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Maiden Dinosaur
If it is difficult to accept middle-age, is it harder for those who are no longer beautiful and passionate or, especially harder, for those who have never known love? Sarah Vincent is fifty and, like her group of friends, she is resigned to the absurdities of middle-age but over the course of a summer Sarah discovers that life can shatter the past, deeply-held faiths are destroyed and she discovers that new beginnings, and new love, have always existed for her.
Janet McNeill is one of the great writers of the disillusions of middle age, with a tender and unflinching understanding of the conflicts of family life. Her perceptive characterisation and intelligent story-telling make her novels more valuable than many that are writ much larger. (The Observer)
Janet McNeill is one of the great writers of the disillusions of middle age, with a tender and unflinching understanding of the conflicts of family life. Her perceptive characterisation and intelligent story-telling make her novels more valuable than many that are writ much larger. (The Observer)
- GenresIrish LiteratureFiction
192 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1964
45 people want to read
About the author
Janet McNeill
74 books9 followersJanet McNeill was born in Dublin in 1907 and spent many years in Northern Ireland. Author of more than 20 children's books, as well as adult novels, plays, and two opera libretti, she was best known for her children's comic fantasy series My Friend Specs McCann.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
March 5, 2023
What a deliciously simpering attack on all things romantic or erotic. It invites you in - straight into Sarah Vincent's world of mid-life ladies at a Tea Party, in the upper window of a Belfast cafe. There is an explosion of small intimacies, of details in the lives of the people who now share the large old house with Sarah, child of the original owners. Thornehill has been divided into several flats, Helen in Mama's old bedroom, Addie and her husband Gerald, in another part, and Felicity and Justin with new baby in the stable flat. Sarah has the room where the seamstress used to work.
I loved this immediate access to Sarah's private world and then something changed awkwardly. Into this narrative of middle-aged lives is poured Sally's experience of a late period: yes the menstrual kind. Sally, one of Sarah's pupils, from the girls school where she teaches, relates a miserable story, of an amorous spring evening, gone wrong. Her anxiety is so severe, that she cannot focus on anything in the present; 26 days since an unwanted tryst with a local boy.
Meanwhile snippets of Sarah's own youth are revealed through conversations with Mama and Papa and memories trapped in the house. Unpleasant events of a sexual nature, result in trauma and Sarah is sent away for recovery to a seaside town.
Slowly the history to all the characters is exposed. Felicity and Justin had a Registry office wedding, with the bride heavily pregnant. Florence the mother would have preferred something misty and white in church. Florence is one of Sarah's Tea party friends.
Felicity's exhaustion as a new mother, the baby's demands on her and her husband's barely recognized responsibilities are gradually wearing away her notions of hot-love.
We are introduced to the Helen, Sarah relationship - meanwhile Helen is in a half-hearted relationship with George, husband, of another Tea party friend, Kitty.
We learn about Maurice and Jocye, who have just proudly announced a late life pregnancy. All the ladies internally review Joyce and Maurice's sex life - secretly proclaiming to each other - 'so they are still at it'.
Maurice's backstory is that he was once married to the beautiful Rose, Joyce's elder sister, who died many years ago now - in childbirth.
And then the plot starts to move slowly into the present, once all these backstories have been ingenuously revealed, as a compliment, to Sarah's own sterile love-life. Maurice refers to her, silently, as Virgo intacta.
There is the strangest episode where George and Sarah, wander through the Belfast zoo, Sarah deliberately recounting her infatuation with the beautiful and stylish Helen. She doesn't know why she confides in George, conscious that her details of Helen's past, will barely compare to the intimacies of passion and lust that he shares with Helen.
George, however, is indebted to Sarah, for her incredible and devoted patience to his wife Kitty, who is sunk in a mire of inextricable, and to most of her friends, a self-pitying depression. George and Sarah, are thrown into each other's confidences. George wants to ask Sarah, about Helen who has disappeared to London to visit her ex-husband Hubert, with whom she has always been in love. And Sarah likewise wants to know if George has heard anything from Helen.
