The Thinking Reed

by Rebecca West

Isabelle, a wealthy American widow, arrives in France to restart her life and discovers she has her choice of eligible suitors. Torn between a placid liaison with a southerner and a tortuous affair with a Frenchman, Isabelle's plans suddenly take an unexpected turn that will ultimately lead her to a love that will force her to reconsider the implications of her affluent existence. With her signature wit and wisdom, West presents a captivating ode to marriages depth and the romance of the bond between husband and wife.

Genres: Fiction, Classics, Romance, France, Literary Fiction, British Literature, 20th Century

431 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1936

About the author

Cicely Isabel Fairfield, known by her pen name Rebecca West, or Dame Rebecca West, DBE was an English author, journalist, literary critic, and travel writer. She was brought up in Edinburgh, Scotland, where she attended George Watson's Ladies College.

A prolific, protean author who wrote in many genres, West was committed to feminist and liberal principles and was one of the foremost public intellectuals of the twentieth century. She reviewed books for The Times, the New York Herald Tribune, the Sunday Telegraph, and the New Republic, and she was a correspondent for The Bookman. Her major works include Black Lamb and Grey Falcon (1941), on the history and culture of Yugoslavia; A Train of Powder (1955), her coverage of the Nuremberg trials, published originally in The New Yorker; The Meaning of Treason, later The New Meaning of Treason, a study of World War II and Communist traitors; The Return of the Soldier, a modernist World War I novel; and the "Aubrey trilogy" of autobiographical novels, The Fountain Overflows, This Real Night, and Cousin Rosamund. Time called her "indisputably the world's number one woman writer" in 1947. She was made CBE in 1949, and DBE in 1959, in recognition of her outstanding contributions to British letters.

Reviews

[Jonathan · Rating 2 out of 5]

She is a satirist and a critic really,I think, and a pretty good one at times. Though I found this suffered a little from thin characterization and a narrative which I found unable really to care much about, she still managed to keep me reading and, at times, completely enthralled (in particular the casino scene about 3/4 of the way through). I can imagine many readers would enjoy this one, particularly those fans of Jane Austen, the Brontes and E.M Forster...For me, however, it was a little slight and I have trouble getting that excited about another rich, beautiful, intelligent woman having Man Troubles.

Regardless, here are a couple of quotes to give you an idea of her targets, which are, as she said later "the effects of riches on the people, and the effect of men on women, both forms of slavery" :

"That certain women were ready to sell themselves caused no excessive disgust in Isabelle. It was inevitable that a number of both men and women should compromise the institution of marriage by marrying for money, and once that happened there could be no question of impressing on the toughly logical female mind the unique vileness of prostitution. She had sometimes wondered, too, whether the contempt men felt for women who market their favors did not in part proceed from the sense of grievance eternally felt by buyers against vendors."

"These women were fatuous with a fatuity which had threatened her all her life, as it threatened all people of means, and which was of mournful significance for humanity in general, since it proved the emptiness of one of man's most reasonable expectations. No more sensible form of government could be imagined than aristocracy. If certain able stocks in the community were able to amass enough wealth to give their descendants beautiful houses to grow up in, the widest opportunities of education, complete economic security, so that they need never be influenced by mercenary considerations, and easy access to any public form of work they chose to undertake— why, then, the community had a race of perfect governors ready made. Only, as the Lauristons showed, the process worked out wholly different in practice. There came to these selected stocks a deadly, ungrateful complacence, which made them count these opportunities as their achievements, and belittle everybody else's achievements unless they were similarly confused with opportunities; and which did worse than this, by abolishing all standards from their minds except what they themselves were and did."

[Shayda · Rating 2 out of 5]

Features of West's writing familiar to me from Black Lamb and Grey Falcon are present here, albeit in a fictional story about a wealthy woman defining her own personal characteristics against the characters of the men she's loved. Sometimes these tics get a bit tedious, as in the extended natural descriptions (which, here, tend to read as filler), unusually articulate dialogue, and moral ruminations. Whether the book passes for interesting with you will probably depend on how well you can take Isabelle, the protagonist. I confess that at times, I couldn't stand her (and I usually try to refrain from hanging my whole opinion of a book on such judgments, but it was hard to resist in this case). West's fondness for the occasional sweeping generalization about men v. women doesn't help matters, as such generalizations serve here to help justify the heroine's search for moral experience through love affairs and marriages.

