Reading the 20th Century discussion

Welcome to our thread for our buddy read of The Slaves of Solitude by Patrick Hamilton which we'll be reading in June 2024:

England in the middle of World War II, a war that seems fated to go on forever, a war that has become a way of life. Heroic resistance is old hat. Everything is in short supply, and tempers are even shorter.

Overwhelmed by the terrors and rigors of the Blitz, middle-aged Miss Roach has retreated to the relative safety and stupefying boredom of the suburban town of Thames Lockdon, where she rents a room in a boarding house run by Mrs. Payne. There the savvy, sensible, decent, but all-too-meek Miss Roach endures the dinner-table interrogations of Mr. Thwaites and seeks to relieve her solitude by going out drinking and necking with a wayward American lieutenant. Life is almost bearable until Vicki Kugelmann, a seeming friend, moves into the adjacent room. That’s when Miss Roach’s troubles really start to begin.

Recounting an epic battle of wills in the claustrophobic confines of the boarding house, Patrick Hamilton’s The Slaves of Solitude, with a delightfully improbable heroine, is one of the finest and funniest books ever written about the trials of a lonely heart.

Almost finished and am loving this.

For those interested in boarding house books I recently read Merrily to the Grave. Set in a boarding house in Brighton, with a similarly sad group of residents to Slaves of Solitude.
I found out about it after reading a tweet from Neglected Books writing about it and its author Kathleen Sully. The book is out of print, but available through the Internet Archive.

Thanks Sonia


Merrily to the Grave sounds right up my street

Sadly no copies on Amazon, eBay or at Abebooks

I'm not keen on the Internet Archive but might have to force myself based on your comment



Here's a link to the Neglected