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by Margaret Drabble, Маргарет Драбъл, Людмила Харманджиева (Translator)

The middle years of Kate Armstrong are caught between parents and children and are free of neither. Relentlessly good-natured, surprisingly successful, lapped by the affection of her children and friends and intidily folded into the clutter of her overflowing house, Kate is now suddenly in her forties.
Margaret Drable takes Kate's predicament - when Kate is forced to make a reconnaissance of the middle ground of her life - and turns it into a wise, witty and ebullient novel.

Genres: Fiction, British Literature, Novels, 20th Century, Literary Fiction, Contemporary

285 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1980

About the author

Dame Margaret Drabble was born in Sheffield in 1939 and was educated at Newnham College, Cambridge. She is the author of eighteen novels including A Summer Bird-Cage, The Millstone, The Peppered Moth, The Red Queen, The Sea Lady and most recently, the highly acclaimed The Pure Gold Baby. She has also written biographies, screenplays and was the editor of the Oxford Companion to English Literature. She was appointed CBE in 1980, and made DBE in the 2008 Honours list. She was also awarded the 2011 Golden PEN Award for a Lifetime's Distinguished Service to Literature. She is married to the biographer Michael Holroyd.

Drabble famously has a long-running feud with her novelist sister, A.S. Byatt. The pair seldom see each other, and each does not read the books of the other.

Reviews

[Jan-Maat]

Ok...

Well...

What....

I assume Margaret Drabble was more experimental than I had thought, but I am not sure what she was aiming to achieve.

I am not even sure if I can honestly refer to this book as a novel, but in any case it's central figure is Kate Armstrong, I think she is a journalist of some kind which may or may not be relevant, it is hard to know. In any case the book begins and ends with her and we are mostly with her.

It is not that strictly speaking the novel is Kate Armstrong's stream of conciousness, it seems to be the stream of conciousness of the omniscient narrator and the narration is a at first an intense dance through character after character from Kate we leap back to her parents, her elder brother who apparently sends not very anonymous threatening letters to her, to her paternal grandfather, to people she knew at school to her first husband who she meet at someone else's house and all the other people she meet there. at this point about a quarter of the way through the book I thought to myself - there is no way all these characters can feature in this book of only 272 pages they don't - there isn't space unless there is going to be some tour de force group scene involving them all there isn't but presumably there was some meaning to having all these characters - it reminded me suddenly of The children's book and it's crowds of swirling characters. Perhaps the two sisters are engaged in some kind of ongoing bookish duel. Indeed Kate's dysfunctional relationship with her elder brother put me in mind of Drabble's which is said to be awkward with her sister -A.S. Byatt.

Way back in the first quarter of the book Kate walking through a park, the heel of one of her boots wobbling dangerously beneath her, she suddenly catches a whiff of air from a sewer and drops to her knees desiring to breath in the scent deeply - her father we know worked in sewage, Kate reflects that the smell of drains is her madeleine, perhaps if I had read Proust I might have understood more of the novel but I haven't.

Towards the end we learn that Kate's daughter is reading Mrs Dalloway and the book closes with Kate sitting in her undergarments not quite deciding which dress she will wear for the party she is hosting in her house. Alack I haven't read Mrs Dalloway either, perhaps if I had the book might have made a different kind of sense.

So about a third of the way through I wondered if at some point the book would pull together and some sense emerge it didn't for me , despite this it was funny, often, in odd half lines and responses, funny, of course at her characters expenses and at Kate's observations of graffiti in the London Underground.

I can't even say it is a portrait of Kate Armstrong, her life and place in a network of friends and acquaintances because the book also swirls round people that she comes into contact with like the wife of her one time lover.

Well I'm darned if I know what Drabble aimed to achieve, but she certainly wrote something and you can read it for yourself and see what you can make of it.

[Laurie · Rating 4 out of 5]

“The Middle Ground” is basically a novel without a plot, a book driven by the characters. A middle aged group of British spouses, lovers and friends seeks to find their ways through mid-life crises time.

