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Painted Clay
"Other people might grow old and faded with a monotonous life, but not she. In her heart she cherished a dream that the gods held something wonderful in store for her."
Helen Somerset feels stifled by her loveless home with a repressive father who fears that, like her absent mother, she may be only 'painted clay'. She wants to know life beyond the confined of Packington, a Melbourne suburb overlooking Port Phillip Bay. And when she is sixteen her father dies, releasing Helen to seek the affection and indepenedence she has been denied. With a clerical job and room in a lodging house Helen launches herself into the excitement of Bohemian life and free love -- only to discover that this liberation has a double edge. First published in 1917, splendidly evoking the bustle of city life before the First World War, this is a moving tale of one woman striving to find herself in a restrictive society.
Helen Somerset feels stifled by her loveless home with a repressive father who fears that, like her absent mother, she may be only 'painted clay'. She wants to know life beyond the confined of Packington, a Melbourne suburb overlooking Port Phillip Bay. And when she is sixteen her father dies, releasing Helen to seek the affection and indepenedence she has been denied. With a clerical job and room in a lodging house Helen launches herself into the excitement of Bohemian life and free love -- only to discover that this liberation has a double edge. First published in 1917, splendidly evoking the bustle of city life before the First World War, this is a moving tale of one woman striving to find herself in a restrictive society.
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First published January 1, 1917
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About the author
Capel Boake
4 books1 followerDoris Boake Kerr (29 August 1889 at Summer Hill, Sydney – 5 June 1944 at Caulfield, Victoria), a writer who published using the pseudonyms 'Capel Boake'[1] and Stephen Grey,.[2] Her publishing career began with a story appearing in the Australasian in January 1916. Other stories and stories appeared in the Victorian School Paper. She wrote four novels:
Painted Clay (Melbourne, 1917, published by the Australasian Authors' Agency and reprinted by Virago London in 1986);
The Romany Mark (New South Wales Bookstall Co, in 1923 );
The Dark Thread (Hutchinson London 1936), and
The Twig is Bent, written with the aid of a Commonwealth literary grant but published posthumously (Sydney, 1946).
Her subject matter included the options available to women in the early twentieth century, circus life, and early Melbourne history.
She used the pseudonym Stephen Grey when writing in collaboration with Bernard Cronin.
Capel Boake was also a poet: a collection of her verse was published posthumously in 1949 as The Selected Poems of Capel Boake. (Source Wikipedia)
Painted Clay (Melbourne, 1917, published by the Australasian Authors' Agency and reprinted by Virago London in 1986);
The Romany Mark (New South Wales Bookstall Co, in 1923 );
The Dark Thread (Hutchinson London 1936), and
The Twig is Bent, written with the aid of a Commonwealth literary grant but published posthumously (Sydney, 1946).
Her subject matter included the options available to women in the early twentieth century, circus life, and early Melbourne history.
She used the pseudonym Stephen Grey when writing in collaboration with Bernard Cronin.
Capel Boake was also a poet: a collection of her verse was published posthumously in 1949 as The Selected Poems of Capel Boake. (Source Wikipedia)
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August 12, 2020Now available as a free download as part of Bailey’s Reclaim Her Name celebration
“Throughout history, many female writers had to use male pen names for their work to be published or taken seriously. To celebrate the Women's Prize for Fiction's 25th anniversary we re-released a collection of books with their author's real name on the cover for the first time.”
https://www.baileys.com/en-gb/reclaim...
“Throughout history, many female writers had to use male pen names for their work to be published or taken seriously. To celebrate the Women's Prize for Fiction's 25th anniversary we re-released a collection of books with their author's real name on the cover for the first time.”
https://www.baileys.com/en-gb/reclaim...
December 14, 2013
I learned that that Capel Boake was Australian, a poet and the author of four novels, and that this, her first novel, drew on her own experiences as a shop-girl and an officer-worker in Melbourne, in the years leading up to the Great War.
And I learned that the title was taken from a poem:
“Shall we weep for our idols of painted clay,
Salt dews of sorrow the sere blooms wetting?
