Great Granny Webster

by Caroline Blackwood

Book by Blackwood, Caroline

Genres: Fiction, Classics, Historical Fiction, Gothic, Literary Fiction, Horror, Novella

135 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1977

About the author

was a writer, and the eldest child of The 4th Marquess of Dufferin and Ava and the brewery heiress Maureen Guinness.

A well-known figure in the literary world through her journalism and her novels, Lady Caroline Blackwood was equally well known for her high-profile marriages, first to the artist Lucian Freud, then to the composer Israel Citkowitz and finally to the poet Robert Lowell, who described her as "a mermaid who dines upon the bones of her winded lovers". Her novels are known for their wit and intelligence, and one in particular is scathingly autobiographical in describing her unhappy childhood.

She was born into an Anglo-Irish aristocratic family from Ulster at 4 Hans Crescent in Knightsbridge, her parents' London home. She was, she admitted, "scantily educated" at, among other schools, Rockport School (County Down) and Downham (Essex). After a finishing school in Oxford she was presented as a debutante in 1949 at a ball held at Londonderry House.

Reviews

[Maziyar Yf · Rating 3 out of 5]

مادربزرگ وبستر ، کتابی است از کرولاین بلک وود ، نویسنده انگلیسی . او در این کتاب کوشیده تصویری از اشرافیت رو به زوال در انگلستان را نشان دهد . داستان او از زبان دختری نوجوان روایت شده که پس از مرگ پدرش، برای زندگی به خانه‌ مادربزرگ پدرش ، مادربزرگ وبستر فرستاده می‌شود ، زنی خشک، سرد و بی‌احساس که خانه‌اش همچون خودش، سرد، تاریک و خالی از زندگی‌ست .
مادربزرگ وبستر، با انضباطی سخت و انکار کامل احساسات انسانی، نمادی‌ست از نسلی که نظم را بر عشق ترجیح می‌داد و در برابر تغییر، مقاومت می‌کرد. حضور او در رمان، همچون سایه‌ای سنگین، بر تمام روابط خانوادگی تأثیر گذاشته . خانه‌ی او، با سکوت سنگین و دیوارهای سرد، هم مرگ عاطفه و احساس را بیشتر به ذهن تداعی می کند تا جایی برای زندگی. در حقیقت وبستر را باید
مادربزرگ وبستر؛ بازمانده‌ای از روح ویکتوریایی
اگرچه مادربزرگ وبستر در دوره‌ای پس از پایان رسمی عصر ویکتوریا زندگی می‌کند، اما ویژگی‌های شخصیتی، سبک زندگی و جهان‌بینی‌اش ارزش‌ها و ذهنیت دوران ویکتوریا را بازتاب می دهند . او نمادی‌ست از نسلی که نظم، انضباط، سکوت و سرکوب احساسات را بر هر چیز دیگری مقدم می‌دانست. مادربزرگ وبستر با انضباطی افراطی، بی‌اعتنایی کامل به عاطفه، و مقاومت در برابر هرگونه تغییر، نماینده‌ی نسلی‌ست که احساسات را تهدیدی برای ساختار اجتماعی می‌دانست و زنان را در چارچوب وظیفه سنتی و سکوت تعریف می‌کرد.
او در برابر نسل‌های بعدی ، مادر افسرده‌ و کاملا دیوانه راوی و عمه‌ سرکش و نیمه دیوانه، و خود راوی نوجوان ،همچون دیواری سنگی ایستاده ؛ دیواری که مانع جریان زندگی‌ است . این تضاد میان او و نسل‌های بعدی، یکی از محورهای اصلی رمان است و نشان می‌دهد که چگونه روح ویکتوریایی می‌تواند بالاتر از زمان، در روان افراد و ساختارهای خانوادگی باقی بماند.
راوی در درازای داستان، به تدریج خواننده را با دو زن دیگر هم آشنا می کند ، مادری افسرده که سرانجام در آسایشگاه روانی بستری‌ می شود ، و عمه‌ ای زیبا ، سرکش و پرشور . این دو زن، به همراه مادربزرگ وبستر ، سه مسیر متفاوت زنان خانواده را نشان می‌دهند.
خانم بلک‌وود کوشیده تصویری از زنی سالخورده و منزوی ترسیم کند؛ زنی که وسواسش به نظم و سکوت سنگین، فضای خانه را به انجمادی سرد و بی‌روح تبدیل کرده و دیگر افراد خانواده را به حاشیه رانده . با این حال، کتاب در مجموع اثری متوسط است. شخصیت‌پردازی مادربزرگ، از مرزهای آشنای تیپ‌های ادبی فراتر نرفته و داستان فاقد کشش یا پیچیدگی خاصی‌ست .

[Celeste C · Rating 5 out of 5]

« - Da terra para a terra. Do pó para o pó...»

Adorei o livro; a escrita vívida, elegante, perspicaz (os adjectivos primorosamente escolhidos), as descrições físicas e psicológicas das personagens.

Sou fascinada pela excentricidade na vida e na literatura. Aqui encontrei três mulheres excêntricas cada uma com a sua pecularidade e a quarta, a narradora, que - certamente - a herdará ou compreenderá ou não termine o livro num cemitério.
Casas sinistramente vetustas e lúgubres. Quatro épocas da História da Inglaterra. A velha Senhora Webster «parecia ter sido construida para durar e havia nela uma total ausência de qualquer desejo ultramoderno e servil de agradar». Uma filha que enlouqueceu. Lavínia, sua neta, uma hedionista.

Em todas as famílias há monstros e fantasmas que se herdam e se vivem com um estoiscismo extravagante ( se é que faz sentido).

