started a new job and has to walk to work because there is no money in the house. Charles promises to bring her some money in time for lunch, but he blows her off. When it comes time to leave
"I waited to see if he would come fetch me, but again he failed me, so I had to walk home, getting more and more hungry on the way, and angry too. When I arrived home, I saw Charles through the uncurtained window. He was sitting reading with a tray of tea-things beside him. He looked so comfortable, I became even more angry, and dashed in like a whirlwind and picked up a chair and hit him with it."
Even then, though, Sophia is made to feel that she is in the wrong. "I was ashamed of myself, too, but felt too tired to apologize, so just went to bed and wished I was dead."
It took me some significant contemplation yesterday to figure out why I had such an emotional response to this book, and it was only after I admitted to myself that I felt a strong sympathy for Sophia based upon a bit of my personal history that it made sense. When I was 21, I married my own Charles - a man who was just fine with living off of me while he attended (and ultimately failed to graduate from) law school, as I worked full-time and went to college to support us.
After I graduated from undergraduate, I applied to and was accepted to law school and left the city where I had done my undergrad. My husband was, originally, supposed to move with me, but he had mucked up his final year in law school badly and had to complete an additional term, so I went alone. Back then, first year law students had to sign a contract that they couldn't work. Our agreement was that he would get a job and send me money for food. I needed that money to eat.
I had a scholarship to cover my tuition, and some of my rent, and I had some savings, but I was wary of running out of money. My entire financial house of cards was built on getting a little bit of money from my husband, a couple of hundred dollars a month, who hadn't worked during our entire marriage, but who was able to work because he only had a couple of classes to finish that term.
He sent me one check. It bounced. I had never experienced hunger before, and like Sophia, I was far too proud to tell anyone how broke I was. In retrospect, that is such an act of callousness that I would have been more than justified in ending the marriage. I didn't. I took a few things that I could scrape together and I pawned them for $50.00 so I could buy some food, and then I began secretly temping for about 10 hours a week to make a little bit of money. I ate nothing but macaroni and cheese for a couple of weeks until my first paycheck came through. No one at the school found out, so I was able to do enough of this to pay for my groceries.
As you can probably imagine at this point in the story, the marriage failed completely about six months later. But reading this book brought it all back - the rage, the helplessness, the sense of confusion, the reality that no one knew that I was married to a child and I was suffering. And I was 24, and it was a completely different time. Women were able to work, and I didn't have children (thank god I didn't have children), but I was still tied to this worthless asshole who didn't care that I was hungry. And I internalized all of this by concluding that, somehow, I was at fault for all of it, and my loyalty to this failure of a person prevented me from asking anyone for help.
I think probably all women have a story like this.
Even with the grim subject matter, though, there is something fresh and appealing about both Sophia and the book that I can't really explain. It was very frustrating to read, and, although Sophia does get a happy ending, Charles did not get run over by an omnibus, nor did he artistically starve to death, which were the two proper endings for him.
So, I do recommend Our Spoons Came From Woolworths, even if it made me want to hit something.
That sense of optimism rapidly devolves into something more akin to horror. Sophia conceives, and having never received even the tiniest bit of education about the reproduction process, is surprised. She believed that just wishing to NOT have a baby would work to counteract conception. No one is happy about this baby - they are too young and too poor and no one is willing to see Charles clearly for what he is.
Which is a dead loss as a human being. He, initially, lives off of Sophia, his father having stopped his allowance once he married. Sophia is working at a commercial studio, and is fired once she has to admit she is pregnant. Her sense of pride prevents her from admitting that this is a terrible hardship. Even after she is let go, Charles does nothing to try to contribute the family coffers.
His family is terrible, blaming Sophia both for the pregnancy, as though she managed that on her own, and for interfering with his ability to develop his great artistic talent. Everyone, including Sophia, seems to accept that it is Sophia's responsibility to keep the young couple in food and housing. This is infuriating, because it literally never seems to occur to anyone that a man should not allow his wife and child to starve, especially during a time period which does not allow pregnant women/young mothers of Sophia's class to work.
The chapters that address the birth of Sophia's son, Sandro, are harrowing. Comyns describes the process of labor in a charity hospital in both explicit and horrifying detail. She is dragged from room to room, never told what to expect, and subjected to the most awful indignities, and once the birth is over, her son is removed to the infant room and she doesn't see him for two days.
It actually gets worse from here. Her marriage is a disaster, her husband is a loser, and their extended family is completely blind to the poverty and hunger that she suffers. Through it all, Sophia's voice remains mostly optimistic and always convincing.
