Accomodating Spouse

by Elizabeth Jolley

When the Professor marries Hazel, Lady Carpenter warns that his new wife is so like her twin, Chloe, he will have trouble telling them apart. So inseparable are the twins that the Professor lives with both women under one roof.Into their generous and harmonious household return their daughters - triplets - fresh from their round-the-world travelling, and ready for whatever excitement they can grab next in their lives.Family life in the otherwise quiet house swells to a chaotic dazzling crescendo as the Professor struggles to keep in step with the seven women in his life and a strange request from Dr Florence.Witty, insightful and joyous, An Accommodating Spouse is a book to celebrate.(Description from the first edition dust jacket).

Genres: Literature, Novels, Relationships

252 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Monica Elizabeth Jolley was an award-winning writer who settled in Western Australia in the late 1950s. She was 53 years old when her first book was published, and she went on to publish fifteen novels (including an autobiographical trilogy), four short story collections, and three non-fiction books, publishing well into her 70s and achieving significant critical acclaim. She was also a pioneer of creative writing teaching in Australia, counting many well known writers such as Tim Winton among her students. Her novels explore alienated characters and the nature of loneliness and entrapment.

Honours:
1987: Western Australian Citizen of the Year
1988: Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for services to literature
1989: Canada/Australia Literary Award
1997: Australian Living Treasure

Reviews

[Troy Alexander · Rating 3 out of 5]

Elizabeth Jolley can write beautifully. Plot-wise however, this book didn’t do it for me. Also, the present tense irked me.

[Tim Unwin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Curious, perhaps a little weird, but fascinatingly different, this novel is (it seems to me) written to echo the rhythms of German, with shifts in word order and an occasionally halting flow that I'm sure is quite deliberate. You get used to it after a while, and indeed start to enjoy the Verfremdungseffekt that it creates and that is well suited to the subject. The subject, an out-of-touch and hopelessly otherworldly Professor, is unable to process his own feelings and desires other than through the medium of literature and music. While life is going on around him, he needs to hook everything onto a quotation, a poem, a musical moment, until just occasionally he is taken by surprise. For most of the time, though, he is rescued from reality by his own vanity and unjustified sense of superiority. I suppose that the moral of the story is that a lot of learning doesn't necessarily bring with it a lot of wisdom – as the Professor's accommodating spouse all too clearly realises.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

What a tedious man. But I think that was the intention. We think he’s great at the start and then he’s a real pain.

[Mohammed Jitarayah · Rating 2 out of 5]

Just read half of it, I don't want to waste more time reading it.

[Emma · Rating 3 out of 5]

A short read, however confusing for most of it. Stick with it however, three quarters through the unreliable 'ruminating' by the central character gives way to 'reality' and the story is tied up nicely at the end. I struggled to pinpoint the era of the story for awhile, it's written in an old-fashioned style, yet clues eventuate. References to 1700 and 1800 poetry and music if that's your thing.

[Jill · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book confused me. I knew, internally, it was good. It really made me think. It made me sad that they tried to chick flickify the cover.

But, at times it felt disjointed and I just didn't feel like picking it up. Probably everything I disliked about it was deliberate, and that's why it got 3 stars instead of 2.

[Annette · Rating 4 out of 5]

Elizabeth Jolley has such a unique style of writing. She makes me feel sort of quizzical throughout this entire book - asking myself, what does this mean. At first I thought that HE was the accommodating spouse, but not, SHE is. And oh so accommodating.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

A gentle thoughtful book. Interesting use of moving between periods of time. Different from the storytelling style. More an exploration.

[Peter Hunter · Rating 2 out of 5]

Could not finish, in fact, hardly started it. I will be passing this on