This
is another of my recent spate of interlibrary loan requests of deeply obscure
novels that I've been meaning to read for ages—my "seize the day"
not-quite-resolution for the year. It's completely coincidental (unless, as
Freud suggested, there really are no accidents) that this one arrived just
after I'd finished reading The Red
Centaur by Marjorie Mack (aka Marjorie Dixon), but they were quite
interesting to read in close proximity. Both novels are adult works focused
very much on childhood and the perceptions of children, though at that point
the resemblance ends…
Valentine
Dobrée was loosely associated with the Bloomsbury Group, being as she was a
friend of Dora Carrington's and, apparently, a lover of both Dora's husband
Ralph Partridge (later married to diarist Frances Partridge) and Dora's lover
Mark Gertler—though I can't find any details about how this affected their
friendship—perhaps, in typical Bloomsbury style, they were perfectly cheerful about
sharing their lovers? Like Dora, Valentine was mainly a visual artist, but she
published two novels in the late 1920s, as well as a story collection in 1935.
The second novel, The Emperor's Tigers
(1929), seems to enter the realms of fantasy, but her first, Your Cuckoo Sings by Kind, is more
grounded in reality, perhaps based in part on Dobrée's own childhood?
When
the novel opens, Christine is about twelve years old (she's fifteen at the end
of the novel, but I couldn't find an explicit reference to her age at the
beginning). She is living with a foster family, along with her two brothers,
their mother having run off with another man when they were very young and
their father living in India. The Harrises are a clergyman and his wife, a
cold-hearted, self-righteous woman who can't begin to comprehend Christine's
emotional complexity. One of my favorite passages (and one of the only somewhat
humorous passages) is about the presence in the Harris home of bamboo
furniture, which must be concealed as thoroughly as possible:
It was
here Christina acquired her shameful knowledge regarding bamboo furniture. She
could never show surprise afterwards that such furniture existed. "Where
does such appalling stuff come from?" Not for her the shrug of ignorance,
for not only did she know of its existence, but she knew all the variations it
was capable of. If any such piece had strayed into an otherwise solid room,
instinetively Christina's expert eye came upon it, and she always felt guilty about
it. It taught her to train her eyes to look out of the window or into the fire
until such time as she could practise a moral nose-holding and swallow
indifferently both bamboo and mahogany. She could not imagine anything worse
than Mrs Harris's look of grieved betrayal the time she had caught her lifting
the Indian table-cloth. For Mrs Harris had persevered, and done her best to
disguise it. It was never mentioned, even in its most successful
transformations, for they all understood that one of Mrs Harris's first actions
on acquiring riches would be to exchange the bamboo stuff for something that
could remain naked and unashamed.
Christina
can do no right for Mrs. Harris, who imputes the worst possible motives to her
every move, driving her to greater and greater reserve and, occasionally, to
greater outbursts of rebelliousness:
The result of the general coldness was that she rapidly
developed a side to herself which she thought would be acceptable to the people
she came in contact with. Slowly, helped by circumstance, she produced a
Christina for daily use, though she never lost the original Christina, who
looked on, always a little aggrieved.
Happily,
about a third of the way into the novel, her father takes her from the Harrises
and she is placed with another family, the Deans, who are their opposites in
virtually everything, including Mrs Dean's immediate affection and concern for
Christine. But it is clear that, although her situation has improved, she
already bears the scars of her unhappiness. Even here, she occasionally broods
on the injustices of life:
Twice Christina had stood convicted, guiltless of the crime
alleged. They were only minor sins, but her truthful denials had been added as
lies, and the sum made a grave accusation that each denial fed, mounting to an
enormous total. A broken saucer at supper in the school-room, and a bitch on
heat escaped from the stables, were the charges. What more suspicious than the
flushed face and the emphatic and angry denials? However, the whole episode had
a lasting effect on Christina, who thereafter felt innocent of many faults, a feeling
of being for ever wrongly accused and superlatively blameless; thus even when
conscious of error, rejecting her guilt as a just requital for those two injustices.
It was a logic learnt in her environment, where loose mentalities set off two
understatements as justifying two overstatements. The incidents of false
accusation revealed to Christina truth as a sorry beast, forced to bear the
burdens of those strong enough to compel her. Whenever she began to brood, she
would remember those offences against her. Eternally in the wrong, she clutched
these wrongs to her as a talisman to stave off any indictment.
It's
a very striking novel, at times quite brilliant in its observations of human
nature and the perceptions of a child. One review notes that Dobrée rewrote the
novel five times before she was satisfied with it, and that sort of
meticulousness comes through loud and clear. Though I should note that the
level of concentration that results, the distilled meaning in every line, is perhaps
just a bit overwhelming. I sometimes got a bit dizzy in such high altitude.
It
is, however, far darker in tone than The
Red Centaur, and I have to note that it contains two disturbing (though
oblique and nonexplicit) scenes of sexual assault (of some sort, it's not
entirely clear) and brother/sister incest. L. M. Montgomery reportedly read the
novel and said the former scene was "the vilest thing I ever read in a
book" and then burned the book because "[n]othing but fire could
purify it." (Presumably she didn't get round to the second scene, which
might be just as well…) Such an extreme reaction to what, after all, are
artfully written scenes, not exploitative or titillating at all, might say more
about Montgomery's repressions or her own experiences than about the quality of
the novel, but it's true enough that it's not for the faint-hearted. As much as
anything, it is Christine's reaction to the scenes that will disturb,
particularly her guilt about getting her beloved brother in trouble following
the second scene.
But it's also true
that Christine, as a character, comes vividly to life—a troubled, damaged girl,
but one who makes sense. One might find her difficult, as even the kind Mrs.
Dean does, but one is compelled to observe her, to see the wheels turn in her
head. Her damage may even be the source of her brilliant and unusual mind, but
one hopes, by the end of the novel when she is just fifteen, that it will offer
her some form of freedom and opportunity that a less bruised and battered
character might not find.
Given a choice of a
re-read between The Red Centaur and Your Cuckoo Sings by Kind, there's no
competition. I'll happily pick up Centaur
for a second reading. But for those interested in a serious literary exploration
of a troubled girl evolving into a troubled but perhaps liberated woman, the
latter is worth the time as well.
Thanks for a fascinating review!
ReplyDeleteWhat I like best about period novels is their re-creations of the obsessions, shibboleths and fixations of the day, like the bamboo furniture, that give insight into class distinctions and the social system. One of my favorite books faithfully records how well-bred Victorian people of a certain (middle) class were never supposed to comment on the excellence of the food, or the warmth of the fire, at social gatherings, lest it imply they were not perfectly accustomed to fine food and adequate heating.
ReplyDeleteOh, but you can't just describe one of your favorite books, but not give us the title!
DeleteGosh, an interesting read but one that obviously requires concentration and a strong constitution. LM Montgomery burning a book is quite shocking - more than bamboo furniture!
ReplyDeleteI know, it's hard to imagine any literary type burning a book, isn't it? I have once or twice thrown a book across the room out of frustration, but even then I picked them up and put them in the donate pile!
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