Throughout the book, we learn to appreciate Sarah's resilience and her stoic care and thought for her friends. Addie for example irritates her, but at the same time she holds off her judgement and stands by knowing that friends are a precious commodity, especially for a lonely spinster, of 50 plus. A further example of Sarah's kindness is revealed when together with Helen, she makes her yearly visit to the ancient Miss Fennimore, a woman cast off by Sarah's father after an illicit affair. This very old lady in a care-home, is a symbolic representation of the dire and possible future awaiting single ladies!
I liked this book, because it attacks all the angles of romantic love, and then subtly offers us the other types of love which are so usually claimed as having a lesser status.
A recent review on Janet McNeill in the Irish Times, states that Virago was interested in returning her work to public interest and yet she seems to have fallen into disfavour yet again. The Maiden Dinosaur was first published in 1964, and I suspect even now she will not resonate with many readers. She deconstructs those notions we like to hold dear, and yet her characters present such realistic experiences, from Sally and Felicity, through Addie with her sick and ailing partner, to Sarah herself with her adolescent-like crush on Helen: these narrative threads represent the many different elements of "love" and sex. Don't worry, Sarah is delivered from her stalled development and will I think, find a compassionate and loving relationship, despite her 48 inch hips and 12 stone weight. Gosh did I love this Maiden Dinosaur.
And, a big thank you to Internet Archive - I borrowed from them.
I loved this immediate access to Sarah's private world and then something changed awkwardly. Into this narrative of middle-aged lives is poured Sally's experience of a late period: yes the menstrual kind. Sally, one of Sarah's pupils, from the girls school where she teaches, relates a miserable story, of an amorous spring evening, gone wrong. Her anxiety is so severe, that she cannot focus on anything in the present; 26 days since an unwanted tryst with a local boy.
Meanwhile snippets of Sarah's own youth are revealed through conversations with Mama and Papa and memories trapped in the house. Unpleasant events of a sexual nature, result in trauma and Sarah is sent away for recovery to a seaside town.
Slowly the history to all the characters is exposed. Felicity and Justin had a Registry office wedding, with the bride heavily pregnant. Florence the mother would have preferred something misty and white in church. Florence is one of Sarah's Tea party friends.
Felicity's exhaustion as a new mother, the baby's demands on her and her husband's barely recognized responsibilities are gradually wearing away her notions of hot-love.
We are introduced to the Helen, Sarah relationship - meanwhile Helen is in a half-hearted relationship with George, husband, of another Tea party friend, Kitty.
We learn about Maurice and Jocye, who have just proudly announced a late life pregnancy. All the ladies internally review Joyce and Maurice's sex life - secretly proclaiming to each other - 'so they are still at it'.
Maurice's backstory is that he was once married to the beautiful Rose, Joyce's elder sister, who died many years ago now - in childbirth.
And then the plot starts to move slowly into the present, once all these backstories have been ingenuously revealed, as a compliment, to Sarah's own sterile love-life. Maurice refers to her, silently, as Virgo intacta.
There is the strangest episode where George and Sarah, wander through the Belfast zoo, Sarah deliberately recounting her infatuation with the beautiful and stylish Helen. She doesn't know why she confides in George, conscious that her details of Helen's past, will barely compare to the intimacies of passion and lust that he shares with Helen.
George, however, is indebted to Sarah, for her incredible and devoted patience to his wife Kitty, who is sunk in a mire of inextricable, and to most of her friends, a self-pitying depression. George and Sarah, are thrown into each other's confidences. George wants to ask Sarah, about Helen who has disappeared to London to visit her ex-husband Hubert, with whom she has always been in love. And Sarah likewise wants to know if George has heard anything from Helen.
Throughout the book, we learn to appreciate Sarah's resilience and her stoic care and thought for her friends. Addie for example irritates her, but at the same time she holds off her judgement and stands by knowing that friends are a precious commodity, especially for a lonely spinster, of 50 plus. A further example of Sarah's kindness is revealed when together with Helen, she makes her yearly visit to the ancient Miss Fennimore, a woman cast off by Sarah's father after an illicit affair. This very old lady in a care-home, is a symbolic representation of the dire and possible future awaiting single ladies!