Gods of the desert of dreadful day,
Give us the gift of a great forgetting.”
(Marie Pitt)
Helen Somerset had a lonely childhood, living with her troubled, embittered father, in a suburaban home that was just a little less well kept, just a little less well loved than the houses that stood around it. His actress wife had left him, he dismissed her as ‘painted clay’, he was determined that his daughter would not go the same way; and so he educated her at home, he kept her close, and he let her believe that her mother was dead.
When Helen learned that her mother was alive, that her father took her away from her mother, and did everything in his power to keep them apart, she was devastated. She lost all of the faith that she had in her father, she railed against him; she blamed him, and she blamed her mother for not trying hard enough to keep her. And she realised that she was alone, that she had to work toward getting a job, and becoming independent.
Suddenly, and quite unexpectedly, Helen’s father died. She leant on the family next door, who she knew a little, and grew to love being in a warm family home for the first time. She chose to board with them rather than with her uncle who wanted her and his wife who clearly did not. They drew her into their world; she formed a close bond George, a cousin who was close to the family, she was treated as another sister by two daughters who were close to her in age, and she appreciated the care and concern that Mr and Mrs Hunter gave her.
She realised that her job as a shop-girl would not bring her the independence she craved, and that she and the Hunter girls faced the same limited choices, between marriage and restricted lives spent in shops, offices and boarding houses. But she believed that there was something out there for her. She found a better job in an office, and she moved into a boarding-house.
A new friend drew her into a Bohemian circle of aspiring artists. She was painted, and she was drawn into a relationship with the man who bought her portrait. Helen loved the freedom, the independence, the joy in living, that she found in her new world, but she had a nagging fear that she was becoming ‘painted clay’, just like the mother who had abandoned her.
This is a very readable story, told with wonderful clarity in straightforward sentences, and more than once I put the book down surprised at how much I had read. It walks the line between ‘ordinary’ and ‘interesting’ beautifully.
Helen was a rather prickly character, but I understood why, and I always understood what drove her and why she did the things she did. It was the same with the characters around her. The relationships were very well drawn, especially the relationships between Helen and the different members of all, and I think the finest writing in the book came as the relationship between Helen and the man who bought her picture became strained.
But it was the setting that brought the story to life, and they were so real, so naturally and effortlessly described. Time and place were beautifully realised. The themes, of isolation, of restricted lives, were threaded through the story just as naturally.
I was only disappointed that just as I was preparing to describe this book as ‘a simple, quiet story, very well told’ it stumbled into melodrama. Helen recognised her mother’s name on a theatre poster, and though their meeting and their subsequent, difficult relationship rang true, the telling was too fast too overwrought. And then the ending, with the coming of war, came much too quickly.
But I’d still say that this was a very good book, for the picture it paints of a particular place, a particular time, and a particular young woman, as she looks for her path in life and her place in the world.
And I learned that the title was taken from a poem:
“Shall we weep for our idols of painted clay,
Salt dews of sorrow the sere blooms wetting?
Gods of the desert of dreadful day,
Give us the gift of a great forgetting.”
(Marie Pitt)
Helen Somerset had a lonely childhood, living with her troubled, embittered father, in a suburaban home that was just a little less well kept, just a little less well loved than the houses that stood around it. His actress wife had left him, he dismissed her as ‘painted clay’, he was determined that his daughter would not go the same way; and so he educated her at home, he kept her close, and he let her believe that her mother was dead.
When Helen learned that her mother was alive, that her father took her away from her mother, and did everything in his power to keep them apart, she was devastated. She lost all of the faith that she had in her father, she railed against him; she blamed him, and she blamed her mother for not trying hard enough to keep her. And she realised that she was alone, that she had to work toward getting a job, and becoming independent.
Suddenly, and quite unexpectedly, Helen’s father died. She leant on the family next door, who she knew a little, and grew to love being in a warm family home for the first time. She chose to board with them rather than with her uncle who wanted her and his wife who clearly did not. They drew her into their world; she formed a close bond George, a cousin who was close to the family, she was treated as another sister by two daughters who were close to her in age, and she appreciated the care and concern that Mr and Mrs Hunter gave her.
