In my last post I wrote about the value Clare Chambers grants suburban life in her 2020 novel Small Pleasures. Her protagonist, Jean Swinney, unmarried, in her early 40s and living in the suburbs of South East London with her widowed mother, leads a life of routine and duty, punctuated by ‘[s]mall pleasures – the first cigarette of the day; a glass of sherry before Sunday lunch; a bar of chocolate parcelled out to last a week; a newly published library book still pristine and untouched by other hands; the first hyacinths of spring; a neatly folded pile of ironing..’ Continue reading “A miracle in suburbia”
Category: The Novel
Food as distraction
Just under two years ago I wrote a post about Elizabeth Jane Howard’s novel The Light Years, the first novel in a series of five – The Cazalet Chronicles – a family saga spanning three generations and unfolding between 1937 and 1950. The Light Years covers the build-up to the Second World War and – in culinary terms – is a masterclass in the writer’s use of food to locate a story in a particular moment in time. Continue reading “Food as distraction”
The State of the Nation novel: part two
In November 2020 I wrote a post on the state of the nation novel, a book that doesn’t just tell a story but also deals with the significant social and political questions at the time the book is set. My focus was Jonathan Coe’s 2001 novel The Rotters’ Club, the first of three novels all featuring the same group of characters. This post is about the second novel, The Closed Circle (published in 2004). Coe’s interest in documenting historical and political events in his own fiction is mirrored in the novel that his principal character, Benjamin Trotter, is writing. Titled Unrest, Benjamin describes it to his niece Sophie: ‘it’s about some of the political events from the last thirty years or so, and how they relate to … events in my own life, I suppose’. Continue reading “The State of the Nation novel: part two”
The State of the Nation novel: part one
As well as telling great stories about complex characters, many novels are interested in the social questions and political changes of their time. As in the title of Anthony Trollope’s highly-acclaimed 1875 novel, such writers explore The Way We Live Now. Continue reading “The State of the Nation novel: part one”