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The Pumpkin Eater
In this extraordinary, semi-autobiographical novel, Penelope Mortimer depicts a married woman's breakdown in 1960s London. With three husbands in her past, one in her present and a numberless army of children, Mrs Mortimer is astonished to find herself collapsing one day in Harrods. This strange, unsettling novel, shot through with black comedy, is a moving account of one woman's realisation that marriage and family life may not, after all, offer all the answers to the problems of living.'Beautiful ... almost every woman I can think of will want to read this book' Edna O'Brien
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First published January 1, 1962
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About the author
Penelope Mortimer
31 books72 followersEarly life
She was born in Rhyl, Flintshire, Wales, the younger child of an Anglican clergyman, who had lost his faith and used the parish magazine to celebrate the Soviet persecution of the Russian church. He also sexually abused her. Her father frequently changed his parish, so, consequently, she attended numerous schools. She left University College, London, after only one year.
Adulthood
She married Charles Dimont, a journalist, in 1937, and they had two daughters, including the actress Caroline Mortimer, and two daughters through extra-marital relationships with Kenneth Harrison and Randall Swingler.
She met barrister and writer John Mortimer while pregnant with the last child and married him in 1949. Together they had a daughter and a son.
She had one novel, Johanna, published under her name, Penelope Dimont, then as Penelope Mortimer, she authored A Villa in Summer (1954; Michael Joseph). It received critical acclaim. More novels followed.
She was also a freelance journalist, whose work appeared regularly in The New Yorker. As an agony aunt for the Daily Mail, she wrote under the nom de plume Ann Temple. In the late 1960s, she replaced Penelope Gilliatt as film critic for The Observer.
Her marriage to John Mortimer was difficult. They both had frequent extramarital affairs. Penelope had six children by four different men. They divorced in 1971. Her relationships with men were the inspiration for the novels, Daddy's Gone A-Hunting (1958; republished in 2008 by Persephone Books) and The Pumpkin Eater (1962; reissued in 2011 by New York Review Books), which was adapted for the screen by Harold Pinter. It starred Peter Finch, James Mason and Anne Bancroft, who won an Oscar nomination for her role.
Mortimer continued in journalism, mainly for The Sunday Times, and also wrote screenplays. Her biography of the Queen Mother was commissioned by Macmillan, but when completed, it was rejected so instead Viking published it in 1986. Her former agent Giles Gordon in his Guardian obituary called it "the most astute biography of a royal since Lytton Strachey was at work. Penelope had approached her subject as somebody in the public eye, whose career might as well be recorded as if she were a normal human being."
She wrote two volumes of autobiography, About Time: An Aspect of Autobiography, covering her life until 1939, appeared in 1979 and won the Whitbread Prize, and About Time Too: 1940–78 in 1993. A third volume, Closing Time, is unpublished.
She died from cancer, aged 81, in Kensington, London, England.
Novels
Johanna (1947) (as Penelope Dimont)
A Villa in Summer (1954)
The Bright Prison (1956)
Daddy's Gone A-Hunting (1958)
The Pumpkin Eater (1962)
My Friend Says It's Bulletproof (1968)
The Home (1971)
Long Distance (1974)
The Handyman (1983)
Short story collections
Saturday Lunch with the Brownings (1977)
Humphrey's Mother
Autobiographies
About Time: An Aspect of Autobiography (1979)
About Time Too: 1940–78 (1993)
Biography
Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother (1986), revised edition published in 1995, subtitled An Alternative Portrait Of Her Life And Times
Travel writing
With Love and Lizards (co-authored with John Mortimer, 1957)
She was born in Rhyl, Flintshire, Wales, the younger child of an Anglican clergyman, who had lost his faith and used the parish magazine to celebrate the Soviet persecution of the Russian church. He also sexually abused her. Her father frequently changed his parish, so, consequently, she attended numerous schools. She left University College, London, after only one year.
Adulthood
She married Charles Dimont, a journalist, in 1937, and they had two daughters, including the actress Caroline Mortimer, and two daughters through extra-marital relationships with Kenneth Harrison and Randall Swingler.
She met barrister and writer John Mortimer while pregnant with the last child and married him in 1949. Together they had a daughter and a son.
She had one novel, Johanna, published under her name, Penelope Dimont, then as Penelope Mortimer, she authored A Villa in Summer (1954; Michael Joseph). It received critical acclaim. More novels followed.
She was also a freelance journalist, whose work appeared regularly in The New Yorker. As an agony aunt for the Daily Mail, she wrote under the nom de plume Ann Temple. In the late 1960s, she replaced Penelope Gilliatt as film critic for The Observer.
Her marriage to John Mortimer was difficult. They both had frequent extramarital affairs. Penelope had six children by four different men. They divorced in 1971. Her relationships with men were the inspiration for the novels, Daddy's Gone A-Hunting (1958; republished in 2008 by Persephone Books) and The Pumpkin Eater (1962; reissued in 2011 by New York Review Books), which was adapted for the screen by Harold Pinter. It starred Peter Finch, James Mason and Anne Bancroft, who won an Oscar nomination for her role.
Mortimer continued in journalism, mainly for The Sunday Times, and also wrote screenplays. Her biography of the Queen Mother was commissioned by Macmillan, but when completed, it was rejected so instead Viking published it in 1986. Her former agent Giles Gordon in his Guardian obituary called it "the most astute biography of a royal since Lytton Strachey was at work. Penelope had approached her subject as somebody in the public eye, whose career might as well be recorded as if she were a normal human being."
She wrote two volumes of autobiography, About Time: An Aspect of Autobiography, covering her life until 1939, appeared in 1979 and won the Whitbread Prize, and About Time Too: 1940–78 in 1993. A third volume, Closing Time, is unpublished.
She died from cancer, aged 81, in Kensington, London, England.
Novels
Johanna (1947) (as Penelope Dimont)
A Villa in Summer (1954)
The Bright Prison (1956)
Daddy's Gone A-Hunting (1958)
The Pumpkin Eater (1962)
My Friend Says It's Bulletproof (1968)
The Home (1971)
Long Distance (1974)
The Handyman (1983)
Short story collections
Saturday Lunch with the Brownings (1977)
Humphrey's Mother
Autobiographies
About Time: An Aspect of Autobiography (1979)
About Time Too: 1940–78 (1993)
Biography
Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother (1986), revised edition published in 1995, subtitled An Alternative Portrait Of Her Life And Times
Travel writing
With Love and Lizards (co-authored with John Mortimer, 1957)
Ratings & Reviews
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 393 reviews
April 21, 2023
Let us put forward our proposals, compile our facts, present our case, demand our rights. The men-- they are logical, brave, humanitarian, creative, heroic --the men are sneering at us. How the insults fly. You hear what they are saying, as we run the gauntlet between womb and tomb? 'Stop trying to be a man! Stop being such a bloody woman! You're too strong! You're too weak! Get out! Come back!...'
I am pushing my rating up to 3 stars because, while reading this dreary tale of banality was a bit like pulling teeth, I can't deny that it was quite effective. I like it better when looking back over it than I ever did while reading.
In this semi-autobiographical novel, an unnamed woman is on her third husband and has a small army of children. Her husband is an asshole, likely unfaithful, and the oldest three of her children (who her husband sent away to boarding school) have come to hate her. She doesn't work. Doesn't do much of anything really, except live inside her head and have frustrating circular conversations with other characters, including a therapist who her husband made her go to.
It's dull as dishwater but maybe that's the point. I felt suffocated by her life-- its lack of direction or purpose, her lack of control, the absence of any hobbies or interests outside of having children. If the intention was to make me hate being inside the narrator's head, then Mortimer succeeded.
It reminded me quite a bit of Mrs Bridge, though I enjoyed that one more. Despite the unpleasant reading experience, I do find myself curious about Mortimer's Daddy's Gone A-Hunting.
June 28, 2018
4.5 stars rounded up
I must admit I haven’t read anything by Mortimer before and on the evidence of this book I should have. It is about a woman in a downward spiral and is an acerbic and humorous (in a very bleak way) comment on marriage, gender relations and being a woman being controlled by men (husbands and assorted professionals, mainly medical). Mortimer writes in rather a sparse way leaving the reader to do some of the work, making one feel much more involved in the main character’s disintegration.
The protagonist is known only by her married name, Mrs Armitage. She is on her fourth marriage and has numerous children (eight I think) and would like another one (her husband doesn’t). Her husband Jake is a successful screenwriter and they have been married for over ten years. Jake has a temper and is serially unfaithful. They are building a glass tower in the country as a rural retreat. The couple are rich enough to employ servants to do everything. There may be an element of autobiography here as Mortimer was married three times and had six children. Her relationship with her third husband, the barrister John Mortimer, was notoriously turbulent.
The description of disintegration, depression, a pretty much enforced abortion and sterilisation, a complete loss of role and reason to exist are powerfully written. All of the male characters are deeply unlikeable and manipulative. It was written in 1962 and there has been some debate about whether it can be classed as a feminist novel. I think that misses the point; the whole description of depression and breakdown leading to a sort of acceptance is the author asking the question: Is this it? Is this all there is? Does it have to be this way? There are no answers provided, you are just left to feel the raw pain of a woman who society feels has everything, but who is utterly lost.
It’s a powerful book which is still worth looking out for. There are a couple of examples of lazy writing about race, but apart from that it held my attention and made me ask questions about my attitudes. I also would now like to see the film which came out in 1964. The script is by Pinter and it stars Anne Bancroft and Peter Finch, so it ought to be good!