She realised that her job as a shop-girl would not bring her the independence she craved, and that she and the Hunter girls faced the same limited choices, between marriage and restricted lives spent in shops, offices and boarding houses. But she believed that there was something out there for her. She found a better job in an office, and she moved into a boarding-house.
A new friend drew her into a Bohemian circle of aspiring artists. She was painted, and she was drawn into a relationship with the man who bought her portrait. Helen loved the freedom, the independence, the joy in living, that she found in her new world, but she had a nagging fear that she was becoming ‘painted clay’, just like the mother who had abandoned her.
This is a very readable story, told with wonderful clarity in straightforward sentences, and more than once I put the book down surprised at how much I had read. It walks the line between ‘ordinary’ and ‘interesting’ beautifully.
Helen was a rather prickly character, but I understood why, and I always understood what drove her and why she did the things she did. It was the same with the characters around her. The relationships were very well drawn, especially the relationships between Helen and the different members of all, and I think the finest writing in the book came as the relationship between Helen and the man who bought her picture became strained.
But it was the setting that brought the story to life, and they were so real, so naturally and effortlessly described. Time and place were beautifully realised. The themes, of isolation, of restricted lives, were threaded through the story just as naturally.
I was only disappointed that just as I was preparing to describe this book as ‘a simple, quiet story, very well told’ it stumbled into melodrama. Helen recognised her mother’s name on a theatre poster, and though their meeting and their subsequent, difficult relationship rang true, the telling was too fast too overwrought. And then the ending, with the coming of war, came much too quickly.
But I’d still say that this was a very good book, for the picture it paints of a particular place, a particular time, and a particular young woman, as she looks for her path in life and her place in the world.
September 13, 2012
Set in Melbourne Australia in the years before the First World War Painted Clay is the story of a young girl growing to maturity and finding her way in the world in which she lives. It portrays brilliantly the bustle of city life, with its differing sections of society. The author – Capel Boake was the pseudonym for the little known author and poet Doris Boake Kerr(1899-1945).
Helen Somerset is just sixteen as the novel opens. She lives with her father in a nice suburb of Melbourne in a house that is rather less well cared for than the others in the street.
“At the end of the street stood a house of a slightly different appearance. It looked more careless and more haphazard, and the blinds and the window curtains showed no evidence, as the others did, of a careful housewife. Someone had evidently made an effort to make a garden, and then, tiring of it suddenly, left off. For the ground in front was half dug up and a few plants put in, and then left to grow carelessly among the thick, rank weeds that now overgrew all the plots. A few lilies bloomed spasmodically, and in the spring one side of the house was a riot of wisteria blossom and banksia roses.”
Her father is a hard and bitter man, and thus her life with him is an unhappy one. Helen’s beautiful mother is absent, she betrayed Helen’s father years earlier, this has soured his whole life since and he fears that he can see too much of her mother in Helen. Helen’s view of her father is changed dramatically when she learns that her mother is not dead as she had always believed, but that her father cruelly took her away from her mother as punishment. Just as Helen is starting to think she may like to get a job and become more independent of her father, he dies suddenly.
Helen’s world changes overnight, at first she stays with the neighbours she has recently struck up a friendship with, developing a particular friendship with George a good looking young office worker. His cousins and aunt take Helen to their hearts and Helen becomes deeply involved with their lives and loves. When George leaves to go away to work, Helen strikes up a correspondence with him, but soon begins to miss him less. Later after working in a shop, and then taking work in an office, Helen gets a taste of boarding house living and with her new friend Ann launches herself upon bohemian society and experiences the free love that many of her new friends practise. She is soon to find that this supposed freedom comes as a price in the society in which she is living.
