The year I read 200 books, I was embarrassed by this accidental achievement. I love to read, but the number represented excessive couch time. I asked a friend, "Don't you think it's weird that I read 200 books?"
"I think it's weird that you kept a list."
That year, my record numbers were boosted by reading "middlebrow" women's classics, most published by Virago and Persephone. I use the term half-facetiously: some women's books are called middlebrow and may have fallen out of print because they are about women's experiences, or at least that is one theory.
After I read a charming essay in The New Yorker about E. M. Delafield's Diary of a Provincial Lady series, I was enchanted by Delafield's comic observations of family life. Then I came upon D. E. Stevenson's Mrs. Tim books, also written in the form of diaries. And l adore Alice Thomas Ellis's four volumes of irresistible domestic columns, Home Life.
Middlebrow women's literature is fashionable these days. A network of bloggers is dedicated to Viragos and Persephones, and such titles are well-reviewed at Goodreads. I have my favorites: Rumer Godden's novels are surely classics; the underrated Pamela Hansford Johnson deserves a revival; and there is Monica Dickens, whose masterpiece The Winds of Heaven was reissued by Persephone with an introduction by A. S. Byatt.
Monica Dickens, who was Charles Dickens’s great-granddaughter, is due for a revival in my view. I recommend her comic memoirs, One Pair of Hands, One Pair of Feet, and My Turn to Make the Tea.
In One Pair of Hands, Monica is at loose ends after she is expelled from drama school. Dickens's voice is likable from the beginning: "I was fed up. As I lay awake in the grey small hours of an autumn morning, I reviewed my life. Three a.m. is not the most propitious time for meditation, as everyone knows, and a deep depression was settling over me."
And so she takes a job as a cook-general, and her experiences are very funny.
In One Pair of Feet, she wittily recounts her experiences as a student nurse at a hospital in rural England during World War II, and My Turn to Make the Tea is her hilarious memoir of working for a small-town newspaper. The idea of writing comic memoirs about work is genius.
And let me add that I am not a sexist: I also enjoy middlebrow novels by men. They fall out of print too - and we can't attribute that to gender. It's mystifying, isn't it? The vagaries of publishing.
I think it's not just vagaries but reflects the way prestige and the phonyness of prestige works. Not all men have prestige for example, Winston Graham of the Poldark books. I've discovered it is almost impossible to change a non-prestigious perception of an author to a respected one.
ReplyDeleteIt is strange. Winston Graham is such a brilliant writer, the kind of historical novelist who might, with the right book covers, be nominated for the Booker Prize these days. But it's the pop perception of historical novels in general.
DeleteSince I took up book blogging, I've gotten very fond of so-called middlebrow fiction. I, too, have found it interesting to see the novels that get classified as middlebrow, and have frequently be bemused at the novels that fall out of print. I agree with Ellen that the prestige factor definitely plays into thi (genre fiction -- sci-fi; spy, mystery -- are, or used to be -- automatically non-prestige). As you point out, gender's definitely another factor, as anything dealing primarily with the things women were interested in was also automatically devalued (why should a plot revolving around domestic matters be less worthy than one devoted to a war? IMO the answer is that male critics tend to be interested in the latter). None of this, of course, explains why male writers also fall out of print. I ascribe this partially to changes in taste & fashion, individual talent, luck and the sheer number of books competing for readers.
ReplyDeleteThe prestige factor does seem to rule. Domestic fiction definitely had some kind of stigma, though it is hard to see why, since women read more, and many of these books did sell well.
DeleteI read an embarrassingly large number of books in the past two years. Much of my reading has been what I'd call gentle fiction, books you can start and finish in a couple of hours, books that leave you in a soft blur. I can't seem to do anything about climate change or social justice, but I can read and share a few books that don't make me want to kill myself, and I guess that's the best I can do.
ReplyDeleteI love the term "gentle fiction." It's a pity our gentle fiction can't solve the world's problems! Barbara Pym could be (have been) our guru.
DeleteBased on your recommendation, I've just ordered a copy of One Pair of Hands. I've never read anything by Monica Dickens, although I've known of her. I love the Alice Thomas Ellis books you mention and some of the others.
ReplyDeleteJoan, I think you'll enjoy One Pair of Hands. Like Ellis's books, it's funny AND relatable. Let me know what you think of it!
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