I liked this book, because it attacks all the angles of romantic love, and then subtly offers us the other types of love which are so usually claimed as having a lesser status.
A recent review on Janet McNeill in the Irish Times, states that Virago was interested in returning her work to public interest and yet she seems to have fallen into disfavour yet again. The Maiden Dinosaur was first published in 1964, and I suspect even now she will not resonate with many readers. She deconstructs those notions we like to hold dear, and yet her characters present such realistic experiences, from Sally and Felicity, through Addie with her sick and ailing partner, to Sarah herself with her adolescent-like crush on Helen: these narrative threads represent the many different elements of "love" and sex. Don't worry, Sarah is delivered from her stalled development and will I think, find a compassionate and loving relationship, despite her 48 inch hips and 12 stone weight. Gosh did I love this Maiden Dinosaur.
And, a big thank you to Internet Archive - I borrowed from them.
December 7, 2018
Amended Review:
This is a short but rich and nuanced novel about a middle-aged Belfast spinster. Respected school teacher and locally known poet, fiftyish Sarah Vincent grew up in a well-to-do Presbyterian family. The family’s stately home (on the shores of Belfast Lough, not far from the Zoological Gardens) was divided into apartments after the death of Sarah’s father. Sarah now lives in one flat, and her girlhood friends, Helen and Addie, live in the others. For years, Sarah has regularly attended “tea parties” with her former school chums—among them: Mary, now a grandmother; the well-to-do Florence; and 40-year-old Joyce, the younger sister of Rose, who was the first of Sarah’s cohort to die (tragically, in her 20s, during childbirth). Rose’s is not the only sad story. Kitty, another unfortunate, is mentally ill and keeps to her bed. Kindhearted and used to obliging others, Sarah, the only unmarried woman of the bunch, makes regular visits to the unstable and aggressive woman whom everyone else avoids. Sarah is believed to have a special calming influence on Kitty. It’s convenient for the others to think so anyway.
Sarah has a lot of of things weighing on her. She is not nearly as free of responsibilities as the others think. First, there is the matter of the unfortunate Helen, who has lived a very different life from Sarah. Once a wife and mother, Helen is professionally successful—she runs a thriving flower shop—but privately she is a mess. Mired in memories of personal tragedies, Helen is histrionic and seeks solace in the arms of a series of gentleman callers—one of them, Kitty’s husband. Helen’s beauty is fading fast, and it is the job of plain and steady Sarah to prop her up. On the one hand, Helen is scornful of her friend’s lack of sexual knowledge (Sarah’s senior girls seem better informed than their teacher); on the other hand, Helen depends on Sarah’s unique combination of unconditional positive regard and school-teacher bossiness. It’s a game of sorts, Sarah realizes, and she follows the unspoken rules . . . until one day she doesn’t.
None of Sarah’s friends is aware of the ways in which she is haunted. Chided constantly in childhood about her homely, large, and graceless body, she attempted early on to dissociate herself from her physical being, paying as little mind to her appearance as possible and focussing instead on developing her intellect. As a young person, Sarah also happened upon two distressing scenes of a sexual nature (one of them involving a family member). No one ever bothered to discuss either of these experiences with her. The events were subsequently buried until Sarah had a breakdown in adolescence. Her mother, an invalid for many years, died soon after. Sarah may now be middle aged, but part of her remains a child imprisoned in the past. At times, she still hears, sees, and addresses her dead parents. (Freud would have had a heyday with this woman.)
MacNeill’s novel offers a glimpse into a certain middle-class segment of mid-twentieth-century Belfast society, when women’s roles and sexual mores were beginning to change. The book is also a sensitive and restrained psychological study of sexual repression. The novel was originally published in 1964 and appears to be set in the early 1960s. There are a few references to the new freedoms for women— specifically, the birth control pill, which was first introduced as a contraceptive in 1960. I found McNeill’s mention of “The Troubles” in the text to be quite confusing—as I’ve always understood the term to apply to the Northern Ireland of the late 1960s and early 1970s. I didn’t know (until I did some online research) that the Belfast Riots of 1920-1922 are called “The First Troubles”. In the novel, to avoid being shot at, McNeill’s characters had, when young, been forced to lie down in the trams that took them to and from school during this period.
