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La vida soñada de Rachel Waring
Rachel Waring es una mujer feliz. Quizá demasiado. Una tía lejana le ha dejado en herencia una mansión georgiana en Bristol, y de la noche a la mañana decide romper con todo. Así que, sin pensárselo dos veces, deja atrás su aburrida vida en Londres, se despide de su trabajo de oficinista y de su deprimente compañera de piso y se transforma en la mujer que siempre quiso ser: devota del amor, la creatividad y la belleza, y siempre con una canción en los labios. Instalada en su nueva casa, Rachel contrata los servicios de un atractivo jardinero, empieza a escribir un libro e impresiona a todos con un optimismo casi insano. Sin embargo, a medida que Rachel se sumerge más y más en un mundo de lujo y de placeres, su entorno empieza a cuestionar lo excéntrico de su comportamiento y lo evidentemente enfermizo de su euforia.
336 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1982
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9003 people want to read
About the author
Stephen Benatar
17 books25 followersStephen Royce Benatar (born 26 March 1937) is an English author from London. His first published novel, The Man on the Bridge, was published in 1981. His second novel, Wish Her Safe at Home, was published in 1982 and reissued in 2007 and 2010. He is known for self-publishing and self-promoting his novels.
His first novel, written at the age of 19 and titled A Beacon In the Mist, was rejected, as were 11 subsequent novels. At the age of 44 his novel The Man on the Bridge was accepted by Harvester, and edited by Catharine Carver. He received a £400 advance for the novel. His second published novel, Wish Her Safe at Home, was published by The Bodley Head the following year. The book was inspired by the 1947 film The Ghost and Mrs. Muir. It was runner-up for the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. He also won an Arts Council bursary. One novel, Such Men Are Dangerous, was published by Scunthorpe Borough Council. However, sales of his published books were poor, and he took to self-publishing subsequent novels, including Father Of The Man, Recovery and The Golden Voyage Of Samson Groves.
In 2007, he tried to get Wish Her Safe at Home republished as a Penguin Classic but they turned him down despite an introduction by Professor John Carey hailing it as a masterpiece. He was turned down by 36 other publishers, so after slightly rewriting some of the passages he self-published 4,000 copies under his own Welbeck Classics imprint. He bumped into a man when returning some leftover wine from his book launch, and asked him to look at his book; that man was Edwin Franks, the managing editor of The New York Review of Books's publishing arm. Franks "read the book straight away and was knocked out", and The New York Review of Books published the novel in January 2010. Screen rights have been bought by a screenwriter who met Benatar in a bookshop, Henry Fitzherbert. In March 2011, Capuchin Classics will re-issue When I Was Otherwise in the UK with an introduction by academic Gillian Carey. Manuscripts and proofs of plays and novels by Benatar are archived by the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center at Boston University, along with drafts, short stories, notebooks, research material, book review, and letters.
His first novel, written at the age of 19 and titled A Beacon In the Mist, was rejected, as were 11 subsequent novels. At the age of 44 his novel The Man on the Bridge was accepted by Harvester, and edited by Catharine Carver. He received a £400 advance for the novel. His second published novel, Wish Her Safe at Home, was published by The Bodley Head the following year. The book was inspired by the 1947 film The Ghost and Mrs. Muir. It was runner-up for the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. He also won an Arts Council bursary. One novel, Such Men Are Dangerous, was published by Scunthorpe Borough Council. However, sales of his published books were poor, and he took to self-publishing subsequent novels, including Father Of The Man, Recovery and The Golden Voyage Of Samson Groves.
In 2007, he tried to get Wish Her Safe at Home republished as a Penguin Classic but they turned him down despite an introduction by Professor John Carey hailing it as a masterpiece. He was turned down by 36 other publishers, so after slightly rewriting some of the passages he self-published 4,000 copies under his own Welbeck Classics imprint. He bumped into a man when returning some leftover wine from his book launch, and asked him to look at his book; that man was Edwin Franks, the managing editor of The New York Review of Books's publishing arm. Franks "read the book straight away and was knocked out", and The New York Review of Books published the novel in January 2010. Screen rights have been bought by a screenwriter who met Benatar in a bookshop, Henry Fitzherbert. In March 2011, Capuchin Classics will re-issue When I Was Otherwise in the UK with an introduction by academic Gillian Carey. Manuscripts and proofs of plays and novels by Benatar are archived by the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center at Boston University, along with drafts, short stories, notebooks, research material, book review, and letters.
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February 21, 2019
This novel is crazy, fabulous, haunting, embarassing, disturbing, to rattle off a few descriptions; and I wasn't really expecting it. I knew Benatar briefly in the mid 80s when he lived in my home town for a while and I've read another of his novels (The Man on the Bridge) which was pretty good; but this was from leftfield.
It is about Rachel Waring a spinster in her late 40s/possibly early 50s, who shares a flat with a friend and has a mundane job. She inherits an old Georgian house in Bristol from her great aunt and gives up her job to go and live there. All of the novel takes place inside Rachel's head and we are looking out onto the world through her eyes as she moves and meets new people. In one sense this is a simple and straightforward little story, if not for the character of Rachel herself. Rachel has been described as an unreliable narrator; but she is not at all unreliable; this is all real for her. She is certainly, at the start, an eccentric and rather odd narrator, then you realise from her interior life and the way she is reacting to those around her that she is mentally unwell and getting worse. Then you, as a reader, have to hold on tight as Rachel begins to disintegrate. You feel you want to step in and help, but you are stuck inside her head, you become angry with those who make fun of her (though she does not notice) and with those (Roger and Celia) who are clearly trying to take advantage of her. the last few scenes are truly awful. Yet there are also some wonderfully light comic touches.
Rachel is really a composite of many different characters. She has been described as a cross between Blanche DuBois, Miss Havisham (with, eventually wedding dress; the scenes in the dress shop are hilarious), Vivien Leigh and she also reminded me a little of the governess in The Turn of the Screw. John Carey, in his excellent introduction compares her to Don Quixote (minus Sancho Panza, well a real Sancho Panza). The genius is that you can see things that Rachel does not, little nuances that Benatar skillfully weaves into the narrative that show the intentions of those around her. The manipulative lawyer, Roger and Celia (are they after her money/wanting to take advantage; you really want to whisper in her ear) and her one sexual experience when she was 20 when the boy was clearly doing it for a bet. Rachel's new home has a blue plaque on it relating to a little known eighteenth century opponent of the slave trade who dies young (33; an age which has some significance). Rachel tracks down a portrait of him and starts to write about him. You shake your head a little when she starts to talk to him; but hey we all have an interior monologue. When she starts to see him ...
John Carey, previously a professor of English at Oxford was on the Booker committee when it was published. he championed the book, but none of the other judges got it at all. He feels that it was because it was too disturbing a book to be a prizewinner, too odd. Carey also thinks that the character of Rachel Waring is amongst the best attempts by a male writer to enter female consciousness in literature.
There is a point in the book when you realise how bad things are with Rachel. Rachel sings show songs, dances in the queue at the chemist (ignoring odd looks), is polite and funny. Rachel, in her interior monologue suddenly uses a word which is completely out of the blue and out of character. You know then how deep the problem is, but by that time you are captivated by her, delusions and all; it's a difficult journey.
