Hi Dear Folk,
This book review of National Provincial has taken me a long time to get to. Fortunately I do take notes. I am trying to remember how I came to order this book out of old shelving at the library. I think I read about the author Lettice Cooper on the Persephone Books Blog. Now it's coming back to me they published one of her other books, The New House.
Lettice Cooper was born in 1897 and died in 1994. She was born in Eccles, Lancashire. She want to Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford. She had deep socialist convictions, reflected in her books and an affinity to her Yorkshire roots.
The time period is 1923, Mary is on the train back to the Sheffield area from London where she has had a promising career in journalism, and has lived the new life style for young women of the 1920's sharing a flat with other women. Entertaining, with a young group of friends who talk about the future and change.
Mary has to go back to Sheffield as her younger sister Doris is getting married to Frank and their mother is an invalid, and makes more of it than need be. The person that she has a true affection for is her Aunt Grace, her mother's sister and her Uncle John a Trade Union leader.
In reviews I have read about this book many comment that the story is centered around Mary and that is true, but all the other characters in the book are fleshed out just as well, so you might almost think well who is it centered around? It just starts off with Mary.
Mary's father left the family when they were small and her mother has never got over the shadow of stigma.
"Cant't we ever be ordinary again?"
Vivian a London friend speaks about the Provinces. This could almost be a social commentary on the world today.
"There's always been a gap between us and them, and the gap's widening. I noticed it last month when I had a week-end in Liverpool. I expect you'll find it stiffer and slower there, you'll probably run up against a lot more settled prejudices than you do with our lot here, but don't be a fool and waste time down there wishing you were back. You soak it in. I don't believe you can do anything much in England unless you've got the feeling of the provinces."
Interesting she says down there because we always think up there as it's North.
Mary has been excepted on the local rag as a reporter for social events, she moves in several different circles. The Harding family and their cousins the Marsden family make up the old industrial money. Mr Ward and his family, he is currently the largest industrial employer in town, the new money and Steven Harding the son works for Mr. Ward, an uncomfortable position to be in. Mary's uncle is the Trade Union leader and works at Mr. Ward's plant.
You have a circle of intellectuals and another circle of communist intellectuals, along with elements within the trade union that lean towards communism. But don't think of communism in the Eastern European way, think of the naiveté of ones who believed in the ideals of communism, in the 1920's.
Think of social reform and the moving towards a National Health System, which is not communistic, to want a better standard of living. In National Provincial you feel all the tug backwards and forwards, between those who want change, those who don't. It is a personal story of many individual characters, too many for me even to go into.
The story almost ends where it begins, but you don't mind that because the wealth and detail of the characters, their interaction and a look though a window on time in a 1920's Northern English town.
It is a very good read. I will have to see what else I can read written by Lettice Cooper.
Christine
This book review of National Provincial has taken me a long time to get to. Fortunately I do take notes. I am trying to remember how I came to order this book out of old shelving at the library. I think I read about the author Lettice Cooper on the Persephone Books Blog. Now it's coming back to me they published one of her other books, The New House.
Lettice Cooper was born in 1897 and died in 1994. She was born in Eccles, Lancashire. She want to Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford. She had deep socialist convictions, reflected in her books and an affinity to her Yorkshire roots.
The time period is 1923, Mary is on the train back to the Sheffield area from London where she has had a promising career in journalism, and has lived the new life style for young women of the 1920's sharing a flat with other women. Entertaining, with a young group of friends who talk about the future and change.
Mary has to go back to Sheffield as her younger sister Doris is getting married to Frank and their mother is an invalid, and makes more of it than need be. The person that she has a true affection for is her Aunt Grace, her mother's sister and her Uncle John a Trade Union leader.
In reviews I have read about this book many comment that the story is centered around Mary and that is true, but all the other characters in the book are fleshed out just as well, so you might almost think well who is it centered around? It just starts off with Mary.
Mary's father left the family when they were small and her mother has never got over the shadow of stigma.
"Cant't we ever be ordinary again?"
Vivian a London friend speaks about the Provinces. This could almost be a social commentary on the world today.
"There's always been a gap between us and them, and the gap's widening. I noticed it last month when I had a week-end in Liverpool. I expect you'll find it stiffer and slower there, you'll probably run up against a lot more settled prejudices than you do with our lot here, but don't be a fool and waste time down there wishing you were back. You soak it in. I don't believe you can do anything much in England unless you've got the feeling of the provinces."
Interesting she says down there because we always think up there as it's North.
Mary has been excepted on the local rag as a reporter for social events, she moves in several different circles. The Harding family and their cousins the Marsden family make up the old industrial money. Mr Ward and his family, he is currently the largest industrial employer in town, the new money and Steven Harding the son works for Mr. Ward, an uncomfortable position to be in. Mary's uncle is the Trade Union leader and works at Mr. Ward's plant.
You have a circle of intellectuals and another circle of communist intellectuals, along with elements within the trade union that lean towards communism. But don't think of communism in the Eastern European way, think of the naiveté of ones who believed in the ideals of communism, in the 1920's.
Think of social reform and the moving towards a National Health System, which is not communistic, to want a better standard of living. In National Provincial you feel all the tug backwards and forwards, between those who want change, those who don't. It is a personal story of many individual characters, too many for me even to go into.
The story almost ends where it begins, but you don't mind that because the wealth and detail of the characters, their interaction and a look though a window on time in a 1920's Northern English town.
It is a very good read. I will have to see what else I can read written by Lettice Cooper.
Christine
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