Tag Archives: Philip Hensher

The Corner That Held Them by Sylvia Townsend Warner

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The Corner That Held Them by Sylvia Townsend Warner was first published in 1948. I read a 2012 reprint which has an introduction by Philip Hensher. I borrowed it from a library.

The setting is a 14th century Benedictine convent at Oby in rural Norfolk. It had been founded two centuries earlier by an abusive husband in memory of his dead wife who had despised him and been unfaithful, so not the usual pious act of remembrance. To begin with the community had done well and had been a comfortable destination for young women who had either taken the decision to dodge the difficulties that women typically had in those days, or had been sent there by their parents. In more recent times though nothing had gone well. The head nun has an ongoing vanity project to build a tall steeple which would be seen for miles around in the flat countryside of Norfolk, it’s eating up any spare money.

Things are even worse for Ralph Kello though as he has no money as he has drunk it all. He had been brought up in a convent as his mother had been a nun, so he has been taught Latin and knows how to conduct a mass, so when he pitches up at the convent feeling very sorry for himself and meaning to beg for food the nuns assume that he is a new priest, something they’re desperate for. As he’s illegitimate Ralph could never have been a real priest, but he can pass for one and despite knowing that he’ll be damned to hell for his behaviour he becomes part of the community.

I can’t say that I found this to be a gripping read, it’s a bit of a long meander, just an account of life in a 14th century convent but it is almost certainly a very true account, with nobody being particularly religious or worried about the amount of sins they commit. In fact I’m pretty sure that among all of the characters all ten of the commandments are broken! I’m wondering if this was deliberate, nobody else seems to have mentioned it.

I had to laugh though when I read this bit:

For all men are alike; if one asks a direct question they reply with a treatise. Edmund Gurney the mason had been just the same, wrapping himself in long discourses about the natures of different kinds of stone. That is how men are made, and that is what they expect women to put up with.

Mansplaining. – However I think that the author could have gone further and had the men explaining how the washing or embroidery should have been done!

The introduction by Philip Hensher is interesting, he points out that the seven novels written by Sylvia Townsend Warner are all very different, so you never know what you’re going to get from them, but I feel that she really enjoyed writing this one, which is probably why it’s so long at 399 pages (it seemed longer). She even managed to get in a bit about medieval choral music, something which she was interested in. However I didn’t really like any of the many characters, and that’s always a problem for me.

Bookshelf Travelling in Insane Times

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I’ll be gathering all the Bookshelf Travelling in Insane Times blogposts here for the moment. Judith at Reader in the Wilderness has had too much going on in her life recently to be able to keep up with it, so I’m stepping in to help.

More Books

The bookshelf I’m featuring this week is home to some favourite authors. I loved The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy, it’s about a large and wealthy London based family, starting from Victorian times and following their lives and family feuds beyond World War 1. These books are available free from Project Gutenberg here.

I think I’ve read all of the books on this shelf apart from Veranilda by George Gissing. This book dates from 1904 and originally belonged to Jack’s Granny and has her name in it. M. Besford. I used to write my name in books but stopped doing that decades ago. I’m now wondering if I should at least write it in pencil, as I really like to see a name and date inside a book. What do you do – inscribe or leave blank and pristine? Have you read Veranilda or anything else by George Gissing.

I remember that I really enjoyed reading The Mulberry Empire by Philip Hensher – before I started blogging, but I’ve never read anything else by him. Have you?

A few of my Rumer Godden books are on this shelf, some are in a bookcase upstairs, possibly they wouldn’t fit on this shelf. Elizabeth Jane Howard and Penelope Lively are favourites too, then of course there’s Mrs Gaskell. I’ve been meaning to visit Elizabeth Gaskell’s house for years. I see that it has opened up again but I might leave it until next year.

If you’re taking part in Bookshelf Travelling this week I’ll add a link to you, if I miss your post please send me a link.

A Son of the Rock (Jack)

Staircase Wit

Stainless Steel Droppings

An Unsuitable Attachment by Barbara Pym

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It’s a while since I finished reading An Unsuitable Attachment. Judith, Reader in the Wilderness and I were going to have a bit of a readalong originally but I’m not sure if she ever got around to it, due to her work commitments.

If you want to read about Barbara Pym’s career you’ll find this Telegraph article by Philip Hensher interesting.

An Unsuitable Attachment was first published in 1982, after Pym’s death. It had been turned down by her publisher in 1963, deemed to be too old fashioned for the times and thought to be unlikely to sell well. It isn’t one of my favourites but it’s still worthwhile reading.

The setting is London and there’s the usual cast of characters, a vicar and his wife, some librarians, neighbours, church parishioners and of course I can’t miss out the cat called Faustina. The book does seem quite dated, for instance ‘shillings’ are mentioned and of course by the time the book was eventually published the UK had embraced decimalisation and shillings didn’t exist any more.

There is a foreword by the poet Philip Larkin who was a friend of Barbara Pym’s and he said: ‘She has a unique eye and ear for the small poignancies and comedies of everyday life.’

I must just mention that I was perusing a blog a while ago and came across a post about Barbara Pym in which the writer claimed that Pym’s career had been successful because of readers who had sort of passed the word around about her. I had to laugh as that seems like teenagers who always think that THEY are the ones who discovered sex.

Barbara Pym’s career in writing was at a standstill for years after An Unsuitable Attachment, her seventh novel was rejected by her publisher. It wasn’t until Lord David Cecil and Philip Larkin wrote praising her work in the Times Literary Supplement in 1977 that her career was kick started again and her books have all been in print since then. I know this because I was one of the many people who started reading her books then, well as a Jane Austen fan I had to compare the two, as Pym was being hailed as a modern day Austen.

It does help to have friends in high places, it’s a shame that all deserving authors don’t have the same luck.