I must admit I haven’t read anything by Mortimer before and on the evidence of this book I should have. It is about a woman in a downward spiral and is an acerbic and humorous (in a very bleak way) comment on marriage, gender relations and being a woman being controlled by men (husbands and assorted professionals, mainly medical). Mortimer writes in rather a sparse way leaving the reader to do some of the work, making one feel much more involved in the main character’s disintegration.
The protagonist is known only by her married name, Mrs Armitage. She is on her fourth marriage and has numerous children (eight I think) and would like another one (her husband doesn’t). Her husband Jake is a successful screenwriter and they have been married for over ten years. Jake has a temper and is serially unfaithful. They are building a glass tower in the country as a rural retreat. The couple are rich enough to employ servants to do everything. There may be an element of autobiography here as Mortimer was married three times and had six children. Her relationship with her third husband, the barrister John Mortimer, was notoriously turbulent.
The description of disintegration, depression, a pretty much enforced abortion and sterilisation, a complete loss of role and reason to exist are powerfully written. All of the male characters are deeply unlikeable and manipulative. It was written in 1962 and there has been some debate about whether it can be classed as a feminist novel. I think that misses the point; the whole description of depression and breakdown leading to a sort of acceptance is the author asking the question: Is this it? Is this all there is? Does it have to be this way? There are no answers provided, you are just left to feel the raw pain of a woman who society feels has everything, but who is utterly lost.
It’s a powerful book which is still worth looking out for. There are a couple of examples of lazy writing about race, but apart from that it held my attention and made me ask questions about my attitudes. I also would now like to see the film which came out in 1964. The script is by Pinter and it stars Anne Bancroft and Peter Finch, so it ought to be good!
August 31, 2018
Mrs Armitage, the wife of a successful screenwriter and producer, is having a breakdown. Her marriage is a wreck and she’s discovered that having one child after another hasn’t given her the fulfilling life she wanted. Where’s a pumpkin shell when you need one, eh?
Penelope Mortimer’s 1962 semi-autobiographical novel, The Pumpkin Eater, was pretty decent. Her dialogue is so good that she drew me immediately into the novel and Mrs Armitage’s world, and, despite the lack of story, was able to hold me fairly well from then on.
The commentary on the complexities of marriage is compelling and the glimpses into her own marriage to the playwright John Mortimer (“Jake” in the book) are interesting too in a gossipy way - like Jake, John knocked up an actress during his marriage to Penelope and she writes through her devastation at being betrayed. It’s amazing that John Mortimer got laid so much back in the day considering he looked like Hodor’s little brother after a stroke – dude must’ve had a helluva personality!
But the meandering, intermittently unfocused nature of the book is its biggest weakness. Sometimes the narrative is enthralling as Jake’s infidelities come to light, as well as Mortimer’s descriptions of her inner turmoil and any scenes with dialogue, and sometimes nothing’s happening and things get very mundane. The ending too is extremely dull – it went on and on and on and was very anticlimactic - and the metaphor of the idyllic tower in the country that’s constantly being built in the background was ineffective.
You can sense the stirrings of feminism in the book as Mortimer notes how women are condescendingly talked down to and treated in general, though it’s not an overtly political text, just a wry snapshot of 1950s society. To that point, there are also a couple of casually racist comments early on that might offend some people today(babies). Otherwise, it’s a period piece that’s aged very well.
Penelope Mortimer’s The Pumpkin Eater was alright – it’s accessible, well-written, thoughtful, and occasionally interesting.
Penelope Mortimer’s 1962 semi-autobiographical novel, The Pumpkin Eater, was pretty decent. Her dialogue is so good that she drew me immediately into the novel and Mrs Armitage’s world, and, despite the lack of story, was able to hold me fairly well from then on.
The commentary on the complexities of marriage is compelling and the glimpses into her own marriage to the playwright John Mortimer (“Jake” in the book) are interesting too in a gossipy way - like Jake, John knocked up an actress during his marriage to Penelope and she writes through her devastation at being betrayed. It’s amazing that John Mortimer got laid so much back in the day considering he looked like Hodor’s little brother after a stroke – dude must’ve had a helluva personality!
But the meandering, intermittently unfocused nature of the book is its biggest weakness. Sometimes the narrative is enthralling as Jake’s infidelities come to light, as well as Mortimer’s descriptions of her inner turmoil and any scenes with dialogue, and sometimes nothing’s happening and things get very mundane. The ending too is extremely dull – it went on and on and on and was very anticlimactic - and the metaphor of the idyllic tower in the country that’s constantly being built in the background was ineffective.
You can sense the stirrings of feminism in the book as Mortimer notes how women are condescendingly talked down to and treated in general, though it’s not an overtly political text, just a wry snapshot of 1950s society. To that point, there are also a couple of casually racist comments early on that might offend some people today(babies). Otherwise, it’s a period piece that’s aged very well.
Penelope Mortimer’s The Pumpkin Eater was alright – it’s accessible, well-written, thoughtful, and occasionally interesting.
October 20, 2017
Quite a hard book to read, and it's perfectly logical that the author really did struggle with depression, insecurity and anxiety. The way she speaks is relatable to anyone who has felt that way (myself included). The worries, the anger, the stress she feels is all familiar. I can't say I enjoyed the book but I understood it, and maybe that's better.
March 28, 2014
This totally made my CCLaP best-of-2011.
If you read anything at all about this book, you will immediately learn the following salient points: Originally published in the early sixties (and reissued this year by the divine NYRB), it is a proto-feminist novel (predecessor to The Feminine Mystique), it's quite autobiographical, it's told by an unnamed narrator who is married to a philanderer (her fourth husband) and has an army of children (number never specified), and it opens in an analyst's office, where the narrator complains that she's afraid of dust. Most people, absurdly, stop there, giving a picture of a vapid housewife who is too dumb to stop reproducing, too dependent to leave her cheating husband, too hysterical to gain control of her life.
Of course, most people are idiots.
I, being (I think) rather less than an idiot, will start this review by talking about the quality of Penelope's writing. It is immediate, sharp, brutally candid. It is warm, genuine, and (often blackly) hilarious. Her descriptions of characters are quick and amazing--i.e., "He was a small, square man, with too much face for the size of his features," or "She was lonely and eccentric and kept making little rushes at life which were, as she swore she had always known, doomed to failure." Her language cracks and sparkles and seethes with rage, despair, hopelessness, urgency, and, eventually, against all odds, hope.
Now I will tell you something about the story itself. Mrs. Armitage, our faithful narrator, our damaged heroine, our harried, rueful housewife, is no ninny, no hysteric. Well--she does get hysterical, it's true, but goddammit, she has a right to. Her husband Jake is a talented, handsome, successful, childish, selfish bastard. Since they've become wealthy (she was rather poor with her first three husbands), she seems to have no say in her own life; she never sews a button or cooks a meal or wipes a nose, now that they have "help" to do all those things. About all she has time to do is discover more and more evidence of Jake's infidelities and talk to her pompous, condescending therapist about how to fix her "little weeps." Not that it's as bleak as all that; she manages to remain so self-possessed, so clever, so tough, that instead of pity you feel frustration for her, watching her try to make sense of her life. For long swaths you forget things are bad at all. Her narration is so full of life, so wry and self-mocking, that you just fly along.
On the face of it, this is a story of a somewhat co-dependent marriage gone pretty well wrong, but interestingly, nearly a third of the book--its middle--is dedicated to one summer when our narrator was about fourteen, just becoming a woman, as it were. We see her first boyfriend and her first manfriend, her bitchy mother and her questionable father, her tween frenemy Ireen, with her painted eyelashes and permanent wave. It's a fascinating episode, brilliantly illuminating the crazed, frustrated angst of being that age. "For the rest of the day I lay on my bed, or more accurately rolled and tossed and curled up like a spring on my bed. I howled and hiccupped, feeling as though there were a great gale in me which I could not contain."
That's, believe it or not, the fun part. This a rough story, all in all, full of imposed will and victimization and sexual misdeeds and cruelty. Yet it's an interpersonal melodrama, and the persons playing the roles are endlessly compelling. It's a book I couldn't help but hurtle myself through, with scenes that keep replaying in my head. In the end Mrs. Armitage does come into her own, though at a high cost. Watching her get there is riveting; seeing her grow teeth, as it were, and reclaim control of her life, is harrowing and hopeful both.
***
pre-read: I'm beginning to suspect that while I'm asleep my books are multiplying among themselves like jackrabbits. This proof, for example. Where did it come from? I'm sure I never bought it. I can't recall why or when or from whom it would have been sent to me. Yet here it is, on my shelf, looking crisp and comely and oh so inviting. I suppose I'd better read it before it disappears or turns into something else, right?
If you read anything at all about this book, you will immediately learn the following salient points: Originally published in the early sixties (and reissued this year by the divine NYRB), it is a proto-feminist novel (predecessor to The Feminine Mystique), it's quite autobiographical, it's told by an unnamed narrator who is married to a philanderer (her fourth husband) and has an army of children (number never specified), and it opens in an analyst's office, where the narrator complains that she's afraid of dust. Most people, absurdly, stop there, giving a picture of a vapid housewife who is too dumb to stop reproducing, too dependent to leave her cheating husband, too hysterical to gain control of her life.
Of course, most people are idiots.
I, being (I think) rather less than an idiot, will start this review by talking about the quality of Penelope's writing. It is immediate, sharp, brutally candid. It is warm, genuine, and (often blackly) hilarious. Her descriptions of characters are quick and amazing--i.e., "He was a small, square man, with too much face for the size of his features," or "She was lonely and eccentric and kept making little rushes at life which were, as she swore she had always known, doomed to failure." Her language cracks and sparkles and seethes with rage, despair, hopelessness, urgency, and, eventually, against all odds, hope.
