📚'Rather Dated' July: Mollie Panter-Downes' 'One Fine Day' 📚

[MotherofPearl]

Please join us to discuss our latest 'rather dated' novel. I'll add in the links and introductions below.

Link to main thread:

📚The Mumsnet 'Rather Dated' Book Group - All welcome to join📚 www.mumsnet.com/Talk/whatweree_reading/4624300-the-mumsnet-rather-dated-book-group-all-welcome-to-join

Welcome to the Mumsnet 'Rather Dated' book club. This month we are reading Mollie Panter-Downes' 'One Fine Day'. Please do add your thoughts when you are ready.

About the threads:

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.
March: Winifred Watson, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day.
April: R.C. Sheriff, The Fortnight in September.
May: Elizabeth Taylor, Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont.
June: Margaret Kennedy, The Feast.

Is it OK if I kick off, as I think it was my mention of the book that led to it being chosen?

I'd read this before, and it was a pleasure to go back to it - especially as I happened to read it over the course of a few days exactly like the ones described in the book: a boiling hot English summer. I also have a garden that, I'm afraid, has succumbed to same kind of wildness as Laura and Stephen’s 😳

Although not very much happens in terms of action, I did hugely enjoy following Laura around throughout her day, and hearing her thoughts on how life was going to change for her family, and for the village - and the country - right at the tipping-point when war had changed everything forever. I felt she would adapt, and had already adapted, to a world where 'gently brought-up' people like her got on and did their own shopping and cooking, whereas her husband couldn’t quite get his head round this new egalitarian landscape.

My main criticism would be that I felt Mollie PD resorted a bit too often to the trope of people and scenes being timeless - I got the point quite quickly that jolly Mrs Prout was Shakespearean - but that’s quite a minor quibble. The language and writing were beautiful…I especially loved the description of Mrs Vyner playing Bach and opening the little drawers to show the perfect logic of the music. And the scene at the end of Victoria and her father together was wonderfully done.

And yes, these were still privileged people, living in a lovely house in lovely countryside (I believe it was based on the author's own house and village) but I felt the stream of consciousness-type construction was quite interesting for its time, and gave it a very contemporary feel.

Hello all, I finished this last night and I loved it from beginning to end. I thought the writing was exquisite. There was a beautiful turn of phrase or a pithy observation nearly on every page. It's a book that I could see myself reading again to savour the writing. I also enjoyed reading it in paperback. So far all the other books in 'the series' I got on Kindle. I just thought it was a little gem. It's described as 'a finely wrought novel' in the blurb and I agree with that. Thanks for recommendation, Terpsichore. It's definitely up there as a favourite for me.

I'll be back later on.

So pleased you liked it, @FuzzyCaoraDhubh

Interesting to read the reviews. I agree with you both about the writing, which I thought was exceptional. I loved the description of Stuffy's carpet-bag stomach, and the funny, poignant description (on my p. 23) of Laura's changed appearance:

"A bit thinner over the cheekbones, perhaps, the hair completely grey in front, though the back was still fair and crisply curling, like rear-line soldiers who do not know that defeat has bleakly overtaken their forward comrades."

The descriptions of landscape were also very evocative, and I agree about the wonderful passage about Mrs Vyner's music.

I think the thing I struggled with a little, however, was the absence of a real plot. I wonder if I've become a terribly lazy reader, because I felt the lack of a plot to grip me. It was very different reading experience from The Feast. Having said that, I still found it a really good read, both for the writing, and for the insights into social change in post-war Britain.

Mrs Prout tipped over into a grotesque at times I thought.

Thanks for this: I've been lurking for a few months on the series of book conversations and this thread has drawn me in.

I read the book quite recently following a Mrs Dalloway binge (audio and text in a couple of days). It had an ethereal quality to it, I thought. Very cleverly done to convey so much in its treatment of a single day. You can see the author as journalist in the reportage style too, I thought. I'll see if I've anything useful to add in due course.

Following...

I found this beautifully written, like a poem in parts when describing the heat and the flowers and the English village, battered after the war. It reminded me of Mrs Dalloway (although I struggled through that at university, and whizzed through this and loved it) and also - less cerebrally - an Agatha Christie novel called Taken at the Flood where there is a similar lament and longing for prewar ease. In places it was witty: the young George Porter looking at Laura like she was a nice old sofa, but overall I think it was sad, because the theme was basically looking at what was lost. The morning shopping expedition, where the shopkeepers are all angry or terse, and the lonely lady in the queue reduced to boasting to strangers about her sister’s little doggie, and the tea with the Cranmers before their house goes to the National Trust struck me as very poignant. And Jim’s beautiful widow marrying the builder Mr Rudge.
I do agree you can tell Mollie Panter Downes was a reporter, she’s clearly aware of the world changing. I found that aspect incredibly interesting actually because I suppose I thought that the end of the war would be full of nothing but happiness and relief but of course it can’t be that simple. I thought it was a wonderful book. I’m lending this one to my mum as well.

