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Mad Puppetstown
In the early 1900s Easter lives with her Aunt Brenda, her cousins Evelyn and Basil, and their Great-Aunt Dicksie in an imposing country house, Puppetstown, which casts a spell over their childhood. Here they spend carefree days taunting the peacocks in Aunt Dicksie's garden, shooting snipe and woodcock, hunting, and playing with Patsy, the boot boy. But the house and its inhabitants are not immune to the 'little, bitter, forgotten war in Ireland' and when it finally touches their lives all flee to England. All except Aunt Dicksie who refuses to surrender Puppetstown's magic. She stays on with Patsy, living in a corner of the deserted house while in England the cousins are groomed for Society. But for two of them those wild, lost Puppetstown years cannot be forgotten.
288 pages, Paperback
First published April 11, 1931
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125 people want to read
About the author
M.J. Farrell
17 books7 followersM.J. Farrell is a pseudonym used by
Molly Keane
for her earlier published novels and plays.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
July 23, 2019
Many stories set in Irish country houses have been told over the years, but few have the magic that is found in Molly Keane’s novels, when she wrote about a past that she remembered, with both love and clear-sightedness.
She began this story with a tumble of sentences, that fell somewhere between poetry and prose.
…. People drove about in dog-carts and pony traps.
Invitations were issued to tea.
Tea parties mattered too.
Women who powdered their faces were fast
Women who painted them – bad.
Hunting, low wages, feather boas, nipped in habit coats, curly bowlers, bunches of violets, black furs and purple hats were much in vogue.
A book called Three Weeks was both enjoyed and abused ….
Then eight year-old Easter Chevington wakes up early,and explores the delights of the nursery, until she hears her nanny stirring and creeps back into bed so the day can really begin. She is in her father’s country house, Puppetstown, where she lives with her father; her Great-Aunt Dicksie, who has lived there all her life and spends her days happily in her garden; her two boy cousins Evelyn and Basil, who are just a little; and their beautiful widowed mother Aunt Brenda, who thinks that she will marry again one day but for the present is happy to be indolent in such a lovely setting.
The lives of the three children were filled with joys. They ran and played in the grounds; chasing the peacock’s in Aunt Dicksie’s garden, distracting Patsy, the young boot boy, and running rings around O’Regan, the gardener. They ran rather wilder in the surrounding countryside; and they had so many adventures and days to remember, out with their dogs and their horses.
Molly’s Keane’s writing was so rich and evocative that I could have been right there with them; and it seemed that though the seasons may change life at Puppetstown would always be the same.
Through a tangle of elder and laurel and twisting rhododendron they penetrated with the effortless accuracy of complete custom, to find themselves in the dim dark aisle of the Nut Walk. Here silence burned like a still flame behind green glass. The children’s sandalled feet padded without noise up the loamy path. The day was kept without. The golden July day was defeated. And beyond this darkness Aunt Dicksie’s own strip of garden lay like a bright sword of colour beneath the sun.
In the autumn the Nut Walk was the jolliest place of all. Filberts lay on the ground, splitting their creamy green jackets; round hazel nuts, polished like so many brown boots, were there to pick up. And walnuts, all ready to be crushed with enticing messiness from their coating of black slime, awaited the adventurer. But today the Nut Walk was drawn into itself, in a green and secret spell of quietness. Without words, the children hurried down the length of it an dropped themselves from a four-foot wall into the cheerfully brazen field below.
The Great War barely touched the family at Puppetstown. Easter’s father was killed, but he had always been a military man, he had often been away, and it had always been expected that one day he would not be coming back He was mourned and then life settled back into its usual pattern.
Aunt Brenda enjoyed the company of a British army Captain from the local garrison; but his visits were noticed by Irishmen fighting in another war, and so Aunt Brenda would witness the assassination of her Captain. Shocked the core, she rushed her sons and her niece to safety in England.
Great-Aunt Dicksie refused to go with them, insisting that she would not surrender her family home. She bolted the doors, she turned the ponies loose and she learned to live with just her memories and Patsy for company. Her garden became the focus of her life, she spent the little money she has on seeds and bulbs; leaving the house to go to rack and ruin, and dressing herself from the old clothes left in different wardrobes.
The cousins learned to move in English society, a world quite unlike the one they had left behind. Evelyn was happy there, he fell in love with an society beauty; but Basil still felt the pull of Ireland, and Puppetstown. He knew that Easter had inherited the house when she turned twenty-one, and he thought – he hoped – that she felt the same way.