I can sum it up best with a phrase from Doris Lessing's review; " This is a most original and surprising novel, and one difficult to forget: it stays in the mind"
It is about Rachel Waring a spinster in her late 40s/possibly early 50s, who shares a flat with a friend and has a mundane job. She inherits an old Georgian house in Bristol from her great aunt and gives up her job to go and live there. All of the novel takes place inside Rachel's head and we are looking out onto the world through her eyes as she moves and meets new people. In one sense this is a simple and straightforward little story, if not for the character of Rachel herself. Rachel has been described as an unreliable narrator; but she is not at all unreliable; this is all real for her. She is certainly, at the start, an eccentric and rather odd narrator, then you realise from her interior life and the way she is reacting to those around her that she is mentally unwell and getting worse. Then you, as a reader, have to hold on tight as Rachel begins to disintegrate. You feel you want to step in and help, but you are stuck inside her head, you become angry with those who make fun of her (though she does not notice) and with those (Roger and Celia) who are clearly trying to take advantage of her. the last few scenes are truly awful. Yet there are also some wonderfully light comic touches.
Rachel is really a composite of many different characters. She has been described as a cross between Blanche DuBois, Miss Havisham (with, eventually wedding dress; the scenes in the dress shop are hilarious), Vivien Leigh and she also reminded me a little of the governess in The Turn of the Screw. John Carey, in his excellent introduction compares her to Don Quixote (minus Sancho Panza, well a real Sancho Panza). The genius is that you can see things that Rachel does not, little nuances that Benatar skillfully weaves into the narrative that show the intentions of those around her. The manipulative lawyer, Roger and Celia (are they after her money/wanting to take advantage; you really want to whisper in her ear) and her one sexual experience when she was 20 when the boy was clearly doing it for a bet. Rachel's new home has a blue plaque on it relating to a little known eighteenth century opponent of the slave trade who dies young (33; an age which has some significance). Rachel tracks down a portrait of him and starts to write about him. You shake your head a little when she starts to talk to him; but hey we all have an interior monologue. When she starts to see him ...
John Carey, previously a professor of English at Oxford was on the Booker committee when it was published. he championed the book, but none of the other judges got it at all. He feels that it was because it was too disturbing a book to be a prizewinner, too odd. Carey also thinks that the character of Rachel Waring is amongst the best attempts by a male writer to enter female consciousness in literature.
There is a point in the book when you realise how bad things are with Rachel. Rachel sings show songs, dances in the queue at the chemist (ignoring odd looks), is polite and funny. Rachel, in her interior monologue suddenly uses a word which is completely out of the blue and out of character. You know then how deep the problem is, but by that time you are captivated by her, delusions and all; it's a difficult journey.
I can sum it up best with a phrase from Doris Lessing's review; " This is a most original and surprising novel, and one difficult to forget: it stays in the mind"
July 31, 2014
1.) UH. JESUS. WHAT JUST. THE FUCK?
2.) I didn't pay much attention to the cover when I bought this book. I didn't read the back of it. I got it at a used store, on a complete whim with a pile of other books, knowing that generally, I've loved things that NYRB puts out, and so I was actually more than halfway through this book when I realized that my assumption that it was written by a woman was incorrect.
Damn son.
3.) The slow, subtle development of this character is just jaw-droppingly masterful. I finished this earlier today and I can't stop thinking about it. I wish you'd read it so we can talk about it and then stop talking about it to stare into the sea.
4.) You are whisked into a world that is immediately post-good-news: beautiful and charming and fun, and then out of the corner of your eye, the tentacles begin to unfurl. "Hah, was that a ... no, no," you assure yourself.
5.) This line. So many lines like this line: "From a distance there is always something a little touching about failure."
6.) The perfect garden. Thwarted desire. The perfect painting. Vivid fantasies blending into reality. A pink rose placed just so. Wait was that a tentacle
7.) UGH. GOD DAMMIT. IT WAS SO WELL DONE.
8.) Please bury me with this book.
2.) I didn't pay much attention to the cover when I bought this book. I didn't read the back of it. I got it at a used store, on a complete whim with a pile of other books, knowing that generally, I've loved things that NYRB puts out, and so I was actually more than halfway through this book when I realized that my assumption that it was written by a woman was incorrect.
Damn son.
3.) The slow, subtle development of this character is just jaw-droppingly masterful. I finished this earlier today and I can't stop thinking about it. I wish you'd read it so we can talk about it and then stop talking about it to stare into the sea.
4.) You are whisked into a world that is immediately post-good-news: beautiful and charming and fun, and then out of the corner of your eye, the tentacles begin to unfurl. "Hah, was that a ... no, no," you assure yourself.
5.) This line. So many lines like this line: "From a distance there is always something a little touching about failure."
6.) The perfect garden. Thwarted desire. The perfect painting. Vivid fantasies blending into reality. A pink rose placed just so. Wait was that a tentacle
7.) UGH. GOD DAMMIT. IT WAS SO WELL DONE.
8.) Please bury me with this book.
August 28, 2021
Big cheese lit crit Prof John Carey was chair of the Booker Prize committee in 1982 when this book was submitted. They had a big meeting and he started raving about it to his equally big cheese pals :
My fellow judges were all highly intelligent people, whose opinions I respected. But their response was something between embarrassment and physical discomfort, almost as if I’d made an indecent suggestion.
Haha right! Quite similar to the various occasions in the book when people begin to back away from our heroine Rachel Waring… as they realise she is not just very friendly, a little too friendly… no, she is… manic… and possibly dangerous… Let’s take just one incident and you’ll get the idea. Rachel (age 46) is on a train sitting opposite some random old guy. She opens the conversation :
"Do you mind if I talk to you for a moment? I’ve just been reading the most frightful description of a hanging, drawing and quartering and I’m afraid I can’t stop reliving it."
It turns out he is rather hard of hearing, so she has to keep raising her voice louder and louder. She end up bawling
“I mean, imagine. Having your…thing cut off! Stuffed inside your mouth! And then they start the disembowelling… your stomach cut open, your entrails pulled out…”
I suddenly realised how loudly I was speaking… I glanced about me. Along the full length of the compartment, heads were craning round, people were looking over the tops of their seats.
So we have a novel that starts out in amusing Barbara Pym gentle satire of the English that gradually turns into a horror story as the insanely jolly spinster Rachel inherits a big old house and goes round the bend. It turns out she has absolutely no social awareness at all. A mole burrowing deep underground has more social awareness than this Rachel. We are stuck inside her head for the whole disturbing and not that funny at all journey but the disjunction between her perceptions and the real world is fairly broadly transmitted to us readers, as you can see from the disembowelling dialogue.
That was something that seemed a bit clumsy to me, like the author peeking over the scenery and winking at the reader. The other thing was that I ain’t no psychiatrist but it just seemed people don’t go mad like this, in such a cutesy frolicking bursting into song at the drop of a hat mooning giggly little girly frou-frou aggravating simpering way.
So I’m kind of with John Carey’s backing-quietly-away colleagues here.
For an alternative reaction see a different Paul’s great five-star rave here
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
My fellow judges were all highly intelligent people, whose opinions I respected. But their response was something between embarrassment and physical discomfort, almost as if I’d made an indecent suggestion.
Haha right! Quite similar to the various occasions in the book when people begin to back away from our heroine Rachel Waring… as they realise she is not just very friendly, a little too friendly… no, she is… manic… and possibly dangerous… Let’s take just one incident and you’ll get the idea. Rachel (age 46) is on a train sitting opposite some random old guy. She opens the conversation :
"Do you mind if I talk to you for a moment? I’ve just been reading the most frightful description of a hanging, drawing and quartering and I’m afraid I can’t stop reliving it."