What may be even harder to take are the long passages condemning the way rich people live - not because there is no reason to condemn the kind of selfishness depicted here, but because the protagonist appears just about as selfish as everyone else, and hearing her cry, "Oh, I'm privileged! I'm privileged and it's ruining me! Damn my having to go to this resort and hang about with disgusting people!" isn't any more of a mitigation than rich liberal guilt usually appears to be. (If I must read about the rich, can it at least be Fitzgerald? Thankyouverymuch.)

Summary: A serious novel with some good writing, but at times, a tough pill.

[Elizabeth (Alaska) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sometimes I have this little mental background program running: How do I rate/review this? I was all over the map on this one. I even hit a point - well in - "should I finish it?" But that was brief. I am compelled to warn you, even to the point of appearing spoilerish, that I hit that point because the novel became somewhat repetitive and boring. And then tell you that was the object - at least the object to that place in the story.

There are two very good characterizations in this. One is of the central character, Isabelle, who is a woman both orphaned and widowed. That she is also very wealthy is not incidental, and in fact, I consider the second characterization to be the lifestyle of those with enormous wealth in France of late 1920s.

It is this latter characterization which lays the foundation for the last 150 pages. To me, it was these last 150 pages that made the book worthwhile and which are, I assume, what provided this novel with an entry on Boxall's 1001 list.

Unfortunately, I cannot now find the exact quote I thought worth sharing. It is to the effect of "women live in a different world from that in which they think and feel." Do we move on two different planes? I suspect that on some days at least, we do.

[Inkstain · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was on my late mother's shelf inherited some years ago, and just noticed now as we built our family library and transferred hundred of books around the house. It's hardly worth the blurb given on the paperback cover (the original, not the one pictured here) as one of the greatest books of the 20th century. That said, it's an interesting vehicle for West's jaundiced view of what wealth does to people's souls, and the destructive instincts of the greedy or insecure. Frankly, there's nothing she said in the thirties that couldn't be said now about the venal and incestuous La Rosey/hedgefund/Med yachting crowd today that peoples Vogue/Gala/Hello society pages. Deeply felt and beautifully written, it's obviously just West sounding off about the vapidity of the wealthy and privilege, but nonetheless valid. She has it in for the English aristocratic type, in particular and one wonders which particular family she was skewering with Lady Barnaclouth et allii.

[Kaycie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can't say enough how much I enjoyed this book. I loved Jane Austen when I was young enough that "happily ever after" ended at finding a guy you like and maybe for engaged to, but find that her stories don't pack the same punch as a grown and married woman. THIS book, though, brought back all of the giddy happiness of a first read of Austen in my youth to the new stage of my life!

It was a beautiful book that will probably greatly appeal to a woman in an early-ish stage of a marriage as Austen might to a young girl, but is worth a read at any time.

I loved it, and will definitely read it again some day. Hopefully some day I get around to posting some of my favorite quotes, since this book is sadly underrepresented on goodreads.

[Desy Icardi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Molto differente dalla più nota trilogia della famiglia Aubrey ma altrettanto interessante. Bellissima l'ambientazione parigina, il ritratto della società e l'introspezione della protagonista.

[George · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well written character based novel about Isabel, who is beautiful, immensely rich, and a widow at the age of 26. the year is 1928. She leaves America for Cannes and Paris in search of high society and love. She finds herself having to choose between three men. The violent, fascinating lover, Andre de Verviers, an aristocrat. Laurence Vernon, a plantation owner from the Deep South, USA, and the eccentric millionaire Marc Sallafranque. She marries Marc, a warm, funny, loyal, sexually alive, lovable, grotesquely short and fat and dangerously childish. He has a gambling addiction that threatens to ruin his very successful business. Will Isabel be satisfied with Marc as a husband?

The two themes of the book as per the author, Rebecca West, are “the effect of riches on people and the effect of money on women, both forms of slavery”.

An interesting, engaging, enoyable read. Isabel’s character is very well described and developed. There are humorous moments and the awful self centred ‘Poots’ provides some amusing scenarios.

This book was first published in 1936.

[Rosemary · Rating 3 out of 5]

Following the death of her first husband in a plane crash, the young American Isabelle is rattling around in Paris in the 1920s. She takes a lover who proves violent, and then has to choose between him and two potential husbands, a solid American plantation owner and a French businessman.

I struggled to get into this book and found the characters unappealing to say the least. Looking back on it, I can forgive Isabelle for her selfcentredness if she was deeply affected by the loss of her first husband, and she did seem to change, at least a little bit, and to develop a sincere affection for her second husband.