«De súbito, a bisavó Webster pareceu-me impressionante. Sobrevivera a tanta gente. Conseguira ser ao mesmo tempo o começo de uma linha e o final de uma linha. Na minha família, parecia ser o alfa e o ómega.»

pág. 136

«Na minha imaginação, ela teria uma vida após a morte na qual existiria para sempre na sua escura saleta em Hove, vivendo e respirando na sua cadeira de espaldar direito.»

pág. 136

[Alwynne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Caroline Blackwood was a descendent of the wealthy Guinness dynasty and drew on her own experiences for this moving exposé of the grimmer aspects of the lives of Anglo-Irish gentry: so much so that when this was shortlisted for the Booker, Philip Larkin apparently pronounced it too close to life to be judged as fiction. Set after WW2, Blackwood’s novella’s narrated by an unnamed teenage girl who slowly uncovers secrets from her family’s past, in particular the life histories of three women: her father’s granny Webster, his mother and sister Lavinia. All three doomed in their own inimitable fashion. Blackwood’s memorable story conjured up a host of literary associations, at times I felt as if Edward Gorey’s lugubrious figures had somehow been transplanted into a Nancy Mitford novel, and then drenched in Barbara Comyns’s trademark domestic gothic. I found the end result unexpectedly striking. It’s a macabre, melancholy tale of madness, suicide and needless decay but it’s saved from utter bleakness by Blackwood’s admirable restraint and deft handling of her material. Her piece starts slowly, couched in disarmingly simple, direct tones but as it unfolds it’s increasingly laced with moments of wonderfully caustic wit and bizarre, yet marvellously wry, anecdotes.
Rating: 4.5

[Daniel Archer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolute masterpiece. Laugh-out-loud humor and pitch black gothic craziness rolled into 103 pages of bizarre family drama. Don’t let the narrator’s edgy calmness fool you. This book will sneak up on you and when it does it bites.

[Ms. Smartarse · Rating 4 out of 5]

It all started with a two month stint of recovery at her great grandmother's, when she was 14. Two years after World War II, Great Granny Webster's home appeared to be still firmly rooted in an austere atmosphere: not just the house itself, or the single elderly maid Richards, but rather Great Granny Webster's own distaste of life itself .

“I have nothing to live for any more,” she would murmur. I was always astonished by the way her tone sounded so smug and boastful.

It soon became apparent though, that the Great Grandmother may not even be the most unusual member of the family. Aunt Lavinia's unorthodox and overtly ostentatious life style, can cause seemingly endless hours of fascination for all those who knew her.

She believed in having “fun” as if it was a state of grace. Taking nothing seriously except amusement, she caused very little rancour, and although she was considered untrustworthy and wild and was reputed once to have gate-crashed a fashionable London party totally naked except for a sanitary towel, she managed to slip in and out of her many relationships, which she invariably described as “divine,” like an elegant and expensive eel.

And then there was the 'mysterious' grandmother (not to be confused with the great granny, from the book's title), whom no one seemed to understand. The only remotely definite thing about her were the metaphorical alarm bells in people's heads.

You must remember that your grandmother Dunmartin was a very different person from Great Granny Webster. From his earliest childhood your father had always lived in secret terror, never knowing what his mother was going to do or say.

Great Granny Webster is basically a lengthy gossip-fest about the narrator's family. A guilty pleasure reading material to delight any most women.

The atmosphere of the book reminded me a lot of William Faulkner's A rose for Emily, where the town folk would find constant fascination with Miss Emily Grierson, even years after she'd secluded herself from society.

The foreword however bored me to tears. It reminded me rather painfully of all the tedious literary analyses that I had to wade through during high school. It nearly made me give up on the book, a mere 3 pages in.

Score: 4.2/5 stars

I could hardly put it down, especially since it's a relatively short story. Couldn't really say why I'm not giving it 5 whole stars, just that I wasn't as excited about it as I normally am about a juicy gossip fodder. Still, I recommend it to any fan of books with a heavy Gothic atmosphere.

[Blair · Rating 5 out of 5]

A perfect little masterpiece of dark comedy, Great Granny Webster is a collection of vignettes about a young woman from a dysfunctional aristocratic family. The first (and most memorable) centres on the forbidding figure of the title, with whom the narrator, an orphan, is sent to live for a brief period. Great Granny Webster is a terrifyingly austere woman who strictly adheres to routine and says things like ‘life can never be much of a joke for the thinking person’. This chapter is the funniest and most quotable; nearly every line is a work of art.

‘I have nothing to live for any more,’ she would murmur. I was always astonished by the way her tone sounded so smug and boastful.

In the second part of the book, the narrator meets with her hedonistic aunt, a woman who is Great Granny Webster’s exact opposite, yet equally unhappy in her own way. In the third, the narrator talks to a friend of her father’s, who reflects on the girl’s parents’ and grandparents’ time living in a nightmarishly decrepit Irish mansion. In this way, the whole family history is gradually filled in. There’s also a coda bringing it all together. While nothing is quite as striking as that opening chapter, Great Granny Webster is great all the way through: witty, complicated, haunting. There’ll be more Blackwood in my future for sure.

[Paula Mota · Rating 4 out of 5]

4,5*

A casa da bisavó Webster transmitia a mesma húmida sensação de frio que sentimos em muitas igrejas. Tínhamos por hábito comer em bandejas, de frente para a lareira, mas a frieza daquelas refeições era realçada pelo facto de, por motivos económicos, a lenha ser disposta, mas nunca acesa.

Sem que o tenha premeditado, depois de Emma Reyes chego a uma autora cuja vida se sobrepõe à obra, tendo nascido no berço de ouro da família Guinness, passado por três casamentos com artistas de áreas diversas e caído no alcoolismo até ao fim da vida, que chegou aos 64 anos. Com “A Velha Senhora Webster”, foi finalista do Booker Prize em 1977 mas não o venceu porque o voto de desempate coube a Philip Larkin, que o achou demasiado autobiográfico, o que tem uma certa graça vindo de alguém cujo poema mais famoso começa por “they fuck you up, your mum and dad”.
Com apenas 140 páginas, é espantoso que esta obra consiga abarcar quatro períodos, o vitoriano, o eduardiano, a Primeira e a Segunda Guerra Mundial, personificados por membros de uma família de ascendência escocesa e irlandesa, concisa mas extremamente bem retratados, com um requintado humor digno de Nancy Mitford.

Quando a avó Webster usava a expressão “hoje em dia”, acentuava e separava cada sílaba e conseguia que o chavão soasse sempre como um veneno letal responsável pela destruição de tudo aquilo em que outrora vira algo de bom. (…)
- Ho-jem-di-a – começava ele, de repente -, as pessoas parecem estar mimadas. Já não querem trabalhar como criadas. A culpa é da guerra. Foi esta maldita guerra que as fez gostar de trabalhar em munições.

