February Read: Rebecca West

I'm really sorry that I haven't got the time or technology right now to produce a proper introduction with info and photos but please do share your thoughts on your Rebeeca West reading this month here!

Thanks for starting the thread Dee!

I have *lots* of Rebecca West on my shelves so I shall be spoiled for choice!

I wrote on a previous post about Rebecca West:

The Writer's Almanac tells us that she was "described by Time magazine as "indisputably the world's number one woman writer": She was born Cicely Isabel Fairfield in London (1892). As a teenager, she began writing for a radical feminist journal. She didn't want to embarrass her mother, so she used a pseudonym, taking the name of the heroine in Henrik Ibsen's play Rosmersholm.

Her journalism soon extended to reviews. She described T.S. Eliot as "a poseur," Tolstoy as "overrated," George Bernard Shaw as "a eunuch perpetually inflamed by flirtation," and said of Somerset Maugham: "He couldn't write for toffee, bless his heart." She wrote: "Writers on the subject of August Strindberg have hitherto omitted to mention that he could not write." At the age of 19, she wrote of H.G. Wells: "Of course he is the old maid among novelists; even the sex obsession that lay clotted on Ann Veronica and The New Machiavelli like cold white sauce was merely an old maid's mania." After he read the review, Wells asked to meet West, and the two became lovers, and had a son. West was frustrated that so much attention was given to this scandal and her laissez-faire parenting.

In the 1930s, West took three trips to Yugoslavia. She wrote, "Nothing in my life had affected me more deeply than this journey through Yugoslavia ... the country I have always seen between sleeping and waking." She wrote a book about her experience there, part travelogue, part political and social history, part essay-like meditations. Black Lamb and Grey Falcon (1941) was more than 1,000 pages long.

West continued writing right up until her death at the age of 90.Her books include The Return of the Soldier (1918), The Meaning of Treason (1949), and The Fountain Overflows (1956)."

As well as a number of West's novels being available in Viragos, there are also collections of her short stories, journalism and writings on the nature of evil. A prolific and fascinating writer!

I read The Return of the Soldier some time ago and really liked it. The Fountain Overflows is still unread on my Virago shelves, so that's what I will be reading in February.

I have previously read The Return of the Soldier and The Judge.

I have both Harriet Hume and The Fountain Overflows tbr - and as Harriet Hume looks a bit odd, I am leaning toward The Fountain Overflows (how have I never read it?).

I loved Return of the Soldier and then really didn't like either Harriet Hume or The Thinking Reed. I might give another try with The Birds Fall Down this month. I'll be curious to hear everyone's reactions to her various works.

I'm dipping out for this one (anyone who reads my blog will see what MAXIMUM TBR looks like tomorrow) but have fun, everyone!

I have enjoyed most of what I read by West, but have heard bad things about The Judge from someone in this group. I can no longer remember who that was or why she didn't like it, but I have decided on The Birds Fall Down instead. I loved The Fountain Overflows and went on to read the whole trilogy.

I loved The Return of the Soldier years ago and The Fountain Overflows more recently. I have the other books in the trilogy and plan to read them in February.

I read The Judge too, I forgot that was one of her books. It was okay, not great -- 3 stars from me.

I've got Cousin Rosamund and The birds fall down waiting on Mount Tbr.

>3 kaggsy: Thanks for that, Karen.

I don't think I'll be reading any Rebecca West this month but will hopefully make up for that with Whartons in March.

And I'll get the thread up soon for voting for the following three months...

I've just had two library requests fall into my lap so that will keep me occupied for a while. I will get to Rebecca West later in the month.

I can't believe I'm doing this, but I picked up Black Lamb and Grey Falcon on Friday and am actually finding it quite compelling so far. Of course there is no guarantee that I will get through all 1150 pages by the end of the month, but I am at least reading our February author!

I am about halfway through The Birds Fall Down.

I've nearly finished Cousin Rosamund and have really enjoyed it. I loved The fountain overflows but found This real night something of a slog. I expect to finish CR today (I know the novel is not actually finished) and my next West will be The birds fall down.

I've been a bit slow getting on to Rebecca West this month but I had some library books to finish first (also I had started early by reading The Return of the Soldier last month!). I've now been to the library and picked up Sunflower, The Harsh Voice and The Thinking Reed. all hardcover editions from the stackroom. Although none of them are VMCs, Sunflower is a Virago edition with a portrait on the cover. I have to thank Barbara for giving me the idea to get these rather than delve into my own collection. It will be quite challenging to get through these in what's left of the month but I'll try.

Finished The Birds Fall Down this afternoon. This was both wonderful and a crashing bore of a book. Too long, pages and pages of descriptions of side characters who did nothing to move the story forward, plus endless monologs, one of which, I swear, went on for several chapters! And yet it was also very enjoyable on a historical level and well worth the time I put into reading it.

