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Rebecca Landon #1
La ballade et la source
Ten-year-old Rebecca is living in the country with her family, when Sibyl Jardine returns to her property in the neighbourhood. The two families – once linked in the past – meet again, with the result that Rebecca becomes drawn into the strange complications of the old lady’s life.
First published January 1, 1944
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About the author
Rosamond Lehmann
43 books125 followersRosamond Nina Lehmann was born in Bourne End, Buckinghamshire, as the second daughter of Rudolph Lehmann and his wife Alice Davis, a New Englander. Her father Rudolph Chambers Lehmann was a liberal MP, and editor of the Daily News. John Lehmann (1907-1989) was her brother; one of her two sisters was the famous actress Beatrix Lehmann.
In 1919 she went to Girton College, University of Cambridge to read English Literature, an unusual thing for a woman to do at that time. In December 1923 she married Leslie Runciman (later 2nd Viscount Runciman of Doxford) (1900-1989), and the couple went to live in Newcastle upon Tyne. It was an unhappy marriage, and they separated in 1927 and were divorced later that year.
In 1927, Lehmann published her first novel, Dusty Answer, to great critical and popular acclaim. The novel's heroine, Judith, is attracted to both men and women, and interacts with fairly openly gay and lesbian characters during her years at Cambridge. The novel was a succès de scandale. Though none of her later novels were as successful as her first, Lehmann went on to publish six more novels, a play (No More Music, 1939), a collection of short stories (The Gypsy's Baby & Other Stories, 1946), a spiritual autobiography (The Swan in the Evening, 1967), and a photographic memoir of her friends (Rosamond Lehmann's Album, 1985), many of whom were famous Bloomsbury figures such as Leonard and Virginia Woolf, Carrington, and Lytton Strachey. She also translated two French novels into English: Jacques Lemarchand's Genevieve (1948) and Jean Cocteau's Children of the Game (1955). Her novels include A Note in Music (1930), Invitation to the Waltz (1932), The Weather in the Streets (1936), The Ballad and the Source (1944), The Echoing Grove (1953), and A Sea-Grape Tree (1976).
In 1928, Lehmann married Wogan Philipps, an artist. They had two children, a son Hugo (1929-1999) and a daughter Sarah or Sally (1934-1958), but the marriage quickly fell apart during the late Thirties with her Communist husband leaving to take part in the Spanish Civil War. During World War II she helped edit and contributed to New Writing, a periodical edited by her brother. She had an affair with Goronwy Rees and then a "very public affair" for nine years (1941-1950) with the married Cecil Day-Lewis, who eventually left her for his second wife.
Her 1953 novel The Echoing Grove was made into the 2002 film Heart of Me, with Helena Bonham Carter as the main character, Dinah. Her book The Ballad and the Source depicts an unhappy marriage from the point of view of a child, and has been compared to Henry James' What Maisie Knew.
The Swan in the Evening (1967) is an autobiography which Lehmann described as her "last testament". In it, she intimately describes the emotions she felt at the birth of her daughter Sally, and also when Sally died abruptly of poliomyelitis at the age of 23 (or 24) in 1958 while in Jakarta. She never recovered from Sally's death. Lehmann claimed to have had some psychic experiences, documented in Moments of Truth.
Lehmann was awarded the CBE in 1982 and died at Clareville Grove, London on 12 March 1990, aged 89.
In 1919 she went to Girton College, University of Cambridge to read English Literature, an unusual thing for a woman to do at that time. In December 1923 she married Leslie Runciman (later 2nd Viscount Runciman of Doxford) (1900-1989), and the couple went to live in Newcastle upon Tyne. It was an unhappy marriage, and they separated in 1927 and were divorced later that year.
In 1927, Lehmann published her first novel, Dusty Answer, to great critical and popular acclaim. The novel's heroine, Judith, is attracted to both men and women, and interacts with fairly openly gay and lesbian characters during her years at Cambridge. The novel was a succès de scandale. Though none of her later novels were as successful as her first, Lehmann went on to publish six more novels, a play (No More Music, 1939), a collection of short stories (The Gypsy's Baby & Other Stories, 1946), a spiritual autobiography (The Swan in the Evening, 1967), and a photographic memoir of her friends (Rosamond Lehmann's Album, 1985), many of whom were famous Bloomsbury figures such as Leonard and Virginia Woolf, Carrington, and Lytton Strachey. She also translated two French novels into English: Jacques Lemarchand's Genevieve (1948) and Jean Cocteau's Children of the Game (1955). Her novels include A Note in Music (1930), Invitation to the Waltz (1932), The Weather in the Streets (1936), The Ballad and the Source (1944), The Echoing Grove (1953), and A Sea-Grape Tree (1976).