Now I will tell you something about the story itself. Mrs. Armitage, our faithful narrator, our damaged heroine, our harried, rueful housewife, is no ninny, no hysteric. Well--she does get hysterical, it's true, but goddammit, she has a right to. Her husband Jake is a talented, handsome, successful, childish, selfish bastard. Since they've become wealthy (she was rather poor with her first three husbands), she seems to have no say in her own life; she never sews a button or cooks a meal or wipes a nose, now that they have "help" to do all those things. About all she has time to do is discover more and more evidence of Jake's infidelities and talk to her pompous, condescending therapist about how to fix her "little weeps." Not that it's as bleak as all that; she manages to remain so self-possessed, so clever, so tough, that instead of pity you feel frustration for her, watching her try to make sense of her life. For long swaths you forget things are bad at all. Her narration is so full of life, so wry and self-mocking, that you just fly along.
On the face of it, this is a story of a somewhat co-dependent marriage gone pretty well wrong, but interestingly, nearly a third of the book--its middle--is dedicated to one summer when our narrator was about fourteen, just becoming a woman, as it were. We see her first boyfriend and her first manfriend, her bitchy mother and her questionable father, her tween frenemy Ireen, with her painted eyelashes and permanent wave. It's a fascinating episode, brilliantly illuminating the crazed, frustrated angst of being that age. "For the rest of the day I lay on my bed, or more accurately rolled and tossed and curled up like a spring on my bed. I howled and hiccupped, feeling as though there were a great gale in me which I could not contain."
That's, believe it or not, the fun part. This a rough story, all in all, full of imposed will and victimization and sexual misdeeds and cruelty. Yet it's an interpersonal melodrama, and the persons playing the roles are endlessly compelling. It's a book I couldn't help but hurtle myself through, with scenes that keep replaying in my head. In the end Mrs. Armitage does come into her own, though at a high cost. Watching her get there is riveting; seeing her grow teeth, as it were, and reclaim control of her life, is harrowing and hopeful both.
***
pre-read: I'm beginning to suspect that while I'm asleep my books are multiplying among themselves like jackrabbits. This proof, for example. Where did it come from? I'm sure I never bought it. I can't recall why or when or from whom it would have been sent to me. Yet here it is, on my shelf, looking crisp and comely and oh so inviting. I suppose I'd better read it before it disappears or turns into something else, right?
June 9, 2014
Heartbreaking. One of the best final chapters of a book from recent memory.
I would like to think myself a champion for all things feminism - but this book has me feeling down about my maleness.
More Mortimer needs to be reprinted - I will definitely be seeking out her other books. Thanks to Proustitute for the recommendation.
I would like to think myself a champion for all things feminism - but this book has me feeling down about my maleness.
More Mortimer needs to be reprinted - I will definitely be seeking out her other books. Thanks to Proustitute for the recommendation.
August 3, 2016
If I wanted to, I could stand on a street corner and loudly proclaim, “I am a Buddhist!” Or, I could proclaim, “I am a Democrat!” My merely saying one or both of those things would make it so.
But a fella cannot proclaim himself a Feminist. A male has to earn that, first, and even then it’s up to the eye of the female beholder. Like the balk call in baseball. And while I like to consider myself pro-woman, I’m not sure I would ever pass the test to be a full-fledged Feminist. I just don’t take anything seriously enough and sooner or later my attempt at humor would be misconstrued.
But it’s not just that. I just don’t know the rules, the qualifications. I suspect they’re slippery and ever-shifting, maybe intentionally so. For example, at about the same time, Clarence Thomas and Bill Clinton got in trouble. Thomas allegedly made a comment – “Who put this pubic hair on my Coke?” – in the presence of a female lawyer. Clinton penetrated a female intern with a cigar, let her perform oral sex on him in the Oval Office (all while married) and allegedly sexually assaulted another female, also in the White House. (Of course, both men lied about it.) I viewed Thomas’ behavior as boorish and, if an attempt at humor, not the funniest thing I’ve heard. I found Clinton’s behavior abhorrent. When I expressed this distinction at the time, every woman who heard me tsked loudly and hooted me down as if I was an idiot. They thought Thomas should be banished but defended Clinton vehemently. The cynic in me felt the distinction being drawn was a political one, that if one’s politics are right then one’s actions can be treated differently. But what I was told was that I DIDN’T GET IT! And that’s probably true.
What does this have to do with The Pumpkin Eater? Well, in the obligatory NYRB-Classic Introduction to the edition I read was this: Before the advent of Betty Friedan and Germaine Greer . . . . there was Penelope Mortimer. But I don’t get it.
The patently autobiographical female protagonist in this novel marries, serially, and has children. A lot of children. Although, she doesn’t take care of them; a nanny does. Her husband’s an asshole.
That’s it.
Oh, there’s some running plot: she drinks, she sleeps, she languishes, she has babies. She doesn’t work; she has few interests. She doesn’t even have a name. She’s just Mrs. Jack Armitage. And her children, but for one, don’t have names either. We don’t even really know how many. Too many to count perhaps. She lets her father and her husband set the rules, make the choices for her. She has no gumption; just a constant fog.
The story was modeled on the author’s own life, complete with many husbands, many children, drinking, a suicide attempt. But the author wrote, had a career, had success, chose her own lovers. She made a cuckold of one husband, and infamously so.
So I don’t understand how The Pumpkin Eater is some bellringer for the Feminist movement. But, I have already confessed, I don’t get it.
Nudging movements and philosophies to the side for a moment, I didn’t even like the book on its own merits. Just a story about a woman who keeps having babies she doesn’t appear to want, and whose life is out of control. At least NYRB-Classics chose, as it usually does, a great cover, with Susan Bower’s Downhill in a Pram hiding behind the title:
But a fella cannot proclaim himself a Feminist. A male has to earn that, first, and even then it’s up to the eye of the female beholder. Like the balk call in baseball. And while I like to consider myself pro-woman, I’m not sure I would ever pass the test to be a full-fledged Feminist. I just don’t take anything seriously enough and sooner or later my attempt at humor would be misconstrued.
But it’s not just that. I just don’t know the rules, the qualifications. I suspect they’re slippery and ever-shifting, maybe intentionally so. For example, at about the same time, Clarence Thomas and Bill Clinton got in trouble. Thomas allegedly made a comment – “Who put this pubic hair on my Coke?” – in the presence of a female lawyer. Clinton penetrated a female intern with a cigar, let her perform oral sex on him in the Oval Office (all while married) and allegedly sexually assaulted another female, also in the White House. (Of course, both men lied about it.) I viewed Thomas’ behavior as boorish and, if an attempt at humor, not the funniest thing I’ve heard. I found Clinton’s behavior abhorrent. When I expressed this distinction at the time, every woman who heard me tsked loudly and hooted me down as if I was an idiot. They thought Thomas should be banished but defended Clinton vehemently. The cynic in me felt the distinction being drawn was a political one, that if one’s politics are right then one’s actions can be treated differently. But what I was told was that I DIDN’T GET IT! And that’s probably true.
What does this have to do with The Pumpkin Eater? Well, in the obligatory NYRB-Classic Introduction to the edition I read was this: Before the advent of Betty Friedan and Germaine Greer . . . . there was Penelope Mortimer. But I don’t get it.
The patently autobiographical female protagonist in this novel marries, serially, and has children. A lot of children. Although, she doesn’t take care of them; a nanny does. Her husband’s an asshole.
That’s it.
Oh, there’s some running plot: she drinks, she sleeps, she languishes, she has babies. She doesn’t work; she has few interests. She doesn’t even have a name. She’s just Mrs. Jack Armitage. And her children, but for one, don’t have names either. We don’t even really know how many. Too many to count perhaps. She lets her father and her husband set the rules, make the choices for her. She has no gumption; just a constant fog.
The story was modeled on the author’s own life, complete with many husbands, many children, drinking, a suicide attempt. But the author wrote, had a career, had success, chose her own lovers. She made a cuckold of one husband, and infamously so.
So I don’t understand how The Pumpkin Eater is some bellringer for the Feminist movement. But, I have already confessed, I don’t get it.
Nudging movements and philosophies to the side for a moment, I didn’t even like the book on its own merits. Just a story about a woman who keeps having babies she doesn’t appear to want, and whose life is out of control. At least NYRB-Classics chose, as it usually does, a great cover, with Susan Bower’s Downhill in a Pram hiding behind the title:
July 14, 2012
I finished reading The Pumpkin Eater this afternoon in my parents' living room. My parents were bickering, as per usual, about my mother's lateness in getting ready to leave the house, and my father's lack of concern for his appearance, ready to step out of the house wearing swim trunks as shorts.
Finally, I felt compelled to say something. "I'm only here one day a week and yet this conversation is making me tired. How do you guys have the energy to talk to each other like this all the time?"
Mom: "Simple: most of the time, we just don't talk."
Twenty-five years and it's all about tolerance.
The Pumpkin Eater is, appropriately, a book about certain realities of certain marriages and settling for them. It's about what it is to have the obligations of a wife and mother amid men who condescend to you, cheat on you, and/or generally think you're hysterical instead of taking you seriously. The nameless protagonist (probably more of an "everywoman" of the 1960's than I can understand) is married to a fourth husband -- a screenwriter with a Big Important Career -- who cheats on her and lies to her and is more childish than their (well, her) polymorphic, anonymous brood of children. She sees a therapist for help reconciling her depression/anxiety with her domestic life, and much of the first half of the book is made up of her conversations on his couch. She longs for more and more children, yet never gives the number or names of those she has except for one, Dinah, the daughter of her ex-husband from whom she is not divorced but who is deceased.