“England,” Basil said; “she’s too crowded. We want a littler, wilder place. We’re half-English, both of us, Easter, but we haven’t got the settled, stable drop of blood that goes down with the English. Easter, the thing is we don’t see quite the same jokes. Isn’t this a mad way to talk? My dear, don’t think me an ass, but you do laugh in the wrong places for them. You’ll never be a success here – why you’re even conscious of their ghosts. Easter, dear, let’s run away from them all.”
“Where?” said Easter. The flame in Basil smote her eyes too, there was a sudden spear of light thrust through all her unacknowledged dark. “I know,” she said. “Basil listen, we’ll go back to Puppetstown. It’s everything that England’s not. And Aunt Dicksie’s there. And I’ve all my money. No one can stop us.” She hovered, disappointed here, “All the same – they’ll try. They’ll talk. We’ll have to slip off, Basil. Never tell a soul.”
They do just that, with no comprehension of how much they have changed since they left Ireland, and without thinking that Aunt Dicksie and Puppetstown could have have changed in their absence. Can they restore the house to its former glory, and have they grown up enough to all settle down happily together?
Molly Keane told a wonderful tale in this book.
I loved the arc of the story, and I loved the different arcs of the lives of the different characters. The country house and the people who lived and worked there came wonderfully to life; and their stories spoke profoundly, about family, about home, and about Irish history.
The ending was perfect.
I’d love to know what happened next; but I’m happy to be left to wonder, and to think about those halcyon childhood days at Puppetstown.
She began this story with a tumble of sentences, that fell somewhere between poetry and prose.
…. People drove about in dog-carts and pony traps.
Invitations were issued to tea.
Tea parties mattered too.
Women who powdered their faces were fast
Women who painted them – bad.
Hunting, low wages, feather boas, nipped in habit coats, curly bowlers, bunches of violets, black furs and purple hats were much in vogue.
A book called Three Weeks was both enjoyed and abused ….
Then eight year-old Easter Chevington wakes up early,and explores the delights of the nursery, until she hears her nanny stirring and creeps back into bed so the day can really begin. She is in her father’s country house, Puppetstown, where she lives with her father; her Great-Aunt Dicksie, who has lived there all her life and spends her days happily in her garden; her two boy cousins Evelyn and Basil, who are just a little; and their beautiful widowed mother Aunt Brenda, who thinks that she will marry again one day but for the present is happy to be indolent in such a lovely setting.
The lives of the three children were filled with joys. They ran and played in the grounds; chasing the peacock’s in Aunt Dicksie’s garden, distracting Patsy, the young boot boy, and running rings around O’Regan, the gardener. They ran rather wilder in the surrounding countryside; and they had so many adventures and days to remember, out with their dogs and their horses.
Molly’s Keane’s writing was so rich and evocative that I could have been right there with them; and it seemed that though the seasons may change life at Puppetstown would always be the same.
Through a tangle of elder and laurel and twisting rhododendron they penetrated with the effortless accuracy of complete custom, to find themselves in the dim dark aisle of the Nut Walk. Here silence burned like a still flame behind green glass. The children’s sandalled feet padded without noise up the loamy path. The day was kept without. The golden July day was defeated. And beyond this darkness Aunt Dicksie’s own strip of garden lay like a bright sword of colour beneath the sun.
In the autumn the Nut Walk was the jolliest place of all. Filberts lay on the ground, splitting their creamy green jackets; round hazel nuts, polished like so many brown boots, were there to pick up. And walnuts, all ready to be crushed with enticing messiness from their coating of black slime, awaited the adventurer. But today the Nut Walk was drawn into itself, in a green and secret spell of quietness. Without words, the children hurried down the length of it an dropped themselves from a four-foot wall into the cheerfully brazen field below.
The Great War barely touched the family at Puppetstown. Easter’s father was killed, but he had always been a military man, he had often been away, and it had always been expected that one day he would not be coming back He was mourned and then life settled back into its usual pattern.
Aunt Brenda enjoyed the company of a British army Captain from the local garrison; but his visits were noticed by Irishmen fighting in another war, and so Aunt Brenda would witness the assassination of her Captain. Shocked the core, she rushed her sons and her niece to safety in England.