“She looked up at him laughing, but under his steady gaze the laughter left her lips. She remembered her secret and a terror lest he should by some chance read it in her face, came over her. “I’m afraid of someone coming” she said hastily, glancing at the door”
I thoroughly enjoyed this lovely novel. It is not as literary perhaps as some other novels of this period; the prose is less flowery and more straightforward. The characters however are on the whole well developed and the character of Helen in particular explored with depth and insight. Much of the novel is apparently based largely on Doris Baoke Kerr’s own experiences. The reader watches Helen change from a self-doubting awkward young girl, to a spirited modern young woman.
“Other people might grow old and faded with monotonous life, but not she. In her heart she cherished a dream that the gods held something wonderful in store for her”
Helen Somerset is just sixteen as the novel opens. She lives with her father in a nice suburb of Melbourne in a house that is rather less well cared for than the others in the street.
“At the end of the street stood a house of a slightly different appearance. It looked more careless and more haphazard, and the blinds and the window curtains showed no evidence, as the others did, of a careful housewife. Someone had evidently made an effort to make a garden, and then, tiring of it suddenly, left off. For the ground in front was half dug up and a few plants put in, and then left to grow carelessly among the thick, rank weeds that now overgrew all the plots. A few lilies bloomed spasmodically, and in the spring one side of the house was a riot of wisteria blossom and banksia roses.”
Her father is a hard and bitter man, and thus her life with him is an unhappy one. Helen’s beautiful mother is absent, she betrayed Helen’s father years earlier, this has soured his whole life since and he fears that he can see too much of her mother in Helen. Helen’s view of her father is changed dramatically when she learns that her mother is not dead as she had always believed, but that her father cruelly took her away from her mother as punishment. Just as Helen is starting to think she may like to get a job and become more independent of her father, he dies suddenly.
Helen’s world changes overnight, at first she stays with the neighbours she has recently struck up a friendship with, developing a particular friendship with George a good looking young office worker. His cousins and aunt take Helen to their hearts and Helen becomes deeply involved with their lives and loves. When George leaves to go away to work, Helen strikes up a correspondence with him, but soon begins to miss him less. Later after working in a shop, and then taking work in an office, Helen gets a taste of boarding house living and with her new friend Ann launches herself upon bohemian society and experiences the free love that many of her new friends practise. She is soon to find that this supposed freedom comes as a price in the society in which she is living.
“She looked up at him laughing, but under his steady gaze the laughter left her lips. She remembered her secret and a terror lest he should by some chance read it in her face, came over her. “I’m afraid of someone coming” she said hastily, glancing at the door”
I thoroughly enjoyed this lovely novel. It is not as literary perhaps as some other novels of this period; the prose is less flowery and more straightforward. The characters however are on the whole well developed and the character of Helen in particular explored with depth and insight. Much of the novel is apparently based largely on Doris Baoke Kerr’s own experiences. The reader watches Helen change from a self-doubting awkward young girl, to a spirited modern young woman.
“Other people might grow old and faded with monotonous life, but not she. In her heart she cherished a dream that the gods held something wonderful in store for her”
April 16, 2022
It was really great to read a book set in Australia, by an Australian female author, set around the beginning of the First World War, about a woman who is finding herself in a society where she must conform.
Helen Somerset is a very headstrong but standoffish character and I was really hoping I’d like her but I didn’t. In some places I just found her annoying and I really couldn’t find myself wanting to follow her story- but I did.
She is a young woman with goals, she is told she cannot have those goals. The feminist ideals in this book were so fresh to read in a book from the 20th century.
I just gave it a low rating because I found the story hard to follow with the way Helen’s life is set out. It either is good or it’s bad and some of the decisions she makes are very childish.
As a concept though, this book is fantastic as a feminist text.
Helen Somerset is a very headstrong but standoffish character and I was really hoping I’d like her but I didn’t. In some places I just found her annoying and I really couldn’t find myself wanting to follow her story- but I did.
She is a young woman with goals, she is told she cannot have those goals. The feminist ideals in this book were so fresh to read in a book from the 20th century.
I just gave it a low rating because I found the story hard to follow with the way Helen’s life is set out. It either is good or it’s bad and some of the decisions she makes are very childish.
