The Doves of Venus

by Olivia Manning

Pretty, brave, and eighteen, Ellie has come to London in search of adventure, which she soon finds through Quintin Bellot, the handsome but tired dilettante who finds her a job in fashionable Chelsea. But Quintin, the seducer of one dove, is also the husband of another. And Petta, his once beautiful wife, is fighting back age as fiercely as Ellie is plunging into it.

Genres: Fiction, British Literature, Classics, Coming Of Age, 20th Century, Historical Fiction, Modern Classics

313 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1955

About the author

Olivia Manning CBE was a British novelist, poet, writer and reviewer. Her fiction and non-fiction, frequently detailing journeys and personal odysseys, were principally set in England, Ireland, Europe and the Middle East. She often wrote from her personal experience, though her books also demonstrate strengths in imaginative writing. Her books are widely admired for her artistic eye and vivid descriptions of place.
In August 1939 she married R.D. Smith ("Reggie"), a British Council lecturer posted in Bucharest, Romania, and subsequently in Greece, Egypt and Palestine as the Nazis over-ran Eastern Europe. Her experiences formed the basis for her best known work, the six novels making up "The Balkan Trilogy" and "The Levant Trilogy," known collectively as Fortunes of War. As she had feared, real fame only came after her death in 1980, when an adaptation of "Fortunes of War" was televised in 1987.

Reviews

[Bettie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Description: Eighteen-year-old Ellie has come to London in search of adventure. Quintin, finds her a job in fashionable Chelsea. But Quintin, the seducer of one dove is also the husband of another. And Petta, his once beautiful wife, is fighting back age as fiercely as Ellie is plunging into it.

Opening: Walking home one night, taking a round-about route to add to experience, to stay awake a little longer and meet perhaps, some curiosity of life not met before, Ellie Parsons, aged eighteen, independent, eployed person, living in Chelsea, passed, near Victoria Coach Station, a couple from her home town.

According to the introduction by Isobel English, Ellie Parsons is the forerunner of Harriet Pringle in the two trilogies.

'The Embankment meant she was nearly home.'

[..]reproduction of Rousseau's "Snake Charmer" that hung over her bed.

'People, seeing the marks of age upon one another, begin to pity where they used to envy, and so are drawn together.'Thus speaks the insincere Quintin to the easily bluffed Alma.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wanted to give this 5 stars, but something is holding me back. I think it might be that although Manning found herself a dramatic and interesting theme, she worked it just a little too hard. Our main character, Ellie, 19 fresh up to London in the early 1950s is determined to make her way - on her own, and she is put through multiple hard lessons, but it's just a little too poignant, just a little too bitter. Everything rings true - Quintin, that dilettante, using, abusing and utterly indifferent to Ellie's sufferings. The harshness of her employers, their indifference, her poverty - it's all so true, and yet there is a sense of - "there, I told you so. . . " - which is exactly what Ellie is desperate to avoid from her tough nut of a mother.

I read this as part of a group - and I noticed that several readers commented on how naive Ellie is - how she isn't really believable in her devotion to Quintin. She clings to the possibility of the affair working out - for a year, and then genuinely grieves and mourns him when she believes Quintin to have died. That's a nasty little subplot devised by Petta, Quintin's neglected and abused, and abusive wife, who takes her revenge on Mrs Primrose, one of Quintin's lovers and at the same time, this woman happens to be Ellie's employer. Mrs P runs a furniture business, that specialises in 'antiquing' cheap pieces into a certain style which is on trend. Ellie initially works in the basement, wrapping and packaging, but persuades Quintin to put in a word for to get her moved into the Studio where she can learn the skills of being an artist in the furniture painting business.

In fact Petta's story runs parallel to Ellie's; she is older and jaded. She has money from an inherited fortune but feels that life has nothing further to offer her. Like Ellie she pines after the handsome and charming cad that is Quintin, believing that if only she could re-capture their enchantment with each other then everything would be wonderful again. Petta's main concerns are her fading looks and her inability to stem her boredom with any person or anything around her. There is a scene with her estranged daughter Flora, who at the age of 16 informs Petta, she will study medicine.

Petta's character is there to demonstrate the move forward in the expanding possibilities for women; the differences between the 30s and after the second world war? Ellie's character shows the harsh reality of what it means for a young women, with a working-class background, minimal training and zero contacts to establish herself in the world of 'earning a living'. I agree with all of Manning's reality - and yet I'm irked by her bitterness. I first read this at a time in my life, some 15 or more years ago when I identified precisely with Ellie. I also knew the harsh realities of being an outsider in a competitive and unscrupulous job market - yes a callous, a cunning, a devious world. A world that chewed me up and spat me out, just like Ellie, and like Ellie I had no choice but to grind on - the need to pay my way a remorseless pressure weighing on me. Just like Ellie, grinding through work, endlessly worrying about covering the basics, and then frightened to death when I was repeatedly and callously ejected from whichever lowly job I had. My main resource and support was connecting with other women in an identical situation to myself. Most of us were outsiders, foreigners, but I realised I could include local women in the same lot as myself - most of those however, had husbands who could provide a safety net, or had a Cypriot family etc.

