Bibliography
Nov. 26th, 2006 01:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_lady_lilyA Far Cry From Kensington - Muriel Spark
When I managed to track down a copy of Spark's The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie last year,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
gurdonark recommended that I try A Far Cry From Kensington as a superior novel. Although the complete short stories are a little further down the list, I have made it to the novel. I certainly agree that it feels a little more substantial than Miss Brodie, although there is still a lightness of texture that leads me to suspect the short story may indeed be Spark's strongest genre. That revelation, however, will have to wait.
The plot of A Far Cry From Kensington revolves around Mrs. Hawkins and a period in her life when she was living in a boarding house in Kensington. Mrs. Hawkins, a war widow, was at the time somewhat obese and involved in the publishing industry. Having been the general editor and sympathetic ear for the publishing firm Ullswater Press, from where the director Martin York was sent to prison for fraud, she is taken up by another publishing firm, Mackintosh & Tooley. Upon observing that all of Mackintosh & Tooley's employees have something that marks them out as freaks (one is the daughter of a famous mass-murderer, another has a massive port wine birthmark and a sensitive personality, a third limps heroically from a war would), and that this somehow means the people they come into contact with are disarmed from violent complaint, she wonders what her own 'freakishness' is; the conclusion reads 'I was overweight, I thought, to the point that anyone employing me must be kinky'. She realises that her motherliness and comfort are the way that Mackintosh & Tooley stop authors complaining to her, and thus resolves to lose weight forthwith. She does so, with considerable success.
Now, this would all be side-plot, would it not be for the matter of Hector Bartlett. He, offended by Mrs. Hawkins' description of him as a pisseur de copie, first of all manages to get her fired from two jobs by his 'friend' the novelist Emma Loy, and then resorts to the mysterious science of radionics. He infiltrates Mrs. Hawkins' house, gets one of her housemates (a Polish seamstress called Wanda) to operate the radionics box, and by this mechanism attempts to do Mrs. Hawkins serious harm. The beginning of this process coincides with Mrs. Hawkins deciding to lose weight, so poor Wanda thinks that her operation of the radionics box is, in fact, causing Mrs. Hawkins to waste away. She gets so full of moral guilt that the poor thing commits suicide. The story is only pieced together by Mrs. Hawkins when she reads a submission of Bartlett's sent to the magazine of her current occupation by Emma Loy, where he as much admits this.
On the surface, there is an obvious slightly distasteful statement about women, weight, body image and so forth, although the comments about 'people stopped opening up to me once I'd lost weight' are interesting - there's certainly fair comment on the image of the safe/maternal in our society. However, Mrs. Hawkins isn't a doormat to go with the shape; she's got spunk and verve, and her motivation for choosing to lose weight is to not be 'one of Mackintosh & Tooley' alibis' rather than anything to do with social pressure. So it's not as irritating as it could be, especially considering her experience with Martin York as the all-listening ear of sympathy. There's context and sense to it.
Anyway, off the feminist high-horse - it's a pleasant enough book, short enough to read on the train. The suicide is foreshadowed sufficiently that it's not too much of a shock, and the plot threads are obvious enough to sort of pick up on quite quickly. I'm certain if I re-read the novel, I'd spot far more of the set-up; it's actually quite cleverly underhanded. Plus, of course, all the radionics stuff is fascinating as another 'medical theory' I'd never heard of, and shall be avoiding should it ever turn my way. But there's a powerful narrative there about what very large effects seemingly small things may have upon other people, to whom they are the biggest things in the world. Good characters, and definitely worth a read.
When I managed to track down a copy of Spark's The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie last year,
gurdonark recommended that I try A Far Cry From Kensington as a superior novel. Although the complete short stories are a little further down the list, I have made it to the novel. I certainly agree that it feels a little more substantial than Miss Brodie, although there is still a lightness of texture that leads me to suspect the short story may indeed be Spark's strongest genre. That revelation, however, will have to wait.The plot of A Far Cry From Kensington revolves around Mrs. Hawkins and a period in her life when she was living in a boarding house in Kensington. Mrs. Hawkins, a war widow, was at the time somewhat obese and involved in the publishing industry. Having been the general editor and sympathetic ear for the publishing firm Ullswater Press, from where the director Martin York was sent to prison for fraud, she is taken up by another publishing firm, Mackintosh & Tooley. Upon observing that all of Mackintosh & Tooley's employees have something that marks them out as freaks (one is the daughter of a famous mass-murderer, another has a massive port wine birthmark and a sensitive personality, a third limps heroically from a war would), and that this somehow means the people they come into contact with are disarmed from violent complaint, she wonders what her own 'freakishness' is; the conclusion reads 'I was overweight, I thought, to the point that anyone employing me must be kinky'. She realises that her motherliness and comfort are the way that Mackintosh & Tooley stop authors complaining to her, and thus resolves to lose weight forthwith. She does so, with considerable success.
Now, this would all be side-plot, would it not be for the matter of Hector Bartlett. He, offended by Mrs. Hawkins' description of him as a pisseur de copie, first of all manages to get her fired from two jobs by his 'friend' the novelist Emma Loy, and then resorts to the mysterious science of radionics. He infiltrates Mrs. Hawkins' house, gets one of her housemates (a Polish seamstress called Wanda) to operate the radionics box, and by this mechanism attempts to do Mrs. Hawkins serious harm. The beginning of this process coincides with Mrs. Hawkins deciding to lose weight, so poor Wanda thinks that her operation of the radionics box is, in fact, causing Mrs. Hawkins to waste away. She gets so full of moral guilt that the poor thing commits suicide. The story is only pieced together by Mrs. Hawkins when she reads a submission of Bartlett's sent to the magazine of her current occupation by Emma Loy, where he as much admits this.
On the surface, there is an obvious slightly distasteful statement about women, weight, body image and so forth, although the comments about 'people stopped opening up to me once I'd lost weight' are interesting - there's certainly fair comment on the image of the safe/maternal in our society. However, Mrs. Hawkins isn't a doormat to go with the shape; she's got spunk and verve, and her motivation for choosing to lose weight is to not be 'one of Mackintosh & Tooley' alibis' rather than anything to do with social pressure. So it's not as irritating as it could be, especially considering her experience with Martin York as the all-listening ear of sympathy. There's context and sense to it.
Anyway, off the feminist high-horse - it's a pleasant enough book, short enough to read on the train. The suicide is foreshadowed sufficiently that it's not too much of a shock, and the plot threads are obvious enough to sort of pick up on quite quickly. I'm certain if I re-read the novel, I'd spot far more of the set-up; it's actually quite cleverly underhanded. Plus, of course, all the radionics stuff is fascinating as another 'medical theory' I'd never heard of, and shall be avoiding should it ever turn my way. But there's a powerful narrative there about what very large effects seemingly small things may have upon other people, to whom they are the biggest things in the world. Good characters, and definitely worth a read.
