Before Lunch

Classic Thirkell: a widow and her two grown-up children come to spend the summer next door to their relatives in Barsetshire, so we have a pretty good idea what's going to happen. But, as with P.G. Wodehouse, we don't come to Thirkell looking for challenging plots and unexpected characters: the essence of this sort of light fiction is comfort and familiarity, tempered with a chance to laugh a little bit at English foibles.
It's this affectionate mockery that gives Thirkell her distinctive character. She doesn't have Wodehouse's gift for bending the language to unexpected uses, but she does have a remarkable ear for dialogue. When her characters speak (and most of them do a great deal of speaking and very little listening) they are show more always entirely believable, and usually hilarious. She is an expert at male bores, middle-aged female invalids, and servants of both sexes. With those three categories you've practically got the English novel sown up. Add to that her overgrown schoolgirls, and you have a recipe for most enjoyable chaos. show less

It took me a very long time to read this and that is quite inexcusable because it was a delightful romp that should have taken an afternoon but reading life can be an adventure. I really enjoyed this, Thirkell makes characters fun and quirky and very real with just a few strokes and the dialouge and writing is witty and acerbic and then often so thoughtful. I picked this one up from a Little Free Library and will release it back again so someone else can enjoy it.

Before Lunch was my first Angela Thirkell book, and I don't think it will be my last. It's social satire, but not the nasty kind. I enjoyed my excursion into the comfortable little world of 1930s England, where the worst event on the horizon is the proposed commercial desecration of the beautiful Pooker's Piece. Of course committees must be got up to oppose such a blot upon the unspoiled beauty of the countryside, and Thirkell peoples her story with just such characters born to sit upon said committees.

The story opens with Mr Middleton, gentleman farmer, who is ruffled when his widowed sister and her two grown-up stepchildren come to his country estate for the summer. The stepson, Denis Stonor, is not well, and the stepdaughter, Daphne, show more is altogether too well—both states of health calculated to interrupt the peace of their step-uncle. But Mr Middleton's peace is not the only one disturbed that summer; Mrs Middleton, much younger than the husband she loves, has her own quiet struggles, and so does her sister-in-law, Lillian Stonor.

I've read several Anthony Trollope novels, fewer of E. F. Benson's, but from the little of I know of these three authors, it seems they write in the same vein. They start off showing you all their characters' besetting sins, quirks, and inconsistencies, and then by the end of the book it seems they've suddenly grown attached to these fallible people and want to give them a happy ending despite their flaws. And all of this with a warm humor that infuses the narrative with a sense of good faith and honesty between the author and reader.

Both Benson's Mrs Ames and Thirkell's Before Lunch deal with the temptation to marital infidelity—and both, surprisingly, have characters who see it for the empty, selfish desperation that it is. Benson and Thirkell are clearsighted enough to see through the glamorization of adultery, and it's refreshing. I don't know anything about Benson, but apparently Thirkell divorced her husband in 1917 for adultery. Nothing like firsthand experience to strip the illusions.

Gently witty, wryly insightful, and brimming with both quiet fun and serious moments, Before Lunch is a nostalgic picture of life in the British countryside before World War II. I'll certainly be reading more Thirkell. show less

Before Lunch revolves around the social circle of Mr and Mrs Middleton: Mr Middleton’s colleague, Mr Carson; Mr Middleton’s widowed sister and her adult step-children, who are visiting for the summer; and the Bonds over at Staple Park. It has its comedic moments, along with the dinner parties and romantic entanglements that I now expect from Angela Thirkell, but there’s also a more serious tone that I haven’t detected in her other novels.

Catherine Middleton has a deep affection for her autocratic husband, but has no illusions about his weaknesses and the way he depends on her. She has few close friends and is sharply aware that circumstances could take her friends further away from her rather than bring anyone closer.

Meanwhile, show more Mrs Middleton’s sister-in-law, Lillian Stonor, is worried about her adult stepchildren and their new friends:

For the moment everything looked twisted. Everyone she cared for was in danger. Not ferocious danger, but danger of a little pain, a little disillusionment, a little spiritual hardening. It had looked as if would be a perfect summer, but that was ridiculous to expect. Probably she was worrying and exaggerating quite morbidly. Quite unnecessarily. Better to think of something real, like the [broken] dessert plate, a definite annoyance.

What I appreciated most about Before Lunch was how the story treats these two middle-aged women, their growing friendship and their concerns - and the way their concerns are unspoken. show less

I was looking for something light and easy to read over the Christmas holidays, and this fit the bill. Before Lunch is typical Thirkell Barsetshire fare, in which a group of English people engage in countryside pursuits, with a heavy dose of satire. Some members of the group inevitably fall in love, and all ends well. Thirkell generally introduces new characters in each novel, while including old friends in cameo roles.

In this novel, Lilian Stonor and her adult step-children, Denis and Daphne, come to stay in a house near Lilian's brother, Jack Middleton and his wife Catherine. Jack is a ridiculous blowhard, sometimes funny and sometimes just an ass, and Catherine endures it all. Denis is a musician awaiting his big break, and Daphne show more is mostly interested in farm life but surprises herself by being attracted to (and attractive to) more than one man in the vicinity. It's pretty easy to see where it's all going, but mostly fun getting there. Thirkell used a land use issue to move the story along, which didn't have enough fire power. The cast of quirky secondary characters picked up the slack.

I don't think I could read these novels in rapid succession, but they are a very nice diversion. show less

Mr. Middleton's sister Lilian Stonor and her stepchildren Daphne and Denis are coming to live next door for the summer.
Daphne soon finds herself the object of attentions from two men. C.W. Bond is a neighbor, a young man with extremely suitable prospects in life and good family. Alister Cameron is a much older man who nonetheless finds himself completely taken by Daphne. Stepmother Lilian frets over the situation, certain that Alister is going to get his heart broken. The fact that he is actually closer to her own age and that they are very sympathetic friends has nothing to do with it.
Then there is Denis, a sickly young man with musical talent and a dream of writing a new ballet, but no money to produce it. His kindness to Lord Bond, a show more slightly henpecked gentleman with a fondness for Gilbert & Sullivan, may just open up some new possibilities for Denis' future. Denis also develops a friendship with Mrs. Middleton, the weary but sympathetic wife of his stepmother's brother. This friendship is a vaguely unsettling vibe in the book, but it is allowed to drop at the end.

Angela Thirkell: I think I've said it before. She falls somewhere in between the traditional and the modern, and her books vary in how recommendable they are to people who love the traditional, old-fashioned stuff.
Also she seems to have some stock characters that kind of get moved from one book to another. The vapid-but-ultimately-intelligent middle-aged woman is one. Also the young, idealistic man who respectfully worships from afar an older, unattainable woman. Also the boisterous, capable young woman who is enthusiastically interested in either A) cows, B) pigs, or C) severe injury and sickness.
Weird stock characters, no?
There are some real laugh-worthy lines in this one, though. show less

After finishing the next one in the series, I wanted to come back and comment. I rather liked it right up until the very end. But, moving on to Cheerfulness so soon puts this one into better perspective: ah, here is the melancholy tone coming along underneath the very happy ending.

Library copy