The Seven Sisters

Candida is newly divorced as the story opens, her husband of many years having proved faithless. She is aging and alone and has chosen to start a new life in London in an area which, by turns, terrifies and pleases her. The first-person voice used in the first part of the book rings very true. There is self-pity here, puzzlement, and a certain protective detachment. Candida is very much alone. As time goes on, she forms friendships, renews old ties and, having come into a windfall, determines that she will invite her friends to travel with her to Greece, on a pilgrimage of sorts for students of Virgil. It would be easy to tell too much in a synopsis of this little novel and spoil the enjoyment of other readers but Drabble has done some show more clever things with shift in voice and has thrown in some surprises along the way. She explores a subject not much addressed in modern fiction--the crushing loneliness of women who must live out their lives alone and the ways they find to cope. show less

Reading this reminded me of reading Anthony Bourdain’s book Kitchen Confidential in 2021. Until then I’d thought of Bourdain’s shows and books as contemporary media. But reading the book while pandemic restrictions were still in place, before the vaccine but after his death, made me realize just how long ago the year 2000 had been. Same with this 21-year-old book, an impulse buy from the used shelf about a woman who moves to London from Suffolk after her divorce, makes some friends, and goes on an adventure. I was expecting a cozy, bittersweet, introspective break from more intense reads, but at first I was disoriented. The literary gentility of this book, with a tasteful bit of unreliable narration but none of the high-stakes show more speculative plot, historical atrocities, or stylized romance that has been standard lately, felt a lot longer than twenty years ago. Once I settled in I enjoyed it all right. show less

It's tempting to categorise this as "chick-lit for the over-50s" - the use of diary format, with its coy Victorian-novelish chapter summaries, gives it a certain Bridget Jones flavour which may be deliberate - but there's a different agenda here. Drabble is using the novel to analyse the importance of friendship for middle-aged women. Candida, recently-divorced, has decided to uproot herself from rural Suffolk and start a new life in a tiny flat in the not-quite-trendy London neighbourhood of Ladbroke Grove. She's not especially looking for a new partner, her relationships with her three daughters range from cool to non-existent, but what gives form to her new life are her friendships with various women - school friends, former show more neighbours, fellow students from an evening class on Virgil.

As in The red queen, Drabble deliberately foregrounds the question of narrative authority by building contradictions and role-reversals into the text. This is fun, and it's the sort of thing we expect from writers of postmodern fiction, but it's hard to say whether it really deepens our understanding of the characters. show less

The first, and longest section, of Seven Sisters is a computer diary written by an almost-60 year old woman who has been discarded by her family--her husband has divorced her for a more youthful woman, her grown daughters all have their own lives, and her own mother is fading away in a care home. Candida leaves small town Suffolk and moves to a liminal area of London. This section has some interesting bits about loneliness, frugality, and friendship. Candida runs into some money, everything looks brighter, and she's off with a group of friends to take an educational vacation retracing the steps of the Aeneid. The second section of the book covers the vacation, and interestingly the narrative now switches to the third person. There are a show more third and fourth section too, but this is where the novel goes off in an odd direction and I can't even begin to explain what the author is doing.

Yes, in the end the Seven Sisters leaves me with a few big questions. However, there is something about Margaret Drabble's writing that I just adore--the has a subtle cleverness that I think rewards the reader who is paying attention. Throughout reading this, I really did like it very much, even when it got sort of strange. This is the third Drabble I've read, and none of them have been the favourite of critics. I've liked them all and just look forward to reading more by her. show less

Candida Wilton is a woman of a certain age who finds herself divorced, distant from her three daughters, living alone in a small London flat, and somewhat at loose ends. She swims at a health club, picks up with acquaintances whom she met while taking a seminar on Dante's Inferno, and convinces them to take a trip to Sicily to visit the places mentioned by Dante.

The book is divided into four sections, each with a different viewpoint. The first and longest is Candida's diary that she has written to examine her life and situation -- it ends as she is about to embark on her Sicilian adventure:

I have just reread the whole of this diary. I am not proud of it. What a mean, self-righteous, self-pitying voice is mine. Shall I learn to speak in show more other tones and other tongues when I leave these shores? Do I still have it in me to find some happiness? Health, wealth, and the pursuit of happiness. The new declaration of our human rights.

Let me write this down. I am happy now. I am full of happy anticipation.

The Seven Sisters is a novel full of literary allusions and sly nods to such classics as Doris Lessing's The Golden Notebook and Elizabeth von Arnim's The Enchanted April. While it's not my favorite of Drabble's later novels, it was an entirely satisfying summer read. show less

There were times that the protagonist Candida interested me, but mostly I found her a shallow person, incapable of any introspection nor an ability to forge meaningful relationships. She really never changes and from the first page to the last, Candida drones on in a whining fashion . . . forever blaming or criticizing friends and strangers alike. It became very tedious and banal.

It did seem odd when the author switched from first to third person but the real kicker came when someone else takes over writing her diary! (I won't spoil it for you!) This is the only time the novel seems to have any depth of character - in fact, the writer in this part has proufound acumen in questioning life and what is reality and what is make believe! show more This part deserved 5 stars but it was short lived.

The author returns to her former style of Candida's bellyaching about life and it absolutely makes no sense. Several reviewers thought they were at fault for not understanding what Drabble was trying to achieve, but truly, the author simply gives so little insight into Candida's psyche that you cannot fathom the point of the book. Candida is a self deprecating woman who seems to never find acceptance or joy in her life, other's lives or her circumstances. A depressing read!! show less

An interesting book - mostly, but not entirely diary-style. I find it a little puzzling (probably because I'm not smart enough to really understand the book as a whole) that the main part of the book is about a woman and her friends, and yet it finishes with a rather unexpected focus on the woman's relationship with her daughter. I guess that's a point that Drabble is making...a woman is looking for latter-life fulfillment and begins by turning away from her ex-husband and daughters. She later finds that she has to (or wants to) come to terms with her relationship with at least one of her daughters. The book involves consideration of the question of how the meaning of life and relationships might change as you get closer to death. I show more found this more engaging than the focus on the friendships arising from a classics class. Having said that though, Drabble's characters are *all* interesting in their own way, reflecting her skills of observation of the human condition in its many variants.
I returned this book to the library and immediately borrowed another Drabble book. show less