Bienvenue à High Rising (1933 original; edició 2019)

High Rising is rather a delightful nothing. I perhaps should like Thirkell more than I do, seeing as how she sits somewhere between my favourite novelist Barbara Pym and one of my more obscure pleasures, E.F. Benson, author of the Mapp and Lucia series. Thirkell is much kinder to her characters than Benson is (although not without a sense of cosmic justice), and her character examinations are less sharp than Pym's - not lacking in sharpness, mind you.

High Rising is the first in a series of almost 30 novels, which Thirkell wrote over the course of her lifetime, chronicling the same county (a century removed) from Trollope's more famous 19th century novels. So perhaps later in life, when I have run out of material, I will return here. Lengthy series in which little happens beyond character analysis are hard to find, and right up my alley. For now, though I will leave it to more interested parties. ( )

If you’re in need of some cosy period escapism at the moment (and who isn’t?), you could do a lot worse than delve into Angela Thirkell’s High Rising, first published in 1933. It isn’t life-changing literature but, like the self-proclaimed ‘second-rate’ novels penned by its heroine Laura, it has a distinct charm of its own. We meet Laura Morland as she is taking her young son Tony home from school for the Christmas holidays, to their cottage in the country village of High Rising. What follows is a mixture of social drama – of the gentlest and most genteel kind, as a series of potential romantic attachments ebb and flow among the middle-class villagers – and mild mystery. Why has such trouble been caused by the arrival of Miss Una Grey, the new secretary hired by Laura’s friend and fellow writer George Knox? Does she really have ambitions to marry him? And, if so, how can Laura protect his shy daughter Sibyl from the claws of this Incubus (as Miss Grey is christened)? Charming and mild, this feels like a Sunday-evening BBC period drama in prose and, although you never have any doubts that everything’s going to end up neatly resolved, there’s some fun to be had seeing how it develops along the way...

For the full review, please see my blog:
https://theidlewoman.net/2020/03/27/high-rising-angela-thirkell/ ( )

When a friend of mine posted about this book, the cover just caught my eye and wouldn't let me scroll past. Then I learned more about the book and series and knew I'd be ordering my own copy. Angela Thirkell wrote a series of books set in the fictional county of Barsetshire that was first created by Anthony Trollope. Her Barsetshire series is 29 books written between 1930 and 1961.

This was simply delightful and I plan to continue with the series. It's a bit of romance, a bit of satire, a bit of humor, and a touch of mystery too.

Laura Morland is a widow with four sons (three grown and the youngest still in school) who is a successful novelist. She writes mysteries set in the world of fashion. She and son Tony (who never ever stops talking) go to their country home in the village of High Rising.

The local characters are delightful. Laura's publisher makes some visits and is involved in one of several romances in the book. Her friend who is married to the Headmaster at Tony's school is another wonderful visitor.

One of the local men is also an author. His new secretary (quickly known to all as "The Incubus") seems to be out to marry him, much to the horror of the other locals.

It's about a gentler time and place with plenty of wit and fun. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
( )

The author's marital flame-outs must lie behind the deeply anti-romantic subtext of this novel. The main character, a widow since her early thirties left with four sons to support, regularly expresses relief at her husband's demise, and fends off any idea of a replacement. That a similarly ungrieving widower contemplates remarriage is clearly an illustration of male inadequacy. The one apparently happy romance in the novel is undermined by the fact that the woman is a complete ditz and her apparently besotted husband-to-be previously proposes to the main character, apparently by way of apology for running them into the ditch in his car. The title of a later Thirkell novel ---O,These Men,These Men---pretty much sums it up. Many other apparently personal details distracted me: the constant reference to the main character's unruly hair, the presentation of the writer's trade as hack work or a self-indulgent hobby. Methinks the lady doth protest too much. Of course this was a first or second attempt; I do not recall being as put off in the few later Thirkell novels I've read.

After her husband’s death left her with four young boys to raise, Laura Morland discovered that she had a talent for writing good second-rate books about the world of fashion. Laura spends holidays and her son Tony’s school breaks at her home in High Rising, where her circle of friends and neighbors includes her secretary, Anne Todd, who lives with her chronically ill mother, widower and fellow author George Knox and his young adult daughter Sibyl, Dr. Ford, her maid Stoker and Mr. Knox’s maid Annie. Her publisher, Adrian Coates, and her dear friend Amy Birkett (wife of young Tony’s headmaster) are frequent guests. The tranquility of life in the Risings (High and Low) has been disturbed by the arrival of George Knox’s new secretary, Miss Grey. It’s obvious to all except George that Miss Grey is intent on marrying him. She is doing her best to drive a wedge between George and his friends, particularly the single women. Something must be done about this.

This is an entertaining story of village life between the wars in the first half of the twentieth century. It’s hard not to wonder how much Laura Morland resembles Thirkell herself, particularly in her attitudes toward literature and authorship. Laura’s offhand comments about Jews are disturbing given that this book was first published as Hitler rose to power in Germany. ( )