Mary WesleyReviews

This was an unexpectedly good read. Mary Wesley presented another side of war - how people tried to live their lives normally during wartime. Unlike Louis de Bernieres' The Dust that Falls from Dreams which is similar in background, The Camomile Lawn is a much niftier read, and one that slightly pulls your heartstrings at how hard the characters are trying to live their lives. What you have to get used to is the quick change of perspectives and scenes without warning, and you have to find your bearings on where the plot is at.

Short on plot, dreary County town characters and an unconvincing effort in keeping them relevant to the narrative. Best avoided.

A very subtle story centred on Henry, who married a woman that his now deceased father chose to rescue by making her Henry's wife, the dubious legacy of the title. When Henry takes Margaret to his home she went to bed and there she stayed. It's a sparsely-written story - spread over 40 years, more of a saga - that is in places hard to believe but nevertheless packed with passion. The outdoor dinner party was like a scene from a horror version of A Midsummer Night's Dream.

A fairly typical Mary Wesley set amongst the British upper middle class, primariliy during the Second World War. Rose is "not that sort of a girl", not the sort to have affairs or to behave unconventionally - or so her friends think. Widowed at 67 she flees what is no longer her home (entailed to her son), and her well meaning friends to a small hotel where she reflects on her nearly 50 years of married life, the choices she made between love and security and the choice she is now free to make. A bit slow to start, you are gradually drawn in to Rose's story and the lives of her and her parents' generation. Probably not Wesley's very best but still well worth reading (she lived that period so she knows what she writes of!).½

Drew me in and spit me out. I suppose the main character's sensuality is one reason for the disdain everyone feels for her. Very British.

Ar first I thought this was a light period piece, a novel of manners set in that ever-enticing milieu -- the British upper class. But as it progresses it turns into something deeper, darker, and certainly sexier. Most of the book is set in England during WWII, though the main narrative is interspersed with scenes around a funeral in the mid-1980's. It follows a dozen people; five young cousins, three men with whom they are involved, their aunt and uncle, and a pair of Jewish refugees. The permutations and combinations within this group are many, various, and sometimes startling. And so are the ways they confront the desperate perils of the war, and the more gradual pains of growing older. A terrific read: makes me want to read more by the same author.½

In some ways not your typical post-apocalyptic book. In other ways just average. I liked the characters and the location. Not Mary Wesley's best.

Not the ending I was expecting; a good twist.

Flora Trevelyan lernt als junges Mädchen im Jahre 1926 die Schmerzen der Liebe kennen und versucht, sich ihr Leben so einzurichten, daß sie ihr nichts mehr anhaben können. Doch der Zufall (Das Schicksal? Die Liebe?) macht ihr immer wieder einen Strich durch die Rechnung.

28/2020. A lighter than average novel by this author, provided the reader doesn't mind heavy hints of consensual sibling incest, but still identifiably Mary Wesley in style and subject matter.

Reading notes

I spotted that the early one-liner about the plumbers was going somewhere but I didn't manage to guess where....

My favourite Wesleys ranked (apart from Mary, Fred, and -ton boot....)

1. Harnessing Peacocks
2. Camomile Lawn
3. A Suitable Life½

17/2020. Warning for paedophilia.½

16/2020. Warning for domestic violence.

A romance novel about how much easier it is to fall in love/lust with someone unknown, who it's easier to project onto, than maintain love with someone known.

"When you saw me in church you did not know me, we had not spoken, you could not know you loved me. It was pure imagination."

The four couples pair off in a predictable manner, with the primary female character remaining a cipher to the end.½

15/2020. Not as well written as some of Wesley's novels but more easily digestible, I suppose.

Quite:

‘These days we eat in the kitchen.’ Violet strode down the hall. ‘I encouraged the maids to join up.’
Juno said, ‘Oh. And did they?’
‘Cook is making Spitfires but Bridget, you remember Bridget?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, Bridget went back to her family in Cork, said the war had nothing to do with her, that she was a Fenian, if you please.’
Juno laughed. ‘And is she?’
Violet said, ‘How would I know?’

And this made me laugh:

[...] lay sleepless all night worrying as to whether the pattern of the wallpaper in the bedroom of the bombed house opposite Evelyn's was or was not a Morris print.

I really enjoyed this book. Another winner culled from Nancy Pearl's Book Lust lists.½

1/2020. Unusual for a novel that begins as a bildungsroman to turn into a story about ageing, but both are typical Mary Wesley themes.½

Conventional upper-middle class cousins and friends embark on unconventional sex and love life once World War II disrupts the social order. Written in the Nineteen Eighties, this story sometimes seems to act as a plea to readers to remember that baby-boomers were not the first cohort to flout sexual mores. Ms Wesley would insist it was 1939 when the revolution happened.
There's a disappointing lack of character development for such a large cast, except perhaps for the wilful Calypso; and the split in narrative between the war years, and a funeral in the Eighties doesn't help the coherence.

Riveted by it.

I read The Camomile Lawn as a student and, being young and naive, was impressed by its suave, sophisticated, witty characters. With this in mind, I happily snaffled Mary Wesley’s Jumping the Queue when I found it on a bookshop expedition to Winchester with H. Now I wonder whether, if I were to reread The Camomile Lawn, I would find there the negatives that I noticed here alongside the wit and sophistication: detached indifference; clever people behaving horribly to one another; a rather nihilistic view of the world. What, really, is the point? That’s the question we find the recently widowed Matilda Poliport contemplating as the book starts. Carrying a basket of wine, cheese and fresh bread, she’s heading down to the beach for a picnic before she ends it all. When her plans are frustrated, she heads back to a life that she thought she had all neatly tied up; but this time she has an unexpected companion: a soul almost as lost as she is. Be warned. This is not a cosy piece of classic fiction. This is fiction with claws. And teeth...

For the full review, please see my blog:
https://theidlewoman.net/2019/07/31/jumping-the-queue-mary-wesley/

This is my kind of book: a family story set in England during World War II. Richard and Helena are a childless, middle-aged couple who entertain their nieces and nephews at their home in Cornwall, with its memorable camomile lawn, every summer. Beautiful Calypso, Polly, Walter, Oliver and precocious 10-year old Sophy are first seen in the summer of 1939. Even though Helena and Richard refuse to face the truth, the cousins know that war is coming. And how that war affects each member of the family is the subject of this excellent book. To say more is to give too much away, but watching this family change and grow through the war years is a reading pleasure.

Mary Wesley writes odd little novels, firmly grounded in her very British-ness, but often with twists and ambiguities that set them apart. Her characters can be unlikeable but never unsympathetic, which is something of a feat in my opinion. This one is about an older woman whose plan to kill herself is thrown into disarray when she meets a younger man hiding from the police after killing his mother. It's about aging and family and how much we really know those closest to us. In these two characters, Wesley explores the misunderstandings and misperceptions of life, as well as its disappointments and quiet joys. This was my fourth novel by this underappreciated author, and I am glad I have several more sitting on my shelves.½

This did not do it for me. AT times I was reminded of Atonement and other times The Rain Before It Falls but it was not like either and not anywhere near as successful. It started with an assortment of people collecting at a house in Cornwall just before WWII and I thought it was take place in that time and place but it ended up jumping about in a way that really didn't allow much connection with the characters. Many of them were rather unlikeable and those that weren't were just sad. At the time of publishing, it was considered quite daring but it seems a bit dated now and striving for artistic flourishes that don't come off. It ended more strongly than it started but it did take 3 tries for me to start it. Headed to bookcrossing.

Matilda and, even more, the reader slowly discover surprising details about the people in her life. Nonetheless, the book ends with lots of unanswered questions---perhaps because that's the way the world works. I was hoping for a happier ending.½

Charming story with a tidy ending. When Poppy's father dies, she realizes and regrets that she knows so little about his life and friends.
He leaves her more money than she expected and a note:
"Poppy love,
1. Never lend, give.
2. Never marry unless you are certain sure you cannot live without the fellow.
3. Don't be afraid to back outsiders.
Love, Dad"

Edmund, Poppy's abusive boyfriend has just broken up with her, because he has found someone with more money. When her father finds out, he dies laughing---literally. Poppy soon meets Fergus of Furnival's Fun Funerals---her father saw their ad and likes the name (which was a typo---it should have been "fine" not "fun"); Victor, Fergus' cousin, who saves a trout in a fish store by relocating it to Fergus' stream and has written a tragedy about his marriage which a publisher thinks it is very funny; and Willy, who falls in love at first sight of Poppy. Edmund is reminiscent of Willoughby in Sense and Sensibility, only meaner and probably dumber. Poppy also discovers that he is not a great, or even good, lover. There is a disturbing scene in an unnamed North African country; in fact that part of the story threatens to be much dangerous than it is. There is also a lucky coincidence, but I figure a story is entitled to one of these.

This book tells the story of Matilda who is interrupted in her suicide attempt when she comes across Hugh who is on the run from the police. Rather than hand him in she takes him home and there the adventures begin.

I loved this book which you would think would be depressing given the subject matter but instead is actually very life-affirming in places and full of pathos. I loved the fact that it didn't feel the need to make the character nice but gave them weaknesses and foibles which seemed more realistic.

My favourite character was Gus who always made his prescence known.

A brilliant first book by this author at the age of 70.

I saw the TV adaptation of this years ago and finally got round to reading the book. Strangely, I was disappointed. There's no discernible plot and some of the characters, particularly Aunt Helena are hard to like. The book follows a group of cousins and their families through the war years from their last summer together in Cornwall in August 1939. There are also flash-forwards to the funeral of one of the characters in the 1980's, where various story strands get resolved, sort of. The characters are selfish in the main, the younger ones treating the war as some great adventure. Maybe it was. Maybe I can't relate to them. Overall I was expecting something more.