The Provincial Lady in London

I'm reading the US version which for some reason is called THE PROVINCIAL LADY IN LONDON (instead of GOES FURTHER, as in the original). Well, I can see why the publishers decided to change the name, but it's a shame in a way, and also rather confusing, for many of the best parts of the novel take place not in London at all, but at the seashore, out in the country, travelling here and there and especially during a writers' conference in Brussels, Delafield's account of which is a tiny masterpiece of xenophobia and possibly the funniest bit in the book. I never read the first one, just landed on this, and I can see why people so admire the author, who conjures up an irresistible atmosphere of wit and embarrassment, and has made herself the butt of most of the jokes, so that she nowhere fits in, and always winds up feeling ridiculous. Her opposite number is a schoolfriend who has kept her girlish looks and sex appeal far beyond their selling point, yet who manages still to turn heads everywhere she goes, a selfish and avaricious woman in a way, but one to whom our narrator still looks for excitement and reflected glamor: she never puts her down fully, she remains as marvelous as she herself believes she is--she's the immortal "Pamela Pringle," so often married that the narrator can never remember what her current surname is. Meanwhile the verbal texture of the novel, imitating as it does the telegraphese of a shorthand diary, eliminates most articles like "the" or "a," and in fact gets rid of "I" most of the time, as though she were trying to write as much as possible in an abbreviated space. So the complexities of each sentence reflect, i suppose, the modernist and surrealist chic of the day like Gertrude Stein, Mina loy, Nancy Cunard, etc. "Should like to deny violently having ever taken any advice of Miss P's at all, or even noticed that she'd given it, but she goes on to say that I ought to pay more attention to Style--and I diverge into wondering inwardly whether she means prose, or clothes. (If the latter, this is icredible audacity, as Miss P's own costume--on broiling summer's day--consists of brick-red cloth dress, peppered with glass knobs, and surmounted by abominable little brick-red three-tiered cape, closely fastened under her chin.)" Adding to the difficulty of the book is the fact that Arthur Watts' cunning illustrations are set in plates pages and pages after the incidents they illustrate, so you feel yourself constantly pulled back into the past narrative just when you should be churning forward. It's bizarre (but must be some hangover from primitive printing processes)? And not a problem for Provincial fans.

The Provincial Lady books are fictitious diaries and as such, are written in abbreviated phrases, memos to the writer herself. This type of writing does get a bit monotonous, but the content, the account of an almost famous writer from one of England's southern counties (before WW II) is very diverting. Having achieved a modest success with her first diary, the Provincial Lady is now invited to international literary conferences, but must cope with the fact that she is still an unknown, and is often forced to fake acquaintanceship with books she hasn't read. Although her literary agent waits eagerly for her latest book (necessitating the renting of a London flat in order to have uninteruppted time to write) she still deals with an embarassing lack of funds in her bank account. This oscillation between the trajectory of her career and the earthbound concerns of money and child-rearing constitute a major theme. Anyone who has ever had to balance career and, say, laundry, will get a kick out of the conundrum. A witty read by an engaging writer equipped with senses of irony and absurdity. Imagine Erma Bombeck transplanted to 1930's England, and I think you'll get some idea of our heroine.

The Provincial Lady series are classics of social comedy and anyone who has not already discovered them is in for a treat. EM Delafield was a successful lady author who publised a weekly diary in Time and Tide which was a masterpeice of social comedy. END