Esta árvore genealógica é formada pela matriarca que dá nome ao livro, um ser intragável mas que, apesar disso ou precisamente por causa disso, fez as minhas delícias…

O seu coração era a única coisa que ela valorizava. Montava-lhe guarda perpétua como uma avarenta, contando cada passo que dava, poupando-se a esforços físicos do mesmo modo que racionava a comida. Pelo seu coração estava preparada para sofrer. Se as horas todas que se obrigava a passar imóvel na sua cadeira a entediavam de morte, sentia-se recompensada pela frugal sensação de que durante todo esse tempo estava a armazenar a energia do seu coração como quem armazena combustível.

…por uma avó tresloucada numa mansão a cair aos pedaços no Ulster…

- Ele tem mau sangue! – começou a gritar a minha avó – Não veem o que faço por ele!? Não veem que é muito melhor para a pobre criatura se eu lhe esmagar o cerebrozinho contra uma pedra?
Finalmente, a minha avó havia sido vencida pelo peso e força bruta de tantas amas resolutas e qualificadas. O bebé fora salvo. Tinha conseguido arrebata-lo das mãos da minha avó perante a total inércia dos seus parentes mais chegados.

…por uma tia extravagante e suicida…

Tinha tudo perfeitamente planeado, querida. Não podia ser mais romano… Estava na banheira com a minha garrafa de uísque para ganhar coragem e a minha cintilante lâmina de barbear. (…) Então, de repente, dei-me conta de que a água do banho adquirira um espantoso tom escarlate. Senti o estômago revirar. Há algo de inesperadamente pavoroso no facto de nos vermos numa banheira cheia de sangue e sabonete derretido.

…e pela própria narradora demasiado normal e discreta no meio desta família decadente e desequilibrada.

Ao fim de oito semanas, habituara-me de tal maneira a viver no seu mundo estático e sem desafios de pessoa idosa que me assustou dar-me conta de que tinha de regressar a uma vida na qual seria exigido mais de mim do que apenas que fosse “reservada”.

A velha Senhora Webster é, neste quadro de mudanças e caos em que o país se viu envolvido na primeira metade do século XX, um último bastião de solidez, um símbolo da velha guarda que não se adapta nem fraqueja perante as adversidades, por mais ridículo que isso pareça aos olhos modernos.

No universo bafiento e confinado que ele habitava, tudo tinha uma ordem e uma previsibilidade. À semelhança do seu mobiliário escuro, a bisavó parecia ter sido construída para durar. Não dava o menor indício de alguma vez ter sentido razões para questionar quem era e o que representava. Não obstante as humilhações da velhice, a noção que tinha do valor da sua identidade permanecia inalterada, porque era inseparável da estabilidade sagrada das suas rotinas imperturbáveis.

[°•.Melina°•. · Rating 4 out of 5]

وای چه پایان غریبی :) نمیشه گفت این رمان کوتاه دقیقا چه خط داستانی‌ای داره چون اپیزودیکه اما داستان از اونجایی شروع میشه که 'نتیجه‌ی' این خانواده که دختربچه‌س به دلایلی میره خونه‌ی مادربزرگ وبستر زندگی کنه - که میشه مادرجد پدریش- و از اونجا شروع به تعریف کردن شخصیتها و سرنوشت‌های عجیب غریب خانوادشون میکنه. جالب و به یادموندنی بود، همیشه انتخابهای بیدگل ارزشش رو داره.

[Roman Clodia · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Blazer?" she repeated. "Blazer?" Her tiny mouth twisted with disgust and she managed to make the word sound like some foul and crude expletive. "Fortunately I don't know these modern terms [...] There is really nothing more unattractive than the sight of a young woman displaying a repulsive amount of arm."

Through about two-thirds of this short but impactful novel I thought this would definitely be 5-stars from me. Sadly, though, the final third is written in a style which doesn't play to Blackwood's strengths of immaculately timed prose and the creation of distinctive voices, and so the structure rather fell apart for me.

The first two parts depict two of the bonkers women in the narrator's family: the eponymous Great Granny Webster sitting in her cold, Gothic-coded villa in...er... Hove! And the glorious Aunt Lavinia, all Mayfair gloss with a darker underside. Both women have utterly distinctive voices and I was finding these two sections eminently quotable, whether Great Granny's Lady Bracknell-alike pronouncements of horror as in the head quote here, or Aunt Lavinia's Nancy Mitford-alike drolleries that she considers merely good advice and crucial life knowledge for her teenage niece:

Rodney... He's my newest flame. You'll love him. He's very lean and bronzed and sexy. He's slightly a bore, but not such a bad one that you could call him a 'important bore'. Rodney's just not very intelligent. But then he's not the kind of man who's meant to be...

What makes both women, especially Lavinia, so memorable is the darkness that sits beneath their surface appearance Lavinia tries to commit suicide, is rescued, is placed in a psychiatric hospital where her doctor assaults her - she finally succeeds in killing herself later. And, looking at the family, it's impossible not to trace this psychological disturbance through the female line and to wonder about the narrator herself whom Lavinia likens to both Great Granny and herself when younger.

All this wonderful stuff slightly falls away, though, in the third part where the narrator speaks to a friend of her dead father and hears the story of her grandparents: this double-distancing means that there is no direct speech, something that made the women of the prior sections so vivid, and everything is recounted to us through indirect reportage: 'he told me that...' It's a shame because we don't experience the grandmother for ourselves, only - like the narrator - learn about her at arms' length through a non-family observer. Structurally, this plays against Blackwood's strengths as a writer: her ability to capture individual voices, her mingling of the grotesque with a black humour. It's an important link in the chain of mental disturbances which haunt the women of the family but the distance makes it reportage and the humour is absent.

The brief coda brings us back to the direct mode of the early parts as the narrator goes to Great Granny Webster's funeral fifteen years later. And the macabre ending is just perfect: so small, so inconsequential in another writers' hands, so wonderfully suggestive in Blackwood's imagination:

I was never to know whether Richards was deliberately trying to blot out the horrifying sight of the sugary and wind-blown incorrectness with which Great Granny Webster was now dancing drunkenly over the earth, or whether she was only flinching because by a final misfortune some last feathery fleck of the woman for whom she had worked so hard and so long had got lodged in her one good eye.