In 1928, Lehmann married Wogan Philipps, an artist. They had two children, a son Hugo (1929-1999) and a daughter Sarah or Sally (1934-1958), but the marriage quickly fell apart during the late Thirties with her Communist husband leaving to take part in the Spanish Civil War. During World War II she helped edit and contributed to New Writing, a periodical edited by her brother. She had an affair with Goronwy Rees and then a "very public affair" for nine years (1941-1950) with the married Cecil Day-Lewis, who eventually left her for his second wife.
Her 1953 novel The Echoing Grove was made into the 2002 film Heart of Me, with Helena Bonham Carter as the main character, Dinah. Her book The Ballad and the Source depicts an unhappy marriage from the point of view of a child, and has been compared to Henry James' What Maisie Knew.
The Swan in the Evening (1967) is an autobiography which Lehmann described as her "last testament". In it, she intimately describes the emotions she felt at the birth of her daughter Sally, and also when Sally died abruptly of poliomyelitis at the age of 23 (or 24) in 1958 while in Jakarta. She never recovered from Sally's death. Lehmann claimed to have had some psychic experiences, documented in Moments of Truth.
Lehmann was awarded the CBE in 1982 and died at Clareville Grove, London on 12 March 1990, aged 89.
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Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews
December 16, 2018
This is my first reading of Lehmann and was probably not the best place to start. Lehmann came from a Liberal family (her father was an MP); her brother was a publisher and her sister an actress. Lehmann wrote several novels and many short stories.
This novel was published in 1944. It is written from the point of view of ten year old Rebecca. It revolves around the figure of Sybil Jardine, an older woman and one of the great literary creations. The back of the virago edition sums up;
“Ten-year-old Rebecca is living in the country with her family, when Sibyl Jardine returns to her property in the neighbourhood. The two families – once linked in the past – meet again, with the result that Rebecca becomes drawn into the strange complications of the old lady’s life.”
The novel is a series encounters/conversations Rebecca has concerning Sibyl Jardine. These encounters take place just before and after the First World War. The story ranges from mid Victorian times to about 1918. Rebecca pieces together Sibyl Jardine’s story, first of all from Tilly, a sewing maid/family servant, then from Sibyl Jardine herself (the major part of the book). There are also encounters with Mrs Jardine’s granddaughter Maisie and with a couple of other characters.
The novel is quite complex and the story unfolds slowly like a jigsaw puzzle, looking at the different facets of a life and personality. Sibyl Jardine is a compulsive character and Rebecca is initially drawn to her, but the picture becomes much more nuanced because Jardine is a powerful and dominant character who uses people for her own ends. The story revolves around love and betrayal over generations as Sibyl abandons her child to live as she pleases and years later her own daughter does the same thing to her children. This is no heartwarming tale, there is hatred, treachery, violence and despair. The ballad is the novel and the source is Sibyl Jardine; charming, generous and tender, but a manipulative liar as well. There are elements of Greek myth here as well; Demeter searching for her daughter Persephone.
It’s a great piece of writing, but I had some reservations, about aspects of the novel. I wasn’t wholly convinced by the use of a ten year old girl as the repository of complex adult actions and emotions. Rebecca really does not feel ten most of the time. The treatment of Ianthe’s character is also problematic. She is Sibyl Jardine’s daughter; abandoned by her mother and in her turn abandoning her children. She turns up at the end of the novel and is portrayed as having a significant mental illness. I found this part entirely unconvincing because the portrayal is far too melodramatic and stereotypical, the attempt at a Scottish accent for Aunty Mack is a caricature and doesn’t work. The cockney Character Tilly also feels a little stereotypical.
It is an interesting novel despite the faults and Sibyl Jardine is a powerful and flawed creation.
This novel was published in 1944. It is written from the point of view of ten year old Rebecca. It revolves around the figure of Sybil Jardine, an older woman and one of the great literary creations. The back of the virago edition sums up;
“Ten-year-old Rebecca is living in the country with her family, when Sibyl Jardine returns to her property in the neighbourhood. The two families – once linked in the past – meet again, with the result that Rebecca becomes drawn into the strange complications of the old lady’s life.”
The novel is a series encounters/conversations Rebecca has concerning Sibyl Jardine. These encounters take place just before and after the First World War. The story ranges from mid Victorian times to about 1918. Rebecca pieces together Sibyl Jardine’s story, first of all from Tilly, a sewing maid/family servant, then from Sibyl Jardine herself (the major part of the book). There are also encounters with Mrs Jardine’s granddaughter Maisie and with a couple of other characters.