The Maiden Dinosaur is a brisk and compelling character-driven novel, which manages to accomplish a lot in relatively few pages. There’s much to ponder here (including the ways in which literature can hoodwink young, impressionable girls into dangerous romanticization of sexuality and relations between the sexes.)This is a book that begs to be read, re-read, and discussed with friends.
This is a short but rich and nuanced novel about a middle-aged Belfast spinster. Respected school teacher and locally known poet, fiftyish Sarah Vincent grew up in a well-to-do Presbyterian family. The family’s stately home (on the shores of Belfast Lough, not far from the Zoological Gardens) was divided into apartments after the death of Sarah’s father. Sarah now lives in one flat, and her girlhood friends, Helen and Addie, live in the others. For years, Sarah has regularly attended “tea parties” with her former school chums—among them: Mary, now a grandmother; the well-to-do Florence; and 40-year-old Joyce, the younger sister of Rose, who was the first of Sarah’s cohort to die (tragically, in her 20s, during childbirth). Rose’s is not the only sad story. Kitty, another unfortunate, is mentally ill and keeps to her bed. Kindhearted and used to obliging others, Sarah, the only unmarried woman of the bunch, makes regular visits to the unstable and aggressive woman whom everyone else avoids. Sarah is believed to have a special calming influence on Kitty. It’s convenient for the others to think so anyway.
Sarah has a lot of of things weighing on her. She is not nearly as free of responsibilities as the others think. First, there is the matter of the unfortunate Helen, who has lived a very different life from Sarah. Once a wife and mother, Helen is professionally successful—she runs a thriving flower shop—but privately she is a mess. Mired in memories of personal tragedies, Helen is histrionic and seeks solace in the arms of a series of gentleman callers—one of them, Kitty’s husband. Helen’s beauty is fading fast, and it is the job of plain and steady Sarah to prop her up. On the one hand, Helen is scornful of her friend’s lack of sexual knowledge (Sarah’s senior girls seem better informed than their teacher); on the other hand, Helen depends on Sarah’s unique combination of unconditional positive regard and school-teacher bossiness. It’s a game of sorts, Sarah realizes, and she follows the unspoken rules . . . until one day she doesn’t.
None of Sarah’s friends is aware of the ways in which she is haunted. Chided constantly in childhood about her homely, large, and graceless body, she attempted early on to dissociate herself from her physical being, paying as little mind to her appearance as possible and focussing instead on developing her intellect. As a young person, Sarah also happened upon two distressing scenes of a sexual nature (one of them involving a family member). No one ever bothered to discuss either of these experiences with her. The events were subsequently buried until Sarah had a breakdown in adolescence. Her mother, an invalid for many years, died soon after. Sarah may now be middle aged, but part of her remains a child imprisoned in the past. At times, she still hears, sees, and addresses her dead parents. (Freud would have had a heyday with this woman.)
MacNeill’s novel offers a glimpse into a certain middle-class segment of mid-twentieth-century Belfast society, when women’s roles and sexual mores were beginning to change. The book is also a sensitive and restrained psychological study of sexual repression. The novel was originally published in 1964 and appears to be set in the early 1960s. There are a few references to the new freedoms for women— specifically, the birth control pill, which was first introduced as a contraceptive in 1960. I found McNeill’s mention of “The Troubles” in the text to be quite confusing—as I’ve always understood the term to apply to the Northern Ireland of the late 1960s and early 1970s. I didn’t know (until I did some online research) that the Belfast Riots of 1920-1922 are called “The First Troubles”. In the novel, to avoid being shot at, McNeill’s characters had, when young, been forced to lie down in the trams that took them to and from school during this period.
The Maiden Dinosaur is a brisk and compelling character-driven novel, which manages to accomplish a lot in relatively few pages. There’s much to ponder here (including the ways in which literature can hoodwink young, impressionable girls into dangerous romanticization of sexuality and relations between the sexes.)This is a book that begs to be read, re-read, and discussed with friends.