4.5 stars

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

رمان Great Granny Webster یه تجربه کوتاه ولی عمیق بود؛ تو چند ساعت خوندمش ولی هنوز ذهنم درگیرشه. فضای کتاب سنگین و گوتیکه، پر از سکوت‌های سرد، خونه‌های تاریک، آدمای خشک و سرکوب‌شده. حس می‌کنی تو یه دنیای اشرافی پوسیده افتادی که همه چی ظاهراً منظمه، ولی از درون در حال فروپاشیه.
کم‌حجم بود، ولی انقدر پرمغز و تلخ بود که حسابی کیف داد خوندنش.
توی یه جمله بگم که یه تلنگر واقعی به زندگی‌های بی‌روح و سنت‌زده است.

پ.ن: نشر گرون ولی دوست داشتنی :(

[Iris ☾ (iriis.dreamer) · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5/5

La escritora inglesa, Caroline Blackwood, fue finalista del premio Booker gracias a «La anciana señora Webster» que fue publicada en 1977. Esta, tiene tintes semiautobiográficos y se basa en los propios familiares de la autora. Sin duda estaba deseando leer alguno de sus escritos y quedo satisfecha y con ganas de seguir descubriendo su narración.

En esta historia conoceremos la vida de cuatro generaciones, cuatro mujeres gobernadas por la bisabuela de la familia, la señora Webster. Es ella quien realmente adquiere el mayor protagonismo y que resulta el personaje más atrayente y misterioso. La protagonista y narradora, de la que nunca conocemos el nombre, es una joven tímida y algo solitaria que busca en sus familiares un anclaje tras la muerte de su padre.

Sin lugar a dudas nos hallamos ante una novela gótica bastante perturbadora. El comienzo, así cómo la ambientación lúgubre que envuelve Hove, logra transportarnos a un escenario inquietante. La presentación y descripción de la anciana que nos presenta Blackwood, es sublime: una mujer fría y estricta que sigue unas normas severas y apenas tiene contacto ni cercanía con otras personas.

En rasgos generales tengo la sensación que es una historia muy interesante que se queda corta, no hay una finalidad concreta más que darnos a conocer a estas mujeres. No encontraremos entre sus páginas suspense, ni un hilo conductor, realmente no pasa nada trascendental y puedo calificarla como una obra en la que lo único importante son sus personajes y su narrativa.

Para finalizar, solo debo recalcar la importancia del estilo narrativo de la autora, que seduce y enamora desde el principio. La única pega que le encuentro es lo que menciono con anterioridad. Descubrimos que lo que realmente une a todas estas mujeres es el sentimiento dramático y la soledad a pesar de tener caracteres tan distintos. Una novela que deja con ganas de más.

[Katya]

A leitura de A velha senhora Webster acabou por se revelar um presente de natal inesperado e, já agora, depois do último desgosto literário, bem merecido. E a coisa começou logo muito bem com uma caracterização de personagens forte e uma figura central, a própria da senhora Webster que titula a obra, a revelar-se uma mulher estóica, de contornos gélidos e intrigantes que agarram o leitor de imediato:

Naquele carro, ficava com a sensação de estar demasiado perto da bisavó Webster. Isoladas atrás da divisória de vidro que nos separava do motorista, conseguia, ou assim me parecia, sentir o aroma ácido da sua velhice, o amargor do seu desagrado com tudo, passado, presente e futuro.

Os ambientes soturnos e góticos (finalmente, um exemplo bem conseguido de gótico que não tem de ser um desfiar de miséria, misoginia e falta de amor próprio!) e uma narradora jovem, simples, tranquila e enganadoramente ingénua, cujo sentido de humor, apesar de bizarro é altamente eficaz, fazem de A velha senhora Webster um pequenino tesouro que se começa a revelar logo nas primeiras páginas:

A mera ideia de tentar convencer esta idosa carrancuda e ferozmente soturna a deslocar-se à ventosa praia de Brighton, onde poderia muito bem sofrer um ataque cardíaco em resultado do horror e choque de se ver obrigada a passar por cima do aglomerado de corpos seminus dos «excursionistas», era inconcebível, sem qualquer dúvida.

Recorrendo a várias vozes para traçar retratos de efeito grandioso, e a várias histórias imbricadas como construções de LEGO na figura da bisavó Webster, Caroline Blackwood traz até nós a história de várias gerações de uma família (a sua família, dado o caráter autobiográfico do texto) cujas figuras centrais são as três mulheres que descendem hierarquicamente da intrigante matriarca Webster:

Julgo que desde então não conheci um ser humano que sorrisse tão pouco, que encontrasse na vida menos motivos de diversão. Orgulhava-se da sua falta de humor, como se visse nela uma virtude da aristocracia escocesa. Se o humor pode às vezes ser usado como uma defesa contra os golpes do fracasso, da dor e da perda, ao reduzir ao absurdo todas estas coisas, a bisavó Webster desdenhava de tal escudo, encarando-o como uma defesa apenas adequada a «excursionistas».
- A vida não é uma brincadeira - disse-me ela numa ocasião. - A vida jamais pode ser uma brincadeira para quem usa a cabeça.
Quando se estava com ela quase nos convencia de que havia algo de cobarde e vil em qualquer evasão emocional, na recusa de enfrentarmos de caras todos os golpes que a vida nos prepara. Levava-nos a acreditar que havia uma coragem quase sobre-humana na maneira como não receava admitir que a única coisa que esperava da vida era uma consciência ininterrupta, desagradável como ela sabia que teria de ser. Tudo o que ela queria de cada novo dia era saber que continuava desafiadoramente viva, que, contra todas as probabilidades, conseguira sobreviver no vazio solitário e desprovido de amor que criara para si mesma.