Kate, a journalist, sees her job changing and maybe going away; she has been a writer of pieces about women, their problems and how society is wronging them. She had a liaison for many years with the husband of her best friend, with the blessings of said friend, as said friend didn’t want to have sex with the man any longer. That’s over now. Her children have grown up and no longer need her. What is next for her? What is next for her friends, who are also at changing points in their lives?

While mainly about the changes of middle age, this novel was written from a feminist viewpoint in the era when so many authors were writing feminist novels. Thankfully, this one has men who are not all selfish idiots. Well, her ex-lover is a selfish idiot, but the others aren’t. Everyone in this story is flawed but with a basic core of decency and respect for others; this is not a book of good and evil caricatures but of realism. The book follows them as they go about their everyday live, lives full of the same pains, problems and joys we all share. Though far from being Drabble’s best work, ‘Middle Ground’ is a warm paean to friendship and survival.

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Inspired by a conversation with a GR friend that made me realise how minute a fraction of Margaret Drabble’s writing I actually was aware of, I decided to improve my knowledge, and embarked on my very own Drabble-adventures. The first stop on my journey is "The middle ground" and here are a couple of my short reflections.

Kate, is your usual Drabble-heroine. An independent woman, leaving of her writing, navigates among her friends and family, children, parents and an assortment of ex-husbands and lovers. She is about 40, just as Margaret Drabble was at a time when this novel was published. But those of you who read books for their plot and a consistent story might want to look elsewhere. This is all about life - relationships, reflexions, and a picture of life as it was there and then.

But most of all, there is this intoxicating quality to Margaret Drabble's writing. The text, that tends to flow in an almost unbroken stream. The intrusions, as if a single flow of thought wasn't enough, branch out here and there, loop around a while, and then join in smoothly back again into the main thought. The sentences that continue far beyond their logical length and the thick paragraphs that are told on a single breath, that will make you dizzy and want to gasp for air…. But somehow, if you give it your undivided attention the experience will be magical.

[Elinor · Rating 2 out of 5]

Maybe it was just because I haven't got to the stage in life that this book is all about, but I didn't enjoy this as much as some of Drabble's other novels. I'm assuming this is because I just didn't have enough in common with the main character - but I kept on reading in the hopes that it would get going, that some plot would emerge, and it really didn't. There wasn't much character development either. I definitely wouldn't recommend this to anyone trying Drabble for the first time.

[Alixe · Rating 5 out of 5]

This woman is a genius and I feel sad for not having read more from her earlier. And only discovering her as an author now. Although I feel closer to the protagonist that I would have 10 years ago, I think. So that might have helped to the enjoyment.

So many pearls.

“Kate began to laugh again, as she pulled off her clothes: why ever bother to try to make sense of so much nonsense, but however could one stop? She fell asleep in an instant, to wake, as one does, at four o'clock in the morning, stone cold with anxiety and remorse.”

[Paddy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like Radiant Way, I've downgraded this novel to three stars. Same complaint about tangents. By the end I was happy again, but the middle ground of Middle Ground was too full of people whose lives don't matter to the plot but do serve to paint a broad portrait of a period.

[Adi · Rating 3 out of 5]

The novel is basically a reflection of a lifetime. Or rather Kate Armstrong's experience up to her mid-forties. Through self-observation and evaluation, she discusses her achievements in different areas of her story - relationships, family affairs, friendships, work activities, hobbies and so on.
The book is aimed at women from a different generation (it was first published in 1980), so clearly it's old-fashioned, but in all honesty some of the topics it depicts are still valid today.

[Joel.Stardust]

DNF’ed at 40%

i’m not a DNF’er at all, like at all! i’ll persevere through the most horrible books but this was just entirely not for me, it’s not bad at all but i just can’t get or see myself to finish this at all. i don’t mind a plotless book but this one is just not made for me and that’s okay!

[Jean · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am finding the book quite absorbing, although, since it was written in 1980, the feminist and political views expressed by the characters seem rather dated, in the light of hindsight. I expect they were considered quite unusual at the time. Later: I am afraid that as the book progressed I began to lose interest in the main character's increasingly peculiar life, friends and acquaintances. I finished the book with difficulty and was very disappointed in it as Margaret Drabble has written some excellent novels and is usually one of my favourite authors. I fear this book is not in the same class as others she has written - or perhaps I lacked the intellect to enjoy it.