In the end it was a revealing book that invited the reader to empathise with the unhappy, entitled rich. It didn't totally succeed with me.

[Mela]

I find Rebecca West an interesting author. I liked The Return of the Soldier and The Birds Fall Down very much. But in this case, I was not interested enough in the high society of the 20s of the XX century. Perhaps it was not a good time for this story. Perhaps I will try it again someday.

[I have abandoned it around the hundredth page.]

[Glass River]

There is a blaze of anger in everything she wrote, which is why Cicely Isabel Fairfield renamed herself ‘Rebecca West’ (the adopted name was from Henrik Ibsen’s savagely anti-bourgeois play Rosmersholm. Reviewers of the time politely called her ‘Miss West’ – as inappropriate a politeness as ‘Miss Medusa’, or ‘Miss Lucrezia Borgia’. West was a very fiery woman. And a man-eater.
The Thinking Reed was a success in terms of both sales and critical acclaim for West, a woman who contrived to live very well by her pen. The novel is a reaction against two sources of annoyance: one is Henry James, the other the male domination of women in general. The striking title and epigraph are taken from Pascal:
Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed.
And women, Monsieur Pascal? The question is left hanging. West’s own gloss of her book was that it chronicled ‘the effect of riches on people and the effect of men on women, both forms of slavery’.
The narrative is set in and around the favoured resort of the young American rich, the south of France. Somewhere around the place, we may fantasise, are Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald – he writing THE GREAT GATSBY, she cuckolding him with a dashing French aviator. When the novel opens, Isabelle, a hugely rich, twenty-six-year-old American widow (her husband, Roy, a dashing aviator, recently died in a plane accident), is resident in Paris. Her life, she has resolved, is a ‘room which must be completely refurnished’. She has attracted the attention of André de Verviers. Isabelle is beautiful. More to the point, she is possessed of a ‘competent, steely mind’. Verviers – handsome, vain, aristocratic, hedonistic – disgusts her. He wants her as a sexual trophy. But he is not the male furniture she had in mind.
As part of his charm offensive André sends her sprays of red and white roses every day. Her response is violent: she carries the offering to his front door and grinds the blooms ‘into the mud’ with her heel. He will see the debris when he comes out and understand what she means – ‘Fou moi le camp!’ (‘Buzz off!’). The act frightens off another suitor, a rich Southerner of refined manners and timid disposition, who prudently decides this wildcat is not for him and also buzzes off.
Making all her own life choices, Isabelle selects as her mate a gauche, physically unprepossessing Jewish industrialist by the name of Marc Sallafranque. The marriage is, as the world thinks, ill-assorted. Isabelle, however, has cast herself as an equal partner, not a helpmeet to the mate she has picked for herself. Marc, it transpires, is in danger from his gambling addiction. Isabelle, having gone into the casino where he is playing for ruinously high stakes and realised that desperate measures are required, creates ‘a scene’:
She opened her mouth and listened to the high scream that came out of it. It passed like a wind through the room.
She further screams, to the embarrassment of all present, that he has taken as his mistress an expatriate Russian princess, Luba, whom (privately) Isabelle knows to be innocent of the charge. As the climax of the scene she strikes her supposed rival on the cheek. This controlled, wholly theatrical, act of madness works:
Her heart leaped up in her for she saw Marc’s face darken and change from the loose-fitting mask of a stupid, sodden man to the twitching muzzle of an anxious, faithful dog.
She has mastered her mate and brought him to his senses. He takes her off, a reformed man, though a heavy price is paid – she miscarries under the stress of it all. ‘I am destroyed’, she mutters. But the marriage is saved.
The charge levelled against Henry James is clear. The novel wilfully replays the theme of THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY. James’ Isabel (the concurrence of names is wholly deliberate) is no thinking reed, but a wilting pansy. She should have decided more aggressively whom to marry. If it had to be Osmond, she should have mastered the man – not shrivelled under his feeble frigidities. ‘James’ women do not think,’ said West, ‘they are presented as sexual objects who behave by the most conventional standards and exhibit no sense of their own.’ It’s a shrewd criticism, and one James, dead for a decade, could not refute. Alive, he would have been wise, like all men in West’s presence, to keep his mouth shut.

[Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had read that this book is a satire and a "book of manners" and for the first 1/4 to 1/3 I truly wondered if it weren't just inane. Then it began to get interesting. The characters are often one dimensional and the actions inane but Isabel's thoughts and descriptions are anything but. This is a sharp satire of the wealthy salon world of pre-depression Europe and it is sickening, enlightening, perceptive and, as always with West, superbly written.