Os retratos dessas figuras, traçados para o leitor de forma sólida e espantosamente segura num tão curto espaço de tempo, vão desde a avó Dunnmartin, cuja «crença nas forças sobrenaturais se tinha tornado uma verdadeira fixação, pois tentava converter toda a gente às suas crenças e tornava-se ríspida e hostil se achasse que o seu público a tratava com condescendência. Afirmava ser capaz de entender a linguagem das fadas, que lhe enviavam mensagens constantes e que era importante dar apenas ouvidos às instruções das fadas boas, já que elas poderiam ajudar-nos e evitar os terríveis feitiços que os demónios nos deitavam»; à tia Lavinia que, apesar das recentes tendências suicidas, «era sempre descrita como uma jolie laide. Era uma playgirl ao estilo dos anos vinte, famosa pelas suas bonitas pernas e pelo facto de ter sido casada com três milionários ao mesmo tempo que entretinha um amplo sortido de amantes, que além de serem amigos dos seus maridos eram também financeiramente quase tão bem-dotados quanto eles»; à jovem narradora cuja figura, de caráter supersticioso e índole espirituosa, se vai desvendando ao leitor lentamente como uma extensão da própria autora.

Com uma galeria de personagens fascinantes trazidas até nós por uma narrativa que abarca cerca de cinquenta anos de (conturbada) história inglesa, vários são os intervenientes que competem pela primazia maior nesta pequena novela e eles não se restringem a figuras humanas, mas alargam-se também aos espaços habitados. Desde a casa da bisavó Webster, cujo coração é uma grandiosa lareira de braseiro sempre apagado...

Richards cozinhava todas as nossas refeições na cave(...).Arfando e resfolegando, roxa do esforço, lá conseguia a duras penas carregar a nossa comida até à sala de estar numa pesada bandeja eduardiana de mogno com pernas.
Quando por fim nos servia a refeição, a bisavó Webster agradecia-lhe sempre, mas num tom que deixava entrever uma extrema coragem, como se falar lhe tivesse exigido um esforço doloroso e heróico. Ali sentada, com uma expressão tão assombrosa de exaustão e desconforto que até conseguia eclipsar Richards, fazia qualquer pessoa sentir que a façanha da criada com a bandeja de mogno e as terríveis escadas de acesso à cave não era assim tão extraordinária se pensássemos que a bisavó Webster estivera, desde manhã cedo, sentada num silêncio corajoso e estoico, suportando sem queixas o desconforto atroz da sua cadeira de espaldar duro.

...a Dunnmartin Manor, a mansão familiar esquálida e em ruínas onde os criados reinavam desregrados e «onde proliferava o entulho tipicamente anglo-irlandês composto por faturas por pagar e por abrir, raquetes de ténis com as cordas partidas, botijas de água quente de louça sem as tampas, faisões empalhados em vitrinas rachadas, exemplares amarelados de revistas sobre cavalos, páginas rasgadas do Times londrino. (...) onde o mobiliário de época picado pelo bicho da madeira se amontoava com selas e cilhas, onde um emaranhado de canas de pesca se entrelaçava com arreios bolorentos e enferrujados, onde em cima de mesas de pingue-pongue e de bilhar havia aros de cróquete espaIhados ao acaso ao lado de espingardas antigas e galochas.»

O magnífico sentido de espaço da narradora alimenta esta luta pela supremacia de protagonismo ao longo de todo o texto, oferecendo, nestas poucas páginas, uma amálgama de contrastes - negro e austero; branco e acolhedor - e uma capacidade ímpar de transmitir sensações físicas e psicológicas - frio, quente, molhado; temor, solidão, dúvida -, através de pequeninas vinhetas que deixam entrever como o ambiente exerce poder sobre a índole e se pode oferecer como um último, ainda que improvável, reduto de normalidade, de ancestralidade, e de segurança da hereditariedade:

«No universo bafiento e confinado que ela habitava, tudo tinha uma ordem e uma previsibilidade. À semelhança do seu mobiliário escuro, a bisavó parecia ter sido construída para durar. Não dava o menor indício de alguma vez ter sentido razões para questionar quem era e o que representava. Não obstante as humilhações da velhice, a noção que tinha do valor da sua identidade permanecia inalterada, porque era inseparável da estabilidade sagrada das suas rotinas imperturbáveis. Só quando perdíamos a bisavó Webster e rumávamos a um cenário mais moderno e povoado de identidades incertas magoadas, confundidas por valores contraditórios e e constante mudança, é que podíamos começar a dar valor à fiabilidade da sua tenaz circunspeção. Ainda que por acaso nos desagradassem tanto os seus costumes quanto os seus valores, porque ela se considerava demasiado acima dos demais e demasiado bem couraçada para se ralar com críticas vulgares, em certo sentido, era ela que saía vencedora. Ao jamais ter desejado receber prazer, ou dá-lo, obrigava-nos a admitir que havia algo de admiravelmente forte na sua total ausência de qualquer desejo ultramoderno e servil de agradar.»

A economia de palavras de Blackwood é admirável, e a forma como constrói este tríptico e a sua conclusão de teor macabro e irónico dá origem a um exemplar perfeito daquilo que é o bom humor inglês adoçado por uma veia poética. E esta pequenina novela, repleta de ínfimos, divertidos e excêntricos detalhes acaba por ser reveladora de uma autora que, sendo aristocrata de sangue, tinha mais de artista do que muitos artistas.

«Dir-se-ia que era para o seu coração que a bisavó Webste vivia, na verdade. O coração era a unica coisa que lhe importava. Produzira três gerações de descendentes e vivera anos suficientes para saber que nenhuma deles lhe importava minimamente, da mesma maneira que a um velho carvalho não mportam as folhas que ano após anos lhe caem dos ramos.
O seu coração era a única coisa que ela valorizava. Montava-lhe guarda perpétua como uma avarenta, contando cada passo que dava, poupando-se a esforços físicos do mesmo modo que racionava a comida. Pelo seu coração estava preparada para sofrer. Se as horas todas que se obrigava a passar imóvel na sua cadeira a entediavam de morte, sentia-se recompensada pela frugal sensação de que durante todo esse tempo estava a armazenar a energia do seu coração como quem armazena combustivel.»

[Antoinette · Rating 4 out of 5]

Our unnamed narrator is 14 years old when she first meets her Great Granny Webster. She was sent to be with her after an illness- “sea air” was prescribed for her health.

