'Rather Dated' Bookclub: Dusty Answer

[MotherofPearl]

Welcome to the 'Rather Dated' Bookclub, where we have most recently read Rosamond Lehman's Dusty Answer. The novel was originally published in 1927, and it certainly had plenty of RD elements (butlers, for example!).

I found the novel highly readable, and raced through it quite quickly. All the way through, however, I felt ambivalent about it, and especially ambivalent towards the main character, Judith Earle. On the one hand her story is really compelling, and I was fascinated by her life as a young woman at Cambridge in the 1920s. On the other hand, I found her a rather off-putting character. In spite of all her advantages and privilege, she seemed to have very little sense of purpose or direction, beyond working hard for the tripos. I also found her sense of her own perfection quite hard to bear: we kept hearing from other characters about her beauty, her poise, her brains. She was also an atrocious snob! The bit where she goes to stay with Martin and his mother on their farm and describes their furniture as 'goodish' stuck with me! And I thought she was pretty cruel to the hapless Mabel at Cambridge.

I suppose the cental plot revolves around Judith's love affairs, or rather her abortive attempts at love affairs, first with Roddy, then Jennifer, then poor old Martin, and then lastly Julian. She was obviously hopelessly naive when it came to Roddy, who was charming but a complete cad. I couldn't quite decide if we were meant to read her relationship with Jennifer as a romantic one, or just one of those very intense female friendships that young women can be prone to. I found Judith's treatment of Martin really awful. He clearly loved her and I found the way that she used him another strike against her character. It was obvious that the liaison with Julian wasn't going to work, and the ending was sadder than I expected. Charlie and Martin were both dead, Mariella gives up her son to Julian, who she loves but who does not return her feelings, Roddy is out of the picture, and Judith's long-standing and powerful friendship with the cousins is over.

Overall I am really glad to have read this, and am certainly going to track down the Selina Hastings biography of RL. I'm looking forward to hearing what everyone else made of the novel.

She is an almost completely solitary character. Her upbringing, even for the time, seems unusual - only child, home educated by rather stuffy parents. Her only childhood contact seems to be the cousins next door. Of course she does allude to the fact that she rather envies them having brought up in a gaggle.

In the end though I think this upbringing has made her much more self sufficient, and so enabled her to reject the 'second best' of both Martin and Julian because she couldn't have Roddy, although I too felt so sorry for poor old Martin.

I thought the Cambridge section was the most convincing, I was also cheering for her mum, who clearly had a ball once her dull husband died. What a gal!

I did enjoy the book, I love RL's writing and will definitely read/reread more.

I shared many of your feelings about Judith, @MotherofPearl. I hadn’t read the book before and from looking at blogs which featured it, an awful lot of people had read this during their teens and been swept away by the emotional rush.

For me (ahem, considerably beyond my teens!) it was a bit over-wrought in places - and yes, it’s striking how alone/isolated Judith was for so much of the time. That forced the focus onto her and the cousins to the exclusion of almost all other everyday relationships except for the Oxford period and, later, her mother.

Where I did really enjoy it was in the wonderful descriptive writing, quite unlike anything else I’ve read. Lehmann’s talent in evoking the natural world and the seasons was outstanding.

I’ll be interested now to look up the biography of Lehmann mentioned on the other thread to see just how autobiographical it really was.

I first read it as a teenager and I definitely felt that Judith was quite vulnerable, and had been cruelly used and betrayed by Roddy. Rereading it now I actually think she's pretty sussed. She just needs to meet some new people!

some characters are fairly thin, but the awful irritating male friend of Roddy (god I've met a few of them!) is very convincing. He must be based on a real person.

This is the first Rather Dated choice that I felt was terminally dated. I found the fulsome prose irritating, and most of the characters needed to get over themselves. Spoilt, selfish, pointless, pathetic the lot of them - with the possible exception of poor Martin who was actually doing some useful work but was sneered at and bullied for being a bit of a buffoon and then horribly used by Judith.

Next?

I keep forgetting to update on this thread!

I feel rather guilty because this book was my suggestion, but I didn’t enjoy it at all. The blurb sounded good but I found the book boring and would have given up if it wasn’t for this thread. The book did perk up in the Cambridge part but overall I did not like it.

I agree with the comments about Judith being rather selfish - the way she treated poor Martin was awful and then just working her way round the rest of the cousins didn’t make her look good. Like the OP I was also unclear whether the Jennifer relationship was a lesbian one or just friendship.

I couldn’t really see what the appeal of the cousins was - none of them seemed particularly likeable except maybe Martin. I suppose it was just Judith being isolated and not having any other friendship options.

I’m not keen to read anything else by Lehmann after this.

I don't know the chronology of her work but Dusty Answer felt like a practice run for the far superior Invitation to the Waltz and, especially, its sequel the Weather in the Streets which has one of the best depictions of a doomed but irresistible love affair I have ever read. The central characters of both these books is a much more fully rounded, relatable and likeable character than Judith. Please don't give up on Lehmann!

Perhaps I’ll give her another go one day but it won’t be a priority!

Yes, I agree that The Weather in the Streets is a better book. I saw someone recommend The Ballad and the Source recently in terms which made we want to read it

Interesting to read other people’s responses. Sounds like, despite my reservations, especially about Judith, I perhaps liked it the most! It didn’t put me off trying other RL novels anyway.