I read praises for this book that call it "darkly funny." Yeah, there's plenty of levity, but it just kinda gets lost in the sea of sadness that living this woman's life must actually entail when you're looking at it plainly, not hearing it told by her. The protagonist's father sleeps with her teenaged friend; the protagonist has her own (albeit, sexless) tryst with a much older married man; the woman with whom the Screenwriter cheats has a husband who berates her constantly and wants her to suffer for having slept with the Screenwriter. There is more than a hint of the Victorian notion of Hysteria, the Woman's Disease, updated for the 20th century -- you almost expect the condescending psychologist or the Screenwriter, a regular minimizer of her concerns, to toss a vibrator at the protag as if it will solve all of her problems.
As far as Mortimer's style, you could do little better with proto-feminist books. The Pumpkin Eater is well written, and a perfect example for would-be writers of how to allude to grander, more universal themes and A Character's True Feelings without hitting the reader over the head with technique. However, I don't want to experience it again. Not in book form and certainly not in life. No, thank you.
Finally, I felt compelled to say something. "I'm only here one day a week and yet this conversation is making me tired. How do you guys have the energy to talk to each other like this all the time?"
Mom: "Simple: most of the time, we just don't talk."
Twenty-five years and it's all about tolerance.
The Pumpkin Eater is, appropriately, a book about certain realities of certain marriages and settling for them. It's about what it is to have the obligations of a wife and mother amid men who condescend to you, cheat on you, and/or generally think you're hysterical instead of taking you seriously. The nameless protagonist (probably more of an "everywoman" of the 1960's than I can understand) is married to a fourth husband -- a screenwriter with a Big Important Career -- who cheats on her and lies to her and is more childish than their (well, her) polymorphic, anonymous brood of children. She sees a therapist for help reconciling her depression/anxiety with her domestic life, and much of the first half of the book is made up of her conversations on his couch. She longs for more and more children, yet never gives the number or names of those she has except for one, Dinah, the daughter of her ex-husband from whom she is not divorced but who is deceased.
I read praises for this book that call it "darkly funny." Yeah, there's plenty of levity, but it just kinda gets lost in the sea of sadness that living this woman's life must actually entail when you're looking at it plainly, not hearing it told by her. The protagonist's father sleeps with her teenaged friend; the protagonist has her own (albeit, sexless) tryst with a much older married man; the woman with whom the Screenwriter cheats has a husband who berates her constantly and wants her to suffer for having slept with the Screenwriter. There is more than a hint of the Victorian notion of Hysteria, the Woman's Disease, updated for the 20th century -- you almost expect the condescending psychologist or the Screenwriter, a regular minimizer of her concerns, to toss a vibrator at the protag as if it will solve all of her problems.
As far as Mortimer's style, you could do little better with proto-feminist books. The Pumpkin Eater is well written, and a perfect example for would-be writers of how to allude to grander, more universal themes and A Character's True Feelings without hitting the reader over the head with technique. However, I don't want to experience it again. Not in book form and certainly not in life. No, thank you.
January 1, 2016
A beautifully written story of one woman's descent into madness.
A gripping book which is utterly compelling.
Mrs Armitage has three husbands a brood of children, her only role in life to keep on having children.
Then she meets Jake a script writer.
The vision of building a glass tower in the country to finally settle, is this reality or a dream?
She then breaks down in Harrods in the linen department.
A dark comedy which made me feel for Mrs Armitage as the book reaches its conclusion.
Do we always make the right choices?
Semi autobiographical, this story makes one look at relationships in a different way.
Every woman should read this book.
A gripping book which is utterly compelling.
Mrs Armitage has three husbands a brood of children, her only role in life to keep on having children.
Then she meets Jake a script writer.
The vision of building a glass tower in the country to finally settle, is this reality or a dream?
She then breaks down in Harrods in the linen department.
A dark comedy which made me feel for Mrs Armitage as the book reaches its conclusion.
Do we always make the right choices?
Semi autobiographical, this story makes one look at relationships in a different way.
Every woman should read this book.
November 11, 2017
and here's to you, mrs. armitage / jesus loves you more than you will know (wo wo wo).
così diverse, eppure. eppure la mrs. robinson de il laureato e la signora armitage di penelope mortimer hanno avuto entrambe, a distanza di tre anni, il volto e il carisma di anne bancroft. e hanno dato voce entrambe allo stesso malessere, esistenziale ed epocale: quello di un certo tipo di donna, in un certo ambiente, con certe aspettative. dopodiché una (quella per cui simon & garfunkel adattano il testo scritto per eleanor roosevelt) veste la propria frustrazione con l'abito aggressivo della spregiudicatezza e dell'accanimento. l'altra non ha spigoli vivi, e anzi si lascia scivolare nel buio oltre la siepe ordinata, si annichilisce di un amore oblativo per il marito, fino a rimanerne svuotata.
questo romanzo del 1962 è costruito sulla sofferenza e la illogica, contraddittoria, lucidità di una donna che racconta in prima persona il proprio disagio emotivo. che poi è quasi totalmente lo stesso dell'autrice. perché nella finzione-non-finzione di mrs. armitage, mortimer dà forma (con molte meno variazioni di quel che si potrebbe credere) a un’inquietudine progressiva che fu anche sua. e allo sgretolarsi carsico che a volte si insinua sotto la crosta di un matrimonio proprio quando, a rendere la vita apparentemente più facile, arrivano le sicurezze e gli agi del tutto-compreso.
d'altra parte nel caso di penelope mortimer l'infelicità e la depressione non collimano banalmente con la vita della casalinga disperata. e qui sta l'unica sostanziale differenza tra l'autrice e il suo personaggio. il fatto che mentre quest'ultimo non cerca nulla al di fuori del ruolo familiare, mortimer (come in quegli stessi anni sylvia plath) è scrittrice apprezzata e sposata a un brillante collega. dal quale viene però serialmente tradita e umiliata.
la mangiatrice di zucche (il titolo originale viene da una filastrocca inglese, e allude al suo restarsene chiusa in casa mentre il marito sfarfalla in giro) parla in prima persona di depressione, di figli concepiti serialmente, di come l’adorazione per un uomo possa essere un riempitivo contrapposto al non-amore per sé. tanto che alla fine, l'approdo di questo sentimento di proiezione continua è inevitabile. mortimer-armitage lo dice senza sussulti: «non c'era più niente da dare. il racconto è edificante, e dimostra che è meglio prendere la vita a passi precisi e piccoli sorsi anziché credere, come credevo io, che esista una pienezza costantemente rinnovata».
non amando però in un romanzo l’aspetto «edificante», personalmente mi tengo la extra-ordinarietà della propria vita che l’autrice fa trapelare in queste pagine, insieme all'ironia di certi dialoghi e all’acume di certi incisi.
tre stelle e mezzo.
così diverse, eppure. eppure la mrs. robinson de il laureato e la signora armitage di penelope mortimer hanno avuto entrambe, a distanza di tre anni, il volto e il carisma di anne bancroft. e hanno dato voce entrambe allo stesso malessere, esistenziale ed epocale: quello di un certo tipo di donna, in un certo ambiente, con certe aspettative. dopodiché una (quella per cui simon & garfunkel adattano il testo scritto per eleanor roosevelt) veste la propria frustrazione con l'abito aggressivo della spregiudicatezza e dell'accanimento. l'altra non ha spigoli vivi, e anzi si lascia scivolare nel buio oltre la siepe ordinata, si annichilisce di un amore oblativo per il marito, fino a rimanerne svuotata.
questo romanzo del 1962 è costruito sulla sofferenza e la illogica, contraddittoria, lucidità di una donna che racconta in prima persona il proprio disagio emotivo. che poi è quasi totalmente lo stesso dell'autrice. perché nella finzione-non-finzione di mrs. armitage, mortimer dà forma (con molte meno variazioni di quel che si potrebbe credere) a un’inquietudine progressiva che fu anche sua. e allo sgretolarsi carsico che a volte si insinua sotto la crosta di un matrimonio proprio quando, a rendere la vita apparentemente più facile, arrivano le sicurezze e gli agi del tutto-compreso.
d'altra parte nel caso di penelope mortimer l'infelicità e la depressione non collimano banalmente con la vita della casalinga disperata. e qui sta l'unica sostanziale differenza tra l'autrice e il suo personaggio. il fatto che mentre quest'ultimo non cerca nulla al di fuori del ruolo familiare, mortimer (come in quegli stessi anni sylvia plath) è scrittrice apprezzata e sposata a un brillante collega. dal quale viene però serialmente tradita e umiliata.
la mangiatrice di zucche (il titolo originale viene da una filastrocca inglese, e allude al suo restarsene chiusa in casa mentre il marito sfarfalla in giro) parla in prima persona di depressione, di figli concepiti serialmente, di come l’adorazione per un uomo possa essere un riempitivo contrapposto al non-amore per sé. tanto che alla fine, l'approdo di questo sentimento di proiezione continua è inevitabile. mortimer-armitage lo dice senza sussulti: «non c'era più niente da dare. il racconto è edificante, e dimostra che è meglio prendere la vita a passi precisi e piccoli sorsi anziché credere, come credevo io, che esista una pienezza costantemente rinnovata».
non amando però in un romanzo l’aspetto «edificante», personalmente mi tengo la extra-ordinarietà della propria vita che l’autrice fa trapelare in queste pagine, insieme all'ironia di certi dialoghi e all’acume di certi incisi.
tre stelle e mezzo.