Back to Ellie - so what is that "irk" in Manning's story? Both Ellie and Petta survive - Manning doesn't allow them to die from starvation or desperation - we're no longer in the Victorian era. I can only offer that our author is angry as she is writing this. It has a sense of the personal, of an autobiographical element. It also comes across as an 'earlier work' one, whereby she has not yet reached the success of her famous books The Balkan Trilogy and The Levant Trilogy which I've read - the entire set, possibly two or more times. Why are those books so much more appealing? Harriet Pringle - do we admire her because she is a hero in life - in contrast to Ellie, who only just scrapes through. Is that the missing element? Do we only want to hear about winners and heroes in our fiction - and the poor desperates with their miserable realities - who is is that manages to write well about poverty - Balzac, Simenon, Kafka, Victor Hugo, Steinbeck? Do we live in an era where it is no longer palatable to read about the intense struggles of just surviving, the reality of our world. Do we no longer want to hear about these realities? Is that the irk? Has fiction become all about escapism, the preference for other realities and possibilities?

Do we really live in a society where a 19 year old can be criticised as being naive and when did it become untrendy for a female writer to pen bitterness and anger at her lot in life. Ellie's character only has her fighting spirit and her belief in herself - when did those qualities fall out of favour?

[Mela · Rating 5 out of 5]

As one of the summaries says, it was a novel about loving and aging. It was also about gender, how women tried to find their own (new) position (rights).

The best thing was the simple, unpretentious style of narration. Adding to it in a way a simple story it is almost hard to believe how gripping the book was.

I did struggle at first because Ellie was rather annoying (she was so partly to the end) but fast I got to the point that I knew I like Manning's style and what she had been telling. The character's study was brilliant.

[4.5 stars]

[Cphe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not my favourite read by the author. Found it difficult to find a lot of sympathy with the characters overall. Felt young Ellie was a bit too naive for her own good but then I have perhaps measured her against young women these days.

Did enjoy the setting and love the period though.

[JacquiWine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Olivia Manning is perhaps best known for The Balkan Trilogy and The Levant Trilogy (Fortunes of War), a set of six novels inspired by her experiences of life in Eastern Europe and the Middle East during the Second World War. Before embarking on this series in the 1960s, she wrote a number of standalone novels including The Doves of Venus, a coming-of-age story set in London in the 1950s.

Eighteen-year-old Ellie Parsons has escaped the limitations of a dreary existence in the provinces to create a new life for herself in the city. Despite the disapproval of her somewhat bitter mother and conventional sister, Ellie is determined to make a success of her move to London, relishing her new-found independence and all the opportunities the future may bring. She has a tiny room at the top of a Chelsea boarding-house, a job packing furniture at Primrose’s (a business run by the formidable Mrs P), and an older lover named Quintin Bellot. As the book opens, Ellie is on her way home after spending the evening with Quintin, high on the first flushes of love and the excitement of new experiences ahead.

Profoundly satisfied by her adopted city, Ellie found her key, entered her house and climbed to her room on the top floor. When she reached it, she opened her window and gazed down on the windows of Margaretta Terrace. She was wide awake again and excited as though, even at this last minute of the day, life might extend some new experience. What lay ahead for her? Would she ever rap on door-knockers with the urgency of important emotions? and run round a corner wearing a fur coat? and, lifting a hand to an approaching taxi, impress some other girl named Ellie and fill her with envy and ambition. (pg. 6)

Trading on his position as a shareholder in Primrose’s, Quintin arranges to have Ellie transferred to the firm’s studio where she hopes to develop her skills as an artist. In reality, she is little more than an odd-job girl, but it’s a start, and in time she learns the craft of ‘antiquing’, treating furniture to give it an aged appearance. Unfortunately for Ellie, Quintin is not quite the knight in shining armour he appeared to be at first sight. A somewhat uncaring man at heart, Quintin has a habit of embarking upon short-term love affairs with pretty young girls, and Ellie may just be the latest in a long line of flings. At first he is captivated by her, charmed by her innocence and optimism, but he knows better than to get too involved…all good things must come to an end at some point.