As a concept though, this book is fantastic as a feminist text.
September 2, 2013
Capel Boake had a distinguished writing heritage. She was the
niece of poet Barcroft Boake and although her output was small
(4 books) she was one of the few novelists of her time to vividly
re-create suburban Melbourne in the early 1900s. The story may
be autobiographical in parts - most of the book is based on
Capel Boake's experience as a shop girl and typist. It tells of
Helen Forrester who is living in dullness and misery with her
father who's bitterness and moods have long since driven the
mother away. She has always been led to believe that her mother
was dead but with her father's suicide she learns that her
mother was an actress, the "painted clay" of the title.
She flees the house but finds a loving home, something she has
never known, with her neighbours, the Hunters, befriending sisters
Irene and Belle all the while having to fend off creepy lodger Bert.
She starts work at a shop (based on an old Melbourne department
store Buckley and Nunns), is propositioned by a brothel owner,
eventually finding work in her uncle's office until she becomes
a part of an artist's colony.
There is not much characterization in the book, there is no light
and shade. In the title "Painted Clay" the writer tries to point
out that beauty is only skin deep but Helen is described from the
first as a great beauty and that is really how she gets on in life.
People are prepared to give her a chance because of her beauty.
There is a part in the book that deals with Alick's (main artist
in the colony but really an elitist snob) housekeeper and his
aversion to her because she is unattractive.
Helen's mother who waltzes into the story about 3/4s of the way
through, with no questions asked about why she left, again she is
considered such a great beauty that people seem willing to forgive
her anything.
Doris Kerr's (Capel Boake) other novels were not outstanding -
"The Romany Mark" (1922) is considered "just a thriller", "The
Dark Thread" (1936)about the Zionist movement was said to be her best and "The Twig is Bent" (1946) was written with the help of a grant
and inspired by the celebrations of Victoria's centenary of 1934.
niece of poet Barcroft Boake and although her output was small
(4 books) she was one of the few novelists of her time to vividly
re-create suburban Melbourne in the early 1900s. The story may
be autobiographical in parts - most of the book is based on
Capel Boake's experience as a shop girl and typist. It tells of
Helen Forrester who is living in dullness and misery with her
father who's bitterness and moods have long since driven the
mother away. She has always been led to believe that her mother
was dead but with her father's suicide she learns that her
mother was an actress, the "painted clay" of the title.
She flees the house but finds a loving home, something she has
never known, with her neighbours, the Hunters, befriending sisters
Irene and Belle all the while having to fend off creepy lodger Bert.
She starts work at a shop (based on an old Melbourne department
store Buckley and Nunns), is propositioned by a brothel owner,
eventually finding work in her uncle's office until she becomes
a part of an artist's colony.
There is not much characterization in the book, there is no light
and shade. In the title "Painted Clay" the writer tries to point
out that beauty is only skin deep but Helen is described from the
first as a great beauty and that is really how she gets on in life.
People are prepared to give her a chance because of her beauty.
There is a part in the book that deals with Alick's (main artist
in the colony but really an elitist snob) housekeeper and his
aversion to her because she is unattractive.
Helen's mother who waltzes into the story about 3/4s of the way
through, with no questions asked about why she left, again she is
considered such a great beauty that people seem willing to forgive
her anything.
Doris Kerr's (Capel Boake) other novels were not outstanding -
"The Romany Mark" (1922) is considered "just a thriller", "The
Dark Thread" (1936)about the Zionist movement was said to be her best and "The Twig is Bent" (1946) was written with the help of a grant
and inspired by the celebrations of Victoria's centenary of 1934.
January 2, 2024
Stumbled across this book in an op shop (Australian term for thrift shop). I was not familiar with the Virago Modern Classics series but have since learned that this series is intended to celebrate female writers of the 1900s (who may otherwise have been forgotten) by republishing their work. This book, Painted Clay by Capel Boake (a pseudonym for the female author Doris Kerr Boake) was originally published in 1917 but was republished in 1986 in the Virago Modern Classics series.