It turns out he is rather hard of hearing, so she has to keep raising her voice louder and louder. She end up bawling
“I mean, imagine. Having your…thing cut off! Stuffed inside your mouth! And then they start the disembowelling… your stomach cut open, your entrails pulled out…”
I suddenly realised how loudly I was speaking… I glanced about me. Along the full length of the compartment, heads were craning round, people were looking over the tops of their seats.
So we have a novel that starts out in amusing Barbara Pym gentle satire of the English that gradually turns into a horror story as the insanely jolly spinster Rachel inherits a big old house and goes round the bend. It turns out she has absolutely no social awareness at all. A mole burrowing deep underground has more social awareness than this Rachel. We are stuck inside her head for the whole disturbing and not that funny at all journey but the disjunction between her perceptions and the real world is fairly broadly transmitted to us readers, as you can see from the disembowelling dialogue.
That was something that seemed a bit clumsy to me, like the author peeking over the scenery and winking at the reader. The other thing was that I ain’t no psychiatrist but it just seemed people don’t go mad like this, in such a cutesy frolicking bursting into song at the drop of a hat mooning giggly little girly frou-frou aggravating simpering way.
So I’m kind of with John Carey’s backing-quietly-away colleagues here.
For an alternative reaction see a different Paul’s great five-star rave here
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
March 28, 2014
“I’ve come to the wrong place, haven’t I? This isn’t a publishing office!”
“No, dear.”
“You make it sound like a hospital. Now, why in the name of holy shit have I been brought to a hospital?”
Well, because Rachel Waring is crazy. And kind of delightfully crazy. She’s led an unlived life. To her, vapid show tunes are real or at least profound. So her conversation is sprinkled with rhymed couplets or, increasingly, double entendre. After her great aunt leaves her an old house in her will, Rachel moves in, and her shadow life becomes a delusional one. Well, if imagining sex with a portrait qualifies as delusional.
The reader is never quite sure when a certain dialogue is real (but beyond quirky) or absolutely imagined. Like the one time she went to church and sat up front with an outlandish hat and outfit. She begins to imagine that the vicar is attracted to her and is sending her subtle but ‘naughty’ messages. This causes her to deliver her own sermon, her own flirtations and ultimately to break out into song.
Rachel Waring is crazy, sure, but we wind up rooting for her.
Another delightful NYRB-Classic find.
_____ _____ _____ _____
One thing I’ve noticed about the NYRB-Classics series is that it includes a goodly number of books by women and gay authors. I don’t know if that’s why the books were headed out of print and needed resurrected or whether the NYRB editors have a fondness for those authors. In any event, it’s a happy result.
“No, dear.”
“You make it sound like a hospital. Now, why in the name of holy shit have I been brought to a hospital?”
Well, because Rachel Waring is crazy. And kind of delightfully crazy. She’s led an unlived life. To her, vapid show tunes are real or at least profound. So her conversation is sprinkled with rhymed couplets or, increasingly, double entendre. After her great aunt leaves her an old house in her will, Rachel moves in, and her shadow life becomes a delusional one. Well, if imagining sex with a portrait qualifies as delusional.
The reader is never quite sure when a certain dialogue is real (but beyond quirky) or absolutely imagined. Like the one time she went to church and sat up front with an outlandish hat and outfit. She begins to imagine that the vicar is attracted to her and is sending her subtle but ‘naughty’ messages. This causes her to deliver her own sermon, her own flirtations and ultimately to break out into song.
Rachel Waring is crazy, sure, but we wind up rooting for her.
Another delightful NYRB-Classic find.
_____ _____ _____ _____
One thing I’ve noticed about the NYRB-Classics series is that it includes a goodly number of books by women and gay authors. I don’t know if that’s why the books were headed out of print and needed resurrected or whether the NYRB editors have a fondness for those authors. In any event, it’s a happy result.
May 18, 2016
Deliciosa. No puedo decir más. Una lectura que ha sido todo un descubrimiento. Genial! Una historia que consigue hacerte sonreír y... bueno, que te hace ver al ser humano como es! ¿Egoista? ¿Loco?
May 30, 2016
This was a disturbing novel for me because it made me think about how close any of us are to taking those steps to the door of madness and how easy that walk might be. Add that to the fact that I've known people who didn't seem to be that far away from Rachel Waring, the main character and narrator of Wish Her Safe at Home. Though, like Rachel, the only harm they seemed to do was to themselves.
I will never forget Rachel Waring, but I also will never want to pay her another visit.
I will never forget Rachel Waring, but I also will never want to pay her another visit.
May 26, 2015
Wish Her Safe at Home is fiendishly clever and rather unsettling. I’m not sure I’ve ever read anything quite like it.
Benatar’s novel recounts the inward trajectory of a brittle mind, spinning itself story upon story as a shield against the unpitying realities of lovelessness, ageing, mediocrity, missed chances, and the slow suffocation of hope. That sounds like a miserable read, but in fact WHSAH is often wickedly funny. Its fabulously batty, tragicomic lead character, forty-something spinster Rachel Waring, wards off her demons through a mixture of escapism, manic gaiety, and heroic self-delusion. Although she is coherent as a character, her extreme and increasing dissonance from reality is enough to make her behavior radically unpredictable, which makes for a very entertaining ride.
Around this remarkable central figure, Benatar assembles a pared-down ensemble of sharply-sketched foil characters, all of whom we see through the medium of Rachel’s highly unreliable narration, and whose true motives we have to guess for ourselves. The pacing and development are managed very expertly, and Benatar trusts his readers to work fairly hard at picking up clues. The part of the novel I liked least was the dénouement, where everything becomes much more explicit; but that’s just carping—WHSAH had to end somewhere, and there’s really nowhere else it could plausibly end.
John Carey, in his introduction to the NYRB edition, compares Rachel Waring to a Sancho Panzaless Don Quixote. That may be slightly over-egging it; fact, I think she has more in common with the heroine of Charlotte Lennox’s eighteenth-century, Cervantes fan fiction, The Female Quixote: or, the Adventures of Arabella (though that’s a compliment in my book.) This is certainly a novel that invites intertextual readings; apart from the foregrounded name-checks (Gone with the Wind (ironically); Great Expectations; A Streetcar Named Desire), the portrait theme brings a whiff of The Picture of Dorian Gray into the proceedings—as well as raising very poignantly what I saw as the central theme of the book, beautifully treated: What does failure in life look like? And who gets to decide?
Benatar’s novel recounts the inward trajectory of a brittle mind, spinning itself story upon story as a shield against the unpitying realities of lovelessness, ageing, mediocrity, missed chances, and the slow suffocation of hope. That sounds like a miserable read, but in fact WHSAH is often wickedly funny. Its fabulously batty, tragicomic lead character, forty-something spinster Rachel Waring, wards off her demons through a mixture of escapism, manic gaiety, and heroic self-delusion. Although she is coherent as a character, her extreme and increasing dissonance from reality is enough to make her behavior radically unpredictable, which makes for a very entertaining ride.
Around this remarkable central figure, Benatar assembles a pared-down ensemble of sharply-sketched foil characters, all of whom we see through the medium of Rachel’s highly unreliable narration, and whose true motives we have to guess for ourselves. The pacing and development are managed very expertly, and Benatar trusts his readers to work fairly hard at picking up clues. The part of the novel I liked least was the dénouement, where everything becomes much more explicit; but that’s just carping—WHSAH had to end somewhere, and there’s really nowhere else it could plausibly end.
