The Magnificent Spinster

I think I was expecting more from this book after hearing it so praised years ago by Thomas (Hogglestock blog/The Readers podcast).

The best parts, for me, were those that recreated a lost world of childhood innocence, (even if it is a very privileged childhood), and the sections on aging, death, and grief.

The book is a fictionalized portrait of Anne Longfellow Thorp (here named Jane Reid), the niece of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (in the novel called Benjamin Trueblood).

The novel is also about novel-writing. We watch its narrator, Cam (a Sarton stand-in) struggles to create a fictional biography of a woman who influenced her life profoundly.

Parts of the book are very affecting, especially the parts focused on childhood and aging, life's show more bookends. It was the 'earnest' middle years section which sometimes frustrated me, as well as the overall writing style (ponderous? thorough?) : I could sometimes see/feel the 'wheels turning.'

Sometimes I had to remind myself that this book was published in the 80s. It feels much older. show less

At seventy, Cam decides to document the life of her dear friend Jane Reid (the eponymous spinster), who has recently passed away. She decides to write it as a novel rather than a biography, since there are gaps in her knowledge of Jane’s life. So The Magnificent Spinster is a novel-within-a-novel, revealing as much about Cam as Jane. The two met when Jane was a young teacher and Cam, one of her students. Jane was an inspiring teacher and mentor, and also friendly with Cam’s mother who volunteered at the school. Later, their relationship evolved into a close friendship, with each woman supporting the other through life’s journey.

I’m not sure what to make of this book, which I picked up on a whim several years ago and left to show more languish on my shelves. The premise is interesting, but ultimately I wasn’t as fascinated by Jane as Cam was. May Sarton used major political and world events to anchor her story (both world wars, the Spanish Civil War, McCarthyism, the Kennedy presidency, and so on), but I grew weary of the characters’ diatribes on the state of the world.

In the end, this was a “just okay” sort of read. And now it’s no longer languishing on my shelves, so there’s that, I guess. show less

Who cares about a rather ordinary woman who sounds a lot like friends Sarton describes in At Seventy. I was expecting something else