Margaret Drabble

A delight! I've always been a swimmer but for the last fifteen years or so an on and off cold water swimmer too, after noticing that when mopey a plunge into cold water is a non-medicated cure. Well, not a cure, but truly helpful for stopping black-hole-thought-spiraling. The essays approach swimming and the pond from the spiritual to the physical, the most awe-inspiring essays being by or about the all-year-rounders (breaking ice if need be) many of whom are octogenarians or more. The rule show more of thumb for winter swimming (centigrade only!) as laid out in one essay is IC=one minute, max. I made it last year down to 8C and no way was I staying in 8 minutes (that's 48F for us Yanks)! Maybe 2-3 plus a lot of screaming and panting! Cold water swimming has become a thing, but you have to love fresh water since nary a pool is kept that cold. And half the fun is the fact that with the seasons the temperatures vary. Anyway, there's a nice variety of essays too, one by a lifeguard, another by a young woman addicted to her phone, a few by young mothers going mad except for escapes to swim, by artists and by seekers. They all share the experience of reduced stress and the abundance of thoughtful peacefulness and consideration of each other in this almost holy place. Forget going to London for museums and theatre, but I might be convinced to go in order to swim in the Hampstead Pond! ****1/2 show less

That tagline Rosamund is clever, very independent - and pregnant, whilst accurate as a pitch of the book, turns out to be quite reductive. Rosamund is all those things but as a reader privy to her ongoing internal monologue as well as her external interactions, - in particular her preoccupation of appearing independent, and presenting her personality as she expects others to see her, - we uncover a character that we not only can root for but also relate to.

The light-hearted, flippant style show more (which seems common in post-war female English writers) of the first half belied the emotional depth and maturity that the book ended on, reflective of Rosamund's own personal growth. The last time I was tricked by such an emotional about-face was The Pumpkin Eater by Penelope Mortimer where I was rendered into a silently weepy mess on a plane. But unlike Mortimer's claustrophobic portrayal of what womanhood and motherhood entails, Drabble allows for a portrayal that was most freeing combined with a lot of wishful-thinking while just remaining on this side of realistic.

Things do go much smoother for Rosamund than imaginably possible, with consequences minimum, and support a-plenty. Some might complain about the unlikeliness of such convenient resolutions to all possible conflicts and the privileges afforded to Rosamund as an educated daughter of well-off parents, but I for one am just glad to have a non-tragic pregnant-and-unmarried-in-the-1960s story. show less

That The Red Queen's author is surnamed "Drabble" is the highest of ironies, considering how bloated, redundant, and masturbatory I found her prose. This novel has a fabulous concept: what if Princess Hyegyong, author of a celebrated late Joseon-era autobiography, were to reach from beyond the grave to influence the life of a 20th century envoy into whose hands Hyegyong has placed her memoirs?

Unfortunately, this concept fails miserably due to Drabble's utter lack of anything approaching show more talent. When it comes to chronologically-challenged narration, telling-not-showing, inexplicable plot holes, horrid contrivances like flashbacks within flashbacks, and above all multiple self-inserts, Drabble is the worst offender I've encountered since Anne Rice. The Red Queen is 376 pages of endless, mind-numbingly dull exposition provided by Drabble, Princess Hyegyong, and "Babs" the worldly, 20th century rising-star academic who is so obviously Drabble's stand-in it's embarrassing.

Each of these "characters" shares the exact same narrative voice, which is to say a complete lack of any narrative voice whatsoever. And the problems don't stop there. Drabble admits on the first page that she knows next to nothing about Korea and has made no attempt to correct this ignorance, which is why Drabble's Hyegyong thinks and acts like a 20th century Westerner. (In an attempt to excuse this inexcusable laziness, Drabble informs us that Hyegyong acts like a 20th century Westerner because she reads widely from beyond the grave. Yeah, right.)

And then there's Babs: beautiful, cultured, her rising academic career tempered by the dark secrets of her past, and utterly captivating to every man she meets: the top academic in her field falls madly in love with her at first sight and they embark upon a May-December romance before he dies, at which point Babs befriends his clinically insane third wife (I am so not making this up) and gives her a reason to go on living by helping her to adopt a Chic Designer Accessory--I mean, underprivileged Chinese baby, which they then raise together. In case one might be tempted to run for one’s life to escape the Mary Sue-ism, Drabble is there to assure us that Babs is no such thing--by having Babs meet Margaret Drabble in the book. And wait--there's more! Babs is a long-time fan of Drabble's writing! And you can be too; Drabble has the characters plug one of her earlier books in the story. My final verdict: do yourself a favor and go read Dan Brown instead. show less

'I was trapped inside a human limit for the first time and i was going to have to learn how to live inside it'
By sally tarbox on 11 Nov. 2012
Format: Paperback
Masterly written novel, following 1960s academic, Rosamund Stacey. From her privileged background - amusing, bohemian friends; use of a nice flat while her parents are abroad; male admirers (but nothing more) - she is suddenly brought up short when she discovers she is pregnant after a one night stand with (gay?) George.
Suddenly she has show more to take on board a whole world to which she was oblivious: the badly dressed working class patients with whom she must now mix at the doctor's; the disapproval of her siblings. And whether to get back in touch with George and tell him of the fact.
Interesting from a historical perspective - did NHS matrons really refuse to let parents visit their infants for a couple of weeks after surgery in case it upset them?!
Rosamund doesn't seem to suffer the persecution that one equates with single-motherhood in this era; she acknowledges that this is due in no small part to her class background:
'Had I not been who I am and born and reared as I was, I would probably never have dared: I only thought I could get away with it, to put it briefly, because those ambulance men collected me from a good address, and not from a bedsitter in Tottenham...So, in a way, I was cashing in on the foibles of a society which I have always distrusted; by pretending to be above its structures, i was merely turning its anomalies to my own use.' show less