Poor Sybil Jardine, her crime was to have an unhappy marriage. She left her husband and could not take her child with her, her husband then refuses her access to her child until she is 18 and spends the rest of his days poisoning her mind against her mother with the result that Ianthe grows up just as twisted and bitter as him.

Sybil is a calcuating, pompous and unlikeable woman but it's hard not to have any sympathy for her, she has spent most of her life watching her daugher from afar, spending her time hiding in bushes while Ianthe plays in the park. The price she has paid for leaving her husband is immense, her friends, family and society reject and demonise her. Is it any wonder she becomes self obsessed and devious? One of the positive things about Sybil is that she is a feminist and rails against society's upbringing of girls.

Sybil also strikes me as being the sort of character Oscar Wilde would have created but she's more monstruous and written without humour. If only he were here to do a rewrite, I'm sure it would be hilarious. ( )

2663 The Ballad and the Source, by Rosamund Lehmann (read 10 Oct 1994) This is a 1945 novel written in a lush style, and tells of Sybil Jardine, a bitchy woman who has a daughter, Ianthe, but runs off with another man and her husband thereupon cuts her off from the child. The book is a powerful work, and is told mostly in flashbacks ( )

Curious novel – most of the story is related second-hand, in dialogue. But quite charming, for all that. Not her best, though – too static, too heavy on dialogue. Sibyl and Ianthe are intriguing, but frustrating always to see them mostly (Ianthe always) at one remove. I like the basic story but would prefer to have been given it directly. [Oct 2002]