[Katharine Grubb · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't know what I was expecting from this book. There was a bit of "Great Gatsby" a bit of "For Whom the Bell Tolls" and a bit of "Mrs. Dalloway" rolled up into it. A young, orphaned, widowed American living in France. Her lovers, her manipulations, her life. The writing is good, but the story was... disappointing. I was totally into the story in the middle, and even 2/3 in, but the ending was a drag. You aren't missing much by not reading this book, but those of you who love "classics" or just stories written in the post-war/pre-depression era may like it. It was just "o.k."

[Azzurra Sichera · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ho amato molto la trilogia della famiglia Aubrey di Rebecca West (“La famiglia Aubrey“, “Nel cuore della notte“, “Rosamund“), ho sorriso parecchio con i due protagonisti davvero singolari di “Quel prodigio di Harriet Hume” e ora, “Un matrimonio non premeditato” mi dà conferma di quanto questa autrice sappia raccontare l’animo umano come pochi.

Anche per questo romanzo non si può parlare di una trama vera e propria, ma più che altro di uno scorrere di eventi.

All’inizio conosciamo Isabelle e i suoi tormenti amorosi che la condurranno a una scelta “non premeditata”, appunto, quando deciderà di sposare Marc. C’è onestà nel modo in cui lo descrive ma soprattutto nella maniera in cui imparerà a conoscere ogni piega del suo carattere.

Tutta la prima parte del romanzo è incentrata su una disamina dei rapporti umani, tra gente di elevata estrazione sociale. Cosa comporta il denaro? A quali giochi sei costretto a partecipare quando sei molto ricco? E a quanta gente devi dare a parlare?

Isabelle scandaglia tutti la platea di personaggi che circonda la coppia, disegnando perfettamente i contorni di ciascuno, con ferma razionalità e con forti passioni, raccontando come quel mondo la disgusti, la lasci sempre con un’orribile sensazione addosso.

Era “assediata da tutta quella gente, che per natura avrebbe detestato e invece le toccava frequentare”. Oppure: “Era davvero assurdo che lei e Marc frequentassero gente così ridicola”.

C’è astio ma c’è anche accettazione. C’è ribrezzo ma anche forte determinazione. Isabelle sa bene quali sono i ruoli che ciascuno è chiamato a interpretare e non ha certo intenzione di sottrarsi.

Poco dopo la metà del romanzo, cambia tutto per via di un evento doloroso.

E qui Rebecca West si concentra di nuovo su Isabelle, sul suo rapporto con Marc e con gli uomini in generale, sui suoi sentimenti, fino a darci una visione più chiara del suo matrimonio e delle sue convinzioni.

Tappeto dell’intera narrazione, il rapporto tra uomini e donne.

Com’è possibile che la vita delle donne sia così anomala e straordinaria, se sono più numerose degli uomini, e vivono sempre allo stesso modo? Se sono la maggioranza, come il tempo ci insegna, da dove viene questa sensazione di stranezza, di incongruità? Forse, pensò, era dovuta al fatto che ogni centimetro della sua vita di donna le sembrava stupefacente, perché nulla di ciò che provava era mai stato raccontato, o lo era stato solo in modo falso e superficiale, omettendo la parte più pregnante.

Una narrazione ancora una volta stupefacente che riesce a spargere chiarezza sui rapporti umani e su quanto ognuno di noi sia unico, nei suoi momenti di ombra e in quelli di luce.

Rebecca West non smette di sorprendermi, mentre mi guida in un intricato mondo di relazioni come solo lei sa fare. So che non è un’autrice facile, e spesso nemmeno scorrevole, ma io continuo ad apprezzarla. Qui forse un pizzico di più per la verve della protagonista, per la sua sagacia e la sua arguzia, che rendono la narrazione più vivace rispetto ad alcuni romanzi precedenti.

Faccio una piccola nota finale. I quattro romanzi che ho letto di Rebecca West erano stati tradotti da Francesca Frigerio, mentre “Un matrimonio non premeditato” da Stefano Tummolini. Non voglio fare paragoni, o commentare il mestiere del traduttore perché lo ritengo davvero difficilissimo, ma non so se il tono narrativo diverso che ho riscontrato in questa lettura sia dovuto proprio a questo cambio, o se sia stata a monte una scelta dell’autrice.

Rimarrò con il dubbio, ma comunque piacevolmente colpita!