The novel is quite complex and the story unfolds slowly like a jigsaw puzzle, looking at the different facets of a life and personality. Sibyl Jardine is a compulsive character and Rebecca is initially drawn to her, but the picture becomes much more nuanced because Jardine is a powerful and dominant character who uses people for her own ends. The story revolves around love and betrayal over generations as Sibyl abandons her child to live as she pleases and years later her own daughter does the same thing to her children. This is no heartwarming tale, there is hatred, treachery, violence and despair. The ballad is the novel and the source is Sibyl Jardine; charming, generous and tender, but a manipulative liar as well. There are elements of Greek myth here as well; Demeter searching for her daughter Persephone.
It’s a great piece of writing, but I had some reservations, about aspects of the novel. I wasn’t wholly convinced by the use of a ten year old girl as the repository of complex adult actions and emotions. Rebecca really does not feel ten most of the time. The treatment of Ianthe’s character is also problematic. She is Sibyl Jardine’s daughter; abandoned by her mother and in her turn abandoning her children. She turns up at the end of the novel and is portrayed as having a significant mental illness. I found this part entirely unconvincing because the portrayal is far too melodramatic and stereotypical, the attempt at a Scottish accent for Aunty Mack is a caricature and doesn’t work. The cockney Character Tilly also feels a little stereotypical.
It is an interesting novel despite the faults and Sibyl Jardine is a powerful and flawed creation.
March 8, 2016
This 1944 novel sits roughly in the middle of the eight Lehmann wrote over 25 years. Her writing is intensely focused on women's emotional lives and her female characters are fascinating and nuanced while her male characters are relative stick figures by comparison.
Much of this story (set just before WWI) actually takes place some years prior and is being recounted to a girl named Rebecca, aged 10 or 11, by a series of older narrators, who in turn, try to put on the voices of still other characters (though often relapse into their own vernacular), all of which creates many layers in getting to the actual story. There is a slightly older girl, who also does her share of explaining things, named Maisie which seems to confirm a tip of the hat to Henry James that one might already be feeling as the child's comprehension of adult marital misbehavior is central.
Sexual and intellectual freedom for women (or the lack thereof) is an important theme with which the characters of varying ages and social class grapple in their own ways. There's an almost comical moment where an older family servant, recounting the peccadilloes of a runaway mother, unveils what was to her the final horror, that the latter wrote a book. "A book?" young Rebecca repeats, not in shock so much as (harboring scarcely formed literary aspirations of her own) taken aback that this proves to be the worst thing a woman could do.
Much of this story (set just before WWI) actually takes place some years prior and is being recounted to a girl named Rebecca, aged 10 or 11, by a series of older narrators, who in turn, try to put on the voices of still other characters (though often relapse into their own vernacular), all of which creates many layers in getting to the actual story. There is a slightly older girl, who also does her share of explaining things, named Maisie which seems to confirm a tip of the hat to Henry James that one might already be feeling as the child's comprehension of adult marital misbehavior is central.
Sexual and intellectual freedom for women (or the lack thereof) is an important theme with which the characters of varying ages and social class grapple in their own ways. There's an almost comical moment where an older family servant, recounting the peccadilloes of a runaway mother, unveils what was to her the final horror, that the latter wrote a book. "A book?" young Rebecca repeats, not in shock so much as (harboring scarcely formed literary aspirations of her own) taken aback that this proves to be the worst thing a woman could do.
August 16, 2011
This is a masterly piece of writing. The Ballad and the Source is the fourth of Rosamond Lehmann's novels I have read, and I am enormously impressed with it. The story of Sibyl Jardine is told mainly in three long conversations, between Rebecca - who is ten at the start of the novel, and Tilly a sewing maid, Sibyl herself and later Maisie, Sibyl's grandaughter. Sibyl, both saint and sinner is a fascinating figure. An unhappy marriage leads her to leave her home, and become cut off from her child. The consequences of this are far reaching and tragic. The young Rebecca is drawn to Mrs Jardine, and determined to find out the story of her life. This story takes some years to unfold fully, and as it does Rebecca's perceptions of Mrs Jardine and her story are challenged. The writng is powerful and hugely accomplished. This is in some ways a complex novel, but Rosamond Lehmann's brilliant writing brings it all together, the story, so much of which is told through dialogue never gets lost among the speech. I found this an enthralling novel, beautifully written.
June 16, 2010
The Ballad and the Source has a rather different structure from Lehmann's other works. It tells the history of rebellious, dramatic Sibyl Jardine, once a beauty, then an outcast from society, now an elderly woman relating her story to a neighbor's child, Rebecca, granddaughter of the woman who was once Mrs. Jardine's best friend. Rebecca learns more through conversations with an old servant and with Mrs. Jardine's grandchildren.
Though the story that emerges is fascinating in spots, too much of it is secondhand; we do get Mrs. Jardine's own words, but not her thoughts, so there's a lack of that inner life which is such a remarkable feature of Lehmann's other books. As well, the plot is overly melodramatic and hard to follow.
