Edward Upward (1903–2009)

In the thirties is exactly what it says - the story of Alan Sebrill from dilettante poet to committed Communist in the 1930s. This journey involves him working as a school teacher and marrying out of his social class to a working class Communist girl. We end just before the start of the Second World War. This has some interest as a historical novel - Upward, as part of the Auden/Isherwood circle, was profoundly engaged in politics and art during the 1930s - but unfortunately he is a very dull prose writer. The dialogue is mostly clunky exposition, the characters are almost impossible to tell apart, and the descriptive passages don't ever leave the flat page. Worth reading as a curiosity, but much better to read Doris Lessing if you're interested in the experience of Communism, or pretty much any of Upward's contemporaries, from Bowen to Greene, if you're interested in that period… (more)