[Sabrina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ammetto che è la prima volta che leggo un'opera di questa autrice e ne sono rimasta letteralmente innamorata!
Sia la mia vena romantica che quella parte di me che ama tutti i vari trip mentali, sono state imboccate passo passo in ogni pagina.
Ma andiamo a vedere un po' di cosa parla il nostro romanzo.
La nostra storia si svolge alla fine degli anni venti e trova come protagonista, Isabelle, una donna altolocata che non solo è orfana ma la vita la porta anche a perdere il marito, Roy. Per allontanarsi da tutto, decide di fare un viaggio a Parigi ed è qui che tutto prende una piega inaspettata.
Dopo aver iniziato una relazione intima con André, si rende conto che stare con lui non è ciò che veramente desidera ed è a causa di ciò che, quando conosce Marc, un industriale ebreo che economicamente rispecchia il suo stato sociale ma non di certo fisicamente, per liberarsi di André - e anche per capriccio - finisce per sposare l'altro.
Inizialmente questa scelta sembra sbagliata, anche perché Marc oltre ad avere tutt'altro modo di vivere, gioca anche d'azzardo. Ma col tempo le varie vicende dimostreranno che l'apparenza inganna e non tutti i mali vengono per nuocere.
　
" Com’è possibile che la vita delle donne sia così anomala e straordinaria, se sono più numerose degli uomini, e vivono sempre allo stesso modo? "
　
Questo libro mi è piaciuto davvero molto. Per quanto ci sia una trama, ho però trovato che fosse in realtà tutto un susseguirsi di eventi narrati che non seguivano un vero e proprio meccanismo narrativo, e devo dire che questa cosa non mi è dispiaciuta affatto.
Il romanzo ci mette davanti a una realtà che anche oggi è nota nelle famiglie più facoltose: ipocrisia, importanza bancaria e non sentimentale, cosa bisogna fare e chi bisogna calcolare per non sentirsi mai sminuiti da un mondo che brilla, sì, ma ama schiacciarti alla prima occasione e farti sentire piccolo.
Personalmente ho sempre trovato l'alta società un mondo disgustoso, per quanto incuriosita da quella vita, penso sinceramente che siano molto più tristi di chi ha una vita comune ma sincera.
Detto ciò: questo è un ottimo regalo per tutti gli appassionati del genere, che nonostante le quasi quattrocento pagine, scorre che è una meraviglia.

[Monty Milne · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is not the kind of thing I would normally read, but as I am working my way through Bloxall’s 1001 List – more or less in chronological order – it came up. Superficially, I thought there were similarities with Scott Fizgerald’s “Tender is the Night”, and I disliked it for similar reasons: it deals with a vapid, shallow, over-moneyed world. And I was not convinced by the effectiveness of the writing. Isabelle, the main character, seemed horrible in her fickleness, cruelty and shallowness.

And yet…I am glad I persevered to the end because it ended up delivering a reading experience which was much more intriguing and unexpected than I initially suspected. Yes, the people described and their lives are appalling and unpleasant, but Isabelle is by no means the worst: that dubious palm goes to Poots, who emerges as one of the most brilliantly conceived and executed nasty bitches in literature. She reminded me of Princess Michael of Kent – I once had the misfortune of attending a formal dinner at which she was guest of honour, and the superb gastronomic delight on the plate before me was literally snatched away before I could take a single mouthful, the convention being that once the Royal Guest had finished eating we couldn’t continue – even if, as in my case, being seated at the socially inferior end of the table meant we hadn’t actually started.

But this is more about Isabelle and Sallafranque than about the egregious Poots, and it is really about the strange nuance and complexity of their married life. Disraeli married his wife solely for her money – of which she was well aware – but, to the surprise of both of them, the marriage that eventually emerged gave both of them deep satisfaction in all kinds of ways, so much so that he is on record as saying that if he had his time again he would still have married her, even if she was penniless – because he would be marrying for love. I find this rather touching, just as the married couple at the heart of this novel – who are in so many ways so unattractive – end up by attracting rather than repelling the reader. Curious, and pleasingly redemptive.

