Pilgrimage: v. 4 (Virago modern classics) (Paperback)

This is a shame, for - judging by this book - she really is a writer who has a lot to offer. "Pilgrimage" is a series of thirteen semi-autobiographical novels chronicling in some detail the day-to-day life of Miriam Henderson, a bright but impoverished girl about town, from the age of seventeen onwards. Miriam is to some extent a self-portrait, and many (but not all) of the events in her life parallel Richardson's own life.

Volume I of the Virago edition of "Pilgrimage" consists of the first three books, "Pointed Roofs", "Backwater" and "Honeycomb". At the opening of "Pointed Roofs" (set in 1890), Miriam has just accepted a job as teacher-governess in a German boarding school, at the age of seventeen. (The fact that the series of novels opens with Miriam's first job was probably intended by Richardson as a political point.) She is one of four sisters who are the children of a blustering but ineffectual father, recently fallen upon hard times, and a loving but equally ineffectual mother. The sisters provide a sort of support network for each other, and their continuing close relationships are lovingly portrayed throughout the "Pilgrimage" books. Miriam travels, with an understandable mixture of excitement and trepidation, to Germany with her father; and the remainder of the book is a fascinating portrait of a vanished world. Two vanished worlds, actually - both pre-war Germany, which Miriam sees as a magical realm in contrast to English stuffiness; and the complex set-up of a decidedly posh late-nineteenth-century boarding school.

"Backwater" is initially heavier going, but equally compelling once it gets started. The financial troubles of Miriam's family are ever worse, and she is now working as a teacher in a slightly down-at-heel school in North London. Although Richardson again brilliantly evokes the London of the time, she is showing a growing fascination with depicting the nuances of Miriam's personal relationships, both at and outside work. In "Honeycomb", Miriam has taken up a better-paid job as a governess to two children at an English country house. Richardson brilliantly contrasts the unreal luxury of life with the English aristocracy with Miriam's increasingly grim family circumstances. The final section of the book, in which Miriam is trying to cope with the terrifying disintegration of her mother's mental health during an extended holiday at Hastings, is heartbreaking in its understatement.

Although starting out on a thirteen-novel series of stream-of-consciousness writing is perhaps a bit daunting, I'd strongly recommend making the effort. Richardson's stream-of-consciousness technique is more user-friendly than Woolf's or Joyce's; and this first volume, especially, has many moments of unexpected charm, as well as a surprisingly powerful ending.