Miss Bunting

Set during WWII, this focuses on Jane Gresham, whose husband has been missing in action for years; sixteen year old Anne Fielding, who is being tutored by the elderly Miss Bunting (from Marling Hall); Robin Dale, a war amputee now teaching young boys (including Jane’s eight year old); and on their interactions with Heather Adams and her father (from The Headmistress).

I enjoyed reading this, even when the war means the characters’ moods and circumstances are understandably subdued. Thirkell, with her attention to the details and inconveniences of everyday life, gives her stories a strong sense of atmosphere and, having just lived through a year disrupted by a pandemic, I found the atmosphere here rather satisfying.

Saturday dawned show more bright and fair, but observing that it was still Double Summer Time, took offence and relapsed into chill greyness. As no inhabitant of the British Isles has ever got used to the odious and so-called summer weather which has always been their portion, and far less to the vagaries of D.S.T., there was a good deal of grumbling everywhere, which grumbling was gradually diverted to the less eternal grievances of the fish, the daily woman, that girl at the Food Office, the Government, that noise all night like a mouse just at the head of my bed, and I must set a trap as pussy doesn't seem much good at it, the way the laundry has ironed that nice tablecloth, and other daily food of human nature.

Moreover, even if the characters didn’t know that the war is nearly over, I knew and could be hopeful for them.

(I wonder if Thirkell knew when she finished this... Even if, as Project Gutenberg Canada suggests, this was published in December of 1945, she would have surely had to have turned in the manuscript before Japan surrendered, if not before Victory Day?)

I skimmed the bits with the refugee cook -- I suspect Thirkell’s intention was to portray her positively, but I’ve noticed that when it comes to perceived outsiders to Thirkell’s world, her attempts at humour and at sympathy can feel hampered by stereotypes and prejudice. show less

Published in 1945, and fits in with the mood of Thirkell's other home-front morale-booster novels. The war is nearly over, but things are still scarce, many of the ladies of Barsetshire have lost sons, brothers, husbands, others are in uncertainty as to whether their men will ever come back, those too old to fight are suddenly feeling their age, and it's increasingly plain that — for the upper middle classes at least — postwar England will be very different from the cosy world of the thirties.

There are plenty of little jokes here, but unless you read it very superficially you're unlikely to come out with your morale boosted: on the whole, the view of the world here is a rather depressing one. As usual with later Thirkell, she often show more goes just that little bit too far, crossing the invisible line that divides engaging social satire from unpleasant snobbery. This is especially so with the industrialist Mr Adams and his daughter Heather, who appear in several of the other wartime novels as well. They are clearly meant to be sympathetic, if slightly comical characters, refugees from Dickens whom she misguidedly wants to present as representatives of the up and coming generation of the fifties. But Thirkell simply can't bring herself to like them, and keeps sticking the knife in when she thinks the reader isn't looking. Not an attractive picture.

All the same, she does write so well. In this book, it's the big set-piece scene, the meeting of the Barsetshire Archaeological Society, that it the real triumph, and before and after it there is an ample supply of Thirkell specialities like grumpy old men, small boys and schoolmistresses.

The times being what they were, Thirkell couldn't do much in the way of servants (her other big comic speciality) in this book, apart from the rather nasty caricature of Gradka, the bloodthirsty East European refugee. At least she avoids being directly offensive by making her a native of Mixo-Lydia, the only fictitious country ever to be named after a musical mode... show less

Written in the last year of the war, the characters of Barsetshire are still in the thick of it. This book focuses on Jane Gresham, a young mother whose husband has been missing in action for four years. Also part of the action are Robin Dale, a schoolmaster who's back from the front with an amputated foot; Anne Fielding, a 17-year-old who's just on the cusp of grown-up-ness; Miss Bunting, an aging governess who represents the end of an era; and Sam and Heather Adams, a father and daughter who are nouveau riche, good at heart, but not fitting in very well.
Interesting thing about British books written in this time period by a certain class of author. They are chock full of literary allusions, only some of which I get. An acquaintance show more with Dickens helps, but there's so much more. The author takes it for granted that if you're reading her books, you have at least a smattering of French and a working knowledge of whatever was considered classic and also popular literature 50 to 100 years ago. Doesn't impede enjoyment, though.
A standout in this book is Gradka, the Mixo-Lydian cook hired by the Fieldings. She is hilariously and horrifyingly militant with a sense of humor that is NOT.