[Jenna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Society books can wear a little thin with all of the socializing, but this one has a lot more of interior monologue to balance that out. I found the set up of the book a tad bizarre, which actually I liked, a relatively young woman alone in Paris making crazy choices in order to try and find a new situation for herself, and by luck only landing on her feet, although it always feels a bit unsteady to the reader. I found the central crisis also interesting, and her inability initially to cope, and her finding her way by recognizing her weakness at the end was fine. I have very little patience for a "woe is me I'm so wealthy I would be a happier/better person if I were poor" stuff that kept creeping in to her self-talk. No, poor people aren't less miserable when they are widowed or have relationship troubles or miscarriages because they are too busy to be depressed, they are just busy and depressed. But there is a great passage towards the end when she and Marc are reconciling and they are talking about feeling that the other is the better person and that will be important for the relationship moving forward, and he says that no one knows themselves because they only see themselves minute to minute from the inside while the other person is looking at their full face and seeing them and all their history and she responds and says but then anyone can would know you and he says no, we are necessary to each other because we are the only ones we to whom we show our full faces. So I thought she did capture a messy true love bond that survives a very hard strain, and that made for an optimistic story in the mid 1930s, which maybe also accounts for all of the "we will be happy if we end up poor" talk too.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This week it's time for the #1936Club, hosted by Kaggsy at Kaggsy's Bookish Ramblings, and Simon at Stuck in a Book.

For my contribution, I've chosen The Thinking Reed, a novel published in 1936 by Rebecca West (1892-1983).  Like The Return of the Soldier (1918, see my review) The Thinking Reed is listed in 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die.  It's cited because it sensitively examines the limitations of the life led by many middle-class women during the 1920s and it highlights the disintegration not only of a class but an entire way of life.  The 1936 first edition was published by Hutchinson & Co (London) and 1001 Books says that it remains an important and thoughtful exploration of relationships, class, and marriage for today's reader.  

Last year I read West's A Train of Powder (see my review) which is a collection of essays that includes her famous reportage of the Nuremburg Trials, and perhaps it was the seriousness of those essays that suggested to me at first that The Thinking Reed was just a rather shallow story of a woman with 'man trouble'.  The novel begins with Isabelle, a wealthy American widow, who has come to France to make a new start, and has found herself trapped in a relationship with a disagreeable man, when she would rather be with someone else.  In the process of getting rid of him, she makes herself disagreeable to the object of her intentions, and in her disappointment, she impulsively marries someone else.  But as the story progresses through the fortunes of Isabelle Torrey and her French husband Marc Sallafranque, West satirises the vacuous emptiness of the lavish 1920s lifestyle.  Which, as the end of the novel signals, was about to collapse because of the looming Depression.

The title is a quotation from the French mathematician, physicist, inventor, philosopher, writer and Catholic theologian, Blaise Pascal, describing the temperament of man and the nature of his existence:

“Man is but a reed, the feeblest one in nature; but he is a thinking reed.”

The third-person limited narration is from Isabelle's point-of-view, and she does a great deal of thinking indeed.

Her competent, steely mind never rested. She had not troubled with abstract thoughts since she had left the Sorbonne, but she liked to bring everything that happened to her under the clarifying power of the intellect. For she laboured under a fear that was an obsession. By temperament she was cooler than others; if she had not also been far quicker than others in her reactions, she might have been called lymphatic. But just as it sometimes happens that the most temperate people, who have never acquired the habit of drinking alcohol, or even a taste for it, are tormented by the fear that somehow or other they will one day find themselves drunk, so Isabelle perpetually feared that she might be betrayed into an impulsive act that was destructive to such order as reason had imposed on life. Therefore she was for ever running her faculty of analysis over in her mind with the preposterous zeal of an adolescent running a razor over his beardless chin.  (The Thinking Reed. Open Road Media. Kindle Edition, Location 26).

In fact, by chapter 10 Isabelle chastises herself for thinking too much.  These days we would say she is overthinking things.

Anyway...

For this reason she knows that André de Verviers, is not Mr Right.  Although they enjoyed a splendidly passionate attraction to each other for about a week, he is given to impulse, destruction, unreason, even screaming hysteria and he flies into jealous rages.  Since he is one of those men who can't imagine the possibility that a woman doesn't want him, nothing she can say fends him off.  (We've all met one of those.  In my experience a well-aimed stiletto heel in the offending shin works wonders).  Isabelle, however, eventually reasons that it is her calm and reasonable behaviour that he is attracted to, and therefore the way to discourage him is to embarrass him by creating a public scene, dumping his flowers in the courtyard of his apartment and screeching at him (even though he isn't there).

Alas, Lawrence Vernon (the one she wants) witnesses this scene, and is disapproving.  Not because of what she did, or the reasons she did it, but because he is embarrassed by it.