John Carey, in his introduction to the NYRB edition, compares Rachel Waring to a Sancho Panzaless Don Quixote. That may be slightly over-egging it; fact, I think she has more in common with the heroine of Charlotte Lennox’s eighteenth-century, Cervantes fan fiction, The Female Quixote: or, the Adventures of Arabella (though that’s a compliment in my book.) This is certainly a novel that invites intertextual readings; apart from the foregrounded name-checks (Gone with the Wind (ironically); Great Expectations; A Streetcar Named Desire), the portrait theme brings a whiff of The Picture of Dorian Gray into the proceedings—as well as raising very poignantly what I saw as the central theme of the book, beautifully treated: What does failure in life look like? And who gets to decide?
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November 13, 2010Stephen Benatar's Wish Her Safe at Home is the most laugh-out-loud fun I've had with a book in a long time. Even if the laughs were accompanied by cringes; even if the fun was the kind that you can get peeking out from between the fingers you're holding up in front of your eyes; and even if I kept groaning and wincing as I compulsively turned the pages, the fact remains that I could hardly tear myself away from Benatar and his perilously deluded but always optimistic heroine, Rachel Waring.
Wish Her Safe at Home is the unreliable-narrator novel par excellence. We realize right away that Rachel is a bit off. It only takes a few more pages to realize that she is refashioning what we might call neutral reality into a universe that revolves around Rachel herself—a place where strangers in tea shops are fascinated to learn about her rocky relationship with her mother; a place where sermons are preached to her alone, and a chemist's banal chit-chat is a veiled promise of love and romance; a place of songs, dances, and encounters with new friends who are uniformly impressed with her singing voice, her fashion sense, and her elliptical, coded references to popular culture. Here she is, for example, at the christening of a friend's baby:
A lot of what distinguishes Rachel's voice can be seen here: her tendency to treat strangers she's just met as if they were in on some coded joke; Benatar's hilarious use of adjectives and adverbs ("I genially explained") to play up the difference between Rachel's perceptions and those of the people around her. In another great example of this, Rachel claims that she "executed a few unobtrusive dance steps" while waiting in line at the pharmacy. Do the people around her think her explanations genial or her dance steps unobtrusive? Does it matter?
Indeed, one of the most winning things about Benatar's book is that, despite careening ever more quickly along the slippery slope to utter mania, Rachel is hard not to like. Even though I am aware, while reading, that her version of events may not be "accurate," there is a part of me that prefers her sunny, magical version of the world to the one in which strangers in tea shops don't give a damn about one's mother, and banal shop chatter is just a way to fill the empty minutes. In her own mind, Rachel is some kind of mash-up of Scarlett O'Hara, Cinderella, and Gypsy Rose Lee, and spending time in her world is often a lot of fun, even if it's also intensely awkward when the reader is caught between his own perception (Rachel is acting radically inappropriate), and Rachel's perception (that she is acting like a gracious lady of the Georgian aristocracy/antebellum South/Broadway stage).
And in fact, Broadway musicals, along with Gone with the Wind, Pride and Prejudice, and occasionally a Tennessee Williams play, seem to make up the entirety of Rachel's cultural universe. When she trips through town with a song on her lips (which is often), and despite the book being set in 1981, that song is generally by Harry Warren, Jerome Kern, Noël Coward, Bing Crosby, or similar. As a childhood lover of Broadway musicals this was great fun for me personally, but it did give the novel a strange, unseated feeling: except for a mention of the royal wedding between Prince Charles and Diana, these events could have been taking place any time after the Second World War. This contributes to the feeling that Rachel is floating in her own mental stew, unmoored from any contact with the solidity of the present day.
It also made me wonder, at times, whether and to what extent Rachel should be read as a coded gay man. I certainly don't want to imply that gay men are the only lovers of the Broadway stage; far from it. But it is a genre often associated with the gay theater culture, and many of the great song- and book-writers have been gay or bisexual. Tennessee Williams, too, was a gay playwright who addressed themes of sexuality in many of his works, and Rachel identifies herself with his character Blanche DuBois. Blanche, like Rachel, descends into madness—in Blanche's case, after precipitating her husband's suicide by telling him that his homosexuality disgusts her. In telling her own story, is Rachel also trying to disguise male homosexuality by casting herself/himself as a straight woman? She does, throughout the novel, construct her own femininity in more and more outrageous ways, eventually reaching a point where she goes around perpetually clad in a wedding dress like a chipper, showtune-singing Miss Havisham. By this point she's definitely in drag, whether or not she is biologically female. So too, much of her lust for the young gardener and law student Roger, which on the surface is inappropriate because of their age difference and contractor/client relationship, mirrors the longing of a gay man for a straight man:
Is it coincidental that Rachel describes Roger, admiringly, as "straight" while thinking about how widely he will be loved? Would any of this have occurred to me had I not known that Benatar himself is gay?
I'm not sure if this reading is wildly off-base, but then again, Rachel herself is so out of touch with the divide between imagination and reality, that the reader is often unclear on which of the events she reports are actually true and which imagined. Given her obsession with the tropes of popular romance, it's especially hard not to look askance at events that might fit into those tropes. Even her inheritance of her great-aunt's Georgian mansion, which happens in the first few pages and precipitates the entire plot of the book, looks suspiciously novelistic—and yet, scenes that follow seem uncomfortably real. Similarly, Rachel tells a story of going to a party and wowing all the guests with her virtuosity at reciting Alfred Lord Tennyson's "The Lady of Shalott." It seems very unlikely that the party guests actually reacted as she reports, and yet a whole series of real-seeming events, some of them unflattering to Rachel, result from said reactions. Should we conclude that the entire string of events is imaginary? Or that the events happened, but the other people involved had different motivations from the ones Rachel assigns? Benatar does an excellent job of blurring the line between real and imagined, while at the same time making Rachel's descent into madness abundantly clear. And even as she disintegrates, I find myself hoping for the best for Rachel. I so enjoyed the time we spent together.
Wish Her Safe at Home is the unreliable-narrator novel par excellence. We realize right away that Rachel is a bit off. It only takes a few more pages to realize that she is refashioning what we might call neutral reality into a universe that revolves around Rachel herself—a place where strangers in tea shops are fascinated to learn about her rocky relationship with her mother; a place where sermons are preached to her alone, and a chemist's banal chit-chat is a veiled promise of love and romance; a place of songs, dances, and encounters with new friends who are uniformly impressed with her singing voice, her fashion sense, and her elliptical, coded references to popular culture. Here she is, for example, at the christening of a friend's baby:
But then of course there were his friends, his and Celia's—I musn't lump them in with the rest—although surprisingly they weren't quite so easy to distinguish as I'd assumed that they were going to be.
"Friend or foe?" I asked a tall and rather handsome young man whom I considered to be one of the likelier contenders. "In place of a Masonic handshake," I genially explained.
"Excuse me?"
"I mean, friend or...?" "Family," I had nearly said. Luckily at the eleventh hour I remembered my diplomacy. "Well, let me propound it to you in another way: if this were an invasion of the body snatchers would you be one of the bodies or one of the snatchers?" I laid my hand on his sleeve. At parties—well, especially at parties—it was always one's duty to be as entertaining as one could. "Of course, it does occur to me I'll have to examine your answer very carefully! For would a snatcher admit to being a snatcher? Wouldn't he try instead to palm himself off as a body?"
