I’ve been tempted many times to read Elizabeth Jane Howard having seen her praised by several other bloggers whose opinions I respect. But the scale of her most notable work, The Cazalet Chronicles always held me back — my slow reading speed these days meant I knew I wouldn’t be able to emulate Marina Sofia at Finding Time To Write who read all five titles in quick succession.
The Beautiful Visit, her first novel, seemed much more manageable. Published in 1950 it depicts life in England in the early years of the twentieth century, a time when young women had few opportunities to fulfil dreams and aspirations for a life beyond marriage and motherhood.
The narrator is one of those who yearns to “do something” or to “be someone” other than a wife in the making though she doesn’t have a clue how to go about achieving either of these ambitions. She’s the youngest of four children whose parents come from different social classes. Her mother’s family was rich but chose to marry a composer beneath her in class. Since he doesn’t earn very much, their home in Kensington is shabby and well-worn and there is little money available for luxuries like new clothes.
Completely and utterly bored with this life, the young girl is thrilled when she hears of an opportunity to work in her local public library. Those hopes are dashed almost as soon as they materialise because her father absolutely refuses to sanction the idea; he may be strapped for cash but he has standards to uphold and there is no way a daughter of his will ever be allowed to do anything as demeaning as work.
A more fitting opportunity arises with an invite for the narrator to spend Christmas with rich family friends who live in a large country house. “The beautiful visit” as she comes to call it, brings new experiences and connections that will have a bearing on her later life.
Life had been distinctly lacking in possibilities – until The Visit. But, ever afterwards, just remembering the smell of the Lancings’ house would enrapture her, taking her back to that very first day when Lucy and Gerald had picked her up from the station . . .
Opportunities That Come to Nothing
The plot (I use the term loosely) meanders along through a series of episodes in which tests different options for her life. They seem to follow a pattern: a new opportunity arises that could show her the path to her place in the world but it quickly fizzles out after the initial excitement and then she’s back to square one.
Those experiments are sometimes comic (frequently involving copious amounts of tears) but are also touching. She is so naive, so unused to the realities of the world that we can’t help but sympathise when she misreads a situation that could have led to unfortunate results.
The main point of the book is to show the limited options for women in the 1910s. Though the prevailing belief is that marriage is their only true vocation and purpose in life, we’re given examples of women who feel stifled by the resulting relationships. Her own mother reflects sadly that she lost her identity through marriage because she lived for someone else: “Your father believed in music … and I believed in your father. By the time he died, I don’t think he believed in anything, and now I find it very difficult to believe in him,” she tells her daughter.
Deb, daughter of the rich country family, is a further example. She made, what her family would consider “a good match” that gives her plenty of material rewards but she is completely dissatisfied with her life.
What she desperately wants is the gaiety of her old life, the excitement of parties and London night life, not the boring life as a mother and the wife of a man who bores her. “Life stops when one is married and one ought to take care that it stops in a very good place, “she advises the narrator. Yet she also recognises that the life of a spinster is just as unappealing.
A Question Without A Solution
Which poses a problem. If marriage isn’t the answer, and neither is spinsterhood, what does Elizabeth Jane Howard think her “heroine” should do?. She’s already tried the role of a paid companion (stultifyingly dull), a piano teacher (short-lived) and a music copyist ( financially unviable). And then, when they don’t work out, she embarks on a career as a writer — so we get to see her scribbling away in a dark, small room in a boarding house.
But that’s not enough for Howard, my character deserves a real adventure, she thinks. And so The Beautiful Visit ends with our narrator setting off to travel the world and investigate whether it is indeed completely spherical.
All very neat. Too neat in fact. And it doesn’t address the central question of the novel — how can women who want more than a domestic life, achieve their desire? They’re not all going to be offered an opportunity for an adventure are they? I didn’t need the book to come to a definitive answer but this solution felt a cop out.
it was such a shame that it ended like this because until then I’d been enjoying this tragi-comedy of an adolescent with big ideas. Nevertheless the limp ending hasn’t put me off reading more fiction by Elizabeth Jane Howard. I loved her acute observation of characters (the mistress of the country house was a wonderful example of a vacuous personality) and way of capturing the spirit of the age. Maybe I’ll just have to take the plunge with The Cazalet Chronicles after all.
The Beautiful Visit by Elizabeth Jane Howard was book number nine from my 20booksofsummer reading list.
We're all friends here. Come and join the conversation