After all, he was not quite what she wanted. He had understood and accepted all she had told him; he knew that she was the same sort of person as himself, that she had fallen into the hands of the enemy and had suffered outrageously and had taken what means she could to free herself. But he was not going to tell her that he loved her and wished to marry her because he belonged to the vast order of human beings who cannot be loyal to their beloved if a stranger jeers. (Loc. 701)

So on the rebound, she marries Marc Sallafranque, a wealthy but not very prepossessing industrialist.  Which turns out to be not the mistake the reader might be expecting. Through the twists and turns of the plot, West shows Isabelle's attraction to men who share her disgust with the decadent life of the rich.

...what are called nice people aren’t nice at all. They’re very nasty. They’ve got an unfair proportion of the world’s goods, and only a few wipe out that unfairness by what they do with their good luck. The rest of them want more, and they don’t care how they get it. They’ll close their eyes to any vice on the part of anybody who’s rich and who has a comfortable house they can go and stay in, or who can give them tips on the Stock Exchange. They are complete parasites, who can’t earn their keep. (Loc 4813)

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2021/04/14/t...

[Daniela Sorgente · Rating 4 out of 5]

I struggled a bit at first to get into the atmosphere of the book but after the first 100 pages it got better. It is the story of how Isabel, a young, widowed, American and rich woman in France in the 1920s, gets to marriage and it tells about the first period of her marriage.
I really did not expect the ending. 
The portrait of the wealthy society of France in those years is merciless. Isabel is sick of it, after having lived there for a while.
I was struck by her reflections after the miscarriage:
Anyway it (death) should not have taken the child at such a stage and in such a way that sensible human opinion denied it a grave.
....
"This is absurd. At this stage it has no more consciousness than a sea-anemone or a limpet. It is absurd to feel about it as if it were a person whom I had known."
Luckily, nowadays there is greater sensitivity on the subject.
Rebecca West's writing is very accurate, both in terms of characters and settings. If approached with patience, it then gives its rewards.

[Kristel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reason read: botm Reading 1001/October 2024. This book, by Rebecca West, is the second for me. This one is about a rich, widowed, American woman trying to start a new life for herself in France. She has men to chose from and she winnows it down to one and for much of the book, it is questionable whether this is the best choice. The book really does examine what it takes to make a marriage. It examines love. It examines the effects of losses on marriage. I found the book at first not very engaging, but in the end I liked it. Be warned, the plot is boring and the characters not very likeable. Rating 3.5 stars

[Mrs M Shambrook · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very much of its time. Gives an insight into the gilded world of luxury and privilege enjoyed by the rich between the Wars. There is always a sense of impending doom lurking. The other theme is the relationships between men and women now radically altered by social change. Not an easy read, many long passages on her theories and the language had me reaching for the dictionary many times, but interesting

[Fiorella · Rating 3 out of 5]

9 GENNAIO 2022
"UN MATRIMONIO NON PREMEDITATO"
di Rebecca West
Parigi anni '20.
La protagonista è Isabelle, bella ricca giovane vedova americana.
La vera protagonista è la società benestante dell'epoca, che l'autrice descrive minuziosamente senza sconti o benevolenza.
La prosa di Rebecca west è non facile ma gradevole, incisiva e interessante, affascinante e incantevole nelle descrizioni.
Il finale è riuscito a sorprendermi.

[Anne Green · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was curious to read one of the fascinating Rebecca West's novels as I've read more about her than what she actually wrote. This may not have been a good first choice, as it was heavy going. Very dated, dense prose and long passages of internal moralising and philosophising obscured the points the author was trying to make about presumably the heedless and foolish behaviour of the rich and privileged and the eternal war between the sexes.

[Lynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very real and philosophical. I think Miss West could have written 300 more pages of her views. The story completely engrossed me within the first 25 pages. I could not wait to read about the situations (and the perspectives) in the book.
Sad to finish the book; but happily ordered a few of her other books.

[Jane · Rating 3 out of 5]

I struggled to get into this book at first. I think it takes time to get to know Isabelle and start to care about her. But once I did, I couldn’t wait to find out what happened next.

⭐⭐⭐ 1/2

---

"My God, what I would have given to dine early and simply tonight. A plate of onion soup, a steak with some morels, and some apple fritters. And then to bed at ten."

[Catherine Jeffrey · Rating 4 out of 5]

A witty and sharp observation of the lives of the very rich. The dinner party scene with the Lauristons is pure genius.

[Lisa of Hopewell]

I learned of this book here: https://anzlitlovers.com/2021/04/14/t...

[Andrew Weitzel · Rating 4 out of 5]

A novel about Rich People Problems. I'm a fan of West's writing style though, so I liked it a lot.