April 15, 2015
I first came across McNeill via a recommendation from Glenn Patterson on the Literary Belfast site, and really enjoyed 'Tea at 4 o'clock' when I read it earlier in the year. This book was very difficult to find, and I was looking forward to reading it, but, while it has its merits, I didn't enjoy it nearly as much.
The novel tells the story of Sarah Vincent, a 50 something spinster school mistress who lives in the home in which she grew up, a large house on the shores of the north shore of Belfast Lough, now broken into separate flats inhabited by two old school friends and the daughter of another old school friend, who lives there with her young family. Sarah's life is her job, although she is also a published poet of local note. She suffers from her own personal demons stretching back into her past (her 'beast' is frequently referred to), and she is socially awkward, even amongst friends, although her love for her teenage crush, Helen, still burns strong.
While the story mainly features this main character, the narrative does however switch from following Sarah to following other characters simply with a change in paragraph, and at one stage even switches from third to first person within the same chapter while featuring Sarah herself-I found that the book was difficult to follow as a result. Similarly, the novel's themes are pretty dark, the spectre of depression and mental illness often close to the surface, which made the book not the lightest of reads. As for Belfast, I know that the book was set there, but while 'Tea at Four O'Clock' was very much of the city, this one didn't have very much in the way of specific references, bar the occasional mention of Bellvue Zoo, and could really have been set anywhere.
All in all, quite a difficult book for me. I'm glad I read 'Tea at Four O'Clock', but am not sure after this one whether I'll seek out any more of McNeill's novels.
The novel tells the story of Sarah Vincent, a 50 something spinster school mistress who lives in the home in which she grew up, a large house on the shores of the north shore of Belfast Lough, now broken into separate flats inhabited by two old school friends and the daughter of another old school friend, who lives there with her young family. Sarah's life is her job, although she is also a published poet of local note. She suffers from her own personal demons stretching back into her past (her 'beast' is frequently referred to), and she is socially awkward, even amongst friends, although her love for her teenage crush, Helen, still burns strong.
While the story mainly features this main character, the narrative does however switch from following Sarah to following other characters simply with a change in paragraph, and at one stage even switches from third to first person within the same chapter while featuring Sarah herself-I found that the book was difficult to follow as a result. Similarly, the novel's themes are pretty dark, the spectre of depression and mental illness often close to the surface, which made the book not the lightest of reads. As for Belfast, I know that the book was set there, but while 'Tea at Four O'Clock' was very much of the city, this one didn't have very much in the way of specific references, bar the occasional mention of Bellvue Zoo, and could really have been set anywhere.
All in all, quite a difficult book for me. I'm glad I read 'Tea at Four O'Clock', but am not sure after this one whether I'll seek out any more of McNeill's novels.
March 4, 2017
Sarah Vincent is in her fifties, single, a respected teacher and poet, liked by her friends but also protective of her privacy. This is reflected in her home. She still lives in the house she grew up in but it is divided into separate apartments which she lets out. Her tenants are at once close and at one remove.
Her school friends have found different paths through womanhood – careers, marriage, children, good works. Their regular reunions are occasions for rivalry as well as reminiscence. Each piece of news is digested by the group and reframed into a form that fits their narrative. It is clear that belonging brings pleasure but it also has a price.
The novel is cleverly structured so we see Sarah in relation to her contemporaries and to the past and future. It was published in 1964, and Sarah and her friends are at the point where sex is rearing its head in public discourse. They wonder about teenagers but hesitate to share personal confidences ‘since each soon suspected that they weren’t talking about the same thing’. Their perceptions are contrasted with the experience of two younger characters – Sarah’s pupil and a tenant.
Sarah has left much of the décor in her home unchanged. The house is full of her memories of her parents. At times she imagines they are there. She is still negotiating her relationship with them, and what it meant for her, long after their deaths – her failure to be attractive, her longing to please, her clear-eyed understanding of their weaknesses.
