Family History (1932)

This is the story of Evelyn and Miles. She a 40 year old widow with a 17 year old son and he a 24 year old land holder, writer & political young man.
From the beginning of the novel the reader realizes that this is an affair that will not end well. They meet through friends at a dance and fall for each other. They yearn to be together but that desire comes to each of them very selfishly. She wants to be with him most of the time and wants him to want, need & desire her above all else. She wishes to be everything to him. Whilst he wants to be with her, he has so many interests that keep him away from her for periods of time. He is a new thinker and doesn't live by the Victorian rules of the time. How society sees him is not important to him while to Evelyn it is all important and she begrudges him every moment away from her for she has no other interests than he and her son.
As they go through their affair they attempt to hide it as Evelyn cannot bear for people to gossip about her nor to think poorly of her. She has always been very proper and done what was expected of her and this certainly isn't expected behavior for a lady of her breeding. It doesn't matter to Miles. He wants to take her out and spend time openly with her. And of course as she succumbs to his wishes over time, people begin to talk. This angers Evelyn and she begins to blame Miles. It also angers her a great deal when he spends time on his writing, on his country work and that he needs to spend a certain amount of time with people of like mind with himself. She doesn't understand his needs nor does he understand hers. And so they squabble, fuss & argue. Then come together for wonderfully romantic make-ups but then it all goes to pot again.
It took me a bit to get my head wrapped around all of the characters for there are quite a few. Evelyn still spends a great deal of time with her in-laws even though her husband has been dead, killed in the war, for quite some time. So there are all of them to get to know plus Miles' politically thinking friends.
I liked this book a great deal. I cared about most all of the characters, even the slackers and I fully intend to give it a reread sooner rather than later for I feel I didn't give it my full attention, or that I missed some subtle nuances. I will also say that while reading the last portion of the book, one is unable to set the book aside. This part of the book is a grueling read but a necessary and actually beautiful part of the story.
I rated Family History 4 out of 5 stars and think if I had been able to read it without interruption I would have rated it even higher. ( )

Family History is the story of a middle-aged woman’s relationship with a much younger man. Evelyn Jarrold is the mother of a teenage son, and although widowed, is still very much connected to her husband’s aristocratic family. She strikes up a relationship with Miles Vane-Merrick, an up-and-coming politician and writer 15 years her junior. The novel is set in the interwar years; a few characters from The Edwardians play a smaller role in this book (Viola and Leonard Anquetil, and Lady Roehampton).

It’s a flawed relationship, which the reader immediately senses isn’t going to turn out well. I loved how Vita Sackville-West depicts the relationship between Miles and Evelyn and the differences between them. Evelyn has a pretty conservative view of how relationships should be, and she’s never been in love before, so she turns out to be jealous, possessive, and domineering—exactly the wrong kind of woman for a man like Miles, who values independence and freedom above everything. Either way, both of them have very strong personalities. The problems are compounded by the fact that society certainly wouldn’t approve of their relationship, if they were ever open about it, for reasons of the age difference and social status.

You would think that, with the differences and problems between them in age and temperament, they wouldn’t be compatible, but Vita Sackville-West makes her reader understand why they’re attracted to each other. It’s inevitable that the relationship will end, but how will everyone fare, eventually? Sackville-West’s treatment of age is somewhat odd; Miles seems very middle-aged for a man in his twenties, and Dan, Evelyn’s seventeen-year-old son, seems much, much younger than his age. However, I love Vita Sackville-West’s descriptions of the English upper classes; she skewered her peers in The Edwardians and to a lesser extent in Family History.

I was a little confused by Vita Sackville-West’s use of the words “that” and thatt,” until I went back and read the Introduction to the VMC edition. “She attempts in this novel to introduce a spelling reform, writing ‘that’ as ‘thatt’ when it is used as a pronoun, to distinguish it from its other grammatical functions, as in, for example, ‘I fear that thatt will irritate my readers.’” ( )

The author decided to show the difference between that and that by spelling one of them thatt; in her foreword she says this may irritate some readers and she is correct. There is a love affair between a beautiful, elegant older woman and an up-and-coming younger man and her relationships with the extended family of her late husband and with her son all, perhaps, in service of showing what life was like for certain classes in England at that time. ( )

This is the story of a doomed love affair between Evelyn Jarrold and Miles Vane-Merrick. One that is as all consuming and destructive as that of Heathcliff and Catherine's, with no less tragic an ending. But it also a portrait of a country in transition. Evelyn, fifteen years older that Miles represents the values of Victorian England, whilst Miles represents the energetic forces of change and radicalism.

I found it an uncomfortable novel to read; Vita Sackille-West does not spare her characters. However, their vengeful, spiteful behaviour towards each other does little to detract from the compelling narrative. If you have ever been bedridden with illness or cared for someone who has, the last pages of the novel will be an excruciating ordeal. ( )