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

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

Welcome to the Mumsnet 'Rather Dated' Book Group, where we are reading and discussing fiction from the 1930s to the 1990s that would have been described as 'contemporary' in its day. We are reading one book a month. Spoilers are permitted!

We started the chat thanks to a thread where we kicked off with a discussion of Penelope Lively, The Road to Lichfield.

Currently we have these separate threads:
November: Anita Brookner, A Start in Life
December: Margaret Drabble: A Summer Bird-Cage
January: Elizabeth Jane Howard, The Beautiful Visit.

And this current one for February: Dorothy Whipple, Someone at a Distance. Available second-hand, via the library, or the most excellent Perspehone Books, where you can read the preface by another wonderful writer, Nina Bawden: https://persephonebooks.co.uk/products/someone-at-a-distance.

An excerpt from the above site: 'This Fifties novel about a quietly catastrophic love triangle is beautiful and moving,' was the headline in The Times... 'Published in 1953 and set in England’s rural commuter belt, Someone at a Distance is a love triangle with two unlikely protagonists. Who is responsible for changing the course of our lives, the novel asks? Is it ourselves, those closest to us, or can our lives be shaped by people we don’t even know?"

(With huge thanks to ImJustMadAboutSaffron for the original thread and idea)

Sorry, @FuzzyCaoraDhubh, just noticed your post as I’m lying here sleepless so I went back to look!

Avery presented himself at the right time…he knew nothing about books and seemed to have no natural interest in them, but he had possibilities on the social side…and his father was ready to put up a good deal of money…Avery himself thought anything better than going into stockings. He liked the idea of working in London and coming back to the country every night.

So it may not have been his passion, exactly, to go into the publishing side of the family business but I think we're meant to think he enjoyed the glad-handing aspect of it enough to be happy with it as a career (and no stockings! Until they came to his rescue later).

Avery thought anything better than going into stockings...😄Luckily for him that he had stockings to fall back on!

Thanks Terpsichore! It came back to me. It sounds like Avery had it all sewn up until herself came along.

I read your post at 5am while having my own wakeful moment, by the way!

Oh no, Fuzzy, commiserations on the sleeplessness. It’s a pain, isn’t it? Though sometimes it's useful for whittling away at the reading pile 😂

TheGander I haven't read her WW1 book so thank you, I will reserve at the library.

It is, Terpsichore, and commiserations to you too if it's a regular* *thing. Yes, another reason to love having a Kindle:)

Off to the library tomorrow to look for anything by Dorothy Whipple, and another Barbara Pym. I’m taking refuge in the 1950s, from the beastliness of modern life.

It is beastly at present!

Agree largely with @LadyGardenersQuestionTime Comments, I found alot of the characters largely one dimensional but found the writing very compelling.

I also agree that the marriage has largely strayed into a brother/ sister relationship as Avery took Ellen very much for granted and had created a very Comfadable life for himself. I think he thought that this would always stay like this for him regardless on what he did.

Just adding the link here to the March discussion of Miss Pettigrew, which I've just opened:

'Rather Dated' March: Winifred Watson's 'Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day' http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/whatweree_reading/4753690-rather-dated-march-winifred-watsons-miss-pettigrew-lives-for-a-day

I've not finished the book myself yet, so will post my thoughts when I have, but by all means start the conversation without me.

Lovely idea, I read it years ago and remember noticing the anti semitism ( which was standard in those days). I’ll see if I can get hold of a copy and read along.

I've finally got around to reading this, better late than never! I reserved it at the library and it took ages to come, and then languished on my TBR pile while I was reading other things.

Anyway, I really enjoyed the book, and have enjoyed reading everyone's comments. I found myself quite gripped by the plot. I agree with PP that the characters were a bit cliched but I think the quality of the author's emotional insights made up for that. I felt it was a very believable portrait of the different ways people respond to betrayal. Louise couldn't come to terms with Paul's betrayal so channelled her energies in a destructive direction, and although she succeeds in luring Avery away she doesn't love him and is incapable of making him love her back. Faced with a much worse betrayal, Ellen commits to moving on and building a new life for herself, and is ultimately rewarded with the return of Avery's affections.

I was ok with the ending as it resolved the misunderstanding between the two of them about Avery's feelings for Louise. I was a bit confused as to why it was so critical that they not reconcile until Anne left home. What were they going to do, meet in secret while she was at school? If she found out, wouldn't that be even worse?

Just coming in belatedly to say thanks for allowing me to discover Dorothy Whipple, I am reading Someone at a Distance and really enjoying it. While I was waiting for the library to get it, I read a book of her short stories which I really enjoyed too. For me Rather Dared books are a great antidote to the preoccupations of modern life.

Rather dated!

@TheGander

For me Rather Dated books are a great antidote to the preoccupations of modern life.

Agreed!