She is proud of her intellect and tells herself that she values it more than attractiveness. Yet she is not immune to feelings of failure to conform to the feminine ideal. Her venture into an upmarket clothes shop, the tyranny of the assistants, the attempt to find some magic (and more importantly recreate it at home) is both funny and painful. It is also a reminder that it is often women who police the rules of acceptance.
Sarah’s world appears to reflect continuity – her close ties, her house, her long-established relationships. But just as the wider world is changing, so is Sarah’s. This is subtly done. Is it events, or Sarah’s own thoughts and perceptions that lead her to question the choices she has made?
Nothing is ever simple or overstated in Janet McNeill’s world. Themes are highlighted and interrogated, conclusions formed and then undermined, complexity and ambiguity quietly accepted. All with a dry wit and beautiful observation.
*
I received a copy of The Maiden Dinosaur from the publisher.
This review first appeared on my blog https://katevane.wordpress.com
Her school friends have found different paths through womanhood – careers, marriage, children, good works. Their regular reunions are occasions for rivalry as well as reminiscence. Each piece of news is digested by the group and reframed into a form that fits their narrative. It is clear that belonging brings pleasure but it also has a price.
The novel is cleverly structured so we see Sarah in relation to her contemporaries and to the past and future. It was published in 1964, and Sarah and her friends are at the point where sex is rearing its head in public discourse. They wonder about teenagers but hesitate to share personal confidences ‘since each soon suspected that they weren’t talking about the same thing’. Their perceptions are contrasted with the experience of two younger characters – Sarah’s pupil and a tenant.
Sarah has left much of the décor in her home unchanged. The house is full of her memories of her parents. At times she imagines they are there. She is still negotiating her relationship with them, and what it meant for her, long after their deaths – her failure to be attractive, her longing to please, her clear-eyed understanding of their weaknesses.
She is proud of her intellect and tells herself that she values it more than attractiveness. Yet she is not immune to feelings of failure to conform to the feminine ideal. Her venture into an upmarket clothes shop, the tyranny of the assistants, the attempt to find some magic (and more importantly recreate it at home) is both funny and painful. It is also a reminder that it is often women who police the rules of acceptance.
Sarah’s world appears to reflect continuity – her close ties, her house, her long-established relationships. But just as the wider world is changing, so is Sarah’s. This is subtly done. Is it events, or Sarah’s own thoughts and perceptions that lead her to question the choices she has made?
Nothing is ever simple or overstated in Janet McNeill’s world. Themes are highlighted and interrogated, conclusions formed and then undermined, complexity and ambiguity quietly accepted. All with a dry wit and beautiful observation.
*
I received a copy of The Maiden Dinosaur from the publisher.
This review first appeared on my blog https://katevane.wordpress.com
June 29, 2020
This is a delight to read, it revolves around the relationships and lives of a group of men and women in Belfast in the 60s. They are all middle aged and Sarah Vincent, a school teacher is the narrator. She lives in her childhood home which is now divided into a number of flats close to the zoo. As she gives us the back story to each of the characters we also follow her story. There are a number of laugh out loud episodes, one in particular involves an interview by the BBC, these women are not to be trifled with. The cruelty of adolescent girls belies the difficulties they face at this time in their own lives but I did feel for Sarah.
May 5, 2016
The Maiden Dinosaur takes us to Belfast in the 1960’s, and to Thronehill House, standing within sound of the animals in Belfast zoo; it was once Sarah Vincent’s family home – now divided into flats. Sarah herself lives in one of the flats, surrounded continually by the ghosts of her childhood. Sarah Vincent is fifty, a grammar school teacher and local poet. In the other flats live; Addie and Gerald, Kimberley and Justin and their new baby, and Helen – one of Sarah’s greatest friends from school days. Inside her flat Helen guards her ageing beauty jealously, mourns her daughter killed many years earlier and entertains her latest male companion, wondering whether this one will be the last. All around Sarah are the echoes of the past; the voices of her long dead parents fill the rooms which now are inhabited by other people.
“Mama, thirty-four years dead, stirred on the sofa in the drawing-room. Sarah heard the light insistent cough, the tinkling cow-bell lifted and laid again. Mama had various voices. Sometimes she spoke as childhood’s ear remembered, sometimes through the school girl caricature with which Sarah had fought maternal domination, rarely as the adult who demanded terrified pity.”