Great-Aunt Dicksie refused to go with them, insisting that she would not surrender her family home. She bolted the doors, she turned the ponies loose and she learned to live with just her memories and Patsy for company. Her garden became the focus of her life, she spent the little money she has on seeds and bulbs; leaving the house to go to rack and ruin, and dressing herself from the old clothes left in different wardrobes.
The cousins learned to move in English society, a world quite unlike the one they had left behind. Evelyn was happy there, he fell in love with an society beauty; but Basil still felt the pull of Ireland, and Puppetstown. He knew that Easter had inherited the house when she turned twenty-one, and he thought – he hoped – that she felt the same way.
“England,” Basil said; “she’s too crowded. We want a littler, wilder place. We’re half-English, both of us, Easter, but we haven’t got the settled, stable drop of blood that goes down with the English. Easter, the thing is we don’t see quite the same jokes. Isn’t this a mad way to talk? My dear, don’t think me an ass, but you do laugh in the wrong places for them. You’ll never be a success here – why you’re even conscious of their ghosts. Easter, dear, let’s run away from them all.”
“Where?” said Easter. The flame in Basil smote her eyes too, there was a sudden spear of light thrust through all her unacknowledged dark. “I know,” she said. “Basil listen, we’ll go back to Puppetstown. It’s everything that England’s not. And Aunt Dicksie’s there. And I’ve all my money. No one can stop us.” She hovered, disappointed here, “All the same – they’ll try. They’ll talk. We’ll have to slip off, Basil. Never tell a soul.”
They do just that, with no comprehension of how much they have changed since they left Ireland, and without thinking that Aunt Dicksie and Puppetstown could have have changed in their absence. Can they restore the house to its former glory, and have they grown up enough to all settle down happily together?
Molly Keane told a wonderful tale in this book.
I loved the arc of the story, and I loved the different arcs of the lives of the different characters. The country house and the people who lived and worked there came wonderfully to life; and their stories spoke profoundly, about family, about home, and about Irish history.
The ending was perfect.
I’d love to know what happened next; but I’m happy to be left to wonder, and to think about those halcyon childhood days at Puppetstown.
November 8, 2023
finished it and then immediately forgot everything that had happenend.
August 1, 2013
If you read this book you are reading about the life of the author (similar to Nancy Mitford's book Love in a Cold Climate) as the setting is based on a house she spent every moment she could at a house which set the stage for the significant events of her life and as a backdrop to Irish history during this period.
This is a quote from the book and I have it committed to memory. I recite it as a mantra. It is the most beautiful passage of any book I have ever read, evoking an era I have a great deal of time for. In my mothers last days she would ask me to read to her from this book for it was her world too, an gentler age, sadly lost. But not in the books of Molly Keane. She brings it to life in vivid detail. Spiffing Stuff! I have a website about her - feel free to visit a website I created to honour her. www.mollykeane.com
Meanwhile here is the quote, my life mantra
“Then : -
They said: “You naughty man!”
They wore hair nets and tortoise-shell combs.
It was more than fast to accept presents from men.
You bought a blood four-year-old up to wieght for £60.
There was no wire.
The talked about “the ladies” and “motor-cars.”
“By George!” they said, but never used Americanisms; such were not known.
Their top boots were shorter and their spurs were worn lower down on the heel.
You loved with passion.
You did not trouble to keep your sense of humour ready in the background.
Love mattered.
Manners mattered.
Children mattered.
Places and dependents mattered too.
Money bought much more.
People drove about in dog-carts and pony traps.
Invitations were issued to tea.
Tea parties mattered too.
Women who powdered their faces were fast
Women who painted them - bad.
Hunting, low wages, feather boas, nipped in habit coats, curly bowlers, bunches of violets, black furs and purple hats were much in vogue.
A book called Three Weeks was both enjoyed and abused.
Champagne was a frequent drink. Women never drank whisky.
by Molly Keane an extract from Mad Puppetown published 1931 Collins Great Britian.
Molly Keane is the Irish literary queen of black comedy. If you are a fan of Nancy Mitford or Jane Austen (her literary mentor) you will enjoy these books. With a wit as sharp as a meat slicer, Molly cut a literary swathe through the manners and mores of Anglo Irish aristocracy in the twenties & thirties when dancing was to the wind-up gramophone, everyone was drunk before dinner on White Ladies and there were mad amounts of bed hopping. Everyone knew everyone and everyone was obsessed with horses and hunting, in fact she only started writing to fund this passion.
