Roger has himself recently reached an important milestone, having submitted his final manuscript of Jane Austen and the Reformation (to be published later this year). He’s happy to have it off his plate for the time being and is delighted to be reading something other than Jane Austen. Right now, he’s deep into Moll Flanders for the first time in 15 years and says, “I am really struck by how her struggles are not that different from those of many women today.” Next up: Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Buried Giant.
An Anglophile (can you tell?), Roger keeps up with goings-on across the Pond. Today, he reflects on British culture and The Stories of Jane Gardam.
From Roger:
It is commonplace these days to observe that the British are undergoing a deep, enduring crisis of identity. For hundreds of years, the story goes, they were sustained and united by the Empire, the Church of England, and the monarchy. With the Empire gone, and the Church increasingly irrelevant to the lives of most Britons – the United Kingdom is usually characterized as “post-Christian”- the monarchy is the only remaining institution around which the people can rally. Even the monarchy, however, is on slippery ground: headed by an 88-year old monarch, this venerable institution faces deep challenges, as Mike Bartlett’s recent critically-acclaimed play King Charles III implies. How do ordinary British subjects react to the changes? How will they pick up the pieces and “carry on,” something they are famous for doing so calmly? What stresses, compromises, and possibilities arise in the uncertain space between the demise of one culture and the emergence of another?
Not surprisingly, there are lots of ghosts in these stories. The characters have ghostly memories of the past – old Ingoldby in “The Easter Lilies” remembers “the eccentric pink-faced English roaring about” in Malta during his service there, the decayed gentleladies in “The Tribute” search for a way to memorialize the nanny who raised their children, and the Partridges in “Rode By All With Pride” are aware that their household help is nothing like the staff of “five indoor servants” that had been employed in their Wimbledon townhouse before 1939. But actual ghosts take center stage in stories like “A Spot of Gothic,” where the main character encounters a mysterious woman beckoning to her along the road in the dark of night, and “The Sidmouth Letters,” where Jane Austen’s mysterious seaside love affair plays a significant role in the life of a contemporary woman. In “Soul Mates,” Francis and Pat, while on holiday, meet another married couple, Jocelyn and Evelyn, who are eerily similar to them. Both of the wives had married civil servants straight out of Oxford and Cambridge, and their experiences and interests match exactly. The foursome hit it off so well that Jocelyn and Evelyn invite their new friends back to their house to spend the night. Francis and Pat gradually realize that their friends may not be real, and the story ends on a distinctly unsettling note. Evelyn’s comment to Pat, “I thought there was nobody left like us,” is telling and might apply to any number of people in these stories. Gardam’s characters find fewer and fewer who resemble them, and Francis and Pat are themselves revenants of a sort, emblematic of an entire group of people who have been rendered useless and redundant in post-imperial, post-Christian Britain.
While Gardam’s stories chronicle life in a particularly confusing moment in British history, her stories confront a range of universal themes and subjects. In “Lunch with Ruth Sykes,” we learn of the complicated relationship between a mother and daughter; in “The First Adam” and “The Pig Boy,” we discover the great stress that long-distance marriages can undergo. “Rode By All with Pride” is a heartbreaking story of two parents who must deal with disappointment when the carefully laid plans for their only daughter’s acceptance at Oxford go awry. Gardam sensitively, sympathetically portrays every parent’s desire to provide the best for their children. During this season of college admissions decisions, this story will have special resonance for many.
“It is not a beautiful building but it stands tall in blocks of identical suburban streets, all so dull, all so tasteful, all with the same expensive curtain linings to the windows and the same flicker of the television screen, all silent of life otherwise as one walks the dog late at night, that it stands out as something different and serious and I truly believe that temples of worship are needed as I said when we spent the delightful day driving to the golden temples of Hagar Qum.”
The temples of Hagar Qum are megalithic structures on the island of Malta. Gardam’s allusion to them places the decline of traditional British culture into a larger historical perspective and surely indicates her recognition that, while societies may come and go, important human values and aspirations endure. Although in ruins, the Maltese temples testify to the ancient, ineradicable desire to explain the mysteries of human existence. Gardam also shares this desire. That she writes of the survival of Miss White’s church – appropriately named All Saints – in an age when so many British churches stand empty or have been converted to secular uses, demonstrates her confidence that something of the historic fundamentals of British identity will remain intact, despite the challenges of the last fifty years.
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Brilliant!
Betsy, I am so grateful for your generosity and enthusiasm, always. Thank you, dear friend. xo
Hi, Roger, I must admit I have never been a James Bond fan, but I appreciate the raves you used to get for your performances. Congratulations on completing your Jane Austen manuscript. However, being a political science/ modern American history kind of guy, taking a break from Austen by reading Moll Flanders, seems to me like me shifting my diet from pepperoni to mushroom pizza. I joyfully echo Ms. Wills’ sentiment about your appraisal of Jane Gardam, an author of whom I haven’t heard but one you make seem fascinating and well worth my time. I too am a closet Anglophile, who couldn’t be, after all, the once great empire has brought us English Bulldogs and Benny Hill. With all due respect, I hope you are not becoming jaded about Vanderbilt’s magnificent campus. I own several prints of my own alma mater, West Chester University. I muse that each one is a winter scene featuring a snow covered campus, most likely the only way to hide the cigarette butts and beer cans. Best regards.
PS. Do you know which type of pizza Ms. Austen preferred?
Karl, you keep things lively here at Bacon!! Thank you so much for reading and commenting!
Moll Flanders! Barbara Pym! Jane Austen! We share more strong preferences than I knew.
Alice, we clearly need to have a literary lunch soon!
Alice, I’m so honored that you read yesterday! Thank you for stopping in at Bacon! xo