Julia Strachey (1901–1979)
Author of Cheerful Weather for the Wedding
About the Author
Image credit: Dora Carrington
Works by Julia Strachey
Associated Works
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Birthdate
- 1901-08-20
- Date of death
- 1979
- Gender
- female
- Education
- Brackenhurst School
- Occupations
- photographer
model (Poiret)
autobiographer
novelist
short story writer - Relationships
- Gowing, Lawrence (2nd husband, divorced)
Strachey, Barbara (half-sister)
Strachey, Ray (stepmother)
Strachey, James (uncle)
Strachey, Marjorie (aunt)
Strachey, Lytton (uncle) (show all 8)
Strachey, Dorothy (aunt)
Carrington, Dora (friend) - Short biography
- Julia Strachey was born in Allahabad, India, where her father Oliver Strachey was a British civil servant. Her mother Ruby was of Swiss-German origin. After age six, she lived most of her life in England, where she attended Brackenhurst boarding school. She worked as a model at Poiret, as a photographer, and as a publisher's reader. In 1927, she married Stephen Tomlin, a sculptor; they separated in 1934. She wrote short stories for magazines and later developed into a novelist. She is perhaps best remembered for her 1932 work Cheerful Weather for the Wedding, published by the Hogarth Press of Leonard and Virginia Woolf. Her paternal uncle was Lytton Strachey, and she became a close friend of Dora Carrington, who painted her portrait. Through all these connections, she became friends with the members of the Bloomsbury Group and was an avid member of Bloomsbury's Memoir Club, where she and its other members discussed and wrote about their shared memories. In 1939, she met Lawrence Gowing, an artist and later a critic, 17 years her junior. The couple married in 1954 and spent a total of 30 years together.
- Nationality
- UK
- Birthplace
- Allahabad, India
- Places of residence
- Allahabad, India
Chelsea, London, England, UK
Newcastle upon Tyne, England, UK - Place of death
- UK
- Map Location
- England, UK
Members
Reviews
It's a brisk spring day in 1930s England, Dolly Thatcham is about to get married to a man who's all wrong for her, and none of the family who've gathered together for her wedding day seems to notice—or even care.
Cheerful Weather for the Wedding is a slight novella that has two major things going for it. One is Julia Strachey's darkly acid humour. This isn't a "laugh out loud" book; it's the kind of book where you say "oof" to yourself even as the joke lands. The other is her ability to use show more a kind of negative space characterisation. All the action takes place on a single afternoon within a couple of rooms, and we're given very little backstory, but through what is (un)said and how the Thatchams et al say it, I felt like I was told everything I needed to know about them. show less
Cheerful Weather for the Wedding is a slight novella that has two major things going for it. One is Julia Strachey's darkly acid humour. This isn't a "laugh out loud" book; it's the kind of book where you say "oof" to yourself even as the joke lands. The other is her ability to use show more a kind of negative space characterisation. All the action takes place on a single afternoon within a couple of rooms, and we're given very little backstory, but through what is (un)said and how the Thatchams et al say it, I felt like I was told everything I needed to know about them. show less
Cheerful Weather for the Wedding takes place over the course of just one day. The day, the wedding day of Dolly Thatcham, and the events, such as they are, concern the minutiae and chaos of the day. Strachey presents her characters in all their absurdity; there are fascinating currents of human behaviour running beneath the story. These characters of course are of a certain class – and their behaviours perhaps go hand in hand with that, Mrs Thatcham, a wonderfully terrible creation, show more manages the day with steely brightness she is frequently distracted and vague – telling anyone who will listen; what a good day it is for Dolly’s wedding. It is however, a cold, blustery March day, and chaos reigns, much of it caused unconsciously by Mrs Thatcham who has allocated more than one guest to the lilac room, and seems to have little idea of what is going on.
cheerful weatherDolly, we are told has only been engaged to Owen – who is several years older – for a month. Following the wedding, Dolly will travel with her new husband to South America. There is so much that the reader can infer from this, Dolly is not a typical blushing bride, sat swigging rum as she dresses, and ruminating briefly on the previous summer and Joseph and what all that might have meant. In a sense Dolly is an infuriatingly passive young woman, who blithely allows all this to happen to her, how much power she might have to alter the course of her life is perhaps unclear, as is how much she really cares.
“Dolly’s white face, with its thick and heavily curled back lips, above her black speckled wool frock, glimmered palely in front of the ferns, like a phosphorescent orchid blooming alone there in the twilit swamp.
