Three Score and Ten - Making a Good Ending

Reportedly when the late Edward Kennedy learned that he had an inoperable brain tumor, he said something to the effect of seeing if he could make a good ending.  By all accounts he did just that and on reading and reflection the same can be said of Three Score and Ten, the 29th and final Barsetshire novel of Angela Thirkell.  Ms. Thirkell did not live to finish this book, supposedly she wrote the first five chapters or 137 pages in the Moyer Bell edition.  If that's so, it means that C. A. Lejune wrote the last six chapters or 171 pages, a little more than half of the book, but, of course, the last half.

Like every Thirkell novel, this book includes some romances, in this case one young and one of a certain age.  The young romance concerns Ludo Foster, the young Lord Melling who will ultimately become Earl of Pomfret.  Like his father, Ludo is a shy young man, who starts to come out of his shell in What Did it Mean? courtesy of Jessica Dean and Aubrey Clover.  I mentioned earlier about Edith Graham having the longest running courtship in these novels, but Ludo is also a contender as multiple candidates have been out there through the novels.  It all ends satsifactorily in this novel linking together even more closely two of the favorite families of the series - in fact the last words of the book and the 29 novels belong to the young lovers.  The other romance deals with Sylvia Gould who appeared very early in the series and not again until the end.  There is some speculation that Thirkell intended a different ending than what Ms. Lejeune provides, but I think her's make more sense and happily ties up a loose end from two of the earliest books.

When I first realized that Ms. Thirkell hadn't lived to finish this book, I was disappointed because I wanted to know how she would ended something that had gone on so long.  While we don't know what her plans were, I do think that Ms. Lejeune did the right thing and definitely made a good ending.  The 70 years in the title refers to Laura Morland who is observing/celebrating her 70th birthday.  Supposedly modeled on Ms. Thirkell herself, Laura has been there since the very first novel and if she isn't in every book she appears with great regularity. 

The second half of the book is devoted to discussing, planning and carrying out a birthday party for Laura which she accepts, but not without some reservations.  There is a nice effect to this which I will call a form of "doubling" - Angela Thirkell died one day short of her 71st birthday putting her roughly as the same age as her alter ego within the novels.  By making the birthday party the point of emphasis in the second half of the novel, Ms. Lejeune is able to bring back in one way or another almost all of the characters who appeared in one or another in the novels.  This allows us the reader to enjoy one more contact with some of our favorite characters, but perhaps more importantly, it brings the characters back to praise and honor, not only Laura, but also their creator Angela Thirkell.  I can't think of a better way to have ended such a long literary journey. 

I was originally going to use this post to comment on both this novel and the series in general, but decided to limit this post to Three Score and Ten and then devote a second post to the whole series.  That will take a little reflection so it may have to wait until after a post on the new Joseph Pulitzer biography which I finished last night, but we will see.  In any events hats off to Ms. Lejeune to making a good ending for Bartsetshire, if it is the end.