He was not, as Ellie had been, disturbed by rapture, but by an irritation of the senses that exhausted him and kept him awake. He had involved himself with Ellie from habit, and it was a habit he would soon have to break. The very young, flinging their energy into the transports of love, were becoming too much for him. (pgs. 6-7)

Quintin’s life is further complicated by the reappearance of his wife, Petta. (At some point in the past, Petta left Quintin for another man as she had grown tired of her husband’s roving eye for young girls.) Petta is a complex creature: fickle, flighty, self-absorbed, but ultimately rather vulnerable and unhappy. When she is found balancing on the parapet of Westminster Bridge, Petta gives Quintin’s name as a contact and he is called to take her home. As he encounters his wife again, Quintin realises her former beauty has faded with time.

She gave him a quick, uncertain glance, then, making a movement coquettish and pathetic, turned away. She had been crying. Looking down on her head, he noticed among the filmy fairness of her hair a sort of dust of grey hairs. Her whole appearance had taken on a kind of lifeless dryness as though, during the months she had been away, she had been pressed colourless like a flower in a book. Her lipstick had come off. In this light, her lips were mauve. (pgs. 8-9)

When Quintin takes her back to his flat for the night, Petta sees an opportunity to recapture something of the past, and so she makes herself at home in an attempt to remain there as long as possible.

To read the rest of my review, please click here:

https://jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2016...

[Ali · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve really come to love Olivia Manning’s writing, and so I was delighted when I received The Doves of Venus as part of the Librarything Virago secret Santa parcel exchange. This accompanied me on the journey home from Devon almost two weeks ago now and proved to be one of the highlights of last month. Sometimes it is hard to write about a book I loved as much as I did this one, as I can’t really be objective. So, I should probably keep this simple.

Actually, the plot is very simple, but Olivia Manning brings so much to the story, her exploration of the characters is absolutely spot on. As always, her characters step fully formed from the page, they have a past and a future – and speak with the voices of people Olivia Manning herself must have known.

Eighteen-year old Ellie leaves her home in the provincial seaside town of Eastsea in search of independence. In Eastsea, Ellie’s mother runs a restaurant, and favours Ellie’s sister – who is about to get married. Ellie’s help is wanted – and everyone in the town seems to think it entirely appropriate that Ellie should stay and help her mother – and completely scandalous that she has gone off to London instead. Ellie is suffocated by the atmosphere of home; the small-town mind is not hers – she seems to be able to do nothing right anyway – and is always getting on the wrong side of her mother. Having done a night school art class at the technical college Ellie has her sights set on the art world.

Full review: https://heavenali.wordpress.com/2018/...

[Susan Dillon · Rating 3 out of 5]

The old story of a sensitive and romantic young woman in love with a cad. Manning writes beautifully, especially of London. She captures perfectly Ellie's determination to get away from her working class life and the loneliness of being in a big city, broke and heartbroken. But the story sort of meanders, just as Ellie wanders around London dreaming of Quintan. It's really the story of two lost women, Ellie and Quintan's wife Petta, who seems to have wandered in from a Jean Rhys novel. Most of the characters are bores, particularly the creepy Tom Claypole who develops "crushes" on young girls until he finds out they are not innocent.

I wouldn't recommend this novel though I'm glad I persevered until the end.

[Florence · Rating 1 out of 5]

Abandoned this book. No interest in the protagonist to finish it.

[TBV (on hiatus)]

Once again Olivia Manning draws on her personal experiences in writing this novel. It is about the coming of age of Ellie Parsons, of first love, lost love and of finding love. It is also about Petta, a neglected wife who seeks attention both by manipulative means, and elsewhere. It is a novel in which these young doves are repelled by, and fear old age.

Very much like Olivia Manning, the heroine Ellie Parsons, having had some art lessons, decides to leave the small sea-side town where she lives with her mother with whom she doesn’t get on very well. She moves to London as Ms Manning did and having found a job as a packer in a basement of an interior design store she meets Quintin Bellot, older and married. (Olivia Manning had met Hamish Miles, an editor, after she arrived in London and started writing. He too was older and married, and he and Olivia had an affair.) A shareholder in the firm, Quintin Bellot manages to find Ellie a better position “antiquing” furniture in the company’s studio. But we have all read similar plots many times before - the affair doesn’t last, and the jaded lover tires of the pretty innocent young thing. Quintin is particularly callous when ending his affairs. Said young lady is of course overcome with grief and cannot believe that the beautiful relationship has ended. Ellie’s extravagant despair echoes that of Olivia when Hamish Miles died of a brain tumour.