For five or six minutes the pale and luminous orchid remained stationary, in the centre of the mirror’s dark surface. The Strange thing was the way the eyes kept ceaselessly roaming, shifting round again…this looked queer – the face so passive and remote seeming, and the eyes so restless.”
The reader somehow knows from early on that things are not all they could be. Joseph a friend and probable former lover of Dolly’s slouches unhappily around the house, while cousins squabble and Dolly’s younger sister Kitty bosses everyone around. So much goes unsaid, or if said at all is misunderstood or goes unheard, so when Kitty tries to warn her mother that more than one guest has been assigned the same room she goes unheard, and Dolly and Joseph never manage a properly satisfying conversation. When Dolly upsets blue ink all over her wedding gown, it’s a symbol, no doubt for what lies ahead and ironically the only person present in that moment to help her is Joseph.
The wedding itself, with Dolly being given away as is traditional by a male relative, happens off stage so to speak. The family and guests leave for the wedding at the church next door, and return soon after – the deed done. Joseph remains behind, watching an eccentric village woman lay the wedding tea.
“In this cutting, furiously buffeting wind, amid the cries of goodbye, and bowing down before the storms of rice and confetti, the lack of high spirits on the part of the bride and the bridegroom passed unnoticed. Away they drove, out of sight round the drive corner, and without wasting another moment the whole crowd made for the shelter again as hurriedly as might be.”
The wedding over, the guests return for tea, the two boy cousins are still squabbling and Mrs Thatcham fussing over an aged aunt seems satisfied that all has gone off splendidly. Having laid down the law rather over Dolly’s beloved pet tortoise it isn’t long before Owen and his bride are off, their obvious unsuitability ignored by those seeing them off, and Joseph is left behind to vent his fury on bemused assembled guests, before he too must leave.
There is a delicious mix of sharp humour and real tragedy in this beautifully written little novella. The reader will no doubt fill in the rest of the story for themselves. Certainly Dolly driving off with her new husband, and Joseph thrashing about furiously before leaving a house he is clearly not that welcome in –is a long way from being the end. show less
cheerful weatherDolly, we are told has only been engaged to Owen – who is several years older – for a month. Following the wedding, Dolly will travel with her new husband to South America. There is so much that the reader can infer from this, Dolly is not a typical blushing bride, sat swigging rum as she dresses, and ruminating briefly on the previous summer and Joseph and what all that might have meant. In a sense Dolly is an infuriatingly passive young woman, who blithely allows all this to happen to her, how much power she might have to alter the course of her life is perhaps unclear, as is how much she really cares.
“Dolly’s white face, with its thick and heavily curled back lips, above her black speckled wool frock, glimmered palely in front of the ferns, like a phosphorescent orchid blooming alone there in the twilit swamp.
For five or six minutes the pale and luminous orchid remained stationary, in the centre of the mirror’s dark surface. The Strange thing was the way the eyes kept ceaselessly roaming, shifting round again…this looked queer – the face so passive and remote seeming, and the eyes so restless.”
The reader somehow knows from early on that things are not all they could be. Joseph a friend and probable former lover of Dolly’s slouches unhappily around the house, while cousins squabble and Dolly’s younger sister Kitty bosses everyone around. So much goes unsaid, or if said at all is misunderstood or goes unheard, so when Kitty tries to warn her mother that more than one guest has been assigned the same room she goes unheard, and Dolly and Joseph never manage a properly satisfying conversation. When Dolly upsets blue ink all over her wedding gown, it’s a symbol, no doubt for what lies ahead and ironically the only person present in that moment to help her is Joseph.
The wedding itself, with Dolly being given away as is traditional by a male relative, happens off stage so to speak. The family and guests leave for the wedding at the church next door, and return soon after – the deed done. Joseph remains behind, watching an eccentric village woman lay the wedding tea.
“In this cutting, furiously buffeting wind, amid the cries of goodbye, and bowing down before the storms of rice and confetti, the lack of high spirits on the part of the bride and the bridegroom passed unnoticed. Away they drove, out of sight round the drive corner, and without wasting another moment the whole crowd made for the shelter again as hurriedly as might be.”
