The Home-Maker

The Home-Maker by Dorothy Canfield Fisher (1924)

Evangeline Knapp runs a tight ship in her household. She is devoted to keeping house, throws herself into it, and prioritizes it over all house. But she doesn't really enjoy her domestic duties or spending time with her kids; it's more that she likes managing the work. Her husband Lester works at a department store in town, but he isn't interested in his work. Often, he is thinking of poetry when he's supposed to be thinking of numbers. When tragedy strikes, the two find themselves switching roles, and the results are surprising. Or maybe not.

This isn't a particularly complicated or nuanced story, but I really loved reading it. I first heard about it from a post on Shelf Love, and was drawn to the surprisingly modern take on marriage. I was surprised at how modern. At one point Lester Knapp has this epiphany: "Why, the fanatic feminists were right, after all. Under its greasy camouflage of chivalry, society is really based on a contempt for women's work in the home." Sadly, that idea is just as fresh today as I imagine it was then. Many of the issues in this novel regarding domestic life are still being debated. I don't know if that's a statement about how forward this author is, or how backwards we are today, but I suspect it's a bit of both.

When Lester Knapp is greviously injured - in a possible suicide attempt after being fired - Eva goes to his store to ask for a job to support the family now that her husband cannot work. She doesn't know that just before his accident he was fired and his boss doesn't let on, but he knows that Mrs. Knapp is more interested in the work than her husband ever was. She positively thrives and wants to learn everything she can about her new job, at which she quickly excels. Meanwhile, as soon as Lester is healed from his injuries he takes on many of the domestic duties she despised and finds great satisfaction in them. He has a way with the children, who he has taken the time to finally get to know, and even begins darning socks and cooking. Mysteriously, several family members have suddenly recovered from chronic conditions like eczema and stomach ailments that plagued them for years, and the youngest child leaves behind his serious behavioral issues.

Written in a straight-forward simple style, it retains one of my favorite features of books from that era: dialogue tags. I don't know why current literature is so determined to obfuscate who is speaking, but it drives me bananas. Here, they even include adverbs. One of my favorites was "'He would!' ejaculated Jerome, pregnantly." So quaint! (I swear they weren't all so ridiculous sounding.)

Other charming historical details included how free with information Dr. Merritt was in discussing Lester's condition with everyone in the neighborhood. How ripe with possibilities were stories pre-HIPPA! Similarly, Eva found out as much about her customers as she could (which would make her seem positively stalker-ish today) and would contact them to let them know if the store got something new they would like. What great service!

I really found everything about The Home-Maker delightful, and I'm so glad I happened to stumble across a blog post about it. It's not well-known, and in fact I ended up purchasing a copy because there's only one in my whole library system and I can imagine what sort of condition it's probably in. Sometimes old books make me want to read absolutely nothing except old books.

This was on my list for the TBR Pile Challenge, which I've been grossly neglecting. It's only the eighth one I've read, so obviously I won't be finishing all twelve by the end of the year. In fact, I've rather lost interest in a few of them, but I feel strangely complacent about my failure. Let's see if I end up squeezing in one more from my list before the end of December!

Rules of Civility

Rules of Civility by Amor Towles (2011), narrated by Rebecca Lowman

On the last night of 1937, Katey Kontent (accent on the 2nd syllable) and her roommate Eve go to a nightclub to ring in the New Year. There they meet a man named Tinker Grey. The three become friends and the novel follows their friendships, romances, and careers through 1938.

I don't want to say much about the plot because so few things actually happen and I think it's nice to not know all of those things before you start. The book is less about the plot anyhow than the characters and their lives and what that year was like for them. It's told from Katey's perspective, so it's more tightly focused on her life. Since some of the major plot points are about Tinker and Eve this is an interesting perspective.

Partway through I began reading The Great Gatsby again, and realized how much like Jay Gatsby Tinker Grey is. He's a bit mysterious, his acquaintances unsure of his background and he's some larger than life. I guess that would make Katey this novel's Nick Carraway, but she's less marginal to the novel than he was to Gatsby. We get to know Katey fairly well and I liked her a lot, although I didn't feel like I knew her as well as I frequently know a first-person narrator.

The novel was quite atmospheric, like dipping into someone else's life in another time. Even reading about Katey's job as a secretary at a law firm was fascinating, but it got even better as she took charge of her career and moved on to a magazine job. The writing was beautiful as well, which made the audiobook an even better experience. It was enjoyable just listening to each sentence.

If you can get the audio, I highly recommend it. Rebecca Lowman spoke with a slightly low, slightly husky voice that was just perfect. Her distinctions between characters meant that I always recognized who was talking, but the voices weren't exaggerated. It was an excellent production.

Rules of Civility has been on my list to read since it first came out. I kept hearing how good it was - and I fully intended to get around to it - but the description never quite pulled me in. Instead I kept buying copies of it for other people who then told me how much they liked it. Recently I've been trying to prioritize books that have been on my radar for a while, and my recent subscription to audible.com is making my reading much more manageable. If any of you have been putting off this book like I was, I'll just add one more voice to the chorus and urge you to make time for it. You won't be disappointed!

The Sun Also Rises

The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway (1926)

I last read this classic Hemingway book back in high school, along with The Great Gatsby, for a project on the Lost Generation. All I remembered about it was a bunch of American expatriates in Europe, getting drunk and going to bull fights. But surely there was more to it than that. High school was a long time ago. Last week I read it again for a booktalk at work and was surprised to find that I really wasn't forgetting much. The Sun Also Rises is short on plot, but long on hedonism and feelings of disillusionment.