Hailed as the Irish Nancy Mitford in her day, she was in fact so much more. As well as writing books she was the leading playright of the 30‘s, her work directed by John Geilgood. Unlike Nancy Mitford no one other than her closest friends had a clue that Molly who they rode out and hunted alongside daily was in fact the famous author M.J.Farrell - the nom de plume she wrote under.
I have a website about her - feel free to visit a website I created to honour her. www.mollykeane.com
This is a quote from the book and I have it committed to memory. I recite it as a mantra. It is the most beautiful passage of any book I have ever read, evoking an era I have a great deal of time for. In my mothers last days she would ask me to read to her from this book for it was her world too, an gentler age, sadly lost. But not in the books of Molly Keane. She brings it to life in vivid detail. Spiffing Stuff! I have a website about her - feel free to visit a website I created to honour her. www.mollykeane.com
Meanwhile here is the quote, my life mantra
“Then : -
They said: “You naughty man!”
They wore hair nets and tortoise-shell combs.
It was more than fast to accept presents from men.
You bought a blood four-year-old up to wieght for £60.
There was no wire.
The talked about “the ladies” and “motor-cars.”
“By George!” they said, but never used Americanisms; such were not known.
Their top boots were shorter and their spurs were worn lower down on the heel.
You loved with passion.
You did not trouble to keep your sense of humour ready in the background.
Love mattered.
Manners mattered.
Children mattered.
Places and dependents mattered too.
Money bought much more.
People drove about in dog-carts and pony traps.
Invitations were issued to tea.
Tea parties mattered too.
Women who powdered their faces were fast
Women who painted them - bad.
Hunting, low wages, feather boas, nipped in habit coats, curly bowlers, bunches of violets, black furs and purple hats were much in vogue.
A book called Three Weeks was both enjoyed and abused.
Champagne was a frequent drink. Women never drank whisky.
by Molly Keane an extract from Mad Puppetown published 1931 Collins Great Britian.
Molly Keane is the Irish literary queen of black comedy. If you are a fan of Nancy Mitford or Jane Austen (her literary mentor) you will enjoy these books. With a wit as sharp as a meat slicer, Molly cut a literary swathe through the manners and mores of Anglo Irish aristocracy in the twenties & thirties when dancing was to the wind-up gramophone, everyone was drunk before dinner on White Ladies and there were mad amounts of bed hopping. Everyone knew everyone and everyone was obsessed with horses and hunting, in fact she only started writing to fund this passion.
Hailed as the Irish Nancy Mitford in her day, she was in fact so much more. As well as writing books she was the leading playright of the 30‘s, her work directed by John Geilgood. Unlike Nancy Mitford no one other than her closest friends had a clue that Molly who they rode out and hunted alongside daily was in fact the famous author M.J.Farrell - the nom de plume she wrote under.
I have a website about her - feel free to visit a website I created to honour her. www.mollykeane.com
April 2, 2018
Mad Puppetstown is a wonderful evocation of an Irish childhood in the early twentieth century, before the First World War. On page one Molly Keane describes the world as it was – as it would have been for her. The novel begins:
“Then : –
They said: “You naughty man!”
They wore hair nets and tortoise-shell combs.
It was more than fast to accept presents from men.
You bought a blood four-year-old up to weight for £60.
There was no wire.
The talked about “the ladies” and “motor-cars.”
“By George!” they said, but never used Americanisms; such were not known.
Their top boots were shorter and their spurs were worn lower down on the heel.
You loved with passion.
You did not trouble to keep your sense of humour ready in the background.
Love mattered.
Manners mattered.
Children mattered.
Places and dependents mattered too.
Money bought much more.
People drove about in dog-carts and pony traps.
Invitations were issued to tea.
Tea parties mattered too.
Women who powdered their faces were fast
Women who painted them – bad.
Hunting, low wages, feather boas, nipped in habit coats, curly bowlers, bunches of violets, black furs and purple hats were much in vogue.
A book called Three Weeks was both enjoyed and abused.
Champagne was a frequent drink. Women never drank whisky.”
Like poetry, I wanted to learn those lines and recite them. I was captivated immediately both by the world I found myself in, and Molly Keane’s glorious voice – her writing is always fabulous – somehow, I had forgotten how good she is.