August 1, 2017
“Peter, Peter pumpkin eater,
Had a wife but couldn't keep her;
He put her in a pumpkin shell
And there he kept her very well.”
It would be only fair to begin with this seemingly innocent poem which, on reading carefully, won’t seem all that innocent. The harsh aspect of this poem is not that He put her in a pumpkin shell but, to intend that he kept her very well in a shell. Well, it is not all that fair to draw conclusions from a children’s poem whose meaning increases our curiosity. Perhaps, perhaps that’s why we need to read this dark, indispensable work of motherhood and Womanhood which are mostly celebrated and empowered.
The unnamed narrator of this story is no different from the poor wife of Peter: Mr. Armitage keeps her well and he gives her everything any woman could want—clothes, a car, servants. But, is that all? The story opens in a bleak office where she uncomfortably sits in a couch and talks to her unreasonable psychiatrist. There are questions on her privacy and pregnancy. But, she is willing to be diagnosed and, most importantly, paid attention to, through her evocative dialogues. However, the psychiatrist goes on holiday and she is expected to live normally.
In her own shell of a world, she puts up every day with her demanding children and her unfaithful husband besides languorously performing household rituals. When she sits listlessly, smoking a cigarette and watching her kids play with their nanny, she feels that her life is no different than that of the fly on the window pane looking bemusedly at all the inanimate objects. The cheerful echoes of her children make her worry that they would fall in love someday. Life seems interminable after smoking every cigarette; and inquisitive. She has a life; maybe not her own.
There are too many children already, they say. Will the arrival of one more make her life bearable? Does she think that continuing having children is the only way to save her identity? Do you even know her name?
The book treads along the once-unmarked territories of domestic sordidness, which hangs over the house like a cobweb over the chandelier, but casually ignored or put away for later. Mortimer’s poignant writing offers an unaccountable reality of an otherwise normal story and leaves us with the same question "Was she really kept well?".
Had a wife but couldn't keep her;
He put her in a pumpkin shell
And there he kept her very well.”
It would be only fair to begin with this seemingly innocent poem which, on reading carefully, won’t seem all that innocent. The harsh aspect of this poem is not that He put her in a pumpkin shell but, to intend that he kept her very well in a shell. Well, it is not all that fair to draw conclusions from a children’s poem whose meaning increases our curiosity. Perhaps, perhaps that’s why we need to read this dark, indispensable work of motherhood and Womanhood which are mostly celebrated and empowered.
The unnamed narrator of this story is no different from the poor wife of Peter: Mr. Armitage keeps her well and he gives her everything any woman could want—clothes, a car, servants. But, is that all? The story opens in a bleak office where she uncomfortably sits in a couch and talks to her unreasonable psychiatrist. There are questions on her privacy and pregnancy. But, she is willing to be diagnosed and, most importantly, paid attention to, through her evocative dialogues. However, the psychiatrist goes on holiday and she is expected to live normally.
In her own shell of a world, she puts up every day with her demanding children and her unfaithful husband besides languorously performing household rituals. When she sits listlessly, smoking a cigarette and watching her kids play with their nanny, she feels that her life is no different than that of the fly on the window pane looking bemusedly at all the inanimate objects. The cheerful echoes of her children make her worry that they would fall in love someday. Life seems interminable after smoking every cigarette; and inquisitive. She has a life; maybe not her own.
There are too many children already, they say. Will the arrival of one more make her life bearable? Does she think that continuing having children is the only way to save her identity? Do you even know her name?
The book treads along the once-unmarked territories of domestic sordidness, which hangs over the house like a cobweb over the chandelier, but casually ignored or put away for later. Mortimer’s poignant writing offers an unaccountable reality of an otherwise normal story and leaves us with the same question "Was she really kept well?".
November 29, 2011
When Mrs. Armitage was a child her mother kept a wool drawer in the dining room chest consisting of nothing but leftover knitting scraps. On rainy afternoons she was made to tidy the drawer for no other reason then for something to do. Busy work. Mrs. Armitage likened it to the way " they make prisoners dig holes and fill them up again."
Her psychiatrist offered "she would like to be something useful... like a tea cozy.
This is the story of a woman losing her way in the quest of finding a sense of purpose. Never defined by name, but instead titles -- Wife of Jake, Mother of Dinah (and at least a half dozen others), the narrator looks back on a lifetime of disappointment, abandonment and betrayal by those that were loved and trusted.
All her life, she has been surrounded by people -- parents, friends, one husband leading to another, a battalion of children following suit--yet Mrs. Armitage still finds herself trapped and inwardly alone.
Downward spiraling and yet hiding in plain sight, she escapes her domestic imprisonment and seeks answers by digging through her own emotional scrap drawer. But what will she unearth? Something useful like a sense of self? Better equipped to fill life's holes.
Her psychiatrist offered "she would like to be something useful... like a tea cozy.
This is the story of a woman losing her way in the quest of finding a sense of purpose. Never defined by name, but instead titles -- Wife of Jake, Mother of Dinah (and at least a half dozen others), the narrator looks back on a lifetime of disappointment, abandonment and betrayal by those that were loved and trusted.
All her life, she has been surrounded by people -- parents, friends, one husband leading to another, a battalion of children following suit--yet Mrs. Armitage still finds herself trapped and inwardly alone.
Downward spiraling and yet hiding in plain sight, she escapes her domestic imprisonment and seeks answers by digging through her own emotional scrap drawer. But what will she unearth? Something useful like a sense of self? Better equipped to fill life's holes.
October 15, 2022
“‘Gosh,’ I said dully, hoping we would have a crash in which our bodies would be mutilated beyond recognition.”
-
‘Why did you marry me?’
‘I married . . . a background, I suppose.’
‘What do you think about marriage?’
‘I don’t think it exists, really. There are just human beings in situations they make for themselves…’
•
I knew what my connection to this book would be. I knew I would love it. It’s a gripping, brutal, soul-gaping work that goes to the heart of the matter, so to speak.
This is an account of a young woman slipping downwards into darkness. It’s a domestic novel, a hellish love story that feels very real, very adult, loveless. It’s a piece of brilliant interiority, a small portrait that bleeds out over the frame and spreads. It’s character-driven, specific, but far-reaching. It’s about a young woman, but also womanhood, existence itself.
Mortimer writes powerfully about pain, the loss of sensitivity, the selfishness of men, confusion, vanity, self-deceit. Being a woman. Being invisible, stateless.
The emotional intensity, the startling frankness felt very fresh. It came to life right away for me, the voice of Mrs Armitage pulled me, fascinated, uneasy, into an abyss of unanswerable questions.
A ferocious, brilliant book that should be read by fans of Jean Rhys, Edna O’Brien, Anita Brookner and Christina Stead. Gems like theirs cut with their sharp knives through the surface and write from within the core. Having read it, I now see what O’Brien meant when she said every woman she could think of will want to read it. It really, in a strong and clear, immediate way, made me feel like I was getting rare access into a woman’s experience. I felt palpably the hard knocks of its angry truths against life’s sanctioned cruelties.
Amazing writing. The compression! A whoa-inducing book, and a top read of my year. Profound. Delicious.
-
‘Why did you marry me?’
‘I married . . . a background, I suppose.’
‘What do you think about marriage?’
‘I don’t think it exists, really. There are just human beings in situations they make for themselves…’
•
I knew what my connection to this book would be. I knew I would love it. It’s a gripping, brutal, soul-gaping work that goes to the heart of the matter, so to speak.
This is an account of a young woman slipping downwards into darkness. It’s a domestic novel, a hellish love story that feels very real, very adult, loveless. It’s a piece of brilliant interiority, a small portrait that bleeds out over the frame and spreads. It’s character-driven, specific, but far-reaching. It’s about a young woman, but also womanhood, existence itself.
Mortimer writes powerfully about pain, the loss of sensitivity, the selfishness of men, confusion, vanity, self-deceit. Being a woman. Being invisible, stateless.
The emotional intensity, the startling frankness felt very fresh. It came to life right away for me, the voice of Mrs Armitage pulled me, fascinated, uneasy, into an abyss of unanswerable questions.
A ferocious, brilliant book that should be read by fans of Jean Rhys, Edna O’Brien, Anita Brookner and Christina Stead. Gems like theirs cut with their sharp knives through the surface and write from within the core. Having read it, I now see what O’Brien meant when she said every woman she could think of will want to read it. It really, in a strong and clear, immediate way, made me feel like I was getting rare access into a woman’s experience. I felt palpably the hard knocks of its angry truths against life’s sanctioned cruelties.
Amazing writing. The compression! A whoa-inducing book, and a top read of my year. Profound. Delicious.