However, Mrs. Jardine herself is a compelling enough character to keep the book going, and the bits with Rebecca, her sister, and Mrs. Jardine's grandchildren are an excellent showcase for Lehmann's talent for writing about children.
Though the story that emerges is fascinating in spots, too much of it is secondhand; we do get Mrs. Jardine's own words, but not her thoughts, so there's a lack of that inner life which is such a remarkable feature of Lehmann's other books. As well, the plot is overly melodramatic and hard to follow.
However, Mrs. Jardine herself is a compelling enough character to keep the book going, and the bits with Rebecca, her sister, and Mrs. Jardine's grandchildren are an excellent showcase for Lehmann's talent for writing about children.
August 1, 2010
I bought an old edition of this, with no dustjacket, and, as it's a long time since I've read any of this author's work, had no idea of what to expect.
In fact, I found it very unusual. The writing was beautiful - the evocation of the house through the blue door in the wall was magical. The characterisation was well done and the story enthralling. I can't wait to put this to my book group, as I really want to discuss aspects of the book with them.
In fact, I found it very unusual. The writing was beautiful - the evocation of the house through the blue door in the wall was magical. The characterisation was well done and the story enthralling. I can't wait to put this to my book group, as I really want to discuss aspects of the book with them.
August 4, 2023
Cannot bring myself to care about anything that's happening. Such a shame because Lehmann is one of my favorite authors! Gave up over halfway through.
January 5, 2024
1944. Author 1901-1990
Different from any other novel I have read. Excellent complicated introduction in the Virago edition 1982 by Janet Watts.
It seemed a complicated story over a period of many years, a whole lifetime in fact.The book is certainly not a 'fast read', and is emotionally quite intense and often downright creepy, verging sometimes on horror.
The main character, Mrs. Jardine [Sybil], is an elderly extremely manipulative woman, and the neighbor of the family of the 10 year old narrator Rebecca, who is charmed and completely taken in by Mrs. Jardine.
In spite of the complexity and the fact that the narration is mostly very long retellings by various people of events in the recent or long-ago past, it is a gripping story and I kept reading to see how nefarious Mrs Jardine's next move would be. In the beginning one wanted to feel sympathy for her, but as we know more of her one sees mostly the tragedy of her inability to do anything other than manipulate other people in often cruel ways.
A rather interesting contrast is seen in the relationship between Sybil and her [second] husband; we gather she married him for his money no more than for his passivity in giving her free rein over everything.
Watts in the Intro discusses some interesting angles [e.g. Medusa is evoked in one scene towards the end], her own contribution being the interesting theme of 'images of stone' in the book [one of the characters is a sculptor and several scenes towards the end are in his studio surrounding by statues].
Lots of interest in the story, particularly how people relate to each other; many characters play small but important roles in this.
Quite something that Virago published SIX of Lehmann's novels, and this during her own lifetime.
Her last novel, The Sea-Grape Tree, 1976, is said to be a sort of sequel to this book.
"Rosamond grew up in an affluent, well-educated, and well-known family.....She also translated two French novels into English"
Different from any other novel I have read. Excellent complicated introduction in the Virago edition 1982 by Janet Watts.
It seemed a complicated story over a period of many years, a whole lifetime in fact.The book is certainly not a 'fast read', and is emotionally quite intense and often downright creepy, verging sometimes on horror.
The main character, Mrs. Jardine [Sybil], is an elderly extremely manipulative woman, and the neighbor of the family of the 10 year old narrator Rebecca, who is charmed and completely taken in by Mrs. Jardine.
In spite of the complexity and the fact that the narration is mostly very long retellings by various people of events in the recent or long-ago past, it is a gripping story and I kept reading to see how nefarious Mrs Jardine's next move would be. In the beginning one wanted to feel sympathy for her, but as we know more of her one sees mostly the tragedy of her inability to do anything other than manipulate other people in often cruel ways.
A rather interesting contrast is seen in the relationship between Sybil and her [second] husband; we gather she married him for his money no more than for his passivity in giving her free rein over everything.
Watts in the Intro discusses some interesting angles [e.g. Medusa is evoked in one scene towards the end], her own contribution being the interesting theme of 'images of stone' in the book [one of the characters is a sculptor and several scenes towards the end are in his studio surrounding by statues].
Lots of interest in the story, particularly how people relate to each other; many characters play small but important roles in this.
Quite something that Virago published SIX of Lehmann's novels, and this during her own lifetime.
Her last novel, The Sea-Grape Tree, 1976, is said to be a sort of sequel to this book.
"Rosamond grew up in an affluent, well-educated, and well-known family.....She also translated two French novels into English"
January 16, 2019
Excellent, excellent book. I wish I had found Lehmann sooner, her writing demands attention.
June 7, 2019
Not as immediately lovable as some of her books but rewardingly complex.
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May 15, 2023I had forgotten how weird this novel is.
February 10, 2024
Narrator Rebecca Landon’s grandmother - long since deceased - was friendly in her youth with the Mrs Jardine who has come to live with her second husband, Harry, in the nearby big house. Mrs Jardine extends an invitation to eleven-year old Rebecca and her sisters to visit her at the house. Later Mrs Jardine’s grandchildren, Malcolm, Maise and Cherry, hitherto estranged from her, come to the house to stay since their father is ill. Their mother, Ianthe, had been kept till adulthood from Mrs Jardine after she had left her first husband for another man. This would have been in Victorian times as within the novel’s time span the Great War breaks out and has its doleful effect on some of the characters. Ianthe also is estranged from her husband.
The plot’s motor is Rebecca’s interest in Ianthe and the life she led but the novel’s structure is odd. Most of Ianthe’s life story is told through the medium of three extended conversations Rebecca has. One is with Tilly, an old retainer, but known to both families involved, another with Mrs Jardine herself, and the last, much later in time, with Maisie.
Presumably the source of the title is what Mrs Jardine tells Rebecca is “the fount of life, the quick spring that rises in illimitable depths of darkness and flows through every living thing from generation to generation.” Mrs Jardine also asks her, “‘Do you know what goes to make a tragedy? The pitting of one individual against the forces of society. Society is cruel and powerful. The one stands no chance against its combined hostilities.’” She also has barbs towards her countrymen, “‘Englishmen dislike women, that is the blunt truth of it..….. Do you not know that in England it is considered immoral to teach a girl the needs of her heart and body?’” adding that women themselves were complicit in this, with mothers feeling, “‘Let her go through what I did .….. She will get used to it. I had to: why should she not,’” then asking, “‘How long I wonder will ignorance spell purity and knowledge shame?’”
One of the characters was brought up among Zulus and, “‘He thinks what white people have done to them is awful: taken away their land and shoved them in the mines and made them lose their human pride … made them sad.’”
The crucial tale-telling conversations are very well rendered by Lehmann but the text surrounding them tends to be overwritten and not at all like the words of an eleven year old (even if she goes on to very early adulthood.) The text also employs some heavy-handed phonetic renderings of the accents of a Scot and of a Cockney.
Note to the sensitive; some usages reflect the book’s time. At one point the word niggers is used but as condemnatory of people who say it. Yet a subsequent sentence is still patronising to “coloured” people and calls them “negroes.”
The plot’s motor is Rebecca’s interest in Ianthe and the life she led but the novel’s structure is odd. Most of Ianthe’s life story is told through the medium of three extended conversations Rebecca has. One is with Tilly, an old retainer, but known to both families involved, another with Mrs Jardine herself, and the last, much later in time, with Maisie.
Presumably the source of the title is what Mrs Jardine tells Rebecca is “the fount of life, the quick spring that rises in illimitable depths of darkness and flows through every living thing from generation to generation.” Mrs Jardine also asks her, “‘Do you know what goes to make a tragedy? The pitting of one individual against the forces of society. Society is cruel and powerful. The one stands no chance against its combined hostilities.’” She also has barbs towards her countrymen, “‘Englishmen dislike women, that is the blunt truth of it..….. Do you not know that in England it is considered immoral to teach a girl the needs of her heart and body?’” adding that women themselves were complicit in this, with mothers feeling, “‘Let her go through what I did .….. She will get used to it. I had to: why should she not,’” then asking, “‘How long I wonder will ignorance spell purity and knowledge shame?’”
One of the characters was brought up among Zulus and, “‘He thinks what white people have done to them is awful: taken away their land and shoved them in the mines and made them lose their human pride … made them sad.’”
The crucial tale-telling conversations are very well rendered by Lehmann but the text surrounding them tends to be overwritten and not at all like the words of an eleven year old (even if she goes on to very early adulthood.) The text also employs some heavy-handed phonetic renderings of the accents of a Scot and of a Cockney.
Note to the sensitive; some usages reflect the book’s time. At one point the word niggers is used but as condemnatory of people who say it. Yet a subsequent sentence is still patronising to “coloured” people and calls them “negroes.”
June 5, 2023
This is primarily a women's book. Men are in the background: they are narrated (Ianthe's father or her husband), asked about decisions that affect women (and they always say no, like Mr. Landon), they are children (Malcom and Boy), or ethereal and lost (like the character of Harry, who reminded me so much of Mr Dick in David Copperfield). You have to get almost to the end of the story to find Gil, a male character well described and concrete, but still full of ambiguity.
All events are seen through the eyes of Rebecca, who is ten at the beginning of the book and fourteen at the end. Most of the events are told to her by others, so they are remembered, filtered, inaccurate, guided by her questions which insist on some details and leave out others.
The central character is Mrs Jardine, who connects two families, hers and that of her dearest friend now deceased: three generations who meet, talk to each other, drift apart, with the past casting long shadows and the threatening future of the First World War looming.
All events are seen through the eyes of Rebecca, who is ten at the beginning of the book and fourteen at the end. Most of the events are told to her by others, so they are remembered, filtered, inaccurate, guided by her questions which insist on some details and leave out others.
The central character is Mrs Jardine, who connects two families, hers and that of her dearest friend now deceased: three generations who meet, talk to each other, drift apart, with the past casting long shadows and the threatening future of the First World War looming.
March 10, 2011
I find the most unusual books at Goodwill. I have a first edition, printed in the UK, with no dust jacket. I don't even think it was published in the US until recently. In any case, it was a good impulse purchase. The storyline is captivating, and the characters are vivid and fascinating. (Of course, I have a current obsession with British fiction written or taking place between the wars, so I may be partial to the subgenre.) My only complaint is that the structure of the book is terrible -- all tell, tell, tell (a single conversation about past events lasting for 50 pages!), and more tell. The narrator is completely useless; there is no reason for the events to be funneled through her that I can tell. I wanted to rip the whole thing apart and put it back together again, like a puzzle. If I could get the story out of its crippling frame, it would make a brilliant BBC production.
August 22, 2012
The Ballad and the Source is a twisted story of intergenerational insanity that is of particular interest to anyone who is familiar with borderline personality disorder. It's well written, engrossing, and utterly depressing. If you come from a heathy family, this story will be quite entertaining. If not, it will be a painful reminder of why you left home in the first place.
Rosamond Lehmann is an accomplished author who has sadly fallen out of fashion. She's particularly interested in adolescent girls and histrionic older women, which make for great drama. Unfortunately, I've already lived these stories first-hand, so her novels are akin to LSD flashbacks for me. I wish I could have enjoyed this beautifully crafted novel more, but it hit a little too close to home. My bad.
Rosamond Lehmann is an accomplished author who has sadly fallen out of fashion. She's particularly interested in adolescent girls and histrionic older women, which make for great drama. Unfortunately, I've already lived these stories first-hand, so her novels are akin to LSD flashbacks for me. I wish I could have enjoyed this beautifully crafted novel more, but it hit a little too close to home. My bad.
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July 29, 2014The title sucked me in, and before I had even bought it, I was on page five. Jumping right into the midst of a unique family drama, this pulls you along for a strange ride through a family via a ten year old girl. There's a LOT of tea time happening, and far too many adults speak far too openly to this ten year old child, but, the plot's gotta advance somehow, ya know?
It's not the ending you expect, but it is intriguing from first to last. I'm very glad I picked it up - well worth the buck I paid at the estate sale downtown.
It's not the ending you expect, but it is intriguing from first to last. I'm very glad I picked it up - well worth the buck I paid at the estate sale downtown.
March 30, 2011
I gave this a shot (78 pages) but there's just not enough going on to keep me interested. The narrator is a 10-year-old girl who befriends an elderly neighbor and her grandchildren; the neighbor, Sibyl Jardine, turns out to have a storied and scandalous past. Lehmann writes children believably, but everything is happening at a remove, second or third hand, which I don't like. And when I say "everything," I mean the two or three things we've learned about Sibyl Jardine by page 78.
November 10, 2017
Two generation, mother and daughter, of a troubled family is narrated in an over-lengthy conversations with Rebeca, a 10 year old girl from the neighborhood. The theme of the book, as well as the locations, (English and French countryside) are interesting. In my opinion the choice of such a young girl as the dialog partner was unlucky. On top of it, the dialogs were never ending and made the book a tiring reading affair.
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December 27, 2020I have meant to get to grips with The Ballad and the Source for many years. I now have and it will remain on my shelf, now read. Risking Viargo reproach, I would say that it is masterful. Literary talent, acute and deepest observation on every page. I am biased as Lehmann was married to my Great Uncle and through this book I can reveal my own ghosts, some impression of secrets and a certain kind of culture.
June 10, 2013
A complicated yet intriguing read. Intriguing given that the narrative is entirely from the reminiscences of those the lead character Rebecca gossips with. However, I felt lost in the detail of what was happening to whom as the novel progressed. An interesting read but I get the feeling I should have been taking notes to catch up.
April 26, 2019
Beautifully done, portrait of a fascinating monster, full of masks, doubles, imitative desire, unreliable perspectives. A detective story that builds tension (stick with it) and culminates in a memorable climactic scene.
December 24, 2013
What a writer -- part of the Bloomsbury bunch along with Virgina Woolf -- haven't read Woolf but can't imagine she could be any better than this
April 21, 2015
Liked the descriptions, the old time feel. is it the beginning of Woman's lib!
June 13, 2015
this novel was stunning. i thoroughly enjoyed The Echoing Grove so i knew would like this one. The language is beautiful. it's music to read it. the story? captivating.
December 24, 2015
Brilliant for learning how to tell a story always via a character who wasn't present in the story.
February 6, 2017
I still like this book a lot, though not quite as much as I used to. I loathe the way Ianthe is treated - as a person within the book's world, and as a character. Maisie is great though.
February 10, 2024
This was one of those books where the only good thing about it was that it was finished....and I could move on to something else. 1.5 stars.
I wish I could have liked this more. I have had several of her volumes reading on a shelf in one of my bookcases for the last 15 years. And there they lay...I knew I had them but never had any deep desire to delve into them. Too many other books are always vying for my attention. But then I started reading the diaries of James Lees-Milne in 2022, then in 2023, and now finishing up the last (12th) volume of them and for the most part have enjoyed them a great deal. Anyhoo, James Less-Milne was friends with Rosamund Lehmann so I knew her that way too, and so decided to dip into her oeuvre. I read ‘Dusty Answer (awarded 2 stars by me)’ and ‘The Gipsy’s Baby (awarded 3 stars by me)’ last year; neither of them knocked me off my feet. This one was quite boring, and I found myself yelling at the book because page after page after page one of the characters would tell another character something. That ‘something’ could be said coherently in two or three pages, but Lehmann dragged it out for 10 to 15 pages. Over and over and over again. Good God, woman, get to the frigging point!!!!!!!! So, yes, I know I could have abandoned it, but I loathe to do that when I have selected the book myself. Just the way I am... a fuss-budget.
Synopsis:
• The time is 1912 or around there, before World War One, in England. Mrs. Jardine does not like her marriage and walks out, not only walking out on her husband but also walking out on her little daughter, Ianthe. I never heard of that name, Ianthe, before this book. Mrs. Jardine eventually marries someone else, ‘the Colonel’, who becomes an alcoholic but who has a lot of money and is a functioning alcoholic so he’s not all bad. She wants to get Ianthe back, but the ex-husband won’t let her and eventually she and Ianthe become estranged. Ianthe eventually marries and has 3 children (Maisie, Malcolm, and Cherry), and she, Ianthe, walks out on her husband. Talk about history repeating itself. The three children one summer stay with their grandmother (who is Mrs. Jardine) and the Colonel, and they become friends with children who live near them, Rebecca, the narrator of this boring tome, and her older sister, Jess. Rebecca becomes the confidant of both Maisie who does not like Mrs. Jardine her grandmother, and Mrs. Jardine, who is not too fond of Maisie and that’s where all the long, long conversations occur over many, many pages, and the reader learns the back story behind this that and the other thing where Mrs. Jardine discloses things to Rebecca, and Maisie also discloses things to Rebecca and we are forced to listen to this endless never ending get-to-the-point dialog. Two years later it is World War One and Ianthe eventually comes back to Mrs. Jardine’s residence but does not interact with her.....it’s too complicated to go over what she is doing there but anyway for some time she has been mentally unstable and has a psychotic break on the premises (she at that point has been told that her youngest daughter Cherry is dead), but she thinks a statue being made in memory of Cherry for a garden on the premises is Cherry who is alive and trying to get out of the statue (something bizarre like that) and she eventually becomes restrained and is sent to a mental hospital....there are other threads to this bizarre bat-shit story but I think I will leave it at that.
An example of the tedious verbiage:
• She wore a dress of stiff white silk flaring around the ankles into wavy rows of pleated flouncing, with an overskirt of white gauzy stuff, swept up to pile all its puffed fullness into the back, and caught here and there among its folds with bunches of blue and white buds. ...JimZ: That in itself I can handle but that is sandwiched in a long paragraph of descriptors.
• Only there is something unsensational, irreparable, about to go wrong: it is clear from the casting. She was awkward and graceful, nervous and serene; dull, interesting. She had not a young face, nor a face that one could imagine aging. She had, I now think, a vocational, a dedicated personality, within whose contradictions she was positive, intact; but all the same she was an orphan of the world, and the unity she expressed would never serve her to find her place — nor seek it either.
Reviews (first three reviewers liked it):
• https://theliterarysisters.wordpress....
• https://clothesinbooks.blogspot.com/2...
• https://heavenali.wordpress.com/2011/...
• https://indextrious.blogspot.com/2011...