“ She was little more to me than the silhouette of a formidable old woman dressed in black who appeared occasionally at family gatherings and made us feel that she was taking a dangerous risk with her upright spine when circumstances forced her to bend over and kiss her great grandchildren.” She was also described as “a dour old piece of Scottish granite.”

Great Granny Webster seldom spoke, but on the day that our narrator is leaving, she mentions that her father often came to see her. This piques our narrator’s curiosity in her family’s background. She delves into their history by speaking first to her aunt and then to a close friend of her deceased father.

There is so much that has happened to her family- insanity, death, suicide, reversal of fortune. Did Great Granny Webster’s coldness and strictness cause the destructiveness and instability in her offspring?

This novella is said to be autobiographical. The author, Caroline Blackwood, certainly has an interesting personal history. But she has stated that there is some truth in it but with her imagination thrown in.

This book was certainly an interesting portrayal of a family- predominantly its women- Great Granny Webster, Grandmother Dunmartin, and Aunt Lavinia- 3 generations and now our unnamed narrator- the fourth generation. These women were so different from each other. How would their influence affect our narrator?

A book that packs much into 103 pages. Exceptional writing! It left me much to think about.

Published: 1977

[Marta Silva · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Para mim era, pouco mais do que a silhueta de uma formidável anciã vestida de negro que aparecia ocasionalmente nas reuniões familiares e nos fazia sentir que punha em grande risco a sua reta espinha dorsal quando as circunstâncias a obrigavam a dobrar-se para beijar os bisnetos.”

Uma excelente leitura, pela escrita, pela narrativa e pelas personagens femininas que a compõem.
Uma bisneta narradora, uma avó perturbada, uma tia excêntrica e uma bisavó enfadonha, por vezes impertinente e com uma postura arrogante e presunçosa.
A senhora Webster, que carece de encanto, foi das idosas que mais gostei de conhecer na literatura!

[Daisy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was looking forward to reading this book; lots of 5 star reviews here, described as gothic, macabre and funny among other enticing adjectives and short (not to be undervalued after wading through nearly 700 pages of twaddle named Night Film recently).
I read it.
Going against the weight of public opinion here, I really disliked it. The premise is promising, a newly teenage girl fears for her future as a woman after visiting her aged Great Granny Webster for the first time and discovers the histories of the preceding generations of women in her family. This appealed as I too had something of a wild grandmother and a great-grandmother who was eccentric but I felt cheated as the women were too hackneyed and their depiction cliched to give it any real heft for me.
It is said to be largely autobiographical (it failed to win the booker because judge Philip Larkin said it was too autobiographical to win a prize for fiction) and maybe Blackwood did have an aunt like the fictional Lavinia or a grandmother who was mad like Dunmartin or a Scots granny as dour as Webster but I couldn’t get beyond how much of a shorthand type they were.
Lavinia the effervescent party girl who everyone falls in love with and lives in a Mayfair house where life is an endless social whirl of champagne, parties and suitors and who brushes off personal tragedy as if it was no more an inconvenience than the caterers being late.
Grandmother Dunmartin who is mad in the most literary and beautiful of ways, wandering the stately home she lives in resembling a dishevelled fairy, the infantile cutting out from books of fairies and elves and the like, the running barefoot in the forest to commune with the trees and the little people.
Great Granny Webster who takes the trope of Scottish parsimony to extremes, being unwilling to give away either money or energy (I say this but did have my own Scottish grandma who always sat on the hard un-cushioned dining chairs, put salt in her porridge and was frugal with hugs and kisses) and spends her hours sat straight-backed in a hard chair doing nothing.
Throw in a decaying stately home that has buckets and antique vases catching the multitude of leaks, the repetitive inedible meals and somewhat pantomime servants and we could be in the world of Wodehouse.
Blackwood does write well, the sentences and descriptions can fizz and sparkle but they are lost in the shadow these outsize stereotypes cast over the tale.

[Mel || melodrama_musings · Rating 4 out of 5]

Creeps under your skin as it meanders with plotless abandon. The visuals are so stark and evocative and the character work so effective in a relatively short amount of pages. A fascinating exploration of mental illness, and loneliness as told through a trio of atypical female protagonists.

I can’t wait to read more of Blackwood’s writing!

[Vesna · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5

My Hardwick-Lowell-Blackwood summer saga unexpectedly continues… Hardwick’s Sleepless Nights prompted me to delve deeper into the tumultous period, exceptionally captured in The Dolphin Letters, 1970-1979: Elizabeth Hardwick, Robert Lowell, and Their Circle, from which this wholly original novel emerged. It’s the period in which Lowell deserted his wife of 21 years for another writer across the ‘pond’, Caroline Blackwood.

Lo and behold, just about when I thought I was done with my immersion into the personal and literary complexity of their relationship, which did affect me emotionally and also enlightened me about the manifold literary issues, I was reminded of my long-forgotten plan to join one of my GR groups for their August read of Blackwood’s novel. As this reminder suddenly hit me, I got torn about it. After all, it was written by that “other woman” and during the same period of Dolphin Letters … but Hardwick’s generous blessing eased me into it.

Only a couple of months before his sudden death in 1977, Hardwick wrote to her close friend Mary McCarthy:

About Caroline—Cal [Robert Lowell’s nickname] thinks she’s the greatest living writer—I do feel she has the greatest possibilities in Ireland and I hope so. I very much admire a new book—Greatgranny Webster, it is called—that is coming out. I liked Stepdaughter too[.] (from The Dolphin Letters)

And so I read it and also found much to admire about it. Like Hardwick’s Sleepless Nights, Blackwood’s Great Granny Webster is semi-autobiographical, though quite different in style and approach to memory. Written much more conventionally than Hardwick’s experimental novel, it looks back at three generations of the narrator’s female ancestors while searching to understand her father who died when she was a child.

While sharing inner darkness, the outer lives of the three women could not have been more different and each is uniquely eccentric, reflecting and escaping different epochs that Blackwood subtly weaves into their lives (Victorian, Edwardian, roaring 20s, post-WWII austerity). The stern rigidity of Granny Webster’s Victorianism makes her cruelly detached from everything and everyone; this, in turn, may have led her daughter (the narrator’s grandmother) to escape the promise of her Edwardian lush life and marriage into the imaginary world of fairies and monsters that eventually landed her in a mental asylum; and either or both may have led the narrator’s Aunt Lavinia to believe that life is too frivolous not to enjoy it in carefree parties, fleeting relations, and amusingly successive marriages until she did not. And the burdens of this line of fractured heritage continued beyond the novel… as we may learn from Caroline Blackwood’s own life.