A lot of what distinguishes Rachel's voice can be seen here: her tendency to treat strangers she's just met as if they were in on some coded joke; Benatar's hilarious use of adjectives and adverbs ("I genially explained") to play up the difference between Rachel's perceptions and those of the people around her. In another great example of this, Rachel claims that she "executed a few unobtrusive dance steps" while waiting in line at the pharmacy. Do the people around her think her explanations genial or her dance steps unobtrusive? Does it matter?
Indeed, one of the most winning things about Benatar's book is that, despite careening ever more quickly along the slippery slope to utter mania, Rachel is hard not to like. Even though I am aware, while reading, that her version of events may not be "accurate," there is a part of me that prefers her sunny, magical version of the world to the one in which strangers in tea shops don't give a damn about one's mother, and banal shop chatter is just a way to fill the empty minutes. In her own mind, Rachel is some kind of mash-up of Scarlett O'Hara, Cinderella, and Gypsy Rose Lee, and spending time in her world is often a lot of fun, even if it's also intensely awkward when the reader is caught between his own perception (Rachel is acting radically inappropriate), and Rachel's perception (that she is acting like a gracious lady of the Georgian aristocracy/antebellum South/Broadway stage).
And in fact, Broadway musicals, along with Gone with the Wind, Pride and Prejudice, and occasionally a Tennessee Williams play, seem to make up the entirety of Rachel's cultural universe. When she trips through town with a song on her lips (which is often), and despite the book being set in 1981, that song is generally by Harry Warren, Jerome Kern, Noël Coward, Bing Crosby, or similar. As a childhood lover of Broadway musicals this was great fun for me personally, but it did give the novel a strange, unseated feeling: except for a mention of the royal wedding between Prince Charles and Diana, these events could have been taking place any time after the Second World War. This contributes to the feeling that Rachel is floating in her own mental stew, unmoored from any contact with the solidity of the present day.
It also made me wonder, at times, whether and to what extent Rachel should be read as a coded gay man. I certainly don't want to imply that gay men are the only lovers of the Broadway stage; far from it. But it is a genre often associated with the gay theater culture, and many of the great song- and book-writers have been gay or bisexual. Tennessee Williams, too, was a gay playwright who addressed themes of sexuality in many of his works, and Rachel identifies herself with his character Blanche DuBois. Blanche, like Rachel, descends into madness—in Blanche's case, after precipitating her husband's suicide by telling him that his homosexuality disgusts her. In telling her own story, is Rachel also trying to disguise male homosexuality by casting herself/himself as a straight woman? She does, throughout the novel, construct her own femininity in more and more outrageous ways, eventually reaching a point where she goes around perpetually clad in a wedding dress like a chipper, showtune-singing Miss Havisham. By this point she's definitely in drag, whether or not she is biologically female. So too, much of her lust for the young gardener and law student Roger, which on the surface is inappropriate because of their age difference and contractor/client relationship, mirrors the longing of a gay man for a straight man:
He was nicely tanned and muscular and worked without his shirt and though I kept being drawn towards the window of my bedroom I found him almost unbearable to watch; in particular the way he swung his pick when breaking up the concrete. And when I went to speak to him, to settle some fresh point or take him out a cooling drink, I was really afraid of what my hands might do. Fly up to feel the film of moisture on his chest? Fondle that coat of darkly golden hair? Dear Lord! The embarrassment! Whatever would one say? "Whoops! Please forgive me! I thought there was a fly." It was like experiencing a compulsion to punch a baby's stomach in the pram, or to use on someone standing next to you the carving knife you held.
He was only twenty-one.
But despite such unsettling irrelevancies I felt blest to have him there: somebody straight and vigorous and clean who might one day achieve eminence and who would certainly love widely and be widely loved, spin a web of mutual enrichment from the threads of many disparate existences: a beguiling web whose silken strands must soon make way for even me.
Is it coincidental that Rachel describes Roger, admiringly, as "straight" while thinking about how widely he will be loved? Would any of this have occurred to me had I not known that Benatar himself is gay?
I'm not sure if this reading is wildly off-base, but then again, Rachel herself is so out of touch with the divide between imagination and reality, that the reader is often unclear on which of the events she reports are actually true and which imagined. Given her obsession with the tropes of popular romance, it's especially hard not to look askance at events that might fit into those tropes. Even her inheritance of her great-aunt's Georgian mansion, which happens in the first few pages and precipitates the entire plot of the book, looks suspiciously novelistic—and yet, scenes that follow seem uncomfortably real. Similarly, Rachel tells a story of going to a party and wowing all the guests with her virtuosity at reciting Alfred Lord Tennyson's "The Lady of Shalott." It seems very unlikely that the party guests actually reacted as she reports, and yet a whole series of real-seeming events, some of them unflattering to Rachel, result from said reactions. Should we conclude that the entire string of events is imaginary? Or that the events happened, but the other people involved had different motivations from the ones Rachel assigns? Benatar does an excellent job of blurring the line between real and imagined, while at the same time making Rachel's descent into madness abundantly clear. And even as she disintegrates, I find myself hoping for the best for Rachel. I so enjoyed the time we spent together.
July 27, 2015
Certainly a book not for the weak. This is a brilliant story that does involve insanity. Delusions run wild, just as the narrator voices exactly what we were thinking as well. But slip and slide we shall, and down to great depths of disrepair. Charming and evocative, this is a novel unfortunately rarely read.
May 23, 2016
I was sitting around, happily reading, trying to understand what's going on with this crazy and sad book as it displays a woman slowly and then swiftly drifting into madness and I happened upon this lovely bit...
"My Rachel, my darling, my all. You have fresh flowers in your cunt."
Don't you think every woman would love to hear this at least once in their lifetime?
Amazingly creative. Recommended to people who love quirkiness, insanity and have patience. It doesn't quite grab you at first, but then you're in Rachel's world and you question why you're there and whether you can stay.
"My Rachel, my darling, my all. You have fresh flowers in your cunt."
Don't you think every woman would love to hear this at least once in their lifetime?
Amazingly creative. Recommended to people who love quirkiness, insanity and have patience. It doesn't quite grab you at first, but then you're in Rachel's world and you question why you're there and whether you can stay.
March 19, 2015
Strange, tragic, cheeky, unsettling, and a complete blast to read.
July 17, 2014
The genius of this book is twofold: First in the sustaining of a terrifically singular inner monologue complete with snippets of song and appearance of characters real or fictitious, and secondly the carefully laid trap of a seemingly linear 'disintegration' or degeneration of the mental state of the protagonist. Brilliant, seductive, hilarious, and sad.
July 11, 2010
Rachel has fond memories of an elderly aunt who has since passed on and left her a rambling broken down house in Bristol. She decides to leave her job which she didn't like, a pessimistic housemate and use money her mother left her to move from London to Bristol and do up the house.
She uncovers the history of the original owner of the house and there begins her own journey .... a journey of a woman whose mind is slowly but surely unraveling into a psychedelic world of hallucinations and make believe. What's interesting about this though is that her craziness isn't scary ... at least not to us, the readers. We love her, we are anxious about her, and we fear for her sometimes when she meets with and interacts with certain people in Bristol because we sense that they are trying to take advantage of her gentle and eccentric ways. It's possible that they can see she's getting a little bit addled, and we are feel repulsed by them, without any real evidence that they're intending her any harm. That's the genius in the writing ... Benatar has done a brilliant job, IMO, of making us feel what Rachel should be feeling if she were only more mindfully aware.