This is, more or less, a book about poverty - about how it grinds and about the experience of being completely powerless due to structural inequalities, such as male supremacy and class-based oppression. Reading it pissed me off, I was so angry at everyone: Charles, for being such an irredeemable asshole; Charles's family for being so monstrously uncaring, and, even, Sophia, for not seeming to find her situation as intolerable as I did. She was so captive to her own circumstances that it seemingly never occurred to her that she should've been able to expect more from her husband and family.
There is one briefly satisfying moment when she loses her temper. She has started a new job and has to walk to work because there is no money in the house. Charles promises to bring her some money in time for lunch, but he blows her off. When it comes time to leave
"I waited to see if he would come fetch me, but again he failed me, so I had to walk home, getting more and more hungry on the way, and angry too. When I arrived home, I saw Charles through the uncurtained window. He was sitting reading with a tray of tea-things beside him. He looked so comfortable, I became even more angry, and dashed in like a whirlwind and picked up a chair and hit him with it."
Even then, though, Sophia is made to feel that she is in the wrong. "I was ashamed of myself, too, but felt too tired to apologize, so just went to bed and wished I was dead."
It took me some significant contemplation yesterday to figure out why I had such an emotional response to this book, and it was only after I admitted to myself that I felt a strong sympathy for Sophia based upon a bit of my personal history that it made sense. When I was 21, I married my own Charles - a man who was just fine with living off of me while he attended (and ultimately failed to graduate from) law school, as I worked full-time and went to college to support us.
After I graduated from undergraduate, I applied to and was accepted to law school and left the city where I had done my undergrad. My husband was, originally, supposed to move with me, but he had mucked up his final year in law school badly and had to complete an additional term, so I went alone. Back then, first year law students had to sign a contract that they couldn't work. Our agreement was that he would get a job and send me money for food. I needed that money to eat.
I had a scholarship to cover my tuition, and some of my rent, and I had some savings, but I was wary of running out of money. My entire financial house of cards was built on getting a little bit of money from my husband, a couple of hundred dollars a month, who hadn't worked during our entire marriage, but who was able to work because he only had a couple of classes to finish that term.
He sent me one check. It bounced. I had never experienced hunger before, and like Sophia, I was far too proud to tell anyone how broke I was. In retrospect, that is such an act of callousness that I would have been more than justified in ending the marriage. I didn't. I took a few things that I could scrape together and I pawned them for $50.00 so I could buy some food, and then I began secretly temping for about 10 hours a week to make a little bit of money. I ate nothing but macaroni and cheese for a couple of weeks until my first paycheck came through. No one at the school found out, so I was able to do enough of this to pay for my groceries.
As you can probably imagine at this point in the story, the marriage failed completely about six months later. But reading this book brought it all back - the rage, the helplessness, the sense of confusion, the reality that no one knew that I was married to a child and I was suffering. And I was 24, and it was a completely different time. Women were able to work, and I didn't have children (thank god I didn't have children), but I was still tied to this worthless asshole who didn't care that I was hungry. And I internalized all of this by concluding that, somehow, I was at fault for all of it, and my loyalty to this failure of a person prevented me from asking anyone for help.
I think probably all women have a story like this.
Even with the grim subject matter, though, there is something fresh and appealing about both Sophia and the book that I can't really explain. It was very frustrating to read, and, although Sophia does get a happy ending, Charles did not get run over by an omnibus, nor did he artistically starve to death, which were the two proper endings for him.
So, I do recommend Our Spoons Came From Woolworths, even if it made me want to hit something.
December 13, 2021
Poignant, funny. More people should read and love this.
Sophia plunges into marriage with the man of her dreams, but poverty (emotional and actual) takes its toll. There is a happy ending and a second chance at love, but the emotional heft comes in the painful disintegration of Sophia's first marriage.
What's special about this book (written in 1950) is that Comyns relates all the truly awful things that happen to the naive heroine with a
style of dry detachment that can, on the one hand, be very amusing -
鈥淚 had a kind of idea if you controlled your mind and said 鈥業 won鈥檛 have any babies鈥� very hard, they most likely wouldn鈥檛 come.鈥�
or
Peregrine 鈥渓istened most intently to every word I said, as if it was very precious...This had never happened to me before, and gave me great confidence in myself, but now I know from experience a lot of men listen like that, and it doesn鈥檛 mean a thing; they are most likely thinking up a new way of getting out of paying their income-tax.
But the laconic, almost throw-away, style also works as a contrast to moments of real tragedy. At one point
The happy ending may feel a little manufactured (although it is very satisfying), but, in fact, much of OSCFW is based on Comyns' own disastrous first marriage, and happy second one. So, two happy endings - good.
Sophia plunges into marriage with the man of her dreams, but poverty (emotional and actual) takes its toll. There is a happy ending and a second chance at love, but the emotional heft comes in the painful disintegration of Sophia's first marriage.
