(Sylvia Townsend Warner, photographed by Janet Stone, 1970; National Portrait Gallery)
And thus we reach the end of the week – though not quite the end of Sylvia Townsend Warner Reading Week. Some of us (me!) didn’t quite finish in time and so we’ll be posting more over the next week or two. If you are also still reading or thinking about STW, let me know when you write something and I’ll add a link here.
It’s been such a joy to read everyone else’s thoughts about STW and I feel I’ve learnt a lot from them, so thank you very much for joining in! She seems to me to be a writer who really understands people in a compassionate but clear-sighted way, and who is not afraid to document their cruelties nor to satirise their weaknesses. She delights in the fantastical as well as the mundane. She can turn on a pin-head from comedy to tragedy, lyricism to bathos. Her stories stray and bite in unexpected ways. There is a strain of melancholy in her work, but also joy, and I think it is no stretch to say that her musical education informs her poetry and much of her prose, she has a very sensitive ear for how language sounds.
It’s been suggested that I might do this again next year, and I have to say I am very tempted as I now have even more STWs I’d like to read... Would you be interested?
Anyway, here are your posts, divided up per genre:
NOVELS
Lolly Willowes (1926)
Harriet writes: ‘This is a truly wonderful book and Warner is an exceptional writer. The novel, her first, was a critical success, though Warner was saddened that people viewed it as simply charming whimsy.’
Sandra writes: ‘This is a book of originality and accomplishment, of charm, humour and wry satire. As such I thoroughly enjoyed it. But I am not unaware of the deeper message behind its idiosyncrasy. And for that I applaud its writer.’ She also includes links to two other fascinating articles about the novel.
Mr Fortune’s Maggot (1927)
Hayley writes: ‘a gem of a book, quiet, thoughtful, sensitive, and devastating by the end. I feel stupid for taking this long to understand just how good Sylvia Townsend Warner was, but at least have the pleasure ahead of reading through the rest of her books.’
lethe, who read this together with its sequel The Salutation (1932), writes of Mr Fortune: ‘It is a rather melancholy story, and as always, STW's writing is beautiful’; and of The Salutation: ‘I did not really care for this story. Mr. Fortune's Maggot's ending is fine as it is, this felt superfluous to me.’
The Flint Anchor (1954)
lethe has reading one of STW’s less well-known novels, about John Barnard and his family, and writes: ‘Although some are worse than others, there is not one sympathetic character in the whole extended family, and yet I loved reading about them. This, I feel, is thanks to STW’s brilliant writing and sometimes sardonic wit. I'm giving 4 stars for now, but in time I may change it to 5 stars.’
SHORT STORIES
The Cat’s Cradle Book (1960)
Sandra writes: ‘Written in the straight-forward manner of human fairy tales, many [of the stories] do not feature cats at all although there are plenty of animals to be found. The stories are mostly short and are varied. Grimm, Aesop and others echo through the pages but in new guise [...] it’s unique: an oddity. Dark and macabre perhaps, but different and thus memorable.’
Swans on an Autumn River / A Stranger with a Bag (alternative titles for the same collection) (1966)
Harriet writes of one of the stories, ‘A Love Match’: ‘I can't help wondering if this heart-warming, wholly non-judgmental story might have been a way for Warner to write obliquely about her own unconventional life style - she lived for nearly forty years in a relationship with another woman, the poet Valentine Ackland. Whatever the case, it was a bold move and a wonderfully successful one to take such a taboo subject and turn it on its head.’
Lizzie, a long-time fan of STW, writes: ‘I [...] found myself back in familiar Townsend Warner territory: unsettling glimpses into the lives of people who, even half a century later, I feel I could probably meet on the next corner. [...] the insights into why people do what they do are so powerful, that I find myself, story after story, drawn in’ (there are links in her post to her other reviews of STW’s short-story collections too).
The Innocent and the Guilty (1971)
Simon writes: ‘Warner always writes great sentences. She is a delicious stylist, and often very funny. And these stories might be right up some readers’ streets. For me, having discovered what exceptionally striking, immersive, satisfying stories she could write, in the other collections I’ve read – The Museum of Cheats and Swan on an Autumn River – these ended up being the smallest bit disappointing. And I think that’s because those other two collections rank among my favourite ever short stories.’