Betty Miller (1) (1910–1965)

World War II has inspired so much literature that one might be forgiven for thinking all angles and situations have been explored, but sometimes a book offers something different. On the Side of the Angels explores the war’s impact on prevailing views of masculinity, as experienced by two couples. Honor Carmichael and her family are stationed at a military hospital in England; her husband Colin desperately wants to be seen as his commanding officer’s right hand, and obsesses endlessly show more about those in the CO’s favor (or not). Honor’s sister Claudia is a teacher, whose fiancé Andrew has recently been released from military service for health reasons. Andrew now sees himself as less of a man, and is struggling to find his place in work and society. He is convinced Claudia’s feelings towards him have changed and repeatedly challenges her commitment. Claudia initially tries to support and validate Andrew, but then a new officer begins showering her with attention and causes her to question whether she wants life with a rather dull barrister, or with a rakish and exciting military man.

Throughout the novel, these three depictions of masculinity are seen through the eyes of Honor and Claudia who are equally struggling with their roles. Honor is fully occupied with the care of her two young children, and with the expectation of being a supportive wife, listening to Colin drone on about the power dynamics at the hospital, and his often inaccurate view of his own status. Claudia is forced to examine the comfort of a long-standing relationship where she is taken somewhat for granted, versus the novelty of a new attraction and a potentially very different future. Betty Miller’s writing brilliantly describes both scenery and emotions in ways that make the reader feel as if they are living in the middle of the story, which wraps up in a very satisfying way. show less

Persephone is famous for publishing out-of-print, lesser-known classics, but there’s a sub-theme to their list as well: they reprint a number of Jewish authors (Marghanita Laski, Amy Levy, for example). Farewell Leicester Square is the only one of Betty Miller’s novels that touches on the Jewish experience in England. This story focuses on a man named Alec Berman, who manages to rise to fame in the film industry (the opening scene of the novel is centered on the premiere of one of his show more films, Farewell Leicester Square) and marry a non-Jew.

From the way I saw the book described, I though that this was going to be a straightforward and pretty typical story. But Betty Miller turns it around a bit, by making the anti-Semite Alec himself. He’s so aware of his background as a Jew and not wanting people to mention it that he almost becomes a bit self-hating of his Jewishness He even tries to stamp out his childhood in Brighton in order to become more English and is denigrating of his brother’s wife and children. It’s because of this awareness, which pervades the whole tone of the book, which eventually brings about Alec’s downfall. The relationship between Alec and his wife Catherine is tough to read; it’s not clear if there really was a lot of love between them, or if each of them loves what the other represents. I think they both jump into the relationship without considering the implications.

The plot and pacing of the novel are, as the introduction to the novel, set out a bit like a film, with flashbacks and the like to indicate the passage of time (it’s not done so well, however; there are huge gaps that made me want to know what happened in between Alec’s apprenticeship and the film premiere). It’s an incredibly brave novel for Betty Miller to have written, especially at that time period. show less