May 31, 2015
Una drammatica fecondità
La prosa brillante e coraggiosa di Penelope Mortimer ha una voce ostinata, onesta e attaccata alla verità e si rivela con l'indole malinconica e profonda di un racconto lieve e nudo, che travolge con un fascino perturbante le nostre emozioni più elementari. Il romanzo narra la disperazione di una donna dalla vita interiore smisurata, il tormento e la colpa per l'incapacità di rassegnarsi alla labilità dell'amore e alla consuetudine del tradimento; mette in scena l'illusione di rinnovare una pienezza che non esiste e il dovere di vivere la solitudine come una casa disabitata, nella quale ella è destinata a perdere per sempre quello che ama senza ragione. Una donna, la protagonista di questo dramma della consolazione, che vuole evitare il male e che vuole che le cose smettano di accaderle; che è incapace di arrendersi e si spinge fino all'autodistruzione completa, a rendere sterile il proprio corpo colpevole di un amore eccessivo. Dentro questa storia c'è un passato ricco di segni, ci sono i dialoghi incontrovertibili, gli stili marcati e la lotta contro lo scorrere del tempo: ecco che nasce una scrittura veloce, fonte di catarsi su diversi piani. Questa donna inesauribile ha dentro di sé una paura remota, che proviene da un luogo irraggiungibile e con questa angoscia cerca tutta la vita di fare i conti. Penelope Mortimer ne racconta con ironia i traumi e le relazioni affettive irrisolte, le contraddizioni tra aspirazioni e rinunce, in un'analisi della fragilità che coinvolge intensamente, esprimendo in un percorso toccante un'originale forma di intimità letteraria.
La prosa brillante e coraggiosa di Penelope Mortimer ha una voce ostinata, onesta e attaccata alla verità e si rivela con l'indole malinconica e profonda di un racconto lieve e nudo, che travolge con un fascino perturbante le nostre emozioni più elementari. Il romanzo narra la disperazione di una donna dalla vita interiore smisurata, il tormento e la colpa per l'incapacità di rassegnarsi alla labilità dell'amore e alla consuetudine del tradimento; mette in scena l'illusione di rinnovare una pienezza che non esiste e il dovere di vivere la solitudine come una casa disabitata, nella quale ella è destinata a perdere per sempre quello che ama senza ragione. Una donna, la protagonista di questo dramma della consolazione, che vuole evitare il male e che vuole che le cose smettano di accaderle; che è incapace di arrendersi e si spinge fino all'autodistruzione completa, a rendere sterile il proprio corpo colpevole di un amore eccessivo. Dentro questa storia c'è un passato ricco di segni, ci sono i dialoghi incontrovertibili, gli stili marcati e la lotta contro lo scorrere del tempo: ecco che nasce una scrittura veloce, fonte di catarsi su diversi piani. Questa donna inesauribile ha dentro di sé una paura remota, che proviene da un luogo irraggiungibile e con questa angoscia cerca tutta la vita di fare i conti. Penelope Mortimer ne racconta con ironia i traumi e le relazioni affettive irrisolte, le contraddizioni tra aspirazioni e rinunce, in un'analisi della fragilità che coinvolge intensamente, esprimendo in un percorso toccante un'originale forma di intimità letteraria.
November 8, 2017
Le lievi increspature del destino
C'è un doppio registro che rende questo romanzo poco riuscito, nonostante i temi interessanti che affronta. Leggevo la storia di questa donna, una ricca inglese degli anni '50, che trova la sua ragione di vita nei matrimoni seriali (4) ma soprattutto nello sfornare figli (credo 5 o giù di lì...la sua vera passione) apparentemente trascinata qua e là dalle onde del destino, e continuavo a ripetermi che c'era qualcosa di implausibile, di stonato o inspiegabile nel testo e nella psicologia del personaggio. Mentre la protagonista si muove con superficialità borghese e grazia anaffettiva su tutto, matrimoni, amori, figli, tradimenti e tragedie, quasi fossero eventi che la sfiorano o che le accadono, e ci racconta tutto con la stessa vacua partecipazione con cui ci racconterebbe di aver scelto un paio di scarpe, emerge invece di tanto in tanto, sulla superficie liscia e senza onde emotive delle reazioni e pensieri di questa donna, quella che deve invece essere stata la reale personalità dell'autrice (questo romanzo è in gran parte autobiografico). Forse la materia grezza da cui è partita la Mortimer era talmente incandescente da dovere essere raffreddata e resa maneggiabile tramite questo distacco emotivo forzato. Le battute ironiche, la consapevolezza di una situazione di infelicità e disagio, di costrizione in convenzioni sociali, si fanno strada qua e là senza mai trovare un quadro organico e una rispondenza consequenziale nelle azioni e nei pensieri del personaggio principale. Quelle increspature superficiali, quei lampi di consapevolezza, ironia e disillusione non arrivano mai a essere cavalloni di tempesta, che invece ci aspetteremmo visto quello che le accade, ma si fanno più intensi in un finale che, al di là di qualche elemento grottesco, rivela l'amore per l'ultimo marito per il quale la donna ha scelto, forse vanamente, una strada di realizzazione personale diversa da quella della maternità. Le tre stelle (scarse) vanno soprattutto alla freschezza delle tematiche su famiglia, ruolo della donna e sulla messa in discussione dei valori borghesi, che nel 1962 – anno di pubblicazione - non erano certo all'ordine del giorno, men che meno affrontate da una scrittrice. La sensazione finale però resta quella di un libro irrisolto, di un'occasione persa.
C'è un doppio registro che rende questo romanzo poco riuscito, nonostante i temi interessanti che affronta. Leggevo la storia di questa donna, una ricca inglese degli anni '50, che trova la sua ragione di vita nei matrimoni seriali (4) ma soprattutto nello sfornare figli (credo 5 o giù di lì...la sua vera passione) apparentemente trascinata qua e là dalle onde del destino, e continuavo a ripetermi che c'era qualcosa di implausibile, di stonato o inspiegabile nel testo e nella psicologia del personaggio. Mentre la protagonista si muove con superficialità borghese e grazia anaffettiva su tutto, matrimoni, amori, figli, tradimenti e tragedie, quasi fossero eventi che la sfiorano o che le accadono, e ci racconta tutto con la stessa vacua partecipazione con cui ci racconterebbe di aver scelto un paio di scarpe, emerge invece di tanto in tanto, sulla superficie liscia e senza onde emotive delle reazioni e pensieri di questa donna, quella che deve invece essere stata la reale personalità dell'autrice (questo romanzo è in gran parte autobiografico). Forse la materia grezza da cui è partita la Mortimer era talmente incandescente da dovere essere raffreddata e resa maneggiabile tramite questo distacco emotivo forzato. Le battute ironiche, la consapevolezza di una situazione di infelicità e disagio, di costrizione in convenzioni sociali, si fanno strada qua e là senza mai trovare un quadro organico e una rispondenza consequenziale nelle azioni e nei pensieri del personaggio principale. Quelle increspature superficiali, quei lampi di consapevolezza, ironia e disillusione non arrivano mai a essere cavalloni di tempesta, che invece ci aspetteremmo visto quello che le accade, ma si fanno più intensi in un finale che, al di là di qualche elemento grottesco, rivela l'amore per l'ultimo marito per il quale la donna ha scelto, forse vanamente, una strada di realizzazione personale diversa da quella della maternità. Le tre stelle (scarse) vanno soprattutto alla freschezza delle tematiche su famiglia, ruolo della donna e sulla messa in discussione dei valori borghesi, che nel 1962 – anno di pubblicazione - non erano certo all'ordine del giorno, men che meno affrontate da una scrittrice. La sensazione finale però resta quella di un libro irrisolto, di un'occasione persa.
March 26, 2023
A rather surreal and dark story of the un-named narrators spiral into a breakdown. It's said to be semi-autobiographical. Mrs Jake Admits he is on her forth marriage and has had countless children, unlike the author, she is a wide and a mother with no career, and since her husband became a successful actor-writer and hired domestics to look after the running of the house, even that role has been taken from her.
It is quite a hard read at times, becoming very bleak but the writing is very good, with some marvellous descriptions. I'm glad I finally got round to picking it up. Now I'll pick up The Home which is said to be a sort of sequel to this book.
It is quite a hard read at times, becoming very bleak but the writing is very good, with some marvellous descriptions. I'm glad I finally got round to picking it up. Now I'll pick up The Home which is said to be a sort of sequel to this book.
May 1, 2021
"You think men don’t behave like this? Perhaps it’s true. A man has to be drunk, or insane, or unbalanced by talent, before he’ll behave like a woman. But I have known men cry, try to pray; I’ve known men whose passion for triviality far exceeded mine; I’ve known men more weakly and willingly victimized by circumstances than I. Even love, which is believed to obsess us, can preoccupy some men to the point where they stop fighting successfully, working well, making sufficient money. You think well-adjusted, usefully occupied women don’t behave like this? Of course. They haven’t the time. Everyone, men, women, even children, has a great potential for fear, unhappiness, cowardice, lack of faith — but these things are unacceptable, and must be crowded out by occupation."
July 10, 2017
I reread Penelope Mortimer's 1962 novella, The Pumpkin Eater, for my Goodreads book club. It is a wonderfully vivid and harrowing novella in equal measure, which charts an emotional breakdown, and was published a year before Sylvia Plath's seminal The Bell Jar. The Pumpkin Eater is heavily autobiographical, with its markedly realistic scenes and character development throughout.
One is immediately pulled in to this important book. The unnamed protagonist, who is identified only through her married surname as Mrs. Armitage, is 'Everywoman', really; she has a husband and children, and a large house, with another being built in the countryside. Her fourth husband makes a great deal of money, but she is not at all fulfilled in her life. All she sees herself to be fit for is to give birth to one child after another; they, indeed, are not rendered as individuals within the novella, but are distinguished only by their birth order and fathers - there are the 'older children' and 'Jake's children'. Only the eldest of these, a daughter, is given a name - Dinah - and her own singular identity. Her current husband, too, is Jake, rather a childish moniker for what he is supposed to represent; whilst he has personal freedom afforded both by his profession as a filmmaker and the money this makes them, and by his gender, he is also the main force behind which our narrator feels trapped.