Even as we watch her slip slowly but surely from reality into her own cozy and extremely fun world, we see it from her point of view, in which she's always positive, always singing away, always cheerful and has some incredibly funny conversations sometimes with herself and often with unsuspecting townspeople who just don't know what to make of her. Although she's slipping away into her own alternate reality, there is nothing scary or depressing about her journey. If anything I find myself cheering for her along the sidelines .... I just hope she didn't sign certain papers certain people were pushing her to sign. humph!
She uncovers the history of the original owner of the house and there begins her own journey .... a journey of a woman whose mind is slowly but surely unraveling into a psychedelic world of hallucinations and make believe. What's interesting about this though is that her craziness isn't scary ... at least not to us, the readers. We love her, we are anxious about her, and we fear for her sometimes when she meets with and interacts with certain people in Bristol because we sense that they are trying to take advantage of her gentle and eccentric ways. It's possible that they can see she's getting a little bit addled, and we are feel repulsed by them, without any real evidence that they're intending her any harm. That's the genius in the writing ... Benatar has done a brilliant job, IMO, of making us feel what Rachel should be feeling if she were only more mindfully aware.
Even as we watch her slip slowly but surely from reality into her own cozy and extremely fun world, we see it from her point of view, in which she's always positive, always singing away, always cheerful and has some incredibly funny conversations sometimes with herself and often with unsuspecting townspeople who just don't know what to make of her. Although she's slipping away into her own alternate reality, there is nothing scary or depressing about her journey. If anything I find myself cheering for her along the sidelines .... I just hope she didn't sign certain papers certain people were pushing her to sign. humph!
March 21, 2016
Rachel Waring es, sin duda, una de las voces narrativas más disparatadas, chocantes y controvertidas con las que me he topado en mucho tiempo. Encarnando la figura de eterna soltera, cuarentona, desesperada por saborear las mieles del amor a la manera pasional y desenfrenada que está acostumbrada a recrear en su cabeza, Rachel hace todo lo posible por encajar en esa nueva y prometedora coyuntura social a la que una inesperada herencia le ha empujado. La euforia con la que Rachel se entrega a medrar social y profesionalmente posee ciertos rasgos enfermizos, por lo que resulta cuando menos fascinante adentrarse en la mente de la protagonista e intentar discernir qué parte de realidad se esconde tras sus fantasías, mientras al fondo uno percibe el lento pero firme avance de su proceso degenerativo. Las ficciones de Rachel van mucho más allá de sus simples aspiraciones literarias y constituyen un elemento ciertamente perturbador y desasosegante que incrementan su profundidad como personaje y ahondan de una forma original, atrevida y sobre todo descacharrante en temas como el ingenio, la creatividad y el carácter deformante de los sueños que uno se empeña en alcanzar.
November 20, 2019
"In short the world can be yours if you will only wear the right sort of hat."
Parallels sometimes help convince others to read a work. This one immediately put me in mind of, get ready, Joker. Yes, I really mean that, but perhaps for reasons that might not be clear until you actually read this novel. You really should read it. I can't really tell you why, because that would be spoiling things. What I can tell you is that the novel is about a late 40-ish virgin named Rachel who inherits a house from a long-forgotten relative and then takes it upon herself to live her whole youth through from the beginning. That we get all of this straight from her very unreliable and self-ingratiating perspective is only the beginning of the head-long descent into Rachel's zaniness. Rachel tries to make friends, write a book, and woo long-dead abolitionists. The last several chapters will have you fumbling uncomfortably in your seat. Finishing the book will see you retreating out of the room you read it in to wash your hands or shave your feet or something.
Parallels sometimes help convince others to read a work. This one immediately put me in mind of, get ready, Joker. Yes, I really mean that, but perhaps for reasons that might not be clear until you actually read this novel. You really should read it. I can't really tell you why, because that would be spoiling things. What I can tell you is that the novel is about a late 40-ish virgin named Rachel who inherits a house from a long-forgotten relative and then takes it upon herself to live her whole youth through from the beginning. That we get all of this straight from her very unreliable and self-ingratiating perspective is only the beginning of the head-long descent into Rachel's zaniness. Rachel tries to make friends, write a book, and woo long-dead abolitionists. The last several chapters will have you fumbling uncomfortably in your seat. Finishing the book will see you retreating out of the room you read it in to wash your hands or shave your feet or something.
dnf-for-now
March 11, 2025Dnf at 39%. So dull and very much written by a man
August 15, 2013
A descent into madness story, told from the pov of a middle aged woman (Rachel) who gains freedom from her work and flatmate when an aunt leaves her a house in Bristol. It’s an engaging, weird piece of work as you’re never quite sure what is reality and what is the woman’s fantasy (eg does Roger deliberately inflame her desires by gardening stripped to the waist or not). It is funny and unsettling to ‘watch’ her encounters with shop keepers who she claims to have friendships with, and people on the street, who she gives her money to. You’re never quite sure to what extent people like her lawyer or the couple she invites to live with her are taking advantage of her. It was written in the 80s, but its references and style make it seem to be much earlier than that, despite current day events like the Royal Wedding, and reflect Rachel’s strangely old fashioned outlook – she expects formal attire and manners of a generation before at least and her head is full of Cole Porter and Rhett Butler, although she is in her 40s. Her madness seems to spring from an isolated upbringing, a poor mother-daughter relationship (at one point you’re not sure if she’s murdered her mother) and sexual frustration. Her delusions are boundless - she ‘marries’ a ghost in full wedding gear, she claims to have been Laurence Olivier’s paramour. You do feel for her as she describes her encounters, particularly with men, one lad (who ejaculates prematurely before penetration) is clearly dating her for a bet, and in the present day (her only other sexual experience probably) Roger is doing it to further his interests (or is he?). However my sympathy was a bit limited for she is exhaustively demanding on all she meets, selfish (despite being generous with money), and incapable of seeing the other’s point of view. John Carey in his introduction praises Benatar for his ability to enter a woman’s consciousness so completely and convincingly, but I wonder, she does come across at times as far too camp!
So I’m not as enamoured as Ryan is with this book – but I did enjoy it, it exhausts you but makes you think and laugh and puzzle, much like an encounter with Rachel would do..
So I’m not as enamoured as Ryan is with this book – but I did enjoy it, it exhausts you but makes you think and laugh and puzzle, much like an encounter with Rachel would do..
September 18, 2023
Qué gran personaje, Rachel Waring. En esa tradición literaria de mujeres solteras que llegan a la madurez sin mucha experiencia en el amor y con una cierta tendencia al delirio. Y qué bien reflejado su declive en el uso de la voz en primera persona.
Para lectores maduros que no tengan pareja ni hijos y que vivan solos, es un poco novela de terror, la verdad.
Para lectores maduros que no tengan pareja ni hijos y que vivan solos, es un poco novela de terror, la verdad.
January 11, 2024
3.5⭐️ rounded up
This was a slow burn story building up to a woman’s descent into madness. She is a really fleshed out character and I felt immersed into her little world and the people within it. The ending was done so well and was the best part, hence a slightly lower star rating as I felt like the build up could have definitely been shortened a little bit.
This was a slow burn story building up to a woman’s descent into madness. She is a really fleshed out character and I felt immersed into her little world and the people within it. The ending was done so well and was the best part, hence a slightly lower star rating as I felt like the build up could have definitely been shortened a little bit.
