The Long View

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They [mother and daughter] seemed two women bound together, having in common nothing in particular, and everything in general; who, were they not related, would not willingly have spent five minutes in each other’s company; but who, because of their relationship, had spent nineteen years, irritating, modifying, interfering with, decryring, and depending upon each other.

Finding a character's point of view is made more difficult because the author keeps inserting her own external view, as when a character is reminded that she should 'take tea (that horrible unnecessary meal designed to make unsatisfied women more unsatisfactory) with' another woman. Howard published five additional novels before she embarked on her best known work, the five-volume Cazalet Chronicles. As Artemis Cooper describes it: “Jane had two ideas, and could not decide which to embark on; so she invited her stepson Martin [Amis] round for a drink to ask his advice. One idea was an updated version of Sense and Sensibility … the other was a three-volume family saga … Martin said immediately, “Do that one.” [6] The most mysterious, intricate point about women is that they require somebody else to teach them to live in their own body. Without that, they are lost, because they never discovered.

It's a heartbreaking read but oh the skill of Howard showing every emotional nuance so that you experience all of it directly yourself. Made it about halfway thru this confusing rambling story. It could be called The Long Read or The Long Reference List. a b Brown, Andrew (9 November 2002). "Profile: Elizabeth Jane Howard". The Guardian . Retrieved 17 February 2018. Antonia resiste , resiste fedele alla scelta compiuta, inamovibile nonostante sia intrisa bicchieri di whsky . resiste in un matrimonio che è coperto da cappe di silenzio come coperte a tensioni continue. The first section of the book is set in 1950. Mrs Fleming is married to an impossible man—conceited, rude, selfish, arrogant, and uncaring. The only man in the book who is not in some way a monster is her father, a man who cares not about the present but about 16th century social customs, is mostly reading in his library, and ignores the silly ways of his promiscuous wife. He is loved by Toni, as we later learn Mrs Fleming to be called, primarily because she hates her mother.

He never deprecated his wife, even by implication. He simply added, as it were, another storey to the structure of his personality, and invited the lady in question to put herself temporarily in possession: there she might perch precariously, in what she could be easily persuaded was an isolated castle in a rich and strange air". Le era stato insegnato a suddividere l’esistenza in fasi … nella prima si reprimeva la giovinezza così da impiegarla nei vent’anni; poi si risparmiava, nella parte centrale della vita, così da vivere tranquilli in vecchiaia.” Ho letto questo libro allo stesso modo in cui ho guardato La corrispondenza, il film di Giuseppe Tornatore. No woman would like being told what she was, or would have been. They like the future—the future and the present.” Originally published in 1956, The Long View is Elizabeth Jane Howard's uncannily authentic portrait of one marriage and one woman. Observant and heartbreaking, written with exhilarating wit, it is a gut-wrenching account of the birth and death of a relationship - as extraordinary as it is timeless.

un libro molto femminile, e non è privo dei cliché su crisi di coppia e relazioni adultere. Però questo "lungo sguardo" mi è sembrato posarsi con intelligenza, e in certe parti l'ho seguito con la stessa tensione e lo stesso pathos che fa provare un thriller. Elizabeth Jane Howard CBE FRSL (26 March 1923 – 2 January 2014), was an English novelist. She wrote 12 novels including the best-selling series The Cazalet Chronicles. [1] Early life [ edit ] I’m going to attach my quotes at the end of this note, They are described by Hilary Mantel as “jaundiced observations – pithily expressed, painfully accurate.” I read the book because Mantel selected Howard as her favourite novelist, and I’ve attached below a long quote from her article and a link to it. I’d never read any Howard before, although I knew her as Kingsley Amis’s wife and Martin Amis’s stepmother. This is shameful but a reflection of how the world regards “women writers.” She is a better writer than either and certainly a better observer of human relationships.

Howard, who died at 90 in 2014, became far from innocent, marrying three times and having a string of lovers, including her first husband’s brother, Arthur Koestler, Ken Tynan, Laurie Lee, Cyril Connolly, and Cecil Day-Lewis. Perhaps all those lovers were the result of a sort of innocence. If it is impossible to be in two places at once, it ought to be impossible to make two people unhappy at the same time. There are only two kinds of people—those who live different lives with the same partners, and those who live the same life with different partners. You sneer so much, like someone perpetually exhaling. You never absorb a breath of anybody.......". (That is a clever description of a condescending attitude but I simply don't believe that anyone - even these upper middle class characters in early to mid-20th century London - would speak to someone else like that. It's much too theatrical and precise and simply doesn't ring true. Perhaps I am mistaken?) This tale is like a gossip columnist of the day sneering at all the pillars of society. Phrases like 'ghastly sterility' abound.Aveva sempre saputo che suo marito non le era fedele, credeva però che i suoi interessi fossero così superficiali da non costituire una seria minaccia alla loro vita insieme. E poi c’erano le reiterate sconfitte; giorno dopo giorno, quando lui entrava in camera, lei sapeva che la situazione era sempre la stessa e che perciò era, a dispetto di ogni logica, peggiore. A volte le sembrava di odiarlo: a volte le sembrava di amarlo tanto da poter avvizzire e morire sotto la sferza silenziosa della sua indifferenza. Si aggrappava sempre a lui o a se stessa, non ce la faceva ad affrontare la somma dei rispettivi sentimenti. Costruiva questi steccati per difendersi dalle umiliazioni.“ Originally published in 1956, The Long View is Elizabeth Jane Howard's uncannily authentic portrait of one marriage and one woman. Written with exhilarating wit, it is a gut-wrenching account of the birth and death of a relationship.