Toby Flower won't conform: he's grown his hair long, he wears a burnous (the 1970s equivalent of a hoody), he'd rather drive a bus than go up to Oxford, and he's been expelled from school for taking drugs. His parents, Charlie and Maggie, are not only concerned, they are almost hysterical with worry. So anxious are they, that they send him to their psychiatrist friend for 'treatment'. Not wanting to give too much away, for those of you who haven't read it... the bulk of this novel is concerned with dissecting Charlie and Maggie's relationships with Toby and with one another; as well as Toby's relationships with his sister Lucy, his maternal grandmother, and his psychiatrist's daughter Hermia.
I would say that the novel sort of unfurls, petal by petal, like the 'flower' of the family's name - indeed, Bawden gives us little glimpses into the internal monologues (or, perhaps, diaries) of each family member in little indented sections that break the flow of the third person narration. While this is formally interesting, it's applied so elegantly that it doesn't in any way break the flow of the novel. Instead, reading this book, I had the feeling that I was looking through the lense of a microscope that was in continual motion. I saw lots of different elements of the story in forensic close-up, but I didn't really get a clear sense of it in its entirety. Not until a week or two later, anyway - and if a novel keeps you thinking for that long, surely it's a good sign. I think this is its strength: as a reader I was forced to engage fully with all of the characters and their variant perspectives. Perhaps this can be seen most sharply in the prologue, which inhabit the point of view of the family's neighbours - I'd love to hear what any of you who've read it thought about this part.
Where the novel is strongest, is in its analysis of generational relationships. As in much of Bawden's other work, the influence of WWII is important here (see last post). You get the sense that the war provided a sort of moral structure, which was comforting - it was easy to work out what was 'right' and what was 'wrong'. In the novel's present (1970-ish) this moral compass has been skewed and the characters - particularly Maggie and Charlie - are trying to come to terms with relativism. No one is sure of what the right thing to do is anymore. They all make horrible mistakes and act foolishly. Yet all of these characters have my sympathy - even Maggie and Charlie, whose behaviour towards their son is at times brutish.
According to a review in The Independent (as quoted on Amazon... OK, I admit it) 'Nina Bawden gets inside the skins of all her people and shows them as paradoxical, crotchety, adulterous, ambitious and completely human... A beautifully sustained impression of the impossibility of family life.'
One of the things that fascinates me about this book, as with Nina Bawden's Walking Naked (which I have also reviewed here) is the way that she plays with the writing process itself. In both books there is a female novelist who uses elements of her family life in her writing. Indeed, according to the article that Tanja linked to in the comments on the last post, there's much in this book that's been influenced by real events in Bawden's own life. Of course this is fiction not autobiography - it would be disrespectful of the writer's privacy to mistake the two, although I think that readers often want to 'own' authors in this way. Yet I do think that Bawden very cleverly draws the reader's attention to the relationship between fact (what is fact?) and fiction (what is fiction?).
Good to see that Bawden herself thinks the novel still stands up after 40 years. You can also read another review of this book - and some interesting discussions in the comments section after - at Reading Matters.
Finally:
- I think my favourite part is the first scene between Toby and Hermia, which is so beautifully observed. What bits did you particularly like?
- Any thoughts on what the novel Hermia was reading might have been? (I suggest The L Shaped Room by Lynne Reid Banks, but I'd love to be proved wrong by someone who knows better.)
- Could The Birds on the Trees be the Lost Booker winner? What do you think?
Only just getting to half-way in it, and I must confess, I'm not totally enthused, but remain sufficiently engaged to be won over. There's a crtain tension building, and some evident pointers being laid down for future development. In some respects it's a milieu that's not featured much in fiction: not kitchen-sinky late 50's/early 60s with gritty undertones, not late 60 early 70s wholesale counter-culture nor Americana fixated. I'd say that (so far)it's occupying a curious interspace between those better known sub-genres
ReplyDeleteI should have written down my thoughts about this immediately after finishing the book, and I didn't - maybe I was waiting to have some sort of revelation about the story as a whole, but I haven't! Here are some comments prompted by what you've said.
ReplyDeleteI liked the exploration of each of the different family narratives. Sometimes I find constant switching of perspectives a bit irritating (lazy reader probably) but I barely noticed the switches here. I'm not sure I was 'forced to engage with all fully with all the characters' though - the obvious exception to this for me was Toby, who I didn't think I was really asked to engage with at all. I assumed that was intentional? as the story is really about other people's conception of him, particularly his parents' preoccupation with his behaviour, his future and so on.
I went through several stages of confusion over what Toby had actually done, and what he was being treated for, and then eventually came to the conclusion that maybe it didn't matter, and that I wasn't intended to really know, as the vagueness prevented me from being able to make any real judgement about whether the parents' reaction, or the treatment, were way over the top.
The incident at the very beginning also contributed to this confusion (again intentionally I guess). In this incident you're allowed to think something is seriously wrong in this family - that the child is being mistreated - and then you have to gradually abandon that idea as you realise that actually its a relatively 'normal' family/parent-child relationship.
The Hermia-Toby/pregnancy plotline was one of my least favourite bits actually (sorry!). I thought it was a bit of an unnecessary distraction, although I suppose it gave us another parent-child-crisis relationship to put the central one in context. What I really did like was the interior dialogue of the grandmother (Sarah?) and her assessments of her daughter's relationship with Toby, her daughter's marriage, her own marriage, and her regrets about the way she had allowed her daughter to think about her father.
I'd be surprised if this was my eventual favourite, but I did really enjoy it.
Everyone should now be able to author posts, as well as commenting on them - short, long, whatever you like, please give us something to start us off on one of the books, as we've all been reading different things so far.
Alisdair - I think you've hit on something really interesting. Apparently Nina Bawden is a Hampstead writer, but there's something about this book that is totally of its time. In a way, it just doesn't make sense for today because it seems so hysterical. The review I linked to at Reading Matters (see post) points out that if Toby was going through this now he'd be more likely to take a gap year than be sent for elctro-shock therapy!
ReplyDeleteCharlotte - it's good to have lots of different opinions, it shows how subjective the whole thing is! I think I enjoyed Toby and Hermia's exchanges so much because they injected a bit of welcome humour into the whole thing. As when Toby says 'Eventually, I expect, I shall go into something interesting and creative, like publishing or films. Or perhaps the theatre, though the standard's so terrifyingly low at the moment, one would have to be careful. I mean, it would be so easy to write a play just for commercial success, one would have to watch out that one wasn't corrupted...' This makes me laugh out loud. It's so damning, so pompous and so very well-observed - absolutely the kind of thing only a 17 year old could say!
I'm almost finished and really enjoying it. I really like Sarah's internal monologues, too, and her interaction with her grandchildren - she is the most alive character for me. Also loved the party at Elsa's house, fantastic social observation and atmosphere. I can almost taste the cheese and pineapple.
ReplyDeleteI have to say that I found the prologue a bit of a distraction - I spent the first few chapters thinking about it and am not sure it added to my experience of the novel as a whole.
And yes I think it must have been The L Shaped Room - was going to suggest The Women's Room but it wasn't published till 1977, apparently.
The prologue didn't work for me until a week or so after I'd finished the novel... I think it was only on reflection that it started to feel really important. (And memory can play funny tricks.)
ReplyDeleteI think either The L Shaped Room or - and I couldn't remember what book this was for ages - The Millstone by Margaret Drabble. I read both of these at Uni. If it had been the Drabble, though, Hermia might have been cracking open a bottle of gin and running a hot bath. Have never read The Women's Room - maybe this is another idea for a themed book group??