Into what Molly Keane calls ‘those full-blooded’ days young Easter Chevington is born and raised. She is eight as the novel opens, living in her father’s country house of Mad Puppetstown with her father, Great-Aunt Dicksie, her two adored boy cousins Evelyn and Basil and their beautiful widowed mother Aunt Brenda. The children live a charmed life – running free, and slightly wild in the Irish countryside, surrounding the house. It is a way of life Molly Keane describes to absolute perfection. Easter and the boys brought up with the ways of horses, learning to shoot woodcock and snipe in the woods. Playing with Patsy; the boot boy, teasing the Peacocks in Aunt Dicksie’s garden – and tormenting the life out of O’Regan who works in the garden. It’s a joy of a childhood,with dogs, ponies and a riot of adventures.
Full review: https://heavenali.wordpress.com/2018/...
“Then : –
They said: “You naughty man!”
They wore hair nets and tortoise-shell combs.
It was more than fast to accept presents from men.
You bought a blood four-year-old up to weight for £60.
There was no wire.
The talked about “the ladies” and “motor-cars.”
“By George!” they said, but never used Americanisms; such were not known.
Their top boots were shorter and their spurs were worn lower down on the heel.
You loved with passion.
You did not trouble to keep your sense of humour ready in the background.
Love mattered.
Manners mattered.
Children mattered.
Places and dependents mattered too.
Money bought much more.
People drove about in dog-carts and pony traps.
Invitations were issued to tea.
Tea parties mattered too.
Women who powdered their faces were fast
Women who painted them – bad.
Hunting, low wages, feather boas, nipped in habit coats, curly bowlers, bunches of violets, black furs and purple hats were much in vogue.
A book called Three Weeks was both enjoyed and abused.
Champagne was a frequent drink. Women never drank whisky.”
Like poetry, I wanted to learn those lines and recite them. I was captivated immediately both by the world I found myself in, and Molly Keane’s glorious voice – her writing is always fabulous – somehow, I had forgotten how good she is.
Into what Molly Keane calls ‘those full-blooded’ days young Easter Chevington is born and raised. She is eight as the novel opens, living in her father’s country house of Mad Puppetstown with her father, Great-Aunt Dicksie, her two adored boy cousins Evelyn and Basil and their beautiful widowed mother Aunt Brenda. The children live a charmed life – running free, and slightly wild in the Irish countryside, surrounding the house. It is a way of life Molly Keane describes to absolute perfection. Easter and the boys brought up with the ways of horses, learning to shoot woodcock and snipe in the woods. Playing with Patsy; the boot boy, teasing the Peacocks in Aunt Dicksie’s garden – and tormenting the life out of O’Regan who works in the garden. It’s a joy of a childhood,with dogs, ponies and a riot of adventures.
Full review: https://heavenali.wordpress.com/2018/...
Want to read
January 20, 2024I hope it lives up to its title
May 31, 2021
I went on a Virago Modern Classics buying spree at Abe Books, so watch out....
This was an interesting read. Keane, writing as Farrell, knew the subject matter of this novel intimately- the wonder and tension of the British gentry living in Ireland for generations but becoming the enemy during the Troubles of the early part of the previous century. The characters in this novel are children at the turn of the century, living in grand style in their family estate in Ireland. WW I interferes with their happiness only slightly, but when Sinn Fein violence strikes home, exile to England is inevitable. Several years later, two of the cousins come back to Puppetstown, but will they be welcome?
Keane's prose style takes some getting used to, but the descriptions are often lovely, and the characters we are meant to like are well drawn. She does a great job including the POV of the native Irish during these times, and seems to have understood why the British were considered interlopers. The only struggle I had was the imbalance in scene descriptions; tedious fox hunts and horses (two of her passions, evidently) would go on and on for pages, but time passed in great jumps and gallops in just a few paragraphs when more detail would have benefited the plot.
This was an interesting read. Keane, writing as Farrell, knew the subject matter of this novel intimately- the wonder and tension of the British gentry living in Ireland for generations but becoming the enemy during the Troubles of the early part of the previous century. The characters in this novel are children at the turn of the century, living in grand style in their family estate in Ireland. WW I interferes with their happiness only slightly, but when Sinn Fein violence strikes home, exile to England is inevitable. Several years later, two of the cousins come back to Puppetstown, but will they be welcome?