What's special about this book (written in 1950) is that Comyns relates all the truly awful things that happen to the naive heroine with a
style of dry detachment that can, on the one hand, be very amusing -
鈥淚 had a kind of idea if you controlled your mind and said 鈥業 won鈥檛 have any babies鈥� very hard, they most likely wouldn鈥檛 come.鈥�
or
Peregrine 鈥渓istened most intently to every word I said, as if it was very precious...This had never happened to me before, and gave me great confidence in myself, but now I know from experience a lot of men listen like that, and it doesn鈥檛 mean a thing; they are most likely thinking up a new way of getting out of paying their income-tax.
But the laconic, almost throw-away, style also works as a contrast to moments of real tragedy. At one point
The happy ending may feel a little manufactured (although it is very satisfying), but, in fact, much of OSCFW is based on Comyns' own disastrous first marriage, and happy second one. So, two happy endings - good.
July 23, 2022
Not top-shelf Comyns by far, but it had its moments. I was hoping for more laughs and/or absurdity, but alas it only yielded the occasional chuckle and scored rather low on my official Absurdity Appreciation Scale鈩�. It鈥檚 actually for the most part quite a dreary tale, the likes of which the conservative U.S. Supreme Court justices who voted to strike down Roe v. Wade鈥攁nd would furthermore like to restrict the purchase and use of contraception鈥攕hould routinely be strapped to their chairs and forced to read considering (2.5)
April 26, 2016
"Things one dreads usually are: it's only the things we look forward to that go all wrong."
"There seemed no point in being good or bad; everything was so dreadful in any case."
At times, sad and pessimistic, and at others, quirky, comical and entertaining, Comyn's 'Spoons' was my introduction to her work. I'm not entirely sure if I appreciated this as much as many have on here due to reading it in small doses on a long flight to and from a very distant location, but as I rated this a '3', I can say that I'm not turned off by her writing and she was (in my opinion) better at story-telling than writing, and that's why I gave it a higher rating than I initially felt.
Not bad, but I didn't always feel like it was worth completing. Something to pass the time.
"There seemed no point in being good or bad; everything was so dreadful in any case."
At times, sad and pessimistic, and at others, quirky, comical and entertaining, Comyn's 'Spoons' was my introduction to her work. I'm not entirely sure if I appreciated this as much as many have on here due to reading it in small doses on a long flight to and from a very distant location, but as I rated this a '3', I can say that I'm not turned off by her writing and she was (in my opinion) better at story-telling than writing, and that's why I gave it a higher rating than I initially felt.
Not bad, but I didn't always feel like it was worth completing. Something to pass the time.
January 20, 2025
讴鬲丕亘 賲毓賲賵賱蹖 亘賵丿 禺蹖賱蹖 丿乇 賵丕賯毓貙 丕夭卮 禺蹖賱蹖 鬲毓乇蹖賮 卮丿賴 亘賵丿 賵賱蹖 禺蹖賱蹖 丿賵爻鬲卮 賳丿丕卮鬲賲.丿丕爻鬲丕賳 夭賵噩 爻丕丿賴 賵 毓丕卮賯蹖 讴賴 亘丿賵賳 丿乇 賳馗乇 诏乇賮鬲賳 趩蹖夭丕蹖 丿蹖诏賴 毓丕卮賯 賲蹖卮賳 賵 丕夭丿賵丕噩 賲蹖讴賳賳丿 亘毓丿 夭賳丿诏蹖 賲蹖禺賵乇賴 鬲賵 匕賯卮賵賳.
March 13, 2025
讴鬲丕亘 禺賵卮 禺賵丕賳 賵 禺賵亘蹖 亘賵丿 賵 賳卮賵賳 丿丕丿 趩賯丿乇 鬲氐賲蹖賲丕鬲 毓噩賵賱丕賳賴 賲蹖鬲賵賳賳 賲孬賱 丿賵賲蹖賳賵 亘丿亘蹖丕乇蹖 亘蹖丕乇賳.
趩蹖夭蹖 讴賴 亘乇丕蹖 賲賳 噩丕賱亘 亘賵丿貙 亘賴 鬲氐賵蹖乇 讴卮蹖丿賳 毓賱鬲 賳丕賲賵賮賯 亘賵丿賳 丕讴孬乇 乇賵丕亘胤 亘賵丿. 丕蹖賳 丕鬲賮丕賯 乇丕蹖噩蹖賴 讴賴 鬲賯乇蹖亘丕 鬲賵蹖 丕讴孬乇 乇賵丕亘胤 丕鬲賮丕賯 賲蹖賮鬲賴貙 乇賵丕亘胤蹖 讴賴 蹖讴 賳賮乇 讴賵乇讴賵乇丕賳賴 丿蹖诏乇蹖 乇賵 丿賵爻鬲 丿丕乇賴. 鬲賵蹖 丕蹖賳 乇賵丕亘胤 卮禺氐 丕賳賯丿乇 丿乇诏蹖乇 丿賵爻鬲 丿丕卮鬲賳 賵 鬲卮讴蹖賱 夭賳丿诏蹖 亘丕 卮禺氐 賲賵乇丿毓賱丕賯卮賴貙 讴賴 丕氐賱丕 賲鬲賵噩賴 賳賲蹖卮賴 趩賯丿乇 丕賵賳 卮禺氐 亘乇丕卮 丕卮鬲亘丕賴賴.
