I’d never heard of Rosamond Lehmann (1901-1990) before Danielle mentioned her among her Virago books. Dusty Answer was her first book and a bestseller, considered shocking and modern. Today, I hardly can understand why, but I got some clues within the middle part. Lehmann had a complicated life (some early parts being told as fiction in this novel) and was loosely associated with the Bloomsbury group. I wouldn’t certainly compare her with Woolf, but rather with Katherine Mansfield in such a story as The garden party.
Dusty Answer is centered on Judith Earle, a bright, lonely young heiress who gets absorbed by the only young people she’d known since childhood, a group of cousins, 4 boys and a girl living (or at least staying for holidays) next door. When she was a child, she looked up to them and mainly to Charlie, the family son. But Charlie is killed during WWI just after having married the only girl of the group. There’s no true feeling of camaraderie uniting the 3 remaining young men, the young widow and Judith. They all have their own life and interests and are quite forgetful of their lonely young neighbor.
Judith, on the contrary, is fascinated by them and desperately seeks their attention. The 4 young men are very different from one another and Judith falls in love with each of them in turn, but disappointed every time. I must say I couldn’t understand why she found them so glamorous. Of course, lonely as she was, she didn’t know any better, but they all come out as pretty shallow poseurs, except reliable but boring Martin (who meets a tragic fate).
In the middle section, Judith goes to study in Cambridge: this is an interesting portrayal of an all-girls community. I guess it was the scandalous part of the novel, notably by alluding to intimate, lesbian friendships. Judith develops an intense friendship with Jennifer, a brilliant but complicated girl, who ends up as disappointing as the 3 young men.
Eventually I don’t think I was expecting that kind of novel. It has a strong impressionist, emotional feeling, many parts in stream of consciousness style, parts where memories and facts are intertwined, but it remains an unfinished coming-of-age novel, probably too related to Rosamond Lehmann’s personal experience to draw a definite conclusion at the end. I would have been interested to learn more about the mother, a distant character who could definitely explain why Judith comes out so dependent unto other people, and I was expecting a stronger ending.
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June 17, 2008 at 3:36 pm
Danielle
I’m about 50 pages into the book. I made the mistake of reading part of the introduction, so the ’shocking’ part was given away already before I got to it. Actually compared to a novel I just finished by a contemporary of Lehmann’s–I can sort of see why it might have raised eyebrows. Of course to us now, it is not at all surprising, but I think in the 20s when this was written, such things were certainly not discussed let alone written about and I imagine lesbianism would have been considered a deviation. I have a feeling the other novel I read would have been far more mainstream (?). Although there was a love triangle, nothing sexual was hinted at except some chaste kissing. The other novel was a bestseller–of course which is still in print? Now I’m curious to read more of the novel and wonder what her later books are like.
June 17, 2008 at 3:40 pm
Danielle
And I hope I’m not steering you to books that you don’t get on well with! I still feel bad about the Anne Radcliffe!
June 18, 2008 at 3:37 pm
smithereens
I guess the most shocking part was that the author was a woman… because when you compare it to Gatsby, I’d say the latter would be more shocking even for that time… yet it was published 2 years before Lehmann’s. I guess people in that period just took both novels as a proof that the young people had depraved morals…
Danielle, don’t feel bad about the Ann Radcliffe! Without you I’d never have tried so many different writers, and I’m totally grateful for this discovery once again. If I was never willing to try anything new that would be so boring… That’s what lit-blogs are all about, arent they?
June 18, 2008 at 5:41 pm
Danielle
I really should reread The Great Gatsby. I love comparing and contrasting. I think you’re right that the 20s was a pretty decadent time–those wild flappers with loose morals! It’s an interesting period to read about.
It is good to try something new even if you find you don’t like it. I think there is definitely a positive to being exposed to a variety of authors. Somehow in the end it all connects up and you can see how the threads weave together and who influenced who. I need to widen my horizons more, too!
June 19, 2008 at 1:58 am
Dorothy W.
I’ve had mixed luck with Lehmann, and I’m not sure how I’d like this one. I enjoyed A Note in Music a whole lot, but I found The Echoing Grove hard going and its characters never quite came to life for me. The stream of consciousness parts were hard to deal with. I would like to try more though — I’ve got Invitation to the Waltz on my shelves. Perhaps I’ll try this one some day too.
June 20, 2008 at 6:31 pm
smithereens
Dorothy, unfortunately our library doesn’t have A note in music, maybe I’ll find it on Bookmooch…