Enter Petta, the adulterer’s wife. This neglected wife has already turned elsewhere for affection, but that doesn’t last as Petta still moons over Quintin. She tries by various manipulative means to win him back, but to no avail. She is somewhat overwrought.

Both young ladies blame themselves and delude themselves “if only…”/”perhaps if…”/“if only I hadn’t”, not realising that their relationships with Quintin would have run the same course in any event. Besides, they were not the only doves in Quintin’s dovecote.

But life goes on and young Ellie manages to move on. And Petta?

Even though it has a "same old, same old" theme, the writing and acute observation delighted me initially. However, as the book progressed my enthusiasm flagged.

[Bernadette Robinson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a coming of age story that is in some ways a little dated, but in others it shows how times don't really change as people still take advantage of one another. I gave this a 3 stars or 6/10. I was recommended this book by a friend in a book group that I am in.

This is a story very much of it's time. A young and naïve in many ways 18 year old Ellie leaves her home for greater things and moves to London. She meets Quintin, who finds her a job and seduces her taking advantage of the young Ellie.

This is a story that is more of an exploration of the relationships between characters and character development, than plot driven. Olivia Manning obviously knows what makes people tick and wove a story that engages with the reader.

This is the first story that I have read by her and I might look out some of her other work in due course.

[Nicola · Rating 4 out of 5]

I rescued this from the kind of hipster restaurant-bar that includes a shabby oversized paperback/battered little hardback with your cutlery and condiments for decoration; and I’m ever so glad I did.

Charming, muted, painful tale, this reminded me of nothing so much as The House of Mirth - in a different country, in a different era, with faded guests and drawing room curtains and the middle classes pushing and shoving their way to the fore...

Would recommend. I felt for Ellie and Petta and Nancy and every other female character in the book; BLOODY MEN.

Off to see what else Olivia Manning has written!

[Cathie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this one: well-written depiction of a very young women's attempt to escape her opporessive hometown by moving to London. Written in the 50's it doesn't feel overly dated. For sure the ridiculous behavior of some of the male characters would not be treated with as much indulgence in 2023, but there was a truth to the character depictions that made this a convincing and enjoyable reading experience. Will definitely read more of her.

[Andrée · Rating 2 out of 5]

A useful reminder of how hard it is for women with little or no income. Utterly dependant on men for everything and thus denied the opportunity to be themselves.
Such a shame that 60 years after this book was published we're still fighting for equal pay.....

[Joan · Rating 4 out of 5]

On the surface this is a coming of age story. Ellie comes to live in London with high hopes but gets involved with a married man Quintin. What it was to me was far more. It was a glimpse into a London of the 1950s when bedsits and boarding houses in Kesington and Chelsea were affordable (just) by ordinary girls, who had to eek out their money and go without food sometimes to try to make their way in the world. To Ellie however her room in the boarding house and her low level job represent freedom and she feels that life is going to be exciting and the belief Ellie has in this when so much goes against her is simultaneously exasperating and scintillating, you want her to succeed and obtain all she wants from life and in her own words she "wants everything, she wants to go everywhere". Contrasted with Ellie's young belief that the world will conspire to make her happy and lead a wonderful life is Petta, the wife of Quintin the married man Ellie has an affair with. Petta is impetuous, unsteady and demanding, she was a great beauty who is losing her looks a bit now she is getting older and finding her lack of status as a desired woman very hard to deal with. This is very much a man's world, where they seem to hold all the power. Quintin who Ellie pines after, was also the great love of Petta's life but he is a charming but uncaring man who has many affairs for "fun". What is women's role in the world if they are not wives or mothers? Ellie tries to break the mould of her more conventional upbringing and is determined to stay in London even when things go bad for her. The ending which I won't spoil for anyone who hasn't read this book yet I found fairly satisfactory, not overly dramatic and not completely closed. Overall I really enjoyed this glimpse into the lives of people from a long gone era and found the writing fresh and alive.

[Judith Lewis · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read this as my unread book from the 1950s. An account of a young idealistic woman, seeking independence at any cost in a world that still believes a girl's place is in the family home unless or until she marries. And an account of a neurotic, spoilt, narcissistic older woman - age never specified, but probably in her late 40s, who still perceives herself [or deceives herself] as young and desirable. She has the means for independence, but it never seems to cross her mind. They are linked by a superficially attractive man who is one of the most self-centred, self-absorbed, amoral characters I have met recently in a novel. I was not altogether sure what the point was of the novel, what I was supposed to take away from it. It finishes with our youthful heroine apparently happy and justified in her ambitions - but with hints that the disillusion of the older woman lies in wait for her too. Overall, it left me glad that I am not living in the 50s. Olivia Manning's Balkan and Levant trilogies are far superior to this; not sure that I will try any of her others in a hurry, though.