Keane's prose style takes some getting used to, but the descriptions are often lovely, and the characters we are meant to like are well drawn. She does a great job including the POV of the native Irish during these times, and seems to have understood why the British were considered interlopers. The only struggle I had was the imbalance in scene descriptions; tedious fox hunts and horses (two of her passions, evidently) would go on and on for pages, but time passed in great jumps and gallops in just a few paragraphs when more detail would have benefited the plot.
April 16, 2014
Wonderful portrait of the end of the era of the Anglo-Irish landed gentry. The complications of the lives of all concerned - the Irish, the English and the Anglo-Irish were so inextricably bound together with mutual dependency, resentment (both conscious and unconscious), tradition and some affection, loyalty and loathing.
Partly it is a beautifully described nostalgic portrait of vanished homes and gardens. Partly it is an acerbic picture of the heedless lives that centered around huntin' and fishin', clothes and parties, all with the nearly invisible help of the locals, and of the mighty disruptions that occurred with the Great War and the "little, bitter, forgotten war in Ireland". And unforgettably it is also a portrait of one old woman's lifelong love affair with her house and her garden.
Partly it is a beautifully described nostalgic portrait of vanished homes and gardens. Partly it is an acerbic picture of the heedless lives that centered around huntin' and fishin', clothes and parties, all with the nearly invisible help of the locals, and of the mighty disruptions that occurred with the Great War and the "little, bitter, forgotten war in Ireland". And unforgettably it is also a portrait of one old woman's lifelong love affair with her house and her garden.
July 3, 2014
I simply love Molly Keane's writing and MP is right up there with her best.
October 7, 2015
Not for everyone, but I loved this story of a crumbling estate in Ireland before/during the war. Wonderful language and tone.
February 23, 2023
I am not too enthused about this novel by Molly Keane (going at the time by her pseudonym of M.J. Farrell. I’m just not into the fox-chase-hound-hunt-with-horses thing, and she has had that in most of the books I have read by her. I guess in Good Behaviour (1981) I did not mind it that much because there was so much more in the book that I loved. I am giving this novel 2.5 stars.
This novel was about Ireland in the early 1900s that included up to after World War One and the Irish War of Independence (a guerrilla war fought in Ireland from 1919 to 1921 between the Irish Republican Army (IRA, the army of the Irish Republic) and British forces. The intra-country strife forms a part of the book, and I think if there was more of that, I might have been more interested in it. It was also about living the life of leisure by Anglo-Irish people who had a lot of money and could afford to live in a country house with maids and servants and stables and lawn tennis courts (prior to WWI). That was interesting too, but not enough for me. I think it was because I did not really like any of the characters in the 288-page novel. I’d have to say Easter was the main protagonist (8 years old at the beginning of the novel and early 20s at its end), and she did not endear herself to me, or her two cousins who were twin brothers (Evelyn and Basil) or their brainless mother Brenda. Another primary character in the novel was Aunt Dicksie...she was OK. She had never married and when everybody else deserted the county house called Puppetstown, she and one servant remained and lived there for 6 years or so while the civil war went on.
I’m not doing a very good job of describing the novel. Here is the synopsis that is given on the back of my Virago Modern Classic re-issue (1985, with a nicely written Introduction by Polly Devlin [http://www.troublesarchive.com/artist...
• In the early 1900s Easter lives with her Aunt Brenda, her cousins Evelyn and Basil, and their Great-Aunt Dicksie in an imposing country house, Puppetstown, which casts a spell over their childhood. Here they spend carefree days taunting the peacocks in Aunt Dicksie’s garden, shooting snipe and woodcock, hunting, and playing with Patsy, the boot boy. But the house and its inhabitants are not immune to the “little, bitter, forgotten war in Ireland” and when it finally touches their lives all flee to England. All except Aunt Dicksie who refuses to surrender Puppetstown’s magic. She stays on with Patsy, living a in a corner of the deserted house while in England the cousins are groomed for Society. But for two of them those wild, lost Puppetstown years cannot be forgotten. First published in 1931, this is a rich and evocative novel, combining the intricacies of family feeling and a powerful sense of place with a pervasive awareness of “those strange, silent, dangerous days” in Ireland.
Reviews...which are quite enthusiastic:
• https://heavenali.wordpress.com/2018/...
• from a 1932 review in the New York Times! https://www.enotes.com/topics/molly-k...
