The Tortoise and the Hare (Virago Modern Classics) (original 1954; edition 1984)

(21 January 2012 – from Ali for my birthday)

This is a gorgeous Virago hardback edition. SO pretty. Imogen is married to Eveylyn Gresham, a barrister a good few years older than her who is Not Particularly Nice, but exerts a traditional patriarchal and also sexual hold over her. She keeps up her end of the marital bargain by being decorative (which she was obviously raised to be) and trying to run the house and family smoothly (not so successfully), buoyed up only by her flirtatious relationship with old friend, Paul, and her sustaining friendship with Cecil (who is a lady with a man’s name, contrasting nicely with Evelyn’s bi-gendered name). Enter Blanche Silcox, bluff and gruff in her ill-fitting tweeds, and elderly at 50, who is, it seems, determined to prise Evelyn away from Imogen. The women thus far mentioned are contrasted with a terrifying poetess who operates entirely through her physicality, a brittle wife and a neglectful mother: no one comes out of this particularly well.

The psychological suspense is almost unbearable – you want to probe the situation like you would a slightly sore tooth or a mild bruise. Redemption comes through the most unlikely of sources, and only once you’ve been put through the wringer. It is rather Elizabeth Taylorian (even being set near Reading) and, to put it mildly, exquisite. ( )

One of those books about being a woman in the middle of the twentieth century which is inadvertently chilling (I think this is why I don't usually read Viragos). Beautiful feminine Imogen has been married to her much older and intimidating barrister husband for more than a decade. Somehow he seems to have become increasingly drawn to their frumpy middle-aged spinster neighbour, despite her massive hats and appalling taste. Occasionally funny, but mostly a horrible insight into a time when women were brought up to be decorative and unfocused. ( )

Imogen Gresham is the old-fashioned kind of 'ideal wife' - beautiful, loving, submissive, and on the face of it the perfect wife for her older husband, the successful barrister Evelyn Gresham. They have a large, elegant home and an 11-year-old son, and life seems perfect.

Their near neighbour is Blanche Silcox, an inelegant tweed-wearing woman of fifty, who enjoys fishing and horse-riding, and drives a Rolls Royce. At first, Imogen cannot believe that Blanche is any kind of threat to her marriage. But as Imogen's friend Paul points out, 'Do you know what men fall in love with?' and Imogen begins to question her assumptions.

At the start of their marriage, Evelyn was attracted to Imogen's femininity, but at heart he is a man's man. What he sees in Blanche - apart from shared interests - is a similar no-nonsense kind of worldview. Both strong personalities, they begin to shut Imogen out, to the point where she finally must realise the truth about their relationship.

I think this novel would be quite tedious if Imogen was no more than the paragon of stereotypical femininity. However, although she is not brilliant, and the reader might wish she took a firmer line with her pompous husband, she is neither stupid nor small-minded. Jenkins does not palm the reader off with a romantic happy ending, but she does allow the reader to see Imogen's generosity and loving spirit. Her husband might not appreciate her, but her friends do. I think most readers will be left with the feeling that Imogen is better off without a repressive husband who takes her entirely for granted. [January 2008] ( )

Imogen Gresham is 37, married to a very successful barrister. They have an eleven-year-old son, a rather beastly boy named Gavin. Imogen’s husband, Evelyn, develops a friendship with their neighbor, a wealthy fifty-something-year-old spinster named Blanche Silcox. She and Imogen are completely opposite; and it’s Evelyn’s relationship with Blanche that colors the whole tone of his relationship with his wife.

Imogen is a domestic, preferring home over hunting or any of the other country pursuits that her husband engages in. It’s partly due to this as well that their relationship becomes fraught with tension. They have nothing in common, so it’s really no wonder that Evelyn turns to an older woman (one much closer in age to him than Imogen is) for, at the very least, friendship. It’s an odd affair; usually the femme fatale is a younger, not some staid, aging spinster. So the whole dynamic of the novel shifts. It’s perfectly natural that Evelyn and Blanche should become friends; but their relationship isn’t wholly natural. I still can’t quite figure things out.

What I loved about this book was Imogen’s reaction to the whole affair; it’s because of it, and her discovery of what’s going on, that she grows and matures as a person. When I began to read this novel, Imogen more or less faded into the background; she really wasn’t compelling enough as a main character, and so I really didn’t become attached to her right away. But the more I read, the more I liked her. She displays a quiet strength as she faces Evelyn and Blache’s affair hat I found quite admirable. I don’t think that a lot of people in her situation, with her kind of personality, would have the strength to do what she does in the end. And she gets major points for putting up with Evelyn for all those years! Elizabeth Jenkins has been compared to Jane Austen and Barbara Pym; there’s less humor in The Tortoise and the Hare, but it’s still a wonderful novel.

Elizabeth Jenkins was a biographer who was best known for her biographies of Elizabeth I and Jane Austen. She passed away last month, aged 105. ( )