I really enjoyed this book. It is set in the early 1900s in Melbourne, Australia (where I live) and there is constant mention of landmarks and streets that still exist today in Melbourne so it felt quite eerie to go back in time and imagine how it all looked over 100 years ago. I loved how the author addressed the issue of female expectations, with the protagonist Helen not wanting to follow the traditional route of marriage and instead wanting to forge her own path, which would have been a revolutionary act for the time. The writing itself wasn’t particularly stand-out or literary and there is a fairly abrupt plot disruption 3/4 of the way through with Helen’s mother re-emerging but overall a good book. I found the ending quite moving with the reference to the impending First World War (the book concludes at the start of 1914).
3.5 stars but have rounded down to 3.
I really enjoyed this book. It is set in the early 1900s in Melbourne, Australia (where I live) and there is constant mention of landmarks and streets that still exist today in Melbourne so it felt quite eerie to go back in time and imagine how it all looked over 100 years ago. I loved how the author addressed the issue of female expectations, with the protagonist Helen not wanting to follow the traditional route of marriage and instead wanting to forge her own path, which would have been a revolutionary act for the time. The writing itself wasn’t particularly stand-out or literary and there is a fairly abrupt plot disruption 3/4 of the way through with Helen’s mother re-emerging but overall a good book. I found the ending quite moving with the reference to the impending First World War (the book concludes at the start of 1914).
3.5 stars but have rounded down to 3.
April 2, 2024
In 2020, the Women’s Prize inaugurated and then quickly pulled a 25-ebook series under the rubric “Reclaim Her Name”, the idea being to republish books originally published under male or gender-neutral pseudonyms with the authors’ “real” names attached. I and others pointed out that the pseudonyms were the only names the authors in question chose for themselves, so the project was conceptually flawed. For example, one tweet read:
“This is incredibly disrespectful. All the people who wrote those books chose those names, & deciding to publish their ‘true’ names destroys their agency. Pretending to know what’s best for a person in this exploitative manner is arrogant and cruel.”
OK, so they got some criticism. But then in less than two months, they erased the entire project! You couldn’t download the free ebooks anymore. It all went “Poof”. If they were trying to reclaim anything, they should have kept the books available. I was disappointed but not surprised to discover that this was nothing more than a cynical marketing / PR stunt.
Before everything disappeared, I downloaded the Australian novelist Capel Boake’s Painted Clay (1917), which had also been reprinted by Virago in 1986. I don’t want to make too large claims for it; it’s a “minor” novel that tails off towards the end, when Boake has too many balls in the air, as it were. But I still quite enjoyed it as a notably honest and interesting account of what it felt like to be a young woman in Australia in the 1910s.
Boake published three more novels after this, her first. But copies of those are either expensive or elusive. Surprisingly, Project Gutenberg Australia does not appear to have any of her work.
“This is incredibly disrespectful. All the people who wrote those books chose those names, & deciding to publish their ‘true’ names destroys their agency. Pretending to know what’s best for a person in this exploitative manner is arrogant and cruel.”
OK, so they got some criticism. But then in less than two months, they erased the entire project! You couldn’t download the free ebooks anymore. It all went “Poof”. If they were trying to reclaim anything, they should have kept the books available. I was disappointed but not surprised to discover that this was nothing more than a cynical marketing / PR stunt.
Before everything disappeared, I downloaded the Australian novelist Capel Boake’s Painted Clay (1917), which had also been reprinted by Virago in 1986. I don’t want to make too large claims for it; it’s a “minor” novel that tails off towards the end, when Boake has too many balls in the air, as it were. But I still quite enjoyed it as a notably honest and interesting account of what it felt like to be a young woman in Australia in the 1910s.
Boake published three more novels after this, her first. But copies of those are either expensive or elusive. Surprisingly, Project Gutenberg Australia does not appear to have any of her work.
December 26, 2014
I'm reading Australian women writers 1920s-30s for research. This book has some fascinating detail of everyday domestic life just before WW1 and shows a shift in attitude to female sexuality, but is not particularly memorably written.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews