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5.0 out of 5 stars Dorothy Whipple - has she been forgotten?, 29 Aug 2007

By	aapjebaapje "aapjebaapje" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Greenbanks (Hardcover)

Once again Dorothy Whipple gets inside the head of the middle-aged and older woman. She tells the story of a family, warts and all, in the period before and after World War 1. Completely real and realistic. Particularly real is Ambrose. The father and husband who rules the roost only to find that when his strength and power desert him, his inability to engender mutually fulfilling relationships lead to the people he loved (in his own way) deserting him too. The book doesn't really have a beginning, middle and End - it just starts one Christmas and ends at a point when many questions have been answered. All the characters could have their own sequel...

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5.0 out of 5 stars One of her best, 15 Jul 2009

By	booksetc (London, UK) - See all my reviews

A lovely Dorothy Whipple, published in 1932 and alas, difficult to get hold of. (What a pity it hasn't been re-published by Persephone but maybe they will get around to it eventually. I'd have chosen it over Whipple's High Wages which they are publishing later this year.)
Louisa is the mother of a large, grown-up family and this is the rambling tale of their vicissitudes from just before WW1 into the 1920s: marital infidelity, illegitimate babies, divorce, autocratic parents and rebellious off-spring. As ever, Whipple's characters are utterly convincing; Louisa is a loving matriarch, (only 56 at the start of the book!) shockable but unshakeable; there is Kate, the embittered unmarried mother, rendered frigid by public opinion; Ambrose, pompous and overbearing, wanting to be loved but never understanding why he isn't lovable; and his bored wife Letty, who married at a time when there few options for women. Whipple does a brilliant job showing how WW1 changes their lives and attitudes: 'The war had blown most people's ideas sky-high, and the pieces had not yet come down. When they did come down, they would never fit together again as they had done before the war.'
Greenbanks is the name of Louisa's solid, old-fashioned family house. And I love the way Whipple describes domestic interiors: a posy of flowers in a lustre jug, an embroidered bedspread. This is one of her best, highly recommended.

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