March 7, 2025
this was a little bit crazy....I think my disliking of the main character kind of dragged the story down. I know we're not supposed to like her, and she's mentally disturbed, but she thought of herself so highly and disrespected those around her, especially my girl Celia, that I was yelling at her half the time, and was like "when will this lady stop blabbering"
but this was an incredible depiction of mania. even though she was a littl emean, you felt so awful for rachel,
also the mommy issues came in clutch!!!
but this was an incredible depiction of mania. even though she was a littl emean, you felt so awful for rachel,
also the mommy issues came in clutch!!!
Read
November 23, 2011A theme is surfacing in my reading, in the books I’ve been drawn to lately, those I tend to like: Books whose main characters [usually women] have, uh, questionable sanity. [Don't judge me.] I had the pleasure of spending several days with
Wish Her Safe at Home
, by Stephen Benatar — an offering from NYRB Classics — and it’s a book that fits the description. Main character a woman of dubious sanity? Check. And, yes, I liked it a lot, and for not entirely objective reasons. Oh, the book was good. But a part of me is disturbed by how much I like Rachel. How much I identify with her. Yikes.
As the blurb promises, it’s about a woman, who’s “deliriously happy” not only due to a house she inherits a house from a distant aunt, but also because that’s her nature. The novel details a few choice months in the life of Rachel Waring — happy Rachel, a little too happy sometimes. A neat one-liner about the book would be: A chronicle of Rachel Waring’s ascent [you say descent, I say otherwise] to madness. What impressed me about this novel is how the archetype of the madwoman undergoes a deconstruction through Rachel Waring’s retelling of her own story — and we are witness to this. Is she really mad? Or is this label yet another coercion of society?
As I went through the first several pages of Rachel’s narration, it was easy to see strains of madness, if you were clued into them. But I was inclined to simply call Rachel peculiar. And happy. So she’s a little quirky, fine, but Benatar made it so that it would be too easy — and petty — to simply stamp “Crazy” on her forehead. She simply defies labels.
In John Carey‘s introduction [one of the best intros I've read, actually -- though it might be wise to read this after the novel itself], he comments on how empathic a character Rachel is, despite her wonkiness. I was rooting for Rachel. And I was paranoid of the world, for her. Because she wasn’t. You, as reader, analyze the people who interact with her, and man, hackles are raised when we feel that someone is taking advantage of her. We try to do the filtering, because she can’t, not because she’s an idiot or something — she just doesn’t see the world that way. It’s not so much naiveté, as it is a decided happiness. She’s just really happy in the world she’s built for herself.
Sure, it made me sad sometimes. Because I could still step back and see what Rachel’s life was really like. But then, who was I to judge? This was one of the best things I found in reading Benatar’s novel — it made me backtrack, made me question my own judgment.
Let’s talk about unreliability. We’re in Rachel’s head for the entirety of the story. And early on in the novel, I tended to look at people with suspicion. Sylvia, for example, the decades-long roommate of Rachel before she moved to her aunt’s house. In contrast to Rachel, Sylvia’s extremely abrasive. Crass, in contrast to Rachel’s occasional quaintness, her genteelness, no matter how put-on. The thing is, we see Sylvia turn into the voice of reason. She and I had the same views, mostly because she could pose an alternative perspective on things. A view that the reader is eventually inclined to see as more realistic.
It’s an “archaeology of fictions” — a phrase borrowed from Siri Hustvedt’s What I Loved . To put it bluntly, Rachel Waring lies to herself. A lot. At first, I saw her recounting of certain events rather quaint. Like a throwback to more sophisticated, dainty, lady-belle times. And then we notice that some things are just off — we see clearly through the haze she’s inadvertently put up. There is no deterioration of her sanity, per se; it’s just that us readers are able to see things more clearly. Despite her recounting.
Okay, okay, so Rachel has habits that may seem to people as just, well, weird. She talks to herself. She has elaborate fantasies — eventually her entire life becomes one. She talks to a lot of stranger, and rather inappropriately. At one point, she interacts with a portrait of a man. There is nothing wrong with this, for seriously, people.
How intense Rachel’s fantasies are! There is no Whys to this, I’ve found. Simply, just, there. She’s happy. Her happiness exceeds human limitations. But so what? Everyone has an alternate life, really. I have my daydreams, and I’m sure you do too. The difference is, Rachel is happy — that’s the most important thing. She doesn’t dwell on how preferable this alternate life is to her own, her “real one.” Because she doesn’t think of her reality as fantasy. It just is.
Rachel, I am saying it now: Rachel — you — are — quite — a — girl.
__________
Also: The image used for the cover is just so gorgeous. It’s called In the Daguerreotype Manner, and it’s by John Rawlings. Respect.
Also: I like my little joys in life — Benatar’s book kept me company during my first official week at my new job. I read it on the train, during lunch time, when the boss wasn’t looking. So, well, yay.
[Review from August 2010]
http://silverfysh.wordpress.com/2010/...
As the blurb promises, it’s about a woman, who’s “deliriously happy” not only due to a house she inherits a house from a distant aunt, but also because that’s her nature. The novel details a few choice months in the life of Rachel Waring — happy Rachel, a little too happy sometimes. A neat one-liner about the book would be: A chronicle of Rachel Waring’s ascent [you say descent, I say otherwise] to madness. What impressed me about this novel is how the archetype of the madwoman undergoes a deconstruction through Rachel Waring’s retelling of her own story — and we are witness to this. Is she really mad? Or is this label yet another coercion of society?
As I went through the first several pages of Rachel’s narration, it was easy to see strains of madness, if you were clued into them. But I was inclined to simply call Rachel peculiar. And happy. So she’s a little quirky, fine, but Benatar made it so that it would be too easy — and petty — to simply stamp “Crazy” on her forehead. She simply defies labels.
In John Carey‘s introduction [one of the best intros I've read, actually -- though it might be wise to read this after the novel itself], he comments on how empathic a character Rachel is, despite her wonkiness. I was rooting for Rachel. And I was paranoid of the world, for her. Because she wasn’t. You, as reader, analyze the people who interact with her, and man, hackles are raised when we feel that someone is taking advantage of her. We try to do the filtering, because she can’t, not because she’s an idiot or something — she just doesn’t see the world that way. It’s not so much naiveté, as it is a decided happiness. She’s just really happy in the world she’s built for herself.
Sure, it made me sad sometimes. Because I could still step back and see what Rachel’s life was really like. But then, who was I to judge? This was one of the best things I found in reading Benatar’s novel — it made me backtrack, made me question my own judgment.
Let’s talk about unreliability. We’re in Rachel’s head for the entirety of the story. And early on in the novel, I tended to look at people with suspicion. Sylvia, for example, the decades-long roommate of Rachel before she moved to her aunt’s house. In contrast to Rachel, Sylvia’s extremely abrasive. Crass, in contrast to Rachel’s occasional quaintness, her genteelness, no matter how put-on. The thing is, we see Sylvia turn into the voice of reason. She and I had the same views, mostly because she could pose an alternative perspective on things. A view that the reader is eventually inclined to see as more realistic.
It’s an “archaeology of fictions” — a phrase borrowed from Siri Hustvedt’s What I Loved . To put it bluntly, Rachel Waring lies to herself. A lot. At first, I saw her recounting of certain events rather quaint. Like a throwback to more sophisticated, dainty, lady-belle times. And then we notice that some things are just off — we see clearly through the haze she’s inadvertently put up. There is no deterioration of her sanity, per se; it’s just that us readers are able to see things more clearly. Despite her recounting.