The narrator is Jake Barnes, injured in World War I, now drifting aimlessly around Europe. He is joined by other friends, most notably Lady Brett Ashley, not yet divorced but already being fought over by two of Jake's friends before she runs off with a bullfighter named Pedro Romero who is much too young for her.

Hemingway's style is not for everyone. He writes in a series of short, declarative sentences. I did this, then I did something else, then I went here, then I bought two more bottles of wine, etc. There is little description or emotional depth and though his style isn't my favorite, I at least find it easy to read. And there were a few moments with just enough description to convey the wonderful feeling of, for instance, lunch on a sunny day outside in an old European city.

It's hard to feel bad for these disillusioned folks, as unhappy as they are. Although they frequently complain about not having enough money, they seem to manage ok considering that none of them seem to have jobs. (A couple are writers, but don't seem to ever be writing.) They manage to pay for the hotels they stay in, the food they eat, the bullfights, and the copious amounts of alcohol they consume.

Perhaps when I was in high school I was convinced that if I played my cards right, this could be my life. Of course it's not the 1920s and my life isn't a work of fiction, so now it all seems rather unreal. It's always interesting to read a book I last read so many years ago, and it was an interesting little trip down memory lane. If I had to read more Hemingway it wouldn't be a terrible thing, but I probably won't make a point of it.

Twilight Sleep

Twilight Sleep by Edith Wharton (1927)

Pauline Manford's family is unhappy and falling apart in all kinds of ways, but she can't deal with reality and instead relies on a busy schedule of meaningless engagements, rest cures and a series of spiritual healers to fill the void of her days. Her greatest satisfaction is in spending ever more money on expanding and improving her home and gardens, paying the huge bills, and counting the money still in the bank. She's too "busy" to visit an acquaintance with cancer or talk to her ex-husband about an important matter and so enlists her daughter Nona to do so for her.

Nona feels anxious and oppressed as though by the weight of everything her mother refuses to shoulder, and is unhappily pining away after a married man. Pauline's husband Dexter is tired of her superficial life and is drawn to his step-son's wife, Lita, which goes completely without notice by Pauline. Lita wants to run off and be in the movies, but Pauline seems to think she can be convinced she doesn't want to. Pauline believes that if she says everything is fine, it will surely be so.

The phrase "twilight sleep" refers to an insensibility to pain without losing consciousness, and that is state that Pauline strives for. She does it without drugs, instead relying upon whatever dubious spiritual healer is currently in vogue, and her own vast powers of denial. She speaks at various charity engagements, not even realizing that the organizations she is supporting conflict with one another in their goals. Her friends are just as superficial and ridiculous as she is. One, Mrs. Landish, has become so obsessed with Vikings she has redone her house to reflect that style. She becomes upset when the rushes she wants to cover her floor with aren't available and she has to settle for commissioning handwoven rugs from Abyssinia. We can presume these efforts will all be for naught when Mrs. Landish discovers a new fad.

This satirical novel about bored people filling their empty lives with meaningless activities - work, affairs, fake spirituality - was never very popular and from the reviews I've read, some people find it really dull but I didn't. The funny thing is that I read it YEARS ago and all I remembered was that I liked it. And that it had something to do with drugs. It has nothing to do with drugs, and much of it is so subtle that I'm surprised I liked it so much. But maybe I was just much more enthralled with the 20s than I am now (and I suspect my brain worked better in my youth.) I still liked it well enough, and I think it really does capture the era nicely. It's not especially well-known, but if you like the 1920s and/or Edith Wharton, I think it's required reading.

Bright Young Things

Bright Young Things by Anna Godbersen (2010)

It's the 1920s and Prohibition is in full swing. Cordelia Grey was forced into marriage after being caught in a compromising position with a young man, but immediately after her nuptials fled Ohio for New York City, accompanied by her closest friend. Letty thinks they're going for her benefit, as she is a talented singer looking for stardom, but only after their arrival she learns that Cordelia is actually searching for father, the notorious bootlegger Darius Grey. The third protagonist in the novel is the flapper Astrid Donal, girlfriend of Darius Grey's son Charlie. The lives of these three young women intersect and diverge, changing them all forever.

One of my favorite YA trilogies was Anna Godbersen's The Luxe, and I've been wanting to check out her follow-up series for a while and I can't help but compare the two. As with The Luxe, the first few pages of Bright Young Things foretell of the ending - one of these girls will be famous, one will be married, and one will be dead. In The Luxe it began with a character's funeral and the story worked its way towards that funeral. But here, the promised outcomes apparently are at the end of the series. In that way, I found this story a bit lacking. Sure, there are romance and scandals and danger, but somehow it all seemed a bit less dramatic than I had hoped.

I liked Cordelia with her fake sophistication and devil-may-care attitude. Letty seems to be the naive one, Astrid world-weary and suspicious. They were all fairly likeable and distinct enough, though I didn't find them especially well-developed. They're probably similarly developed to the characters in The Luxe, but I think I preferred that series because of the time period and the types of social interactions and scandals. There was a time when I was totally enthralled by the 20s, but I think that era just no longer has the same appeal to me as others do.

Although I'm left hanging by the promises at the beginning of the book, I don't think I'll read the later books in this series. I'm sure I'd enjoy them well enough, as I did this one, there are just so many other books I'm looking forward to even more. But if you're looking for a young adult book that captures the spirit of the 1920s, look no farther; from the cigarette girls to the lavish parties to the organized crime, Bright Young Things captures the feeling of life in this bygone era.