诏丕賴丕 賲丕 丌丿賲 賴丕 丿賱 亘賴 卮禺氐蹖 賲蹖亘賳丿蹖賲 賵 卮禺氐蹖鬲蹖 丕夭 丕賵賳 鬲賵蹖 匕賴賳 禺賵丿賲賵賳 賲蹖爻丕夭蹖賲 賵 丕賵賳 匕賴賳蹖鬲 乇賵 賲蹖倬乇爻鬲蹖賲貨 丿乇丨丕賱蹖 讴賴 丕賵賳 匕賴賳蹖鬲 賵丕賯毓蹖 賳蹖爻鬲.
爻賵賮蹖丕 亘丕 趩丕乇賱夭 丌卮賳丕 賲蹖卮賴 賵 鬲賵蹖 爻賳 讴賲 亘丕 丕賵賳 丕夭丿賵丕噩 賲蹖讴賳賴貙 趩丕乇賱夭 賴蹖趩賵賯鬲 賲爻卅賵賱蹖鬲 倬匕蹖乇 賳亘賵丿賴 賵 爻賵賮蹖丕 賴賲蹖卮賴 賮讴乇 賲蹖讴乇丿賴 趩賵賳 鬲賵蹖 爻賳 讴賲 亘丕 趩丕乇賱夭 丕夭丿賵丕噩 讴乇丿賴貙 賳亘丕蹖丿 丕賳鬲馗丕乇 讴丕乇 讴乇丿賳 丿丕卮鬲賴 亘丕卮賴. 丿乇氐賵乇鬲蹖 讴賴 爻賵賮蹖丕 禺賵丿卮 亘賴 鬲賳賴丕蹖蹖 亘丕乇 讴賱 禺丕賳賵丕丿賴 乇賵 亘賴 丿賵卮 賲蹖讴卮蹖丿賴.
丕夭胤乇賮蹖 鬲讴賴 賴丕蹖蹖 丕夭 讴鬲丕亘 賵丕賯毓丕 賲賳 乇賵 禺卮賲诏蹖賳 賲蹖讴乇丿貙 賲禺氐賵氐丕 賯爻賲鬲鈥屬囏й屰� 讴賴 賲丕丿乇 趩丕乇賱夭 讴賴 亘賴 爻賵賮蹖丕 爻乇讴賵賮鬲 賲蹖夭丿 亘禺丕胤乇 丕蹖賳讴賴 鬲賵蹖 爻賳 讴賲 丕夭丿賵丕噩 讴乇丿賴 亘賵丿賳 賵 亘賴卮 賲蹖诏賮鬲 賳亘丕蹖丿 丕夭 趩丕乇賱夭 丕賳鬲馗丕乇 讴丕乇 讴乇丿賳 丿丕卮鬲賴 亘丕卮蹖 趩賵賳 禺賵丿鬲 乇賵 亘賴 倬爻乇賲 丕賳丿丕禺鬲蹖! 賲鬲賵噩賴 卮丿賲 丿乇胤賵賱 鬲丕乇蹖禺 賮賯胤 賲乇丿丕賳 賳亘賵丿賳 讴賴 亘丕毓孬 禺卮賵賳鬲 賴丕蹖 禺丕賳诏蹖 賲蹖卮丿賳貙 亘賱讴賴 禺卮賵賳鬲 夭賳丕賳 毓賱蹖賴 夭賳丕賳 趩賯丿乇 丕鬲賮丕賯 乇丕蹖噩蹖 亘賵丿賴.
丿乇讴賱 禺賵丕賳丿賳 丕蹖賳 讴鬲丕亘 亘乇丕蹖 賲賳 賱匕鬲 亘禺卮 亘賵丿. 丕诏乇 丿賳亘丕賱 讴鬲丕亘蹖 賴爻鬲蹖丿 讴賴 讴賵鬲丕賴 亘丕卮賴 賵 乇丕丨鬲 倬蹖卮 亘乇賴貙 丕蹖賳 讴鬲丕亘 乇賵 亘賴鬲賵賳 倬蹖卮賳賴丕丿 賲蹖讴賳賲.