Grant - I did enjoy Sunflower, can't remember much about The Harsh Voice and have not read The Thinking Reed. I believe Sunflower is about her affair with the dreadful H G Wells, although I might be mistaken in that.

>19 romain: Yes it is, and also about the one with Lord Beaverbrook. Some very personal stuff, I imagine. I have The Birds Fall Down but it looks too long so I chose the library route instead.

ETA: I've now finished The Harsh Voice. I agree completely with Karen's review which I avoided reading till I had finished the book. It's quite short and subtitled 'four short novels' though I think they are really long short stories/novellas. What impresses me most about the writing is how the author draws the reader gradually into the psychological complexities of the characters, and how compelling they all are. I also didn't see the twist coming in the longest and best story, "There is no conversation". The edition I had was a hardcover one from 1948 and a bit hard to read because of a very tight binding, and some pages had been damaged by being stuck together. making some of the words illegible. This was a bit of a nuisance but still I'm glad the library had retained it as it was well worth reading.

I finished The birds fall down and, like @romain, have conflicting feelings about the book. Its main weakness for me was the conversation (well, it started out a conversation and became a monologue with occasional interruptions) which lasted for about 100 pages. Buried within it was information that we needed for the rest of the book to make sense. But I did feel it could have been shortened. Once it was over, though, I thoroughly enjoyed the book. Seeing Laura grow from a very sheltered, privileged girl to a young woman who has engaged with some serious moral dilemmas and abetted in a murder is fascinating, and the plot was very suspenseful. I liked the details about the Orthodox church and its rituals (though I would hate to stand through one!), though much of the political theorizing, while important, left me cold. I'm very glad to have persevered with this book and I think it will stay in my thoughts for quite a while.

I may try to fit in the last unread West from my shelves, Sunflower, before the end of the month.

I'm about halfway through The Fountain Overflows and enjoying it very much.

I chose to read Harriet Hume & wish I had not. T'was a great disappointment to me especially after having read The Return of the Soldier. R of the S was a solid 5 star read for me but H.H. earned just 2 stars. I think it may have worked better, for me, had it been a novella as opposed to a novel. Ah well, another West read behind me.

I'm halfway through Sunflower and enjoying it, though her relationship with Essington is so horrible and it's sad to see her making excuses for his awful treatment of her.

Rebecca West does seem to be rather inconsistent. I fell in love with The Fountain Overflows a year or two ago and this month I found many reasons to like This Real Night but it wasn't in the same class as the book it follows.

I'm puzzled by the long gap between the first book and its sequel, and by that inconsistency, so I think I'm going to have to find a biography that will help me understand the author a little better.

Yes she is very inconsistent. In 1989 I wrote this about The Harsh Voice -

"Disappointing. 4 stories about rich people in NY full of racial prejudice - 'jew boys, kikes, n-word, the worst kind of n-word/jew jazz' Unacceptable and unappealing."

And yet others of hers (The Fountain Overflows and Return of the Soldier) have been wonderful. Go figure.

I'm halfway through The Return of the Soldier and the writing is beautiful mostly. However, the attitudes of Kitty and the narrator towards those of a different class is really nasty and I hope that's going to be tempered a little by later events. Hopefully they'll be shown the error of their ways because I would hate to think those attitudes came from West.

>24 Sakerfalcon: I'm also reading Sunflower. I find the main character annoying because she keeps putting herself down, denigrating her own acting ability and her stupidity repeatedly. I also don't understand why she puts up with Essington's treatment of her or why she would fall in love with someone like Francis Pitt who seems like a very odd character and appears not to love her (at the point I'm up to anyway).

>26 romain: I also noticed the racist comments in The Harsh Voice but they seemed to fit with the time and setting among wealthy businessmen (and a woman!) in the 1930s so the characters rang true to me. The stories were also well written. I don't know if Rebecca West had any personal knowledge of people of this type as I haven't read the biography yet, though I plan to soon.

Currently reading The Fountain Overflows while on holiday with Liz and two other friends in Iceland.

Although not a Virago, I am reading The Essential Rebecca West: Uncollected Prose. This is a compilation of essays and book reviews that were not previously published or only published once in a newspaper or magazine. They have never before appeared in a collection of West's works. The pieces span from 1920 to 1979. and they also span a breadth and depth of knowledge of all sorts of topics: the arts, literature, science, politics, psychology, to name a few.

I loved The Return of the Soldier, but all of West's other novels seem forbiddingly long, so I am enjoying these short and witty non-fiction pieces.