Betty Miller wrote ‘Farewell Leicester Square’ in 1935 but it was rejected at first no doubt due to the sensitive subject matter of anti-Semitism and the sense of disappointment which pervades the novel. The book final finally appeared in 1941. Betty Miller was a young wife and mother when she wrote ‘Farewell Leicester Square’ but she must have been aware on some level at least of what was happening in Germany at this time, and this novel must have been her response to the Jewish show more experience as she saw it in England.
In Farewell Leicester Square we meet Alec Berman, who succeeds in his ambitions to make it in the British film industry. The novel opens on premier night of Berman’s film ‘Farewell Leicester Square’ - a film which epitomises his work, and comes to be his greatest success. The story then returns briefly to Alec’s teenage years in Brighton, one of three siblings in a Jewish family that expects him to join his father in the family business. Alec’s father is disparaging of his ambitions – ultimately throwing down an ultimatum that results in Alec leaving Brighton for London – and not seeing his family for seventeen years.
Alec is ambitious and as a sixteen year old he contrives to meet Richard Nicolls owner of the Ladywell film company at the Nicolls home in Rottingdean. Their home and the life he glimpses there seems to represent for him the world from which he feels excluded, but which he longs to be a part of.
“Their gaze passed him over, up and down, idly; without interest or curiosity. Then they continued on their way as though nothing were. Walking together without speaking: at one in their natural intimacy. Moving with unconscious assurance of young animals under the sun. Alec looking after them as they went, felt down to the roots of his being the contrast which emerged between himself and them: and it was at that precise moment, for the first time, that something new, the sense of racial distinctness, awoke in him …. A sudden knowledge of the difference between these two, who could tread with careless assurance a land which was in every sense was theirs; and himself, who was destined to live always on the fringe to exist only in virtue of the toleration of others, with no birthright but that of toleration.”
Fourteen years later Alec is a success, and he finds himself married to Catherine, the daughter of Richard Nicolls. The marriage is over shadowed however by Alec’s over awareness of himself – he constantly examines other people’s attitude to him and his Jewishness – he suspects even his wife of looking down on him. Viewing himself continually as an outsider impacts upon Alec’s whole life, and his relationships. Alec’s preoccupation with how he is perceived begins to look a little like paranoia – as he begins to push away the only people who really don’t have any issue with his race.
This is the sort of novel which has people crying ..”but nothing much happens” – well nothing much does happen – the novel is an extremely good examination of middle class English life, ambition and the small almost invisible acts of anti-Semitism that exist there. There are some large gaps in the story of Alec and his career as a film maker – but in a sense that doesn’t matter – the story is much more about Alec Berman’s view of himself, and the way that in striving to make the sort of life he for himself that he has always wanted, he does in fact lose something of himself. Alec is not a character I always felt able to sympathise with, in a way he pushes the reader away in the same way he pushes his wife away.
Miller’s writing is excellent. She slyly exposes petty everyday racism that is of course in fact far from petty, it’s destructive; in Alec it breeds a kind of paranoia - which blights his life. Miller’s portrayal of both middle class English life and the suffocating limits of Alec’s family home in Brighton is brilliantly done.
“There are some things, he thought, which one would remember always. The smell of those rooms in Landsdowne Road. Coming in out of an unbounded night – the sea, hedged between green-sleeked breakwaters, surging with prolonged thunder upon the empty clattering stones; and the lights all along the front, blown, winking before the breathless night-riding winds – to find this immured warmth: solid, motionless. To stand, eyes dazzled, flesh still ringing from the exterior cold, before this quiet room, warm with the accumulated fires of winter and the intimate life and breath of human bodies, with gaze as bright and alien as that of some animal come momentarily out of another existence. And conscious of course, of his own voluntary isolation; of this new priggish desire of his to rupture the dull bondage of flesh making him one with these people.”
Such writing – in my opinion - deserves recognition, and I am glad Persephone books saw fit to re-issue it. I thoroughly enjoyed this novel – and although it won’t be my favourite Persephone novel – it is one I am very glad to have read and it certainly makes me want to read more of Betty Miller’s work. show less

An odd little book. I found it compelling and easy to read, and yet wasn't very excited. The subject matter should have interested me, because it was a novel about a time period and a way of life that was all new to me, and therefore has merit in presenting a new facet of experience, but it still didn't interest me greatly. Yet the writing was good, and even rather poetic at times; very beautifully described, lots of character development. The book just didn't grab me.

The story is set in show more England, during war, but focuses on how women at home are affected, and on how their men are affected while still on the home front. Honor is a house wife, mother of two children and wife of Colin, who is a doctor in the army. Her sister, Claudia, is a teacher, and engaged to Andrew, who has been invalided out of the army. They live in a town that has been accorded the honor of housing a military hospital (much to its dismay), and their lives are dictated by the demands of that institution, on many different levels.

Colin is enamored with his Commanding Officer and finds enjoyment in the life of a pseudo-bachelor that the army provides. Andrew, Claudia's fiancee, has sunk into melancholy after being rejected from his troop. Of course, these particular situations have a deep impact on Honor and Claudia. Honor is a thoroughly committed wife and mother. She lives her life for her husband and two boys, and when she dislikes the actions her husband takes, she submissively follows his wishes despite her own desires. Colin, however, does not appreciate this devotion - he is a changed man since the war started. The CO is an autocratic man who expects total investment from his officers, which means that they put the army and himself above family and all other ties, and Colin has bought into this agenda. He acts like a bachelor when he is away from home, and is unhappy and constrained when he is forced to be a family man. I honestly disliked his character; I had no sympathy for his wish to be one of the men, and scorned him for the way he treated Honor. For her part, Honor takes refuge in silence and escaping within herself. As her husband neglects her she withdraws more and more from reality around her and confines herself in the domestic sphere of motherhood.

Then we have the relationship between Claudia and Andrew. Both are intellectual types, she a teacher and he a lawyer, yet they are drawn to the more visceral side of their natures that the war evokes. Andrew sought to gratify that desire by joining the army, only to be thwarted by a weak heart. Claudia does not mind his departure from the army so much as she is worried by the effect it has had on Andrew's personality. She wonders if it has altered their relationship irrevocably. When she is captivated by a visiting CO, Claudia decides to leave her fiancee for the soldier. Like Andrew, though, her attempts to evade her civilized nature are eventually defeated.

I found much to pity in all four of these characters, they bear so much sadness or narrowness in their lives, but the choices they make in the confines of those lives prevented me for having much sympathy. Colin is a cad, Andrew is too cynical and judgmental, and Claudia is willing to leave her fiance without a word and run off with a stranger. Even Honor, who, as a mother of two, I should have liked more, was inaccessible. Her withdrawn pauses and blank eyes keep the reader at a distance as much as the other characters in the novel. Since I couldn't embrace the characters, I couldn't embrace the story. It was a prettily written psychological exploration of the effects of war, particularly on women, but not entirely to my taste. show less