The Optimist

by E.M. Delafield

Once said to be one of Delafield’s oddest books yet also said to be her most thought-provoking novel. The story is largely dominated by Canon Morchard, an 'utterly impossible clergyman' whose children and lives are dominated by his wishes and manipulation. The story is largely seen through Owen’s eyes – a man who fought on the Western front for two years and returns to England to the home of his old tutor, Canon, whose life becomes based on illusions as his children protect him from anything that might upset him. Owen learns his own life lessons after Canon’s death and reverses certain judgments he previously made.

Genres: British Literature

292 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1922

About the author

Edmée Elizabeth Monica Dashwood, née de la Pasture (9 June 1890 – 2 December 1943), commonly known as E. M. Delafield, was a prolific English author who is best-known for her largely autobiographical Diary of a Provincial Lady, which took the form of a journal of the life of an upper-middle class Englishwoman living mostly in a Devon village of the 1930s, and its sequels in which the Provincial Lady buys a flat in London and travels to America. Other sequels of note are her experiences looking for war-work during the Phoney War in 1939, and her experiences as a tourist in the Soviet Union.

Daughter of the novelist Mrs. Henry De La Pasture.

Reviews

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

This story follows one man's interactions with the family of an English Canon following World War I and the way the children in the family negotiate their relationships with their father, with his strong personality and religious beliefs. I'm a long-time fan of Delafield, and although this was my least favorite so far, I will say that one of her strengths--lovingly depicting flawed human beings and their attempts to do right in the world and to do right by the ones they love--is clearly present in this story.

[Helen · Rating 3 out of 5]

When Owen Quentillian returns to visit Canon Morchard in the idyllic village where he spent his childhood before the First World War, he finds the Canon a self-declared optimist, clinging to the Victorian beliefs about religion, family life and moral values which the war has shattered. Is the Canon a domestic tyrant? Are his children struggling to break free? Or does this family have anything to teach Quentillian about life and how to live it?

E.M. Delafield was a Charlotte Yonge fan, and in this book she takes the typical Yonge paterfamilias, turning everything from talking after bedtime to absolute atheism into an emotional opera which threatens to crush his children under the weight of their fear of disappointing him, and puts him into a post-war world. The Canon himself remains solidly convinced of the rightness of his values to the end, but one by one we see his children’s attempts to find a life of their own. But this is not a simple tale of parental tyranny and thwarted desires. As the book progresses, we see that his children have to make their own choices in life, and part of that is learning that they have free will to make their own choices - no-one is entirely a victim. It’s an easy read but not a light novel. In the end Delafield rejects the tendency of her own day to view human experience as being all about psychology, or The Woman Question, or the need for freedom: people are complex and need love, security, and other things just as much. Will they be happy? Maybe moments of happiness are enough.

[Blasr · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved The Diary of a Provincial Lady, so had high expectations. Alas, they were unfulfilled. I could not empathise with any of the characters and found the situations most irritating.