Again I have a copy where the synopsis on the back reads like some scandalous romance novel. Stupid, ridiculous synopsis. It's not remotely. One young couple gets vaguely engaged by the end, and the wife of the MIA man pines for news of her husband and appreciates the solid assistance of Sam Adams, who becomes protective towards her on occasion. If anybody picked this up thinking they were getting something salacious, all they got was tea parties, tennis matches, and a lesson on the British social system during the war. Yay! show less

Miss Bunting is the fourteenth of Angela Thirkell’s Barsetshire novels and like the other books, is a comedy of manners set in a fictional English country town. Set near the end of World War II, the townspeople have felt the war’s impact. Jane Gresham is raising her impish young son single-handedly while living with uncertainty about her husband, who has gone missing in the Pacific. Robin Dale returned from military service with an artificial foot. While he found work teaching in a primary school, the prolonged absence of men means the pipeline of new students has dwindled.

And yet day-to-day life can be surprisingly normal, providing Thirkell with ample opportunity to poke fun at English culture and customs. Her stories are often show more set in motion by the introduction of new characters, or well-known characters in new and different situations. In Miss Bunting, a governess is engaged to tutor a young girl for the summer, and a wealthy businessman and his daughter rent rooms from a lonely widow. Their days are filled with small-town rituals like church services and meetings of community organizations. These, along with Sunday lunch and afternoon tea, provide amusing satire of the English class system. Even though it seems like nothing much really happens, Thirkell’s characters and the way they interact with one another make for fun reading. show less

"Miss Bunting" is part of the Barsetshire Chronicles by Angela Thirkell, a series set in Anthony Trollope's ficticious county of Barsetshire in the 20th century. The book alludes to characters and places from Trollope's books but in a very unobtrusive way; you can enjoy Miss Bunting without having read Trollope.

Angela Thirkell presents a set of characters from the gentry - the Rector, his son working as a classics schoolmaster, the retired Admiral and his Daughter and various others living in a small town called Hallbury. In a summer towards the end of the war the Dean of Barchester's daughter, Anne, is added to their circle, together with her paragon of a governess, the eponymous Miss Bunting.

And this is about everything that happens show more in the whole book. People meet and make genteel conversation, some war work is efficiently discharged with, pert boys and their antics contribute an element of humour.

I usually like the sedate middlebrow novels written in the 1920's till 1940's; and Miss Bunting doesn't have a bad start. The lack of action doesn't matter so much when the characters are introduced, and this is done with a dry sarcastic humour reminiscent of P.G. Wodehouse.

Sadly, the novel never gets past this stage, and a real plot never developed. The main element of action is the introduction of Mr. Adams, a very wealthy factory owner, and his daughter who has come to live in Hallbury to prepare for Cambrigde.

With the depiction of these non-gentry characters the novel really got a foul taste in my mouth. Pretending to be a magnanimous if humorous portrait, Mr Adams and his daughter are constantly run down for their lack of social graces. It's made abundantly clear that their presence is a nuisance to the gentry which they can't forgo (times being what they are) and bear with valiant politeness.

Perhaps class snobbery is so pronounced because everyone feels that WW II signifies the end of an era: the good old feudal England of the gentry won't come back. The way it was depicted in this book, that's nothing to regret.

WW II, by the way, is merely a background - some husbands are missing, one protagonist has lost his foot, but nobody seems to feel deep suffering. The attitude to foreigners is also appalling - Thirkell introduces a servant who is ridiculous to the main charakters because of her bad English and her blood-lust for her (invented) neighbour-country.

Oh, and why is the book called Miss Bunting? Well, the governess is the epitome of gentle Englishness; everyone is in awe of her - and at the end of the novel she dies alone in a cottage hospital, while everyone goes unperturbedly their own way.

If you enjoy books from this era, read E.M. Delafield, D.E. Stevenson or Jan Struther; this book is a loser. show less

This 14th entry in Angela Thirkell's Barsetshire series had a lot of references to the Trollope series, especially in the families - the Frank Greshams and the Dales in particular. While knowing the Trollope series isn't required to enjoy this novel, it does add a spice to the storyline revolving about Mr. Adams of Hogglestock. Although I laughed aloud at several points while reading this, this novel (written at the end of WW2) has a feeling of sadness, not just about the dead & wounded men but for the loss of a state of society Thirkell had captured so wonderfully in the early books in the series. As she says "...Jane Gresham, who felt as the Fieldings
did that another piece of the pre-war world had
gone and the tide of a Brave and show more Horrible New
World was lapping at her feet." While I understand this feeling, not being from that time and place I cannot truly sympathise & can only hope that the light humour I enjoy so much will continue in the rest of the series. show less

I'm not sure if I'll finish this. It's ok, but not exactly gripping. Betsy-Tacy is more engaging.

God, I got about 15% through this and gave up. It was mostly idle blather, meant to be funny, but it wasn't much doing it for me. Boy have I hit a dark patch, something like 4 give-ups in a row, and I can generally force myself to read almost anything. Thank God I have more Betsy-Tacy.