📚 "Rather Dated" February: Dorothy Whipple, Someone at a Distance 📚

@Terpsichore thank you! Off to look it up.

I was completely gripped by this first time round and was again, but it was such a long time ago (I hadn’t quite realised it was 1999 when Persephone reprinted it!) that I’d forgotten big chunks of it.

The beginning was much longer than I remembered, but of course Whipple was setting the idyllic scene so the eventual destruction of the marriage could be so much more awful. My main thought throughout was how many MN threads the story could supply! She did seed little clues quite well, I felt - eg the story about Avery sulking early in the marriage and refusing to eat his dinner. We could see that he was an immature and ultimately unreliable weakling who’d fall apart and then be too stupidly stubborn and childish to admit he’d been wrong.

I agree to an extent that Louise was horribly awful, but I’m sure there are people whose families look on aghast as they bulldoze their way through life with zero redeeming features. It’s a pity Whipple kind of ruined it in the end - for me, anyway - by dangling the prospect of the wretched Avery somehow ditching Louise and Ellen taking him back. But then, the idea of a strong woman going it alone is a very modern one, and the women in the novel who had to go it alone were all a bit downtrodden and/or slaving away for their livings, whereas Ellen was a lady.

Having said that, I was often very moved by the writing, especially the descriptions of Ellen’s emotional torment. That felt very true and real. And her misery at trying to protect Anne, and watching her innocence and happiness being destroyed.

@StellaOlivetti I think you’d enjoy They Were Sisters….

I loved this. It’s been my favourite dated novel so far, and I’ve liked them all (perhaps admired rather than liked the Rumer Godden). I’m so pleased to have discovered Dorothy Whipple, I’d never heard of her.
Louise was awful, but I didn’t exactly find her one dimensional. She was like she was because of the affair with Paul, there were little moments when I felt sorry for her. I never at any point in the novel thought she was happy.
Did anyone else get Garden of Eden vibes? I am not sure why, I think it was all the gardening Ellen did, and the description of flowers. So Louise was the serpent, destroying the innocence of the happy marriage. Perhaps symbolic rather than one dimensional, I don’t know.
The treatment of divorce seemed so alien, it was hard for me to get my head around the fact that the book was written in the 50s … although I guess that was a long time ago! (I was born in the 60s; the 50s doesn’t really seem like ancient history but the way the marriage implodes, how shocked everyone is, seemed as I say a million miles from today). And this of course is the most pertinent “rather dated” aspect: Ellen has put all her eggs in one basket, and Avery breaks the basket. I could really feel her shock and horror. Other dated elements that made me smile: Anne going away for school as there can be No Question of her attending locally, the mock cream - a hangover from the war I suppose. I don’t think rationing is specifically mentioned, but Ellen’s delight at there being custard creams in stock tells us there are difficulties.
I found the ending a bit pat, but extremely satisfying. Avery deserved to be miserable, and it was clear he was going to be! It made me think of that bit in Oscar Wilde: The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what Fiction means.

I very much enjoyed this Dorothy Whipple, and found it difficult to put down. She is a skilled and compelling story-teller, that is certain.

I found myself really loathing Louise, as I suppose was intended, but then I began to wonder if she wasn't a little overdrawn. Could anyone really be as heartless and unfeeling as she seems to be? I wondered if anyone else felt she was almost a pantomime villain? Apart from the manipulation of Avery, and ruthlessness where Ellen is concerned, her attitude towards her parents is awful. She seems devoid of any real feelings, even towards Avery, and only seduces and marries him to prove that she can.

I felt so frustrated by Avery's passivity, and lack of courage. If only he could have admitted his mistake straight away, I felt he could have redeemed himself, even with Anne. Hugh felt a rather one-dimensional character to me, though Anne was well-drawn and convincing. I thought some of the more marginal characters were great - Mrs Beard and Miss Daley were very well done, as were Louise's parents. I loved the confrontation between Louise and Miss Daley at the end, where Miss Daley tells her, "it's as plain as a pikestaff he doesn't want you [...] but you're getting as much out of him as you can, poshing yourself up in fur coats and pearl necklaces"!

The ending was ambiguous, and though it seemed that perhaps Ellen and Avery would end up together again, that this would take a long time, and would depend on Anne's recovery from what had happened.

Overall I really loved this novel, and it has only whetted my appetite for more DW.

Ooh how exciting, I just discovered ‘High Wages’ and read it twice back to back! I didnt enjoy Greenbanks as much but will look at this.

I have really enjoyed this book!

Ready to discuss when you are Terp ... and everyone

Great choice. Probably my favourite Dorothy Whipple.

Can't find at my library 😪

I finished a week or so ago and was gripped - I first read it years ago, when Persephone first reprinted it. I did add it to my reviews over on the 50 Books thread but I’ll wait on here till a few more people are ready to join in.

Ooh please can I join? I read this last month! I love books published by Persephone books

I finished it! Just need to gather my thoughts and I’ll be back.

Sticking my cover photo on here (as well as general thread):-

Thank you! I'm starting this this afternoon.

Thanks for thread!