The novel is firmly rooted in the middle-class middle aged world of a group of women whose lives have been connected to Sarah Vincent’s since their schooldays. As the novel opens there is a tea-party for a group of Sarah’s friends, a monthly tradition, these women come together to talk, gossip and reminisce. Addie is one of these, Helen rarely attends.
full review: https://heavenali.wordpress.com/2016/...
“Mama, thirty-four years dead, stirred on the sofa in the drawing-room. Sarah heard the light insistent cough, the tinkling cow-bell lifted and laid again. Mama had various voices. Sometimes she spoke as childhood’s ear remembered, sometimes through the school girl caricature with which Sarah had fought maternal domination, rarely as the adult who demanded terrified pity.”
The novel is firmly rooted in the middle-class middle aged world of a group of women whose lives have been connected to Sarah Vincent’s since their schooldays. As the novel opens there is a tea-party for a group of Sarah’s friends, a monthly tradition, these women come together to talk, gossip and reminisce. Addie is one of these, Helen rarely attends.
full review: https://heavenali.wordpress.com/2016/...
May 8, 2016
It's hard to access a book about middle class ladies who lunch and are concerned with the concept of old age... when you're a 19 year old boy living in post-Troubles Belfast.
I mean some of the themes were interesting, but a lot of the characters felt the same and the scenes seemed to go nowhere sometimes. The changing perspective was both innovative and extremely confusing.
It was weird, but anyway, I have to go write an essay on it now.
I mean some of the themes were interesting, but a lot of the characters felt the same and the scenes seemed to go nowhere sometimes. The changing perspective was both innovative and extremely confusing.
It was weird, but anyway, I have to go write an essay on it now.
June 19, 2017
just finished this and I though of the Sarah the protagonist as a continuation of Leo from Hartley's The Go-Between. Quite a surprise and a moving one at that: McNeill's ensemble of aging souls gives pause for thought.
August 17, 2020
Sarah, a teacher in her fifties, still lives in the house she was brought up in the suburbs of North Belfast. Thronehill is a large Victorian house, now in flats and lived in by Sarah’s acquaintances.
Sarah dedicates her time to teaching and coaching her children, her circle of friends are the women she was at school with. She meets these women in town once a month for tea.
A plain, ungainly woman, Sarah segregates her physical lack of prowess from her cerebral capabilities. Starved of affection by parents wrapped up in each other and damaged by a never discussed incident in her childhood, she focuses on a kind, cool, authoritative approach to her relationships.
This balancing act is put under pressure when one of Sarah’s pupils inflicts a seemingly slight but quite deliberate hurt on her and by the demands of her complicated friendship with needy Helen.
The Maiden Dinosaur is a novella about disappointment, especially as the years start to roll by.
……It shouldn’t happen like this, this fading, creasing, ageing, dulling, thickening, all taking place so slowly that you could cheat yourself, if you were clever, until you realised one day that the old face was a caricature of the young face recognisable behind it. There should be a day set aside for celebrating beauty and being finished with it…….
A quiet, astute and moving piece of descriptive writing with rows of humour worked in to lighten the gloom.
Sarah dedicates her time to teaching and coaching her children, her circle of friends are the women she was at school with. She meets these women in town once a month for tea.
A plain, ungainly woman, Sarah segregates her physical lack of prowess from her cerebral capabilities. Starved of affection by parents wrapped up in each other and damaged by a never discussed incident in her childhood, she focuses on a kind, cool, authoritative approach to her relationships.
This balancing act is put under pressure when one of Sarah’s pupils inflicts a seemingly slight but quite deliberate hurt on her and by the demands of her complicated friendship with needy Helen.
The Maiden Dinosaur is a novella about disappointment, especially as the years start to roll by.
……It shouldn’t happen like this, this fading, creasing, ageing, dulling, thickening, all taking place so slowly that you could cheat yourself, if you were clever, until you realised one day that the old face was a caricature of the young face recognisable behind it. There should be a day set aside for celebrating beauty and being finished with it…….
