490. The Romantic Comedians, by Ellen Glasgow (read 25 Jan 1956) (contains SPOILERS). This is the first book by Glasgow I read. When I decided to read it I understood it was her most famous book. On Jan 22, 1956, I said: "Reading Romantic Comedians. Dumb old judge Honeywell, 65, has asked Annabel, 23, to marry him." On Jan 24 I said: "Reading in Romantic Comedians. The dumb old judge has married Annabel, 23, and she is tired of him and he is seeing the difficulty of such a setup." On Jan 25: "Finished The Romantic Comedians. a very dull and stupid book, reeking in old-fashionedness and flaunting semi-daringly the outmoded opinions of the Twenties. Annabel runs off with Dabney, and Judge Honeywell resigns himself to the loss and resolves to care for her financially. The book's style is tedious, and though the story moves jerkingly along, its movement is possible only because lots of action takes place between the end of one chapter and the beginning of the next. This is the first I have ever read of Ellen Glasgow, and assuredly it will be the last." (But in 1958 I was reading all the Pulitzer fiction winners so I had to read In This Our Life, which won the Pulitzer prize in 1942. Then in 2005 and 2006 I had forgotten my resolve to read no more by her and I read two more of her books.) ( )

Well-drawn characters, sly wit, well-crafted sentences. A little slow in places by modern standards, but the quality of the writing overcame the occasional longeurs. Makes me want to read her next two novels of manners, They Stooped to Folly and The Sheltered Life -- will have to shoehorn them into my reading program somehow.

I originally chose to read this book not for its own sake but as part of my study of James Branch Cabell, a close associate of Glasgow who was raised in the same Richmond Virginia milieu. In that regard it was very illuminating, for I could not help but see The Romantic Comedians as, in part, a response to Cabell's Virginian novels The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck and The Cream of the Jest. But it's a fine novel in and of itself. ( )