I've just finished this one:
19. Miss Mole by E.H. Young – ‘Miss Mole’ is considered Young’s greatest work and won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 1930. Hannah Mole is an ‘invisible’ woman: poor, middle-aged, and single; she works in service (albeit in slightly elevated positions such as companion or housekeeper). Hannah’s ‘life lived in houses which were not her own and where she was never safe from intrusion’ requires a range of survival strategies: based on minor acts of rebellion, fortified by a Mitty-like fantasy world and surprisingly stylish shoes. She also has a secret.
Hannah’s subversive acts have led to a series of early dismissals and when the narrative begins she is facing an increasingly uncertain future. She becomes a housekeeper to the recently widowed Rev. Corder, his nephew Wilfred and daughters Ruth and Ethel. Corder is a self-centred man whose daughters are a backdrop for his relentless self-regard: Ruth and Ethel, it seems, are Miss Moles in the making. Hannah’s position and influence in the Corder household allows her to blossom, as well as gain a circle of supportive friends and, despite setbacks, her fortunes start to take a turn for the better.
I haven’t read any of Young’s novels before and I’ve been pondering how best to position this for others who might be in the same position. The blurb on my battered, green Virago edition suggested something fairly upbeat, so I came to ‘Miss Mole’ expecting something along the lines of ‘Miss Buncle’ or ‘Miss Pettigrew’; similarly, downtrodden ‘but portrayed with a consistently light and comic tone and on the road to certain triumph. However, for me, the character of ‘Miss Mole’ set off a different series of initial associations: the more complex women of Barbara Pym and Anita Brookner or those found in novels like ‘Lolly Willowes’ and ‘The Vet’s Daughter’, whose ‘invisible’ lives are shot through with melancholy. I realise this makes ‘Miss Mole’ sound like a sombre read but it’s saved from that by Young’s wry observations and some wonderfully humorous passages ‘the burglar and the wig’ for example, as well as a ‘fairy-tale’ romantic ending. (It also reminded me of Alison Light’s excellent ‘Mrs Woolf and the Servants’ her non-fiction account of the behind-the-scenes women whose work enabled women like Woolf to have ‘rooms’ of their own.)
‘Miss Mole’ is overwhelmingly character rather than plot-based. It has a narrow focus on Hannah and the Corder household, although we get snapshots/vignettes from the wider world. I found the opening chapters slow and hard to get immersed in. Also, the prose style seemed a little awkward at first becoming more fluid as the narrative progressed. And as the story unfolded I became increasingly curious about Hannah, her reliability as a narrator, and her secrets. Once that happened I became invested in her fate, along with Ruth and Ethel, all of them trying to retain a sense of self in negotiation with a culture in which their desires are considered inconsequential or worse non-existent. However, I found the first half of the book more engrossing than the second, which dragged in parts and could have been edited down. Overall this won’t be to everyone’s taste (it wasn’t always to mine) but if you enjoy Pym or Thirkell as well as the more introspective Persephone titles or the kinds of books on Virago’s original list this is worth a try. I think in some circles ‘Miss Mole’ has a cult following, personally I’m not sure it’s a novel I would actively want to revisit nor was I entirely convinced by the conclusion but there were sections I enjoyed immensely. It’s currently out of print but I picked up a second-hand copy quite easily.