First published in 1963, `A Summer Birdcage' is Margaret Drabble's debut novel and, for a first novel, it is very good indeed. The title of the book is taken from a quotation from John Webster's Play `The White Devil': "`Tis just like a summer bird-cage in a garden: the birds that are without despair to get in, and the birds that are within despair and are in consumption for fear they shall never get out." A very apposite quotation, for this novel is about the folly in thinking that the grass is always greener on the other side and reminds us that we should be careful what we wish for.
Sarah, recently down from Oxford and living in Paris, is summoned home to Warwickshire to be bridesmaid at her sister Louise's wedding to a well-known author, Stephen Halifax. Sarah is attractive, clever and witty but her older sister has always taken the limelight for she is incredibly beautiful, sophisticated and elegant. Sarah recalls how she spent most of her childhood following Louise around, hanging on her every word and trying hard to emulate her "I had pursued her and waited on her and yearned for the crumb of her company that never fell my way". After years of being continually snubbed by her sister, Sarah finally decided that Louise was cold and unfeeling and not worth the hero worship and "learned at least superficially to ignore her and to get on with my own life."
However, though she is now reluctant to leave Paris, Sarah realizes that she really has no choice other than to return home to her family and to Louise's condescension. The situation is made even more difficult by the fact that Sarah thoroughly dislikes Stephen Halifax; she finds him intimidating, disdainful, snobbish and entirely without a sense of humour. She also dislikes his novels. When seeing her sister and Stephen together, she convinces herself that Louise is only marrying Stephen for his money and for the high profile life she will have as his wife - in fact Sarah thinks Louise is more attracted to Stephen's friend, John, a good-looking and popular actor.
After Louise and Stephen have departed for their honeymoon, Sarah moves to London and flat shares with a friend and, although she has a first class degree, she is unsure what she wants to do in life, so she takes a job at the BBC and decides to just drift along enjoying her new found freedom. However, when Louise returns to London, Sarah finds herself becoming more involved in her sister's life than she would like and, as the cracks begin to show in Louise's marriage and rumours of betrayal and infidelity spread, Sarah begins to see that her coolly elegant sister is not quite as she seems....
This is a hugely enjoyable and very entertaining first novel; warm and cleverly discerning, where Margaret Drabble begins to show herself as a writer of intelligence and perception. And, of course, as subsequent novels show, her writing just gets better. Recommended.
4 Stars.
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![A Summer Bird-Cage (Canons) by [Margaret Drabble]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41oiMQQztJL._SY346_.jpg)
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