With all its literary merits (and there are many), there is a certain unevenness as the cadence changes in the middle of the novel and I wish it didn't... so, while not quite a 5-star read for me, it's surely memorable.

[Tony]

--- Like this?
---- Yes. No, pull the sheet up more.
--- Trying to capture my innocence?
---- Already done. No, I’m . . . You’re looking at me.
--- I’m looking at you looking at me.
---- Tell me about you then. Not the Guinness fortune. Not the tiara parties. There’s a thread somewhere. Make it up, if you have to. You're good at that.
--- Oh, there’s a thread all right. Hmm, let’s see. . . .
My mother sent me to stay with my great-grandmother. I was fourteen, recuperating from anaemia. The sea air would do me good. My Great Granny was rich Scottish stock. Trained to sit back-straight on a hard wooden chair. And she still did, all day, in a draughty, darkened house. We never tasted that sea air. Her own heart was all she cared about. She had produced three generations of descendants and lived to know that none of them could have the slightest importance to her, any more than all the leaves that have flown yearly from its branches can have much importance to an aged oak.
---- And your grandmother?
--- Bat-shit crazy. . . .
On the day of my brother’s christening she went to his nursery, held him aloft, ready to smash his head on the dresser when the nannies wrestled him out of her hands. She was committed soon after.
How’s the light?
---- Informative. Your grandmother somehow managed to have two children.
--- Yes. Aunt Lavinia and my father. Lavinia was everything Great Granny was not. Or seemingly so.
She believed in having “fun” as if it was a state of grace. Taking nothing seriously except amusement, she caused very little rancor, and although she was considered untrustworthy and wild and was reputed once to have gate-crashed a fashionable London party totally naked except for a sanitary towel, she managed to slip in and out of her many relationships, which she invariably described as "divine,” like an elegant and expensive eel.
She called me from the hospital after her first suicide attempt failed. Me. The second attempt didn’t fail.
---- Your father?
--- The men in the family seem to die too young. He was certainly embarrassed about his mother.
But here’s something my Great Granny told me: during the War he would come and visit her every time he was on leave. I’ve been trying to understand why he did that. I can’t imagine anything less enjoyable. It gnaws at me.
Oh, get me a drink, would you?
----
--- Can you get me a drink, Lucian?
----
--- What are you staring at?

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ms. Blackwood introduces the reader to some of her more eccentric relatives. A fascinating account told with grace and wit. Check out Ms. Blackwood's bio which is fascinating in and of itself. Cheers!

[Jimmy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short and deceptively simple, seemingly plotless, just a series of impressions filtered through a family's random memories ... seems like not much, right? But it is!

We find out about Great Granny Webster, then we find out more about Great Granny Webster as well as the protagonist's grandmother through the protagonist's Aunt Lavinia. Then we realize Aunt Lavinia is just as much a character as Great Granny is, but in the opposite direction. Then we find out more about all the above women and about the protagonist's father through her father's friend. Each of these remembrances has the familiar feeling of sitting down with a family member for a casual conversation, and that's exactly how it disarms you. Underneath all the stories, something is building, a portrait of these women that gets progressively more nuanced. What starts off as comical characters are comical AND relatable and sad and understandable.

The precision and economy of words on display here is crazy good, and the way we find out about each character from the lens of other characters, and each time we find out a little more about the family history, the way the information is slowly revealed is just masterful.

We never hear the protagonist herself speak (at least that is my impression, I'd have to comb through the text again to make sure). The women of the family are... well I'm trying not to say "crazy" here, because that's a tired trope and frankly the book transcends the trope. But yes, at first it seems that way on the surface. The point is that the women, crazy or not, are the interesting ones of the family. They are driven to these extreme states by each other and by certain (patriarchal? societal?) pressures on them.

It's a short book but it doesn't feel short. It feels like I've known these characters for a long time. They are larger than life and very much real and very lovable, though also hard to love.

For a plotless book, the ending is remarkably powerful and bitterly, blackly funny. Such a gem of a book, everyone should read it.

[Leah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found a dog-eared, highlighted copy of this in the biographies section of the bookshop I work at. Having ascertained that it wasn't a biography (because if we put all semi-autobiographical novels in the bio section, literature would be a very empty shelf...), I decided it was worth a read, and small enough to fit into my handbag and pull out on the train, too.

The sense of surroundings is what has really stuck with me - Great Granny Webster's horrifying cold house, Aunt Lavinia's pure white, luxurious London flat, the tragic collapsing family house at Dunmartin. Every story told is inexplicably linked with the place in which it is told, or the place about which it is told. Indeed, the final part, where the narrator's grandmother is descending into madness in the leaky, absurdly-run castle-house in Ireland, is a phantasmagorical Gothic story told through the horrified eyes of a modern young man - you can feel your toes get cold from his descriptions of the puddles on the floor.

Each little vignette is fascinating, self-contained in its own world. Aunt Lavinia tells a story about Great Granny Webster, but you are really learning as much about the narrator and about Aunt Lavinia, and London in the 20s, as you are about the titular character.

A book to read quickly, and consider slowly for a long time afterwards.