Finished The Return of the Soldier last night - what a fabulous book! I shan't get a review on my site till the start of March but I'm still ruminating - West's writing is superb and so clever!

And I finished Sunflower this afternoon. I had the strong impression that other people must have found Rebecca West too clever and intimidating and that she must have felt this as something of a burden all her life. So she tried to tone herself down and make herself look stupid and unsuccessful in her profession in the 'idealised' version of herself in this novel (though she turned out to be more perceptive than the other main characters it is written from her point of view). All three main characters seemed to me to have exaggerated personalities/foibles although, as they were based on real people, maybe they were really like this! It's disappointing that it's unfinished, but I knew this before I started.

Now I can't choose between three novels I have ready at hand. I will bypass Harriet Hume because of Belva's comments above and other reviews. I'm interested in giving The Birds Fall Down a go at some point because the period and subject matter interest me but it's quite long and so is The Thinking Reed. After reading three of her fiction works and her biographer's afterword to Sunflower, I'm now more interested in reading about Rebecca West as a person so I plan to change tack and read Victoria Glendinning's biography instead!

I too finished Sunflower. There was some great writing in it, and it was certainly emotionally engaging, but difficult to read as Sunflower consistently puts herself down and excuses Essington's appalling treatment of her. It is hard to reconcile the character's need for love and affection with what we know of West's feminism, but this must have been a side of herself that she was aware of and with which she had an ambiguous relationship. Of course Sunflower is not stupid - not intellectual but I would say she has what is called emotional intelligence, although she chooses to ignore it when it comes to Essington and Pitt. Apart from them she seems to be a good reader of people and judge of their character. Wells, in his guise as Essington, comes across as a really nasty man, who makes himself feel better by bullying Sunflower and humiliating her in front of others; it is both heartbreaking and infuriating when she exclaims to herself "But he is really so good and sweet!" after he's just treated her horribly. It certainly gives insight into the minds of women who stay in abusive relationships, an issue which still plagues society today. Like Grant, I now feel drawn to read Glendinning's biography of West to get more of a picture of the reality behind this fragment.

Rebecca West: A Life is a very quick and easy read. It confirmed what I thought about Sunflower and in fact enhanced my appreciation of it and of Rebecca's complex character. In a way I'm glad this book was unfinished as it could have ended up a very long and convoluted story which would have prevented Rebecca from getting on with life and working on other things, The problem I've now created for myself is I now want to read The Fountain Overflows, The Birds Fall Down, The Thinking Reed and a collection of her non-fiction like The Essential Rebecca West as mentioned by >30 kac522:.

I reviewed The Fountain Overflows yesterday. Great book.

https://heavenali.wordpress.com/2017/02/28/the-fountain-overflows-rebecca-west-1...

>35 Heaven-Ali: and a great review!

>36 lauralkeet: thank you Laura :)

Inquiring minds want to know--who and where is the March read?

>38 kac522: Oh my it's a new month isn't it? Edith Wharton is the March author. I will create a thread to get us started.

Thanks Laura.

And the thread for the final votes for our April, May and June authors is
here

And the thread for the Edith Wharton March read is here: https://www.librarything.com/topic/250227#

I joined this group a few months ago and thought I'd finally stop lurking and write a post. I have been enjoying the discussion threads and have discovered some new authors along the way. One of these is Rebecca West. I picked up The Return of the Soldier because of this group read and loved it. I'm impressed by how much the author manages to do in such a short novel.

>42 mathgirl40: I agree. When I read The Return of the Soldier I felt like every sentence was packed with intensity. And in just 90 pages or so she dealt head-on with love, social class and the aftermath of war.

It's an amazing book, isn't it? I read it too and I finally got my review up, here:

https://kaggsysbookishramblings.wordpress.com/2017/03/07/the-ultimate-sacrifice-...

>44 kaggsy: Nice review. Thanks for sharing.

The Return of the Soldier was one of the books that turned me into a Virago reader many years ago, when I was still at school. It was my good fortune that, as well as this book, the Cornish Library Service bought copies of The Magic Toyshop, A Pin to See the Peepshow and The World My Wilderness and set me on the road.

>45 mathgirl40: Thanks!

>46 BeyondEdenRock: I can understand how it would - and what a wonderful selection of Viragos to start off with!

I still had The Thinking Reed from the library so read it just before I had to return it. It was quite long but well worth reading. The main character, Isabelle, was reminiscent of the eponymous 'heroine' in Sunflower in that she seemed to be able to analyse other people's characters and motivations very accurately (though it was told from her point of view so she may not always have as been right as she thought). I was once again impressed by the descriptions of landscape and analyses of personalities in Rebecca West's writing. This was also a more successful novel than Sunflower in that it had a proper ending. I will definitely be reading more by this author.