I would love to live in an English novel. Not the novels of the UK in the 21st century, but the English novels of the 20th century. From Rumer Godden’s A Fugue in Time to Margaret Kennedy’s Lucy Carmichael to E. Nesbit’s The Lark, I am prepared to travel to unreality. 

THE TWEE & ANTI-TWEE DILEMMA

I don’t know what twee is, but I suspect my psychelelic lit-trip is twee.  Here I am, a woman from another time, dressed in old tatty jeans and a Take Back the Night t-shirt (how young I was!), reading while I sip tea out of a bone china mug from Fortnum and Mason. I had two bone china mugs, but one broke.  Now the broken one is a receptacle for old political buttons. And I’m planning a surreal book trip in which I drink tea. Twee?

WHAT’S IN MY FICTIONAL LUGGAGE?

A twin set and sensible shoes, tea bags in case the security guards bust me for loose tea, because it might be mistaken for marijuana, and The Oxford Book of English Verse,so I can catch the allusions to poetry in English novels.

WHICH NOVELS SHALL I LIVE IN? 

Rumer Godden’s A Fugue in Time (1945).  Born in India and educated in England, Rumer Godden taught ballet in India, traveled widely in Asia, and eventually moved back to England.  In this little-known novel, A Fugue in Time, Godden asks the question: what happens if you lose your home? Rollo Dane, a retired general, is about to lose the family house, because the owner will not renew the 99-year lease: he plans to sell the house to a developer. 

And then Rollo’s grand-niece, Griselda, a service woman in the U.S. army, shows up looking for a place to live in London. He is reluctant to let her stay, but she brings vibrancy, energy, and hope into the house. Rollo spends his days dreaming about the past, remembering the different generations who inhabited it during the 99 years. As is common in Godden’s books (see China Court), time-lines are blurred with memories. This is partly a ghost story, with much repetition of poetry, a retelling of family history, and allusions to T. S. Eliot and E. M. Forster.

Margaret Kennedy’s Lucy Carmichael (1951).  Recently reissued in Penguin’s The Mermaid Collection, this is my favorite of Kennedy’s novels. Every image is so vivid you almost need sunglasses, and every sentence is exquisite.  Kennedy tells the story of Lucy Carmichael, a jilted bride who struggles back from grief when she takes a job at an Arts Institute.

A charming Oxford graduate, Lucy fell in love with Patrick, a best-selling travel writer, and he jilts her at the church. She thinks she has missed a phone call, or a telegram has gone astray, or that he has been in a car accident, until it becomes obvious that he simply left. Lucy’s best friend, Melissa, another Oxford graduate, is also devastated:  she had never trusted Partrick and feels she should have warned Lucy. But then, fortunately, Lucy gets a job at a provincial Arts Institute established by a philanthropic millionaire.

Although Lucy has no work experience, she is hired to be the assistant director of the drama department on the basis of her Oxford degree. Because the well-known drama department director is away lecturing in Europe, she must direct Hamlet, which is comical, because she discovers mistakes only at rehearsals. The students are fond of her: they gamely cooperate when she changes the blocking.

And Lucy befriends faculty members, most of whom are much older, many of them eccentric. But she can’t keep silent when she realizes the director of the institute is conspiring to fire the most talented and expensive employees, a famous Jewish painter, who is a refugee from Germany, and the well-known drama director, who is often on the road lecturing.

Lucy stands up for what she thinks is right and learns about the dangers of politics. What will her future be? What will the future of the other anxious Institute employees be? I loved the characters, and this beautifully-written book is just what I needed on a very cold day in April.

E. Nesbit’s The Lark. Best-known for her children’s fantasy novels and her Fabian socialist politics, Nesbit’s adult novel, The Lark (1922), is a masterpiece.  Two young women, Jane and Lucilla, learn that their guardian Mr. Rochester has lost all their money.  (Prepare for romance: the guardian is named Mr. Rochester and Jane is the name of one of the girls.)  

And so Jane and Lucilla move into a charming cottage with a beautiful garden, and support themselves by selling the flowers. And when all the flowers are gone, they find a larger, somewhat run-down house, with a larger garden.  Utterly charming from beginning to end, and by far the best of Nesbit’s adult books. it celebrates her love of gardens.