[Yaprak · Rating 4 out of 5]

Booker Ödülü için finale kalan, "bu kadar otobiyografik bir öykü kurgu olamaz!" denilerek ödülü kazanması engellenen Büyük Büyükanne Webster, yazarının hayatından izler taşıyor mu bilmiyorum ancak oldukça ilginç bir roman olduğu şüphesiz. Karanlık bir evde, soğukta, izole bir şekilde yaşamayı tercih eden büyük büyükanne Webster, akıl sağlığı yerinde olmayan büyükanne ve yine intihara meyilli tuhaf Lavinia Hala ile bizi tanıştırıyor anlatıcımız. Hayatındaki bu garip, kimselere benzemeyen kadınların hikayelerini onun izlenimleri ve anıları aracılığıyla okuyoruz. Blackwood oldukça gotik bir atmosfer yaratıyor. Buz gibi havalarda incecik beyaz geceliklerle çıplak ayaklarla dolaşan, cimriliği ve takıntıları nedeniyle sakarin kullanan, köpeklerini histerik bir şekilde seven oldukça ilginç karakterler yazarın başarılı anlatımı sayesinde gözümüzde canlanıyor. Bu kitap bir film olsa Tilda Swinton bu üç kadını da harika canlandırdı eminim :) Çarpıcı ve büyük aşklar yaşayan, güzelliği ile ressam sevgililerinin tablolarını süsleyen, koca gözlü Caroline Hanım, sizinle ve deli kadınlarınızla tanıştığıma memnun oldum.

[Daniel Polansky]

A woman traces a strand of familial madness to a brutal, cold-hearted matriarch. Quite marvelous. Funny, sad, a thoughtful exploration of how mental illness is passed down through generations as children, reacting against the sins of their parents, forge their own paths of self-destruction. Very good.

Reread 6/8/26 A savagely funny, deeply sad, probably exaggerated exploration of the mental illnesses of her inconceivably wealthy, terribly broken family. Still excellent.

[Catherine Robertson · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a brilliant dark little gem! I found a reference to the author in another book, and was intrigued. Lady Caroline Blackwood was daughter of a Guinness girl and a Marquis, married Lucian Freud and then Robert Lowell, and died of chronic alcoholism in 1996. Great Granny Webster was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. It is very short, and less of a novella than a character study of three women, all related to the narrator: the eponymous great grandmother, dourly and stubbornly refusing to relinquish her hold on a joyless life; Aunt Lavinia, who only appears to embrace life fully; and the narrator's grandmother, Great Granny Webster's only and long estranged daughter, who is stark raving bonkers. The men are in the background, a little unformed and a lot helpless. The tone is blackly humorous. Highly recommended.

[Roya · Rating 2 out of 5]

تقریبا تا انتهای کتاب منتظر بودم داستان شروع بشه!
بیشتر شبیه فصل اول یک کتاب قطور بود. کرکترها و فضا و پیشینه خانوادگی شرح داده میشه تا به اصل داستان برسیم ولی تَق می‌رسیم به جلد کتاب.
نویسنده حتی در فضاسازی هم نصفه و نیمه عمل کرده. انگار یه دیس غذا جلوته که از هر غذا فقط یه لقمه داخلشه.
هدف داستان رو هم متوجه نشدم.

[Josh · Rating 3 out of 5]

As it started, I was brought in by the prose and thought I had come across a book with a great foundation for a solid story. The last 3/4's never lived up to the beginning and I was left unsatisfied. I was amused, entertained, but something was missing.

[J.M. Hushour · Rating 5 out of 5]

Blackwood's novel is barely a novel, because it's the rotting, dark-as-all-gitout account of her barely disguised family (the Guinness family, even more props to her and hers for manufacturing my favorite beer). I love these frank molestations of family history because they adhere stickily, greasily to realities far more pitch and rank than anything fiction could dreck up.
Great Granny Webster sits in her rotting dark castle near Brighton in an uncomfortable chair watching the narrator watching her decay into nothingness. That's pretty much it, with diversions about GGW's daughter, who went insane in a far worse rotting aristocratic hell, and the narrator's insane, slutty aunt.
You really can't say much more. It's a beautiful, diseased thing.

[Samuel · Rating 4 out of 5]

creepy gothic family dysfunction is my kind of spooky story..

[Tosh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perfection

[Syaza Jamal · Rating 4 out of 5]

The only substantial thing I could find out about Great Granny Webster before reading it is that did not win the 1977 Booker or at least had a black mark against it because of one of the judge, Philip Larkin insisted that the story was too "autobiographical that it could not stand for fiction. Thought that was quite dumb. Another thing that's famously known about this novel is that than the author herself, Lady Caroline Blackwood is a member of the wealthy Guinness dynasty.

While yes, this novel is autobiographical, there really isn't an apparent plot here so to speak where traditionally there's a beginning, middle and end. It doesn't really chart Caroline Blackwood's life in a coming-of-age style journey. That however doesn't not mean the novel is a character driven story either. It's a introspective tale that examine the decaying Anglo-Irish aristocracy post WW2 through fleeting moments observed by the unnamed protagonist.

The novel begins in a rather simple manner. An introduction to the narrator's current situation. She's 14 years of age and was sent to Brighton to live with the titular Great Granny Webster as the doctor said the fresh salty sea air is good for her after having a surgery. But Great Granny Webster lives in a preserved strict Victorianism and her daily routine remains like it was when the war was still going on.

The story flows like a series of vignettes. The scenes are mostly observation by the unnamed narrator and a few remarks here and there but they end just as quick as the narrator sets the scene up. The way Blackwood crafted each scene are powerfully vivid and they lingers well after the scene ended. In spite of her days stuck that the insufferable home, there's an undefined bond between the narrator and her great-grandmother. While she doesn't want to ended up like her great-grandmother, there was a sense of dread leaving that particular house once the narrator had to leave and return to her own home. This would lead to the unnamed narrator to seek more about her family and here is where the crux of the story resides in. It's an observation of the identity of the women in his father's side of the family and an assess of decaying Anglo-Irish aristocracy. The narrator's aunt, a sister of her father was shown to be on the opposite side of the spectrum from her great-grandmother. She, a glamourous playgirl who lives like there's no tomorrow and herself another example of an extreme end but it wasn't until she founds out that her paternal grandmother, an institutionalized woman that it seems like the woman in this family are/were bizarre, to put it mildly. Through mordant and perceptive detail, the narrator exposes the deep, dark secrets of the generations that have gone before her.

Blackwood's writing was great. It's a deceptively short novel but even with Blackwood's economical approached to her words for crafting one scene to another, was able to create vivid imagery while also able to provide moments of dread and dark comedic that flows well. It’s part gothic horror, part memoir, part cultural evisceration, and all deliciously savage.

Great Granny Webster is what happened when someone grows up in a haunted castle but doesn't write ghost stories, instead about the people who are the actual ghost.