When our narrator tells Jake how much she cares about him, he verbally explodes: '"You don't care about me, all you care about is the bills being paid and the bloody children, that great fucking army of children that I'm supposed to support and work my guts out for, so I can't even take a bath in peace, I can't eat a bloody meal without them whining and slobbering all over the table, I can't even go to bed with you without one of them comes barging in in the middle'. Her reaction to this is rather interesting; she seems to thrive on being confronted and scolded: 'He was shouting as though I were a mile away. His shouts delighted me.' Jake makes her feel like a burden, essentially, and the affair which he conducts with a much younger woman only serves to exacerbate the crisis which she feels.
The entirety of The Pumpkin Eater is told from the sometimes unbridled perspective of our narrator. She is at a loss to see her worth, and when we meet her father, we can see why this is perhaps the case. He has been squashing her emotionally since she was a small child, and the fact that she has established herself as a wife and mother does nothing to alter his opinion of her; he patronises her along with Jake, and makes decisions about sending her children to boarding school, and where the family should live. She is utterly sidelined, and one can certainly see the reasoning for her deep-set insecurities. Jake is arguably more like the narrator's father than she is herself; both are self-obsessed and utterly selfish.
Our narrator first realises that something is wrong with her when she gets into bed beside Jake, who is sleeping: 'I thought of waking him up, but for the first time I could not touch him. Thus paralysis, this failure of my will to make my body move, revived all my fear, and I lay there sweating, shaken by great beats of my heart, ignorant as in a first labour but with no instinct, or memory to help me. It must have been then, I think, that Jake and life became confused in my ind, and inseparable. The sleeping man was no longer accessible, no longer lovable. He increased monstrously, became the sky, the earth, the enemy, the unknown. It was Jake I was frightened of; Jake who terrified me; Jake who in the end would survive.' Her subsequent breakdown is harrowingly evoked. Jake, of course, is unsympathetic, asking her: 'Do you think you're going to get over this period of your life, because I find it awfully depressing?'. Jake undoubtedly has a lot of issues too, but as he is a male, he remains unscrutinised by psychologists.
The children occupy an interesting space within the novel; they both hold the narrator together and pull her apart. They ensure that she has very little time for herself, or to spend with Jake, and demand so much that she is constantly exhausted. She recognises, however, that she exists for them.
The Pumpkin Eater has been incredibly well handled, and there is an awful lot of depth to it. The autobiographical elements, which can be found in any of Mortimer's biographies, make it all the more harrowing. It also raises an awful lot of questions, particularly in its final paragraph. The Pumpkin Eater is a wonderful and memorable novella, which feels incredibly modern over fifty years after its initial publication.
One is immediately pulled in to this important book. The unnamed protagonist, who is identified only through her married surname as Mrs. Armitage, is 'Everywoman', really; she has a husband and children, and a large house, with another being built in the countryside. Her fourth husband makes a great deal of money, but she is not at all fulfilled in her life. All she sees herself to be fit for is to give birth to one child after another; they, indeed, are not rendered as individuals within the novella, but are distinguished only by their birth order and fathers - there are the 'older children' and 'Jake's children'. Only the eldest of these, a daughter, is given a name - Dinah - and her own singular identity. Her current husband, too, is Jake, rather a childish moniker for what he is supposed to represent; whilst he has personal freedom afforded both by his profession as a filmmaker and the money this makes them, and by his gender, he is also the main force behind which our narrator feels trapped.
When our narrator tells Jake how much she cares about him, he verbally explodes: '"You don't care about me, all you care about is the bills being paid and the bloody children, that great fucking army of children that I'm supposed to support and work my guts out for, so I can't even take a bath in peace, I can't eat a bloody meal without them whining and slobbering all over the table, I can't even go to bed with you without one of them comes barging in in the middle'. Her reaction to this is rather interesting; she seems to thrive on being confronted and scolded: 'He was shouting as though I were a mile away. His shouts delighted me.' Jake makes her feel like a burden, essentially, and the affair which he conducts with a much younger woman only serves to exacerbate the crisis which she feels.
The entirety of The Pumpkin Eater is told from the sometimes unbridled perspective of our narrator. She is at a loss to see her worth, and when we meet her father, we can see why this is perhaps the case. He has been squashing her emotionally since she was a small child, and the fact that she has established herself as a wife and mother does nothing to alter his opinion of her; he patronises her along with Jake, and makes decisions about sending her children to boarding school, and where the family should live. She is utterly sidelined, and one can certainly see the reasoning for her deep-set insecurities. Jake is arguably more like the narrator's father than she is herself; both are self-obsessed and utterly selfish.
Our narrator first realises that something is wrong with her when she gets into bed beside Jake, who is sleeping: 'I thought of waking him up, but for the first time I could not touch him. Thus paralysis, this failure of my will to make my body move, revived all my fear, and I lay there sweating, shaken by great beats of my heart, ignorant as in a first labour but with no instinct, or memory to help me. It must have been then, I think, that Jake and life became confused in my ind, and inseparable. The sleeping man was no longer accessible, no longer lovable. He increased monstrously, became the sky, the earth, the enemy, the unknown. It was Jake I was frightened of; Jake who terrified me; Jake who in the end would survive.' Her subsequent breakdown is harrowingly evoked. Jake, of course, is unsympathetic, asking her: 'Do you think you're going to get over this period of your life, because I find it awfully depressing?'. Jake undoubtedly has a lot of issues too, but as he is a male, he remains unscrutinised by psychologists.
The children occupy an interesting space within the novel; they both hold the narrator together and pull her apart. They ensure that she has very little time for herself, or to spend with Jake, and demand so much that she is constantly exhausted. She recognises, however, that she exists for them.
The Pumpkin Eater has been incredibly well handled, and there is an awful lot of depth to it. The autobiographical elements, which can be found in any of Mortimer's biographies, make it all the more harrowing. It also raises an awful lot of questions, particularly in its final paragraph. The Pumpkin Eater is a wonderful and memorable novella, which feels incredibly modern over fifty years after its initial publication.
July 22, 2016
Read this for booktubeathon challenge - read a book that is older than you.
This book was first published in 1962 and the writing is fabulous. It's a semi-autobiographical, proto-feminist novel about a woman with loads of kids (I don't think you are ever told how many, but it feels like there are masses of them - tho the author herself had six), married to her fourth husband. The woman (just realised - don't think she is named, just goes by 'Mrs Armitage') is depressed, going to therapy and taking pills and hoping that the big glass tower that her rich husband is building her will mean that they will all live happily ever after.
So, it's obviously a commentary on women being reliant on men and not being allowed to make choices for themselves, and it has that sense of helplessness to it. It reminded me a little of The Bell Jar and The Dud Avocado, but it's less 'joyful' (?) and hopeful than those, and I guess it's more the writing style that is similar. So, yeah, it's bleak. And sort of doesn't go anywhere. But I loved the ending and the last line in particular. But yeah, bleak.
This book was first published in 1962 and the writing is fabulous. It's a semi-autobiographical, proto-feminist novel about a woman with loads of kids (I don't think you are ever told how many, but it feels like there are masses of them - tho the author herself had six), married to her fourth husband. The woman (just realised - don't think she is named, just goes by 'Mrs Armitage') is depressed, going to therapy and taking pills and hoping that the big glass tower that her rich husband is building her will mean that they will all live happily ever after.
So, it's obviously a commentary on women being reliant on men and not being allowed to make choices for themselves, and it has that sense of helplessness to it. It reminded me a little of The Bell Jar and The Dud Avocado, but it's less 'joyful' (?) and hopeful than those, and I guess it's more the writing style that is similar. So, yeah, it's bleak. And sort of doesn't go anywhere. But I loved the ending and the last line in particular. But yeah, bleak.
September 20, 2020
Published in 1962, this book is of its time (some racism and sexism), ,but I really enjoyed its very 50s feel (think Comyns, Pym and Taylor). A woman with so many children they are unnumbered, and on her fourth husband - the philandering Jake, feels defined by motherhood and marriage and when both these things begin to unravel so does she. I really want to see the film now.
October 13, 2025
i fear i always fall in love with books where the fmc’s mental state slowly deteriorates
November 18, 2019
3.5 stars - a compromise between not liking this book very much (2.5) but finding it remarkably adept at conveying the protagonist’s utter misery (4.5 at least).
This book plunges the reader straight into protagonist’s unsettled, uneasy mind. Mrs. Armitage - as she is referred to for the entire novel, as if her marital status has completely supplanted all other forms of personal identity - is meeting with her psychiatrist for the first time. The opening salvo:
Mrs. Armitage is in the psychiatrist’s chair because she is depressed and she cannot stop weeping. In an admirably compressed way, the protagonist fills in some of the salient details of her life: the rather dull, middle-class upbringing, the early marriage, the domestic chaos (several husbands, lots of children) during the unsettled and penurious war years, and finally 13 years of marriage to Jake Armitage. In the course of their marriage, Jake has gone from being an eager-to-please younger husband to a successful writer/producer who sleeps around. His wife has gone from being a person at the centre of a busy, all-consuming domestic life to being someone who feels superfluous to her own life. As if to underscore that superfluity, she spends most of the course of the novel removed in some way from her home, as it continues to function without her.
