Angela Thirkell - Contented With The Time

In my most recent post I wrote about my reaction to Angela Thirkell's 29th and final Barsetshire novel - Three Score and Ten.  The goal of this post is to reflect on the full series which I have read roughly over the past 15 months or so - some for the second time.  The first thing to be acknowledged is the achievement of writing so much about one place and one (albeit large) group of characters over roughly a 30 year period.  I know that other writers have been as prolific, Trollope comes to mind, but I can't think of any novelist who wrote so much in such a focused way.  Through her creation and alter ego Laura Morland, Ms Thirkell joked that she wrote the same book over and over again, that really wasn't true, time moved on, people changed and in just the right way she added to characters along the way - Wickham the Merton's agent is a case in point.  Amazingly there were few inconsistencies in the books almost up to the very end when she did seem to lose her focus in the next to last book Love at All Ages.  But in her 28th book probably in declining health, I think we can give her a break.

More importantly, however, what was it that made these books so special? So special that there are active Angela Thirkell societies both in England and the United States some 50 years after the last book was written.  Thinking about this, at least two things come to mind.  On Christmas Day back in 2006, I had a lot of anxiety about a trip that was coming up a few days later.  For some reason I decided to start reading High Rising the first of the Barsetshire novels, I had already read two of the later ones Pomfret Towers and Before Lunch.  High Rising begins at Christmas time with Laura Morland bringing her obnoxious son Tony home from school for the Christmas holidays.  Perhaps it was the quiet Christmas in the English countryside that appealed to my jangled nerves, but all of the sudden I started to relax and calm down.

Almost all of Ms. Thirkell's seem to have that effect on me, something else that she apparently inherited from Anthony Trollope, his novels were once described a valium in book form.  I have been thinking about why Thirkell's books have that effect, part of it is probably an idealistic American view of what life is like in small English villages.  Ten years ago I spent about a week in one such village and there is something about the smallness, the quiet and people living everyday lives that is appealing.  One has to be careful about such a few, living in such a setting doesn't eliminate all of lives problems and stresses and the relatively comfortable lives of the main characters is to some extent due to others working hard for low wages.  On the latter point it should be notice in fairness to Thirkell that the laboring class is not swept under the rug, but has a real presence and identity in the novels.

I think the best way to describe this aspect of the novels can be found in the words of Charles Dickens, in his classic story - A Christmas Carol.  Writing about Scrooge's long suffering clerk Bob Cratchit and his family's Christmas celebration, Dickens notes the following:

"They were happy, grateful, pleased with one another and contented with the time."

The final sentence could be said of almost everyone of Ms. Thirkell's characters and therein I think lies the soothing effect of the novels.

This last statement would seem to support the view that the Barsetshire novels are only light social satire with little real content.  Sometimes on the surface that may seem to be true, but at a deeper level the novels explore issues of human life that are universal.  Towards the end there is understandably an ongoing discussion of end of life issues, but earlier other themes are present, often in understated, non-verbal communication.  I first noticed this in August Folly when Mr. Tebbins without directly saying so tells his son not to worry about his poor academic record at Oxford.  Richard, the son, seldom appears after that and becomes something of an unattractive character, but he does make one major contribution, saving Jessica Dean from injury so she can go on to captivate England, and all of us, on the stage.

Other examples come to mind as well, Lady Glencora Palliser in The Duke's Daughter singing "Keep the Home Fires Burning" to a large audience during World War II bringing almost everyone to tears as they remember the sacrifices of both wars.  Of course, the novels only cover World War II and the physical sacrifices are limted (although real enough) to a few characters who leave arms and feet behind them on different battlefields.  While the novels do not cover the World War I years, the deaths of heirs to the Leslie and Pomfret families and the suffering in silence of their parents goes on throughout the cycle.  The dignity and grace that the Earl of Pomfret and his sister, Lady Emily Leslie display in dealing with their loss is something that I will always remember. 

In Pomfret Towers when someone refers to the deceased heir to the Pomfret earldom as "poor Mellings," his father, who has no other children says, "Why poor, at least he served his country, more than we have ever done."

At one point during John Mortimer's "Paradise Postponed," a city-woman recently moved to the country complains to her doctor, "It's all so quiet, so green and so wet."  To which her doctor replies, "It's called England.  There's no known cure."

To which I say, THANK GOD! 

And thanks to Angela Thirkell for creating this little world with so much in it both of enjoyment and of value.