A quiet, astute and moving piece of descriptive writing with rows of humour worked in to lighten the gloom.
December 13, 2023
I somehow lost my review!
So just to remind myself I didn’t find this as impressive as Tea at Four O’Clock.
So just to remind myself I didn’t find this as impressive as Tea at Four O’Clock.
May 5, 2023
I read another book of hers several weeks ago and loved it, Tea at Four O’Clock, 4.5 stars. This one, meh. 2.5 stars....
I thought at times her writing was really good, but it was only at times. Writing which I liked and wrote down:
• (Her father, when she was an adolescent, was disappointed in her looks.) Love me more because I’m plain, Sarah’s eyes entreated her father. Love me more because I need it.
• ...And we go out to tea with each other and remember – or invent what we forget.
• ...But sometimes as on this particular evening in the empty house I wondered what it must be like not to choose but to be chosen.
Most of the time, I just sped-read because I wasn’t getting much out of the book. At times I wasn’t sure who was talking or whether an event was happening now versus being reminisced about. And there were a number of characters, and it was initially hard to keep track of them.
So there. 😕 Not exactly a ringing endorsement.
Synopsis:
• The book was about Sarah Vincent, a middle-aged high school teacher at a girls’ school in Ireland (the country wasn’t that important in the story), and people who lived in her house which was converted by her into separate flats (it was her house and the house she grew up in). They all come in with stories to tell the reader. Several of them were her classmates many years ago at school.
heavenly ali (see last review below) liked this book but she liked her other books more (Tea at Four O’Clock; As Strangers Here; Out of the Shadows)...
Reviews:
• https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/bo...
• https://katevane.com/2017/02/26/the-m...
• a good review but gives too much away so if you are thinking of reading this book read the review afterwards... https://746books.com/2018/03/13/no-57...
• https://librofulltime.wordpress.com/2...
• https://heavenali.wordpress.com/2016/...
I thought at times her writing was really good, but it was only at times. Writing which I liked and wrote down:
• (Her father, when she was an adolescent, was disappointed in her looks.) Love me more because I’m plain, Sarah’s eyes entreated her father. Love me more because I need it.
• ...And we go out to tea with each other and remember – or invent what we forget.
• ...But sometimes as on this particular evening in the empty house I wondered what it must be like not to choose but to be chosen.
Most of the time, I just sped-read because I wasn’t getting much out of the book. At times I wasn’t sure who was talking or whether an event was happening now versus being reminisced about. And there were a number of characters, and it was initially hard to keep track of them.
So there. 😕 Not exactly a ringing endorsement.
Synopsis:
• The book was about Sarah Vincent, a middle-aged high school teacher at a girls’ school in Ireland (the country wasn’t that important in the story), and people who lived in her house which was converted by her into separate flats (it was her house and the house she grew up in). They all come in with stories to tell the reader. Several of them were her classmates many years ago at school.
heavenly ali (see last review below) liked this book but she liked her other books more (Tea at Four O’Clock; As Strangers Here; Out of the Shadows)...
Reviews:
• https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/bo...
• https://katevane.com/2017/02/26/the-m...
• a good review but gives too much away so if you are thinking of reading this book read the review afterwards... https://746books.com/2018/03/13/no-57...
• https://librofulltime.wordpress.com/2...
• https://heavenali.wordpress.com/2016/...
June 8, 2024
Although the situation of the main ‘virgin spinster’ character is a bit dated today there’s still a lot in this that still rings true. For a fairly short book it’s themes are various - from long term female friendships (in this case from school) and the way that people can be constrained within pigeon holes formed decades ago to the conflict between those who are married and mothers and those who are not (and the resultant thoughtless cruelty towards those not meeting society’s norms). It’s also a study of middle age and in particular its effects on women used to being ‘desirable’ and even pops in the danger of romantic poetry creating false expectations of love in young women! Having written that last sentence maybe it does attempt to pack in a bit too much but it is still a diverting if quiet read - although probably better appreciated by those closer in age to the characters..
November 28, 2021
I might have liked it even more if my copy wasn’t missing the last 20 pages. Argh!
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