[Alan]

Interesting characters. Not much of a plot line, just a period of time in the life of the people around Kate, a middle aged author of liberated women's articles. Written in 1982, it captures a time in English life that is interesting, even when not much happens.

[Corey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Earnest and intelligent, but also a bit stuffy and claustrophobic.

[Allison]

Picked it out of my stack of Drabble's books as I read the first page and found it quite funny. More to come.

[Alice · Rating 4 out of 5]

I constantly confuse Margaret Drabble and Muriel Spark, to my enormous shame.

I enjoyed this story of a middle-aged feminist, her friends and family: the way the novel shifts between past and present tenses so you feel these are real people living their 1980 life around you; Kate's postwar adolescence; most of all, the London of the 1940s, 1960s, 1980s, its people and places still familiar today.

[Barbara · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked this book up in a used book store. It's a fairly enjoyable read where nothing much happens to mostly pleasant characters. Don't expect plot - it's really a detailed character study and social/urban commentary set in 1980. Though not a long book, the last 50 or so pages, where the author also studies all the secondary and tertiary characters, could easily have been cut.

[Esther · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not one of her bests. I trudged through this. The narrative was a vehicle to tackle issues and as such the story wasn’t that engaging and was more like a series of women’s features from the Guardian of the late 70s.

[Lila · Rating 5 out of 5]

The characters and plot are really quite secondary to this novel. Read it for its language. It is engrossing, well written, and witty.

[Behrooz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Was easy to read and ok. Not a page turner.

[Digby · Rating 3 out of 5]

Depressing middle-age through the eyes of feminist Kate.

[Johanna Juntunen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Joo olihan tää ihan hyvä opus. Mielenkiintoinen tyyli tolla kirjailijalla kirjottaa ja periaatteessa luku 1 kesti koko kirjan läpi mutta menihän tää. Ei paha.

[Monica · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just want to sink into her sentences forever; like listening to a charismatic if sometimes exhausting friend hold forth, where you don't even have to answer...

[emma · Rating 4 out of 5]

i really liked this, i don’t tend to read things with so little plot which made it hard to follow at some points (so many names to remember) but it was sweet and real and fun!

[Penny · Rating 4 out of 5]

okay

[Kathleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Margaret Drabble is one of my favs. I really enjoyed this when I first read it because I loved the way she captured the time in which it is set. On this read I loved the way she captured the feelings of midlife.

[Becky · Rating 3 out of 5]

A witty

[Kathleen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ah, middle age...

[Dogsandbooks]

Donated to DPL July 2015

[Valerie · Rating 5 out of 5]

really enjoyed it....probably more autobiographical than total fiction

[Jan Steele · Rating 4 out of 5]

Slightly dated view of characters' lives in the UK as they struggle with their own middle age, child rearing, ageing parents etc. Some good insights here about what's important in life.

[Felicity · Rating 1 out of 5]

I did not finish this book. I read to page 50 but it wasn't holding my attention so I didn't continue.

[Candy Wood]

This must be the Margaret Drabble novel that gets compared to Mrs. Dalloway. It doesn’t invite the comparison at first, beginning with a scene in a London restaurant involving Kate and Hugo, then switching to a long flashback from an omniscient narrator’s viewpoint: “Here is an account of Kate’s past history….” By the end, though, readers share the consciousness not only of Kate and Hugo but of other characters connected to them, especially Hugo’s cousin Evelyn, who is married to Ted, with whom Kate has had an extended affair while remaining close friends with Evelyn. And Kate is preparing to give a party, even going out to buy flowers (her son drives her) on the urging of her daughter, who is “doing Mrs Dalloway for A level.” Rereading it now, I wonder what sense I made of it in the 1980s, when I was still younger than the main characters and was less aware of the problems of violence in the Middle East and hostility toward immigrants that already affected their lives. Will keep thinking about the importance of London.