[1001shelf]

This was botm in October 2024 and was read by 4 readers with an average rating of 3.25. It has been read and reviewed by a total of 5 readers. It averages a rating of 3.25.

[Alice Yoder · Rating 4 out of 5]

Isabelle and her husband find out that the rich are just as frivolous as the rest of us think. It only takes them the entire book to find it out though. Slow but sure. I enjoyed this read.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ох, что-то у меня в этом году прямо полоса мутных книг.
Ребекка Уэст - английская писательница, почему-то здесь своей героиней она берёт американку, поселившуюся во Франции. Изабелла - молодая вдова с огромной кучей денег. Почему-то после смерти мужа она приезжает в Европу (у неё французские корни) и в какой-то момент внезапно решает срочно выйти замуж. Почему именно в тот момент - не ясно совсем. У неё есть три претендента в женихи. Один - совершенно токсичный человек, который любит играть на нервах. Изабелла кое-как от него избавляется, устраивая самый настоящий скандал - кульминация этих игр, от которой потенциальный жених всё же предпочитает держаться подальше. Проблема решена, но к большому сожалению свидетелем сцены становится потенциальный жених номер два - фаворит гонки, - и делать предложение он уже передумал. Тогда, - внезапная смена курса, - Изабелла объявляет, что выходит замуж за номер три. Прямо какой-то цирк с конями, а не выбор супруга.
Новый муж Изабеллы тоже очень богат. Тут начинается карусель роскошной жизни: они едут в Канны, встречают какую-то компанию прожигателей жизни, все обсуждают, что Анетта сказала Лоретте тем утром, скучные разговоры, много коктейлей, гольф, ужин в самом дорогом ресторане и вечером все отправляются в казино. Изабелла и её муж Марк ненавидят и презирают этих людей, их глупость, их скучные никчёмные разговоры, при этом не пропускают ни одного светского события. Дальше они перемещаются в следующий роскошный город, где все те же персонажи, Анетта опять сказала что-то скандальное Лоретте, все играют в теннис, затем ужин в ресторане и вечером все отправляются в казино.... Скучнейшая часть книги, где богатые занимаются своими богатскими вещами.
Муж Изабеллы оказывается из тех предпринимателей, которые полностью отдают себя делу, могут находиться на своём предприятии днями и ночами, но ожидают того же и от своих подчинённых. Изабелла вполне понимает, что он тиран, но легко мирится с этим. Марк рассказывает ей, что у него была небольшая проблема с азартными играми - в одну ночь он спустил в казино 4 миллиона, хотя газеты на следующий день раздули сумму до 5 и даже 10 миллионов, что повлекло за собой бунт на его заводе. Но очевидно, - говорит Марк, - кто-то плохой надоумил его драгоценных работников бастовать против такого расклада, что они корячатся за копейки, когда их начальник спускает свои миллионы в рулетку. Очень жаль, что пришлось привлечь армию, чтобы стрелять в бунтовщиков, - сокрушается супруг. Изабелла делает мысленную пометочку, что наверно стоит следить за слабостями мужа, дабы такая оплошность не повторилась. Все капиталисты - звери.
Жутко затянутая и скучнейшая книга, но как бы заканчивается на мажоре, я бы даже сказала, что конец книгу спасает. В конце Уэст занимается сомнительным философствованием на тему мужчин, женщин, предназначения каждых и отношений между оными. Уэст явно на стороне раскрепощения женщин, но делает довольно кринжовые заявления в духе "все мужчины Х" и "все женщины Y". При этом вот только что нам попался герой, который из этих строгих понятий выбивается, что Уэст объясняет "он какой-то слишком мягкий и недостаточно мужчина". А ну ладно тогда, раз он завалил экзамен на мужчинность - можно его списать.
В целом Уэст рисует нам картину "взросления" молодой девушки, которая постепенно открывает для себя сущность отношений - что это работа и ничего не даётся легко. Почему надо в качестве примера брать героя, максимально удалённого от реальности - ни у неё работы, ни образования, ни хобби никакого, даже с кошкой она поладить не может, и в то же время ни о каких бытовых вещах ей думать не надо: если что-то надо - принесут слуги или можно купить у Картье, - не очень понятно. При настолько пустой жизни единственное, что ей остаётся - быть женой и ждать потомство, да. Зачем это всё остальным 99.99% читателей - большой вопрос.
Короче, название вводит в полное заблуждение. Героиня и правда тростинка - плывущее по течению полено, полностью зависящее от социума, но мыслительными процессами она не то чтобы себя утруждает.