Okay, okay, so Rachel has habits that may seem to people as just, well, weird. She talks to herself. She has elaborate fantasies — eventually her entire life becomes one. She talks to a lot of stranger, and rather inappropriately. At one point, she interacts with a portrait of a man. There is nothing wrong with this, for seriously, people.
How intense Rachel’s fantasies are! There is no Whys to this, I’ve found. Simply, just, there. She’s happy. Her happiness exceeds human limitations. But so what? Everyone has an alternate life, really. I have my daydreams, and I’m sure you do too. The difference is, Rachel is happy — that’s the most important thing. She doesn’t dwell on how preferable this alternate life is to her own, her “real one.” Because she doesn’t think of her reality as fantasy. It just is.
Rachel, I am saying it now: Rachel — you — are — quite — a — girl.
__________
Also: The image used for the cover is just so gorgeous. It’s called In the Daguerreotype Manner, and it’s by John Rawlings. Respect.
Also: I like my little joys in life — Benatar’s book kept me company during my first official week at my new job. I read it on the train, during lunch time, when the boss wasn’t looking. So, well, yay.
[Review from August 2010]
http://silverfysh.wordpress.com/2010/...
July 30, 2025
I enjoyed this sad, comical story of a woman slowly losing her grasp on reality. Rachel is 47, with a dead end job, a boring life, and the same roommate for 10 years, when she inherits her great aunt’s beautiful old 18th Georgian mansion. Rachel moves from London to Bristol, fixes up the mansion and decides to begin life anew, throw caution to the wind, embrace each day with a song in her heart and on her lips, everyone who encounters her will he better for it. She will bring cheer and wisdom to each person and will be loved and adored! It’s told in first person so we can only guess at the reactions of the people in Bristol when they meet the outrageous new resident.
I can’t give every nyrb book 5 stars and I couldn’t help but compare this to Elizabeth Taylor’s Angel, which I thought was a bit better so this gets 4 stars and a recommendation!
I can’t give every nyrb book 5 stars and I couldn’t help but compare this to Elizabeth Taylor’s Angel, which I thought was a bit better so this gets 4 stars and a recommendation!
July 29, 2011
I have yet, at the time of this review, to read anything published by NYRB that hasn't been, at minimum, rather good.
This book is no exception. This is the story of Rachel, a forty-ish Londoner with staid clerical job and roommate who suddenly inherts the house of a long-forgotten, and somewhat dotty, aunt. Upon viewing the house in Bristol, Rachel decides to change her life, to become the person she should have been, the person of her dreams.
Other reviews suggest that this novel is painful to read. At times, it is. We're watching Rachel slowly descend into eccentricity (ably handled by a Brit, which seems only right). We can see where her somewhat harmless self-delusion starts to chafe against hard reality. We do not want her crushed or broken or hurt as she spins gaily on in her new life. There is an edge of suspense here. We keep waiting for the inevitable fall, as afraid for ourselves and our reaction as we are afraid for Rachel. Any book that can make the reader feel so much for the character has merit... for me at any rate.
This book is no exception. This is the story of Rachel, a forty-ish Londoner with staid clerical job and roommate who suddenly inherts the house of a long-forgotten, and somewhat dotty, aunt. Upon viewing the house in Bristol, Rachel decides to change her life, to become the person she should have been, the person of her dreams.
Other reviews suggest that this novel is painful to read. At times, it is. We're watching Rachel slowly descend into eccentricity (ably handled by a Brit, which seems only right). We can see where her somewhat harmless self-delusion starts to chafe against hard reality. We do not want her crushed or broken or hurt as she spins gaily on in her new life. There is an edge of suspense here. We keep waiting for the inevitable fall, as afraid for ourselves and our reaction as we are afraid for Rachel. Any book that can make the reader feel so much for the character has merit... for me at any rate.
October 7, 2011
Almost a distaff Taxi Driver, about a lonely woman losing her mind and losing herself in fantasy. Yeah, this is some unreliable-narrator shit, but Benatar's trick is to make Rachel genuinely charming and sweet and likable (kinda like the scene where Travis Bickle charms Cybill Shepherd into agreeing to a date... and we all remember how that date turned out) so her decline is all the more painful to behold. This is a tragicomedy, though, and there is humor, of both the laughing-at and laughing-with variety, or some unsettling blend of the two. As is common for Taxi Driver-esque narratives, the book kind of unravels along with the protagonist, and I didn't love Benatar's decision to plunge Rachel, finally, into over-the-top straitjacket insanity; for the bulk of the book her madness is much more subtly demonstrated, ambiguous even. He took it too far in the end. But this is a gem, praise NYRB for rescuing it from oblivion.
March 30, 2020
Highly recommend. Disturbing because you relate so much to Rachel in the beginning and feel protective of her, and then as she starts to go mad you can see how you could lose it as well. Jarring.
I didn't read anything about this before I started, and thankfully saved the intro for the end. Based on the cover art I assumed it was set at the turn of the 20th century but happily it's 1981.
I didn't read anything about this before I started, and thankfully saved the intro for the end. Based on the cover art I assumed it was set at the turn of the 20th century but happily it's 1981.
October 29, 2023
Hace muchos años atrás estuve un año de mi vida laburando de telemarketer. Era la época en que no había muchas oportunidades laborales, y esta zafaba.
La capacitación duró inexplicablemente tres meses, que hubiese sido una tragedia pero conocí gente copada que hoy seguimos amigos.
Una de las personas (no de las copadas) era una piba que se creía que era cantante, artista, actriz talentosa. Siempre se metía en las conversaciones de todos porque ella se sentía re popular.
Un día decidió ponerse a cantar en medio del piso, y ahí entendimos que estaba completamente loca, alejada de la realidad.
Algo parecido pasa acá. La personaje principal está disociada de la realidad, se imagina cosas que no existen, reescribe el pasado a su conveniencia, y en el medio perjudica gente (aunque esta no es su intención).
Es un buen libro, aunque es bastante obvio cómo va a terminar.
La capacitación duró inexplicablemente tres meses, que hubiese sido una tragedia pero conocí gente copada que hoy seguimos amigos.
Una de las personas (no de las copadas) era una piba que se creía que era cantante, artista, actriz talentosa. Siempre se metía en las conversaciones de todos porque ella se sentía re popular.
Un día decidió ponerse a cantar en medio del piso, y ahí entendimos que estaba completamente loca, alejada de la realidad.
Algo parecido pasa acá. La personaje principal está disociada de la realidad, se imagina cosas que no existen, reescribe el pasado a su conveniencia, y en el medio perjudica gente (aunque esta no es su intención).
Es un buen libro, aunque es bastante obvio cómo va a terminar.
April 21, 2010
At last Stephen Benatar can receive the acclaim he has long deserved. Rachel Waring is left a house by her mad aunt, and intends to take it and embrace life with renewed vivacity. Containing more than a little Blanche DuBois and Scarlett O'Hara, Rachel's gay enthusiasm and imagination is tainted by a whiff of delusion which grows steadily and ominously throughout the novel. An unsettling theatrical work which shows how eerily close to madness most of us are.
October 12, 2018
Súper recomendable. Algo tan directo y a la vez tan intrincado, en su historia, vuelve a este libro una pieza de colección. Una auténtica reliquia, como aquellas que deseaba atesorar la soñadora Srita. Waring.
June 8, 2013
If I could put 5 novels in a time capsule to represent the best of English fiction, this novel would be one of them.
November 26, 2020
Senryu Review:
Flouncy spinster moves
to massive house to decay
mentally slowly
Flouncy spinster moves
to massive house to decay
mentally slowly
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