A Lion in the Way

57/2020. Elizabeth Cadell's writing often reminds me of Mary Wesley's novels, because of the spareness of their prose, the subtlety in storytelling, their obsession with the English class system as seen from an upper middle class perspective, and their willingness to tackle subjects that their more conventional peers shied away from (with Wesley it's class and sex, with Cadell it's class and family / community / international relationships). So it isn't surprising that this novel about a girl growing up, a quiet but perceptive bildungsroman, reminds me of Wesley's A Sensible Life, particularly in part one, although A Lion in the Way is set earlier and further afield in India from 1913 onwards. Part two, 1914-18, especially the show more protagonist's experience as a poor relation in an English country house in wartime, also gave me flashbacks to Margery Sharp's fictionalised autobiography The Sun in Scorpio (which I now want to re-read). Part three sees the protagonist returning to India in 1919 and becomes a testament for decolonisation written from the point of view of a white English beneficiary of colonialism who eventually realises it's time to leave. I suspect this might be Cadell's best book. show less