In the Penguin Modern Classics edition, Daphne Merkin contends that the novel’s concerns - ’The essential differences between men and women when it comes to matters of love and sex, the loneliness at the heart of life that can’t be assuaged by marriage or children’ - are still as relevant as when the novel was published (1962). I’m not entirely sure that is true. In some ways, the novel does read like a period piece; but what it certainly does well is convey the bitterness of a couple who still feel emotionally bonded, but whose bonds have mostly become negative ones: fear, anger, resentment and jealousy. One of the (many) harrowing scenes in the novel, and one I won’t forget quickly, consists of Mrs. Armitage attempting to force her husband into being honest about his duplicity, and his slippery side-stepping, with alternating admissions and denials.
Another arresting scene is the one between Mrs. Armitage and Giles, one of her ex-husbands. When he describes the wife and mother that he knew, with her ’great, energetic conviction that kept us all bouncing like ping-pong balls on an air-jet‘, he is describing a Mrs. Armitage unrecognisable both to herself and to the reader. It shows how much she has lost her way; how utterly lost and hollow she has become. With neither the role of wife or mother bringing her any sense of purpose or comfort, Mrs. Armitage is grasping for any sense of self at all.
It’s all pretty miserable to read, but I did admire how cleverly and completely she involved me (as reader) in her nervous breakdown.
This book plunges the reader straight into protagonist’s unsettled, uneasy mind. Mrs. Armitage - as she is referred to for the entire novel, as if her marital status has completely supplanted all other forms of personal identity - is meeting with her psychiatrist for the first time. The opening salvo:
’Well, I said, ‘I will try. I honestly will try to be honest with you, although I suppose really what you’ve more interested in is my not being honest, if you see what I mean.’
Mrs. Armitage is in the psychiatrist’s chair because she is depressed and she cannot stop weeping. In an admirably compressed way, the protagonist fills in some of the salient details of her life: the rather dull, middle-class upbringing, the early marriage, the domestic chaos (several husbands, lots of children) during the unsettled and penurious war years, and finally 13 years of marriage to Jake Armitage. In the course of their marriage, Jake has gone from being an eager-to-please younger husband to a successful writer/producer who sleeps around. His wife has gone from being a person at the centre of a busy, all-consuming domestic life to being someone who feels superfluous to her own life. As if to underscore that superfluity, she spends most of the course of the novel removed in some way from her home, as it continues to function without her.
In the Penguin Modern Classics edition, Daphne Merkin contends that the novel’s concerns - ’The essential differences between men and women when it comes to matters of love and sex, the loneliness at the heart of life that can’t be assuaged by marriage or children’ - are still as relevant as when the novel was published (1962). I’m not entirely sure that is true. In some ways, the novel does read like a period piece; but what it certainly does well is convey the bitterness of a couple who still feel emotionally bonded, but whose bonds have mostly become negative ones: fear, anger, resentment and jealousy. One of the (many) harrowing scenes in the novel, and one I won’t forget quickly, consists of Mrs. Armitage attempting to force her husband into being honest about his duplicity, and his slippery side-stepping, with alternating admissions and denials.
Another arresting scene is the one between Mrs. Armitage and Giles, one of her ex-husbands. When he describes the wife and mother that he knew, with her ’great, energetic conviction that kept us all bouncing like ping-pong balls on an air-jet‘, he is describing a Mrs. Armitage unrecognisable both to herself and to the reader. It shows how much she has lost her way; how utterly lost and hollow she has become. With neither the role of wife or mother bringing her any sense of purpose or comfort, Mrs. Armitage is grasping for any sense of self at all.
It’s all pretty miserable to read, but I did admire how cleverly and completely she involved me (as reader) in her nervous breakdown.
June 21, 2015
Penelope Mortimer’s The Pumpkin Eater is a brilliant book, and I am not surprised to find from GoodReads that it has been reissued as a classic by NYRB. (The copy up here is a well-loved Penguin from 1979.) Published in 1962, The Pumpkin-Eater pre-dates all the feminist writing that was so exhilarating to read as the sixties progressed, but I knew Mortimer’s name because I’ve read something of hers before. (Daddy’s Gone A-hunting, I think, but it’s too long ago to be sure).
For those who have forgotten their nursery rhymes, (or sadly never knew any) the title derives from this rhyme:
Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater
Had a wife and couldn’t keep her
He put her in a pumpkin shell
And there he kept her very well.
(*shudder* When you think how ancient this rhyme is, it is quite horrible to think how it reflects confining women’s lives over the centuries).
Mortimer’s novel begins with an unnamed wife in a psychiatrist’s chair and the black humour is evident from the start. He is the classic patronising male of the sixties (and if you think you know this type now, trust me, you have no idea what they were like when their power was unbridled and our courage was prudently tentative).
To read the rest of my review please visit http://anzlitlovers.com/2015/06/21/th...
For those who have forgotten their nursery rhymes, (or sadly never knew any) the title derives from this rhyme:
Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater
Had a wife and couldn’t keep her
He put her in a pumpkin shell
And there he kept her very well.
(*shudder* When you think how ancient this rhyme is, it is quite horrible to think how it reflects confining women’s lives over the centuries).
Mortimer’s novel begins with an unnamed wife in a psychiatrist’s chair and the black humour is evident from the start. He is the classic patronising male of the sixties (and if you think you know this type now, trust me, you have no idea what they were like when their power was unbridled and our courage was prudently tentative).
To read the rest of my review please visit http://anzlitlovers.com/2015/06/21/th...
November 27, 2011
In this novel the first-person, female, narrator details the gradual disintegration of a marriage that was never likely to work. She has already been married and has several children (with one exception they are an amorphous bunch) and he just seems to find the idea of being a part of this ready-made family an appealing idea, as long as nothing much is expected of him, especially not fidelity.
The book is written in a very easy and light style (a few chapters consist, almost entirely, of dialogue). The nameless narrator seems to have every aspect of her life permanently out of focus and can never fully comprehend what role she might play in the lives of her children or husband. She is, however, a very convincing presence in the book and both she and the story gain in gravity as it nears the end (a long quotation from John Donne is very well used). But by then, it's a little too late...
The book is written in a very easy and light style (a few chapters consist, almost entirely, of dialogue). The nameless narrator seems to have every aspect of her life permanently out of focus and can never fully comprehend what role she might play in the lives of her children or husband. She is, however, a very convincing presence in the book and both she and the story gain in gravity as it nears the end (a long quotation from John Donne is very well used). But by then, it's a little too late...
May 15, 2023
A subtle and strange book that refuses to be anything but itself. Mortimer's prose is pared-back, full of vivid imagery, and very compelling to read. The main character has had six children with a number of different husbands, and feels unable to exert any control over her life. She thinks that she's only good at having children, and can find nothing to moor herself to life. The story is desolate and darkly emotional.
August 23, 2025
very 60s, it was okay some good feminist commentary. Reminded me of Elizabeth Taylor’s writing.
June 7, 2023
I just wasn't into this, though at a different time I might have really enjoyed it.
May 25, 2011
A story about a woman who has gone through four husbands and had many more children, and is struggling to find her identity. Some of it reminds me of the similar conflict in The Cocktail Party.
"So we were back at the beginning again. There was no end. You learn nothing by hurting others; you only learn by being hurt. Where I had been viable, ignorant, rash and loving I was now an accomplished bitch, creating an emptiness in which my own emptiness might survive. We should have been locked up while it lasted,or allowed to kill each other physically. But if the choice had been given, it would not have been each other we would have killed, it would have been ourselves."
"It is better to take life in neat steps and small sips than it is to believe, as I did, that there is a wealth which is perpetually renewed."
"Your belief in yourself made me happy. It was like a great tide I could be carried along on."
"I don't know who I am, I don't know what I'm like, how can I know what I want? I only know that whether I'm good or bad, whether I'm a bitch or not, whether I'm strong or weak or contemptible or a bloody martyr - I mean whether I'm fat or thin, tall or short, because I don't know - I want to be happy. I want to find a way to be happy, I don't care what it is."
"Try and fool yourself. Run about the place for a while saying you don't know who you are or what you're like or what you want. You do know. You just won't accept it."
"So we were back at the beginning again. There was no end. You learn nothing by hurting others; you only learn by being hurt. Where I had been viable, ignorant, rash and loving I was now an accomplished bitch, creating an emptiness in which my own emptiness might survive. We should have been locked up while it lasted,or allowed to kill each other physically. But if the choice had been given, it would not have been each other we would have killed, it would have been ourselves."
"It is better to take life in neat steps and small sips than it is to believe, as I did, that there is a wealth which is perpetually renewed."
"Your belief in yourself made me happy. It was like a great tide I could be carried along on."
"I don't know who I am, I don't know what I'm like, how can I know what I want? I only know that whether I'm good or bad, whether I'm a bitch or not, whether I'm strong or weak or contemptible or a bloody martyr - I mean whether I'm fat or thin, tall or short, because I don't know - I want to be happy. I want to find a way to be happy, I don't care what it is."
"Try and fool yourself. Run about the place for a while saying you don't know who you are or what you're like or what you want. You do know. You just won't accept it."
May 14, 2023
“So we were back at the beginning again. There was no end. You learn nothing by hurting others; you only learn by being hurt. Where I had been viable, ignorant, rash and loving I was now an accomplished bitch, creating an emptiness in which my own emptiness might survive. We should have been locked up while it lasted, or allowed to kill each other physically. But if the choice had been given, it would not have been each other we would have killed, it would have been ourselves.”
October 3, 2022
i felt real emotional peril reading this, like being brought into an intense, intimate confidence so devastating that it can only be regarded with dispassion. but it is also sly, and funny, and the nurses and powder and playwrights and profiles of midcentury upper-class english society are (i am unashamed to admit) delightful. easily favourite thing i've read this year.
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