Elizabeth Eliot (1911–1991)

I adore books by lesser-known British women in the mid-twentieth century. This one is about Bright Young Things between the wars, which is a topic I always relish. There were some slow parts, but overall this was a enjoyable read.

Margie is the narrator, and she has a roommate at a lousy girls' school named Alice. Alice is prettier and more fragile than Margie, and Margie worries about Alice, who can't seem to get her life together despite money, beauty, and talent. Their good friend, Geoffrey, also worries about Alice, and whether good things or bad things (or bad people) are happening to Alice, Margie and Geoffrey show up and share in her good or bad fortune.

An underlying theme is the irritating presence of old class expectations. Margie and Alice are all for the money--what is left of it--but wriggle their way out of leftover Victorian ideas about what is proper for women of the gentility. The niceties of the century past are like the furniture in the shut-up rooms of country houses that no one can afford to staff or heat any longer; they need to be dust-covered and forgotten. So Margie will study typing and get a job, and Alice will marry and divorce whoever she likes.

As is typical of early 20th century novels, there is fear associated with the new and the modern. In the new century following World War I, the kids must create their own destinies, and some of them, like Alice, do not know how. They have torn down the old expectations, and while some of them manage to get by as happy hedonists, others are lost, waiting for a new life to simply happen to them (as the old gentility did). Alice has a weird painting of a garden between seasons that symbolizes this.

The focus is so much on Alice that the narrator is a bit of a sleeper. When the novel ended, I realized that Margie was always well in control and always took good care of herself throughout all the vicissitudes of whatever-shall-we-do-about-Alice? Likewise, Geoffrey never had any real problems taking care of himself. Alice's two good friends are the stabilizing figures in a novel that flits around, parties, hunts, and sails at a steady Bright Young Things pace.… (meer)