And I’ve just realised I didn’t mind the absence of a plot in the slightest, whereas normally that would infuriate me.

I liked the absence of a plot (Laura goes in search of Stuffy and eventually finds her!) It was a gentle, reflective read and I love a book like that providing it's well written. I found it very insightful and loved the detail into their daily lives. That's a good point about the author reporting on how their lives had changed. I find it fascinating. The nuisances of doing the shopping, the annoyance of shopkeepers and the surreptitious looks at other women's baskets on the bus home. There was a wealth of detail in it.

We were talking about the displaced gentlefolk in 'Mrs Palfrey' recently and how they found it difficult to adapt to changed circumstances, moving into hotels rather than managing on their own. This was similar. We could see how it affected younger people too like Laura and Stephen. I agree with Terpsichore that Laura seemed* *to adapt better than Stephen. He was more fastidious and exacting and wanted to life to go back to what it was. It was harder on him.

It was very poignant, particularly when Laura had a good cry by herself on Barrow Down and while it was a delayed reaction, it was the right time for her. I thought the message was good and simple, to take time out and appreciate what you have and not to live too much according to the rules, but to live for today as tomorrow isn't promised.

Yes, exactly Fuzzy. Live lightly, Laura says, I think.

@StellaOlivetti have you read Our Hidden Lives, the Mass Observation diaries from just after the war? They reflect that very uncertain spirit - people were exhausted and not sure what to expect. I definitely recommend that if you’ve never read it.
I’m now trying to find my copy of MPD’s London War Notes, which I bought (rather expensively) a few years ago. Haven’t located it yet!

Thank you for the recommendation, @Terpsichore , I will seek it out.

Did we carry in with this - I can’t find it on kindle, and have just read enchanted April. I’m lost!

Yes, it was the current read - it’s not on kindle, though. Hard copy only I’m afraid!

Oh no! Anyone want to pass their copy on to me? Where are people getting their copy from?

Ive loved reading these but if I can’t get it on kindle lay going to struggle and I suspect I’m not alone unless we set up a Mumsnet Rather Dated Circulating Library.

Hello, I hope it is ok to join you in your literary jaunts? I read this book a couple of months ago so I had to look back on my Goodreads entry.
This was a wonderful read. It had elements of so many of my favourite books. There was a hint of Virginia Woolf mixed in with some Thomas Hardy and HE Bates amongst others. It was a beautiful story that left me with hope; Laura, Stephen and Victoria would be alright.
I felt that it explored the real domestic difficulties post WW2 of the middle classes and how they needed to adapt. In fact Kay Smallshaw’sHow To Run Your Home Without Help would have been very useful to Laura but it was not published until 1949! I found a deep sense of sadness at the changes going on around Laura. As a Maid of Kent the countryside descriptions were evocative of my childhood jaunts, cycling around the North Downs with the ghosts of dogfights overhead.
This is a book I will re-read often.

I got it on World of Books @LadyGardenersQuestionTime
First time ordering from there and it arrived quite quickly.

Welcome, @InaHamletinaShire. I like your review. I agree that there is a deep vein of sadness running through the book, but that it concludes with optimism for the future.

Thanks @FuzzyCaoraDhubh just ordered my copy. I can’t remember when I last read a physical book that’s not a textbook!

You're in for a treat, @LadyGardenersQuestionTime .
This was the first real book I got for this reading group. All the rest so far I've got on Kindle. Gorgeous book. Hope you enjoy it.

I must get started on The Enchanted April!

Do get started, it's a delight!

Will do :) I've just finished a book and this will be by next one!

Oh my goodness, just finished this. It took a few pages to get into but once I was there I couldn’t put it down. Laura and Stephen are a little older than my own parents and their lives so resonate - that sense of loss along with the relief of the end of the war; the reality of how life actually was for their class and the very steep learning curve - the food, the rationing, the workload. I loved the writing and am hunting out more of her books.

I felt the characters - even the dreadful Mrs Proust - were pretty resonant of quite a few locals when I was growing up in the late 50s. And I loved the lack of plot, the one-day-in-the life approach.

World of Books delivered very quickly too - but if anyone wants my copy send me a message and I’ll pass it on.