[Jill · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is one of those books that I felt obligated to finish because I'd gotten deep enough into it. It's basically "innocent young woman meets and is exploited by horrible people because she's too young to understand that she's being exploited." The protagonist is essentially the only sympathetic character. Will probably drop in a Better World Books bin today. Need to read something else to get the taste of this book out of my mouth.

[NoraReads · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bought this from a secondhand bookshop because I liked the cover. It was an okay read, a coming of age tale set in London in the 50s. The protagonist is nice, if a little annoying and we watch her as she tried to navigate life in the big city and a relationship with a married man.

I wouldn’t say this is a classic, though the cover told me it was, it was well written but the protagonist was a bit insipid. Not for me.

[A J HOOPER · Rating 2 out of 5]

A beautifully written but pathetic story about contemptuous individuals. I became so impatient with the whining, victim-like women in the book and the casually thoughtless males, I'm not quite sure why I bothered to carry on reading. The plot is so slight as to be inconsequential and the only thing one might learn from it is not to be, at any cost, like any of the protagonists. Steer well clear is my advice.

[Donald · Rating 1 out of 5]

I gave it up to page 103, then I abandoned it. Just did not like the characters or the writing. I had thought that this was the first of one of Manning's trilogies, but it wasn't. I do still hope to try one of those.

[Lynda · Rating 3 out of 5]

A charming sometimes disturbing story of two very different women who become entangled with a dissolute emotionally cold man. Interesting also in its depiction of the dependence of women emotionally and financially on the bounty of men

[Melanie Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book - I even enjoyed despising Quintin all the way through! The flow of writing, the unfolding of events in the book was very competent. Olivia Manning's descriptions are evocative and precise, her characters 'filled out'. I look forward to reading more of her work.

[Lizzie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reminded me a little of Patrick Hamilton's novels; the weariness and optimism going to seed, amist pub banter, luncheon dates and getting home to the bedsit.

[Sari Gilbert · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not worth it!

Olivia Manning’s Fortunes of War was fabulous. This instead is a fairly well- written book about vapid and uninteresting people.

[Linda · Rating 1 out of 5]

Like some of the other readers I abandoned this book after a few chapters. A big disappointment after reading her trilogies.

[JimZ · Rating 2 out of 5]

I did not like this book all that much...came on the heels of reading a 2-star book. Yuck. I long for the day of a good read! 1.5 stars for this one.

The novel was written in 1955. It certainly read that way...it was dated. The characters were unlikeable. The story line was poorly constructed. And unfortunately it was long. Of course these are my personal opinions...the first two reviews below were very positive.

There was one positive attribute of the novel: it showed us that in those days it was truly a man’s world. Near the end of the book, a total jerk inherits his uncle’s huge fortune simply because he is the remaining male heir. A woman who was kind to the old man was hoping for something and she got nothing. It was said in the novel that men should naturally and rightfully get paid more than women, even if doing the same job. In the novel, men pretty much had all the power over the women in the novel, even though all of them were total jerks. And in the end, a supposedly happy ending for the main protagonist of the novel, Ellie — she gets married (unexpectedly), although I was hoping that she would be able to be successful in London and striking out on her own after leaving home...instead that all went up in smoke and she was ’lucky’ to get married at the end.
Her mother’s reaction when she heard from Ellie that she was going to get married: Embracing her daughter, Mrs. Parsons choked back her sobs to say: “Both my girls married before they’re twenty. I never dared hope for such happiness.”

Reviews:
• https://piningforthewest.co.uk/2017/0...
• https://jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2016...
• https://rohanmaitzen.com/2023/07/08/u...

[bird · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hmmm… hmmm…
I was praying that this was the book to get me out of a reading slump but unfortunately it was not. I found it vapid and overly dramatic like a 1950s eastenders. I suppose you could say there were some interesting themes such as class, youth and independence but this book bored me and I found myself skipping over a lot.
I found the passages about Petta repetitive, the philandering Quintin was boring, half-formed and the way he seemed to simply humour Ellie like a child or puppy irritated me. I think Ellie’s all consuming feelings for him signifying her youthful naïveté and the blistering sensation of a first love are a stronger plot device than the foppish Quintin who seemed to conveniently reappear and disappear…
This book overindulges in so many different tropes like the wayward artist daughter, the disapproving matronly mother, the ‘better’ sister, the worldly best friend, the tragic fading beauty.
I understand what the author was trying to do with these people and tropes but it just didn’t interest me enough.
Cool cover.

[Albiere · Rating 3 out of 5]

Não faz muito meu estilo de leitura