• Rosamond Lehmann's The Ballad and the Source: A Confrontation with "The Great Mother"; author: Sydney Janet Kaplan, published in the journal Twentieth Century Literature, 1981, Volume 27, No. 2, pp 127-145; Published By: Duke University Press
I wish I could have liked this more. I have had several of her volumes reading on a shelf in one of my bookcases for the last 15 years. And there they lay...I knew I had them but never had any deep desire to delve into them. Too many other books are always vying for my attention. But then I started reading the diaries of James Lees-Milne in 2022, then in 2023, and now finishing up the last (12th) volume of them and for the most part have enjoyed them a great deal. Anyhoo, James Less-Milne was friends with Rosamund Lehmann so I knew her that way too, and so decided to dip into her oeuvre. I read ‘Dusty Answer (awarded 2 stars by me)’ and ‘The Gipsy’s Baby (awarded 3 stars by me)’ last year; neither of them knocked me off my feet. This one was quite boring, and I found myself yelling at the book because page after page after page one of the characters would tell another character something. That ‘something’ could be said coherently in two or three pages, but Lehmann dragged it out for 10 to 15 pages. Over and over and over again. Good God, woman, get to the frigging point!!!!!!!! So, yes, I know I could have abandoned it, but I loathe to do that when I have selected the book myself. Just the way I am... a fuss-budget.
Synopsis:
• The time is 1912 or around there, before World War One, in England. Mrs. Jardine does not like her marriage and walks out, not only walking out on her husband but also walking out on her little daughter, Ianthe. I never heard of that name, Ianthe, before this book. Mrs. Jardine eventually marries someone else, ‘the Colonel’, who becomes an alcoholic but who has a lot of money and is a functioning alcoholic so he’s not all bad. She wants to get Ianthe back, but the ex-husband won’t let her and eventually she and Ianthe become estranged. Ianthe eventually marries and has 3 children (Maisie, Malcolm, and Cherry), and she, Ianthe, walks out on her husband. Talk about history repeating itself. The three children one summer stay with their grandmother (who is Mrs. Jardine) and the Colonel, and they become friends with children who live near them, Rebecca, the narrator of this boring tome, and her older sister, Jess. Rebecca becomes the confidant of both Maisie who does not like Mrs. Jardine her grandmother, and Mrs. Jardine, who is not too fond of Maisie and that’s where all the long, long conversations occur over many, many pages, and the reader learns the back story behind this that and the other thing where Mrs. Jardine discloses things to Rebecca, and Maisie also discloses things to Rebecca and we are forced to listen to this endless never ending get-to-the-point dialog. Two years later it is World War One and Ianthe eventually comes back to Mrs. Jardine’s residence but does not interact with her.....it’s too complicated to go over what she is doing there but anyway for some time she has been mentally unstable and has a psychotic break on the premises (she at that point has been told that her youngest daughter Cherry is dead), but she thinks a statue being made in memory of Cherry for a garden on the premises is Cherry who is alive and trying to get out of the statue (something bizarre like that) and she eventually becomes restrained and is sent to a mental hospital....there are other threads to this bizarre bat-shit story but I think I will leave it at that.
An example of the tedious verbiage:
• She wore a dress of stiff white silk flaring around the ankles into wavy rows of pleated flouncing, with an overskirt of white gauzy stuff, swept up to pile all its puffed fullness into the back, and caught here and there among its folds with bunches of blue and white buds. ...JimZ: That in itself I can handle but that is sandwiched in a long paragraph of descriptors.
• Only there is something unsensational, irreparable, about to go wrong: it is clear from the casting. She was awkward and graceful, nervous and serene; dull, interesting. She had not a young face, nor a face that one could imagine aging. She had, I now think, a vocational, a dedicated personality, within whose contradictions she was positive, intact; but all the same she was an orphan of the world, and the unity she expressed would never serve her to find her place — nor seek it either.
Reviews (first three reviewers liked it):
• https://theliterarysisters.wordpress....
• https://clothesinbooks.blogspot.com/2...
• https://heavenali.wordpress.com/2011/...
• https://indextrious.blogspot.com/2011...
• Rosamond Lehmann's The Ballad and the Source: A Confrontation with "The Great Mother"; author: Sydney Janet Kaplan, published in the journal Twentieth Century Literature, 1981, Volume 27, No. 2, pp 127-145; Published By: Duke University Press
April 20, 2025
Melodrama, but so well written it was beautiful and enthralling. It brought to mind the White Queen from Narnia, fascinating and awful, beautiful and terrifying, thin lines blurring sanity and madness.
April 16, 2024
Wow! Not at all what I expected....all talk and very little action. It was also unbelievable to think that this was told from a pre-teen's experience.
April 14, 2025
had to dnf halfway through was so boring
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