This novel was about Ireland in the early 1900s that included up to after World War One and the Irish War of Independence (a guerrilla war fought in Ireland from 1919 to 1921 between the Irish Republican Army (IRA, the army of the Irish Republic) and British forces. The intra-country strife forms a part of the book, and I think if there was more of that, I might have been more interested in it. It was also about living the life of leisure by Anglo-Irish people who had a lot of money and could afford to live in a country house with maids and servants and stables and lawn tennis courts (prior to WWI). That was interesting too, but not enough for me. I think it was because I did not really like any of the characters in the 288-page novel. I’d have to say Easter was the main protagonist (8 years old at the beginning of the novel and early 20s at its end), and she did not endear herself to me, or her two cousins who were twin brothers (Evelyn and Basil) or their brainless mother Brenda. Another primary character in the novel was Aunt Dicksie...she was OK. She had never married and when everybody else deserted the county house called Puppetstown, she and one servant remained and lived there for 6 years or so while the civil war went on.
I’m not doing a very good job of describing the novel. Here is the synopsis that is given on the back of my Virago Modern Classic re-issue (1985, with a nicely written Introduction by Polly Devlin [http://www.troublesarchive.com/artist...
• In the early 1900s Easter lives with her Aunt Brenda, her cousins Evelyn and Basil, and their Great-Aunt Dicksie in an imposing country house, Puppetstown, which casts a spell over their childhood. Here they spend carefree days taunting the peacocks in Aunt Dicksie’s garden, shooting snipe and woodcock, hunting, and playing with Patsy, the boot boy. But the house and its inhabitants are not immune to the “little, bitter, forgotten war in Ireland” and when it finally touches their lives all flee to England. All except Aunt Dicksie who refuses to surrender Puppetstown’s magic. She stays on with Patsy, living a in a corner of the deserted house while in England the cousins are groomed for Society. But for two of them those wild, lost Puppetstown years cannot be forgotten. First published in 1931, this is a rich and evocative novel, combining the intricacies of family feeling and a powerful sense of place with a pervasive awareness of “those strange, silent, dangerous days” in Ireland.
Reviews...which are quite enthusiastic:
• https://heavenali.wordpress.com/2018/...
• from a 1932 review in the New York Times! https://www.enotes.com/topics/molly-k...
December 6, 2023
My first Molly Keane was Good Behaviour, which I thought was marvelous. I decided to read the rest of her novels in chronological order, and Mad Puppetstown was her first. It disappointed me.
Two-thirds of the book is devoted to an obviously nostalgic account of what life in an old Anglo-Irish country house was like for children in the early years of the 20th century. I think she couldn't figure out where to go from there, so she picked up the story six years later, when the children were grown, and sent them back to Ireland (they had been living in England due to The Troubles). I didn't find this section at all convincing, and from a structural point of view it didn't work at all.
The heart of the book is the nostalgia for a vanished life, and how do you resolve that? Keane has the grown-up children determined to restore the estate to its former glory. But the world has moved on. World War I marked a turning point in European life. How were they planning on re-creating the old life? And much of the nostalgia was about childhood, and they are now adults. Things will never be the same.
Of course, this was her first novel. I know she improved tremendously, so I'm eager to read more of her more mature books.
Two-thirds of the book is devoted to an obviously nostalgic account of what life in an old Anglo-Irish country house was like for children in the early years of the 20th century. I think she couldn't figure out where to go from there, so she picked up the story six years later, when the children were grown, and sent them back to Ireland (they had been living in England due to The Troubles). I didn't find this section at all convincing, and from a structural point of view it didn't work at all.
The heart of the book is the nostalgia for a vanished life, and how do you resolve that? Keane has the grown-up children determined to restore the estate to its former glory. But the world has moved on. World War I marked a turning point in European life. How were they planning on re-creating the old life? And much of the nostalgia was about childhood, and they are now adults. Things will never be the same.
Of course, this was her first novel. I know she improved tremendously, so I'm eager to read more of her more mature books.
April 8, 2025
It’s magic.
One of the best writers, and, ironically, since it’s told from the Anglo-Irish point of view, captures something of the spirit of 1918. Sometimes from the other side you see it best.
Beautiful, beautiful book.
One of the best writers, and, ironically, since it’s told from the Anglo-Irish point of view, captures something of the spirit of 1918. Sometimes from the other side you see it best.
Beautiful, beautiful book.
Read
May 12, 2015ON a flight from London to NY
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