趩蹖夭蹖 讴賴 亘乇丕蹖 賲賳 噩丕賱亘 亘賵丿貙 亘賴 鬲氐賵蹖乇 讴卮蹖丿賳 毓賱鬲 賳丕賲賵賮賯 亘賵丿賳 丕讴孬乇 乇賵丕亘胤 亘賵丿. 丕蹖賳 丕鬲賮丕賯 乇丕蹖噩蹖賴 讴賴 鬲賯乇蹖亘丕 鬲賵蹖 丕讴孬乇 乇賵丕亘胤 丕鬲賮丕賯 賲蹖賮鬲賴貙 乇賵丕亘胤蹖 讴賴 蹖讴 賳賮乇 讴賵乇讴賵乇丕賳賴 丿蹖诏乇蹖 乇賵 丿賵爻鬲 丿丕乇賴. 鬲賵蹖 丕蹖賳 乇賵丕亘胤 卮禺氐 丕賳賯丿乇 丿乇诏蹖乇 丿賵爻鬲 丿丕卮鬲賳 賵 鬲卮讴蹖賱 夭賳丿诏蹖 亘丕 卮禺氐 賲賵乇丿毓賱丕賯卮賴貙 讴賴 丕氐賱丕 賲鬲賵噩賴 賳賲蹖卮賴 趩賯丿乇 丕賵賳 卮禺氐 亘乇丕卮 丕卮鬲亘丕賴賴.
诏丕賴丕 賲丕 丌丿賲 賴丕 丿賱 亘賴 卮禺氐蹖 賲蹖亘賳丿蹖賲 賵 卮禺氐蹖鬲蹖 丕夭 丕賵賳 鬲賵蹖 匕賴賳 禺賵丿賲賵賳 賲蹖爻丕夭蹖賲 賵 丕賵賳 匕賴賳蹖鬲 乇賵 賲蹖倬乇爻鬲蹖賲貨 丿乇丨丕賱蹖 讴賴 丕賵賳 匕賴賳蹖鬲 賵丕賯毓蹖 賳蹖爻鬲.
爻賵賮蹖丕 亘丕 趩丕乇賱夭 丌卮賳丕 賲蹖卮賴 賵 鬲賵蹖 爻賳 讴賲 亘丕 丕賵賳 丕夭丿賵丕噩 賲蹖讴賳賴貙 趩丕乇賱夭 賴蹖趩賵賯鬲 賲爻卅賵賱蹖鬲 倬匕蹖乇 賳亘賵丿賴 賵 爻賵賮蹖丕 賴賲蹖卮賴 賮讴乇 賲蹖讴乇丿賴 趩賵賳 鬲賵蹖 爻賳 讴賲 亘丕 趩丕乇賱夭 丕夭丿賵丕噩 讴乇丿賴貙 賳亘丕蹖丿 丕賳鬲馗丕乇 讴丕乇 讴乇丿賳 丿丕卮鬲賴 亘丕卮賴. 丿乇氐賵乇鬲蹖 讴賴 爻賵賮蹖丕 禺賵丿卮 亘賴 鬲賳賴丕蹖蹖 亘丕乇 讴賱 禺丕賳賵丕丿賴 乇賵 亘賴 丿賵卮 賲蹖讴卮蹖丿賴.
丕夭胤乇賮蹖 鬲讴賴 賴丕蹖蹖 丕夭 讴鬲丕亘 賵丕賯毓丕 賲賳 乇賵 禺卮賲诏蹖賳 賲蹖讴乇丿貙 賲禺氐賵氐丕 賯爻賲鬲鈥屬囏й屰� 讴賴 賲丕丿乇 趩丕乇賱夭 讴賴 亘賴 爻賵賮蹖丕 爻乇讴賵賮鬲 賲蹖夭丿 亘禺丕胤乇 丕蹖賳讴賴 鬲賵蹖 爻賳 讴賲 丕夭丿賵丕噩 讴乇丿賴 亘賵丿賳 賵 亘賴卮 賲蹖诏賮鬲 賳亘丕蹖丿 丕夭 趩丕乇賱夭 丕賳鬲馗丕乇 讴丕乇 讴乇丿賳 丿丕卮鬲賴 亘丕卮蹖 趩賵賳 禺賵丿鬲 乇賵 亘賴 倬爻乇賲 丕賳丿丕禺鬲蹖! 賲鬲賵噩賴 卮丿賲 丿乇胤賵賱 鬲丕乇蹖禺 賮賯胤 賲乇丿丕賳 賳亘賵丿賳 讴賴 亘丕毓孬 禺卮賵賳鬲 賴丕蹖 禺丕賳诏蹖 賲蹖卮丿賳貙 亘賱讴賴 禺卮賵賳鬲 夭賳丕賳 毓賱蹖賴 夭賳丕賳 趩賯丿乇 丕鬲賮丕賯 乇丕蹖噩蹖 亘賵丿賴.
