Dusty Answer

[Cortina]

Contains spoilers if you are planning to read.

I've just finished reading this. I loved it, especially from the middle onwards, Judith's early relationship with Jennifer.

Who has loved a Roddy? I finally learnt about 24 that these sorts of men would mean I ended up essentially alone :). I can just picture that slightly effeminate beauty that was strangely alluring to me when I was younger. Are there allusions that Roddy is having a homosexual relationship with Tony is bisexual? I think so.

The letter she wrote him afterwards? I've done something like that, oh dear. Are we to assume that when Roddy carries Judith to the trees when on the island they had sex?

There's a part in it where I assumed Judith was pregnant with Roddy's baby 'the thing leapt inside her'.

Mariella and Mabel were also bit part characters that were very real and well drawn.

There's something slightly cruel about the way Lehman writes, sometimes slightly superior and mocking?

I loved it, very powerful and reminiscent of Du Maurier's Rebecca. I am sure she read it and it influenced her book. The drowning, cruel indifferent bounders. Roddy could be the subject of 'And His Letters Grew Colder' if anyone has read that.

[thegirlwiththemouseyhair]

Spooky!
Are you me?
They are my favourite men
Love them in RL and love them in literature
Also Rosamund Lehman one of my fave writers.
When young I was obsessed with The Weather in the Streets and Invitation to the Waltz.

Thanks for reminder.
Time for a re-read!

[Cortina]

Can you answer any of the questions I raised?

Also who is it called Dusty Answer? Have I missed something obvious? :)

Will try to get hold of the other titles you mentioned, thanks. Expect Charlie in Dusty Answer would have been your ultimate!

[thegirlwiththemouseyhair]

Too long since I read it to remember details - sorry. But I will definitely re-read and let you know...

[Cortina]

That would be fab, thanks!

There were a few talking about it on here as in a similar vein to 'To Capture the Castle' maybe they can help too? :)

[elkiedee]

I read this a few months ago and I still can't remember the answer to most of your questions. Is the title from a quotation from something else? No, I didn't think Roddy was having a gay relationship (though maybe that's just me missing stuff) - I was more interested in the relationships between the women in the novel - Judith, Jennifer and Jennifer's other friend/love interst.

[Katisha]

ha I read this obsessively when I was about 20. And Weather in the Streets, although not as good.
Can't remember why I identified with it all so much now. Must re-read. Thanks for bringing it up!

[PrincessFiorimonde]

I read all Lehmann's novels in my late teens/early twenties (loooong time ago...) and loved them (esp. Invitation to the Waltz), but am afraid I don't remember enough detail to address your questions. Must re-read. You might find a discussion group if you Google?

The title I believe comes from a quote from George Meredith: "Ah, what a dusty answer gets the soul when hot for certainties in this our life!"

[Cortina]

I read somewhere that the readership at the time would have assumed that Judith and Jennifer had a sexual relationship. I saw it as v innocent, almost like a school girl crush.

It's interesting how the compelling, beautiful, cruel and powerful have a pull over the unattractive with various physical afflications (Mabel, Martin) who are seen as weak and irritating.

I would say that Jennifer's relationship with the other woman (whose name I can't remember even after reading the book a few days ago)! Was most definitely sexual.

I also think that Tony and Roddy were having a gay relationship but could be wrong.

Thanks for the Dusty Answer explanations and quotation!

[CarmelitaMiggs]

I loved it too. The writing is totally gorgeous. Keatsian.

I remember exactly where I was when a school friend recommended it to me. And the blue cover of the copy I took out of the library.

I still think about that moment when Judith is dancing with Roddy and there's a reference to the coldness of his ear against her cheek and something about his tie... v erotic. Roddy totally shaped my adolescent tastes. Thank god I grew up eventually.

You can tell she was very young when she wrote it though. The way that RL associates ugliness with inferiority. Mabel gets a rotten deal. And poor Martin!

[Cortina]

Yes, it is adolescently cruel in parts. I think it must be quite common to associate 'ugliness' or at least not uber 'Rupert Everett in Another Country' louche, decadent gorgeousness with inferiority. Certainly if I'd met DH at 18 I'd have ignored him, considering him 'Martin' like!

I kept expecting Mabel to keel over and die suddenly, and she's painted as a hideous creature, why is Jennifer better? Flawed as she is. Perhaps Judith comes to realise this in the end.

Its obvious Jennifer will never show in the tea shop at the end. The silhouette of Roddy and Tony walking by outside reminds me of similar encounters in SW3 tea shops of my youth! :) I knew a Roddy in all but name!

Julian and Martin seem to blur into one to me and Charlie and Roddy were similar too.

I don't get the reference to Judith's pregnancy early on 'the thing leapt inside me' but perhaps got the wrong end of the stick?

I wish I'd known about these books at 18!

[JeffVadar]

There is a really good biog of Rosamund Lehmann by Selina Hastings - she had an incredible life.

I thoroughly recommend it if you you like her books

[Cortina]

Will buy it, thanks. Interested to read Rosamond was beautiful but needy so often drove lovers away, I can see echoes of this in Judith.

[PlumSykes]

Have you read any by Elizabeth Jane Howard? She is a contemporary of RL, and has similar some subject matter.

[Cortina]

I've heard of her, wasn't she married to someone famous, and Day Lewis died at their house, or have I made that up? :)

Will go and check her out, thanks!

By the way, Plum, love Debutante Divorcees, inspired! Bergdorf Blondes not too bad either. :).

[CarmelitaMiggs]

vaguely remember CDL had relationship with EJH and RL at the same time

[elkiedee]

Elizabeth Jane Howard was married to Kingsley Amis. My favourite of her books was The Beautiful Visit.

[PrincessFiorimonde]

If anyone's interested, Radio 4 is serialising Dusty Answer this week - Monday-Friday 10.45am; repeated at 7.45pm.