The wedding over, the guests return for tea, the two boy cousins are still squabbling and Mrs Thatcham fussing over an aged aunt seems satisfied that all has gone off splendidly. Having laid down the law rather over Dolly’s beloved pet tortoise it isn’t long before Owen and his bride are off, their obvious unsuitability ignored by those seeing them off, and Joseph is left behind to vent his fury on bemused assembled guests, before he too must leave.
There is a delicious mix of sharp humour and real tragedy in this beautifully written little novella. The reader will no doubt fill in the rest of the story for themselves. Certainly Dolly driving off with her new husband, and Joseph thrashing about furiously before leaving a house he is clearly not that welcome in –is a long way from being the end. show less
I assumed this novella would be "cheerful," as its title implies, but I was wrong. It's actually a rather dark portrayal of Dolly Thatcham's wedding day. All of the "action" takes place in the bride's house, even during the ceremony, because this book is not about the wedding, it's about reactions to the wedding. As Dolly gets dressed, and her extended family and friends sit down to a wedding luncheon, it becomes clear that no one is very happy about this wedding, not even the bride.
This show more state of affairs is revealed slowly, through a quirky cast of characters. Mrs Thatcham books multiple guests in the same bedroom, confuses the staff with conflicting direction about meal service, and flaps about in a scatterbrained fashion. Two boys fight over wearing appropriate socks. Dolly steels herself for the afternoon ceremony by slowly draining a bottle of rum. And Joseph, a former suitor, mopes about downstairs waiting for Dolly to emerge so he can have the last word before she becomes a married woman.
Cheerful Weather for the Wedding is supposed to be funny, I think. Yes, there were moments of wit, and characters like Mrs Thatcham who were so over the top that I had to laugh. But I expected a continuous chuckle, and maybe a laugh-out-loud moment or two, and this was not that sort of book. The cover blurb compared this book to Cold Comfort Farm, another "hilarious" book that failed to resonate with me. Perhaps I just can't appreciate this type of quirky humor. show less
This show more state of affairs is revealed slowly, through a quirky cast of characters. Mrs Thatcham books multiple guests in the same bedroom, confuses the staff with conflicting direction about meal service, and flaps about in a scatterbrained fashion. Two boys fight over wearing appropriate socks. Dolly steels herself for the afternoon ceremony by slowly draining a bottle of rum. And Joseph, a former suitor, mopes about downstairs waiting for Dolly to emerge so he can have the last word before she becomes a married woman.
Cheerful Weather for the Wedding is supposed to be funny, I think. Yes, there were moments of wit, and characters like Mrs Thatcham who were so over the top that I had to laugh. But I expected a continuous chuckle, and maybe a laugh-out-loud moment or two, and this was not that sort of book. The cover blurb compared this book to Cold Comfort Farm, another "hilarious" book that failed to resonate with me. Perhaps I just can't appreciate this type of quirky humor. show less
This book takes place in one day, the day of Dolly Thatcham's wedding to the Hon. Owen Bigham. Normal enough concept, normal enough start to the book. But swiftly it all goes a bit mad as it can do when a family gathers. At the centre of the chaos is Mrs. Hetty Thatcham, a creature who never seems to understand what is going on while being the architect of much of the disruption. The bride herself is tippling rum in her room. Her sister, Kitty, bellows and yells, a large bull in a swath of show more yellow gauze. Two of her brothers argue and fight the whole day long. Mrs. Thatcham seems to be losing her memory, as she stacks umpteen guests in the same lilac bedroom, while hissing through her teeth and commenting frequently on the weather. And draped over sofas or agonising in various windows is one of the house guests and friend of the bride, Joseph, whose broken heart is obvious to everyone but himself. Add in a few stray aunts and household staff, and stir.
Julia Strachey has encapsulated a fairly ghastly day in a tiny book - only 119 pages - but has done so with an acid wit, a wicked sense of humour and a deadly perception of human foibles. The bride escapes, the guests escape, the tortoise escapes; Strachey made me want to escape too from the fraught atmosphere of the house. I loved every minute of it but was glad when it ended as I don't think I could have stood another minute of Mrs. Thatcham. show less
Julia Strachey has encapsulated a fairly ghastly day in a tiny book - only 119 pages - but has done so with an acid wit, a wicked sense of humour and a deadly perception of human foibles. The bride escapes, the guests escape, the tortoise escapes; Strachey made me want to escape too from the fraught atmosphere of the house. I loved every minute of it but was glad when it ended as I don't think I could have stood another minute of Mrs. Thatcham. show less
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