丿乇讴賱 禺賵丕賳丿賳 丕蹖賳 讴鬲丕亘 亘乇丕蹖 賲賳 賱匕鬲 亘禺卮 亘賵丿. 丕诏乇 丿賳亘丕賱 讴鬲丕亘蹖 賴爻鬲蹖丿 讴賴 讴賵鬲丕賴 亘丕卮賴 賵 乇丕丨鬲 倬蹖卮 亘乇賴貙 丕蹖賳 讴鬲丕亘 乇賵 亘賴鬲賵賳 倬蹖卮賳賴丕丿 賲蹖讴賳賲.
June 14, 2023
禺蹖賱蹖 賵賯鬲 亘賵丿 禺賵丕賳丿賳 蹖讴 讴鬲丕亘 丕蹖賳賯丿乇 禺賵卮 賳诏匕卮鬲賴 亘賵丿. 亘蹖卮鬲乇 丕蹖賳 讴鬲丕亘 乇丕 亘丕 乇賵卮賳讴 禺賵賳丿賲 賵 亘蹖卮鬲乇 讴蹖賮 丿丕丿.
May 1, 2014
At the end of March, I went to a book talk on Virago Modern Classics at the wonderful Daunt Bookshop. Author Maggie O'Farrell championed this particular book and two things that she said about it really stuck with me. First, she said that it had a wonderful sense of place -- the place being London, the bohemian, artsy bit of it, during the Depression of the 1930s. The other thing she emphasised was the voice of the narrator -- distinctive, without any obvious literary influences, like no other. Having read the book now, I would wholly agree with her assessment.
Sophia, narrator and protagonist, is a young girl -- just 21 -- who marries her boyfriend Charles because it seems like a thing to do. Not so much a great love as a rather tepid like. This attitude, in itself, makes the book seem like a period piece. The idea that 21 is an adult age signalling it's time to do adult things! (Or, we've slept together now so we might as well marry.) Sophia and Charles are both fairly well-born but not at all well-to-do. They are babes in the woods: optimistic, dumb, brave and naive. They want to be artists, but unfortunately, neither has any kind of trust fund. Charles, in particular, has artistic ambition that is breathtakingly selfish and unconcerned with the financial facts and emotional responsibilities of life. What follows is an extremely precarious existence made perilous by the immediate arrival of unwanted (particularly on Charles's part) children. There is no particular plan and certainly no safety net because this book depicts a world pre-NHS and social housing and child benefit.
What follows is a mostly downward spiral (into poverty and all sorts of entanglements) with a fairy-tale-ish happy ending somewhat set apart from the main bit of the story. Dramatic events -- for example, a pretty horrific description of giving birth in a charity hospital -- are all described in the characteristic breezy voice of Sophia, and that voice is often at odds with the content of the story. And yet, it is the detached breeziness of the voice that makes the content bearable -- both to the reader, and its subject, I presume. It's a strange, and strangely distinctive, book. Very readable.
Sophia, narrator and protagonist, is a young girl -- just 21 -- who marries her boyfriend Charles because it seems like a thing to do. Not so much a great love as a rather tepid like. This attitude, in itself, makes the book seem like a period piece. The idea that 21 is an adult age signalling it's time to do adult things! (Or, we've slept together now so we might as well marry.) Sophia and Charles are both fairly well-born but not at all well-to-do. They are babes in the woods: optimistic, dumb, brave and naive. They want to be artists, but unfortunately, neither has any kind of trust fund. Charles, in particular, has artistic ambition that is breathtakingly selfish and unconcerned with the financial facts and emotional responsibilities of life. What follows is an extremely precarious existence made perilous by the immediate arrival of unwanted (particularly on Charles's part) children. There is no particular plan and certainly no safety net because this book depicts a world pre-NHS and social housing and child benefit.
What follows is a mostly downward spiral (into poverty and all sorts of entanglements) with a fairy-tale-ish happy ending somewhat set apart from the main bit of the story. Dramatic events -- for example, a pretty horrific description of giving birth in a charity hospital -- are all described in the characteristic breezy voice of Sophia, and that voice is often at odds with the content of the story. And yet, it is the detached breeziness of the voice that makes the content bearable -- both to the reader, and its subject, I presume. It's a strange, and strangely distinctive, book. Very readable.
July 20, 2019
Lo bueno que tiene Barbara Comyns es que es imprevisible y esta novelita es un claro ejemplo de ello. Un libro que parece una cosa y a medida que avanzas se vuelve m谩s turbadora en el sentido de la vida real y de alguna forma es muy universal lo que te est谩 contando aqui la Comyns: una jovenc铆sima pareja se casa, algo inconscientes ambos, egoista 茅l, y poco a poco van aprendiendo los sinsabores de la vida.
Y si Barbara Comyns quer铆a transmitirnos lo que era ser mujer en aquella 茅poca, a帽os 30, madre, pobre y casi sin incentivos en la vida, bien que lo transmite. Su estilo es tan directo y transparente, tan cercano y con ese sentido del humor tan luminoso a pesar de varios momentos duros en esta historia que no deja de ser una delicia, pero una delicia que se vuelve muy compleja y oscura en algunos momentos. Hay varios momentos duros que de alguna manera se hacen m谩s llevaderos por la forma en que nos lo cuenta esta autora; otro libro que parec铆a un cuento amable y deviene en otra cosa m谩s real y profunda. Grande Barbara Comyns!!
Y si Barbara Comyns quer铆a transmitirnos lo que era ser mujer en aquella 茅poca, a帽os 30, madre, pobre y casi sin incentivos en la vida, bien que lo transmite. Su estilo es tan directo y transparente, tan cercano y con ese sentido del humor tan luminoso a pesar de varios momentos duros en esta historia que no deja de ser una delicia, pero una delicia que se vuelve muy compleja y oscura en algunos momentos. Hay varios momentos duros que de alguna manera se hacen m谩s llevaderos por la forma en que nos lo cuenta esta autora; otro libro que parec铆a un cuento amable y deviene en otra cosa m谩s real y profunda. Grande Barbara Comyns!!
December 6, 2020
This is the second grueling fictionalized biography I've read recently by women who looked back on their early struggles after attaining a certain amount of renown in later life. This read a lot more contemporary than I expected, and the descriptions, particularly that of the horrendous experience of childbirth, are delivered in an almost painful clarity. I admit I haven't read her earlier book which may have shed light on her background which would explain her heroine's inexplicable passivity and naivete.
April 11, 2024
褑械 褋泻邪褉斜. 褋邪屑械 褌械, 褖芯 褟 褕褍泻邪谢邪, 褨 芯褋褜 胁芯薪芯 屑邪泄卸械 胁懈锌邪写泻芯胁芯 屑械薪褨 褌褉邪锌懈谢芯褋褜. 褍薪褨泻邪谢褜薪懈泄 谐芯谢芯褋, 褟泻懈屑 写芯褋懈褌褜 褌褉懈胁褨邪谢褜薪邪 褨褋褌芯褉褨褟 锌褉芯 蟹褍斜芯卸褨薪薪褟 蟹胁褍褔懈褌褜 写褍卸械 褋胁褨卸芯: 褨 褋褍屑薪芯, 褨 褋屑褨褕薪芯, 褨 芯锌褌懈屑褨褋褌懈褔薪芯, 褨 屑邪谢芯 薪邪 褖芯 褋褏芯卸械.
December 24, 2015
One of the best reads I've had in a very long time. Added it to my "favorites" bookshelf.
Hard to put this book down. Just wanted to stay in the world that Barbara Comyns took me to, and the woman whose story it was (Sophia).
Wonderful comical moments that made it hard for me to keep my composure when reading this book down at Starbucks.
This should be required reading for any women's studies class about feminist ideas, and what was expected in former times by a lot of men about the women in their lives, and their children.
The ordeals of giving birth in a public hospital, the day-to-day suffering of families in poverty--these topics all come out, but most of all the story of Sophia is what kept me coming back for more.
I LOVED THIS BOOK.
(One little pet peeve I had throughout this book: I was taught by my English-teacher mother and my newspaper-editor father that one is to say "my" and not, "me", such as in the following sentence I quote here: Barbara Comyns wrote: "Then he discovered a stream at the end of the garden . . . and hardly noticed me going." My parents would want to mark that sentence with red ink, so that it would look like this: "Then he discovered a stream at the end of the garden . . . and hardly noticed my going." "Me" is used like this throughout the novel, and each time I wanted to scream, "my".)
P.S. I read the Introduction AFTER reading the book, and recommend that to others. The introduction focusses on ideas that although interesting, were not my main interests. Whereas, had I read it prior to reading the book, it may have influenced me in a certain direction, and I much prefer being my own guide to what I want to focus on.
Hard to put this book down. Just wanted to stay in the world that Barbara Comyns took me to, and the woman whose story it was (Sophia).
Wonderful comical moments that made it hard for me to keep my composure when reading this book down at Starbucks.
This should be required reading for any women's studies class about feminist ideas, and what was expected in former times by a lot of men about the women in their lives, and their children.
The ordeals of giving birth in a public hospital, the day-to-day suffering of families in poverty--these topics all come out, but most of all the story of Sophia is what kept me coming back for more.
I LOVED THIS BOOK.
(One little pet peeve I had throughout this book: I was taught by my English-teacher mother and my newspaper-editor father that one is to say "my" and not, "me", such as in the following sentence I quote here: Barbara Comyns wrote: "Then he discovered a stream at the end of the garden . . . and hardly noticed me going." My parents would want to mark that sentence with red ink, so that it would look like this: "Then he discovered a stream at the end of the garden . . . and hardly noticed my going." "Me" is used like this throughout the novel, and each time I wanted to scream, "my".)
P.S. I read the Introduction AFTER reading the book, and recommend that to others. The introduction focusses on ideas that although interesting, were not my main interests. Whereas, had I read it prior to reading the book, it may have influenced me in a certain direction, and I much prefer being my own guide to what I want to focus on.
November 3, 2023
爻賵賮蹖丕 丿丕爻鬲丕賳卮 乇賵 亘丕 讴賳噩讴丕賵 讴乇丿賳 賲丕賴丕 卮乇賵毓 賲蹖鈥屭┵嗁囏� 賲蹖鈥屭� 賵賯鬲蹖 賴賱賳 爻乇诏匕卮鬲卮賵 卮賳蹖丿賴 讴賱蹖 诏乇蹖賴 讴乇丿賴貙 賵賱蹖 丨丕賱丕 賴卮鬲 爻丕賱 丕夭賵賳 賲丕噩乇丕 賲蹖鈥屭柏辟� 亘毓丿卮賲 亘丿賵賳 賲毓胤賱蹖 賲蹖鈥屫辟� 爻乇 丕氐賱 賲胤賱亘 賵 賲丕噩乇丕蹖 丌卮賳丕蹖蹖 賵 丕夭丿賵丕噩卮賵 亘丕 爻丕賳丿乇賵 鬲毓乇蹖賮 賲蹖鈥屭┵嗁�. 夭賳丿诏蹖 亘丕 爻丕賳丿乇賵蹖 賳賯丕卮 爻乇丕爻乇 亘丿亘禺鬲蹖 賵 賳丿丕乇蹖 賵 賮賯乇賴 賵 亘趩賴鈥屫ж� 卮丿賳 賴賲 亘賴 丕蹖賳 賲卮讴賱丕鬲 丕囟丕賮賴 賲蹖鈥屭┵嗁�. 賴乇趩賳丿 爻賵賮蹖丕 賴卮鬲 爻丕賱 亘毓丿卮 毓丕賯亘鬲鈥屫ㄘ屫� 賲蹖鈥屫促� 賵 賲賲讴賳賴 倬丕蹖丕賳 丿丕爻鬲丕賳 亘賴 賲匕丕賯 禺蹖賱蹖丕 禺賵卮 賳蹖丕丿 讴賴 趩乇丕 丕賳賯丿乇 亘賴 禺賵亘蹖 賵 禺賵卮蹖 鬲賲賵賲 卮丿貨 丕蹖賳 丿丕爻鬲丕賳 -亘賴 賳馗乇 賲賳- 丕孬乇 噩丕賱亘蹖賴. 蹖讴蹖 亘賴 禺丕胤乇 賳孬乇 禺丕氐卮 讴賴 丿蹖丕賱賵诏 賳丿丕乇賴 賵 卮丕蹖丿 蹖讴蹖 丿賵噩丕 丕夭 賳賯賱 賯賵賱 丕爻鬲賮丕丿賴 讴乇丿賴 亘丕卮賴 賵 噩賲賱賴鈥屬囏й� 讴賵鬲丕賴 賵 丕賳诏丕乇 賴賵賱鈥屬囐堎勞┷� 乇賵 倬卮鬲 爻乇 賴賲 乇丿蹖賮 讴乇丿賴 賵 蹖讴蹖 賴賲 亘賴 禺丕胤乇 丕蹖賳讴賴 趩賴乇賴鈥屰� 賮賯乇 乇賵 丿乇 毓丕丿蹖鈥屫臂屬� 氐丨賳賴鈥屬囏� 賵 讴丕乇賴丕 賳卮賵賳 丿丕丿賴.
丕夭 禺賵賳丿賳卮 乇丕囟蹖 亘賵丿賲!
丕夭 禺賵賳丿賳卮 乇丕囟蹖 亘賵丿賲!
October 27, 2021
4 Stars
Charles was a shipping container full of red flags but poor Sophia was too naive to see them. Great story.
Charles was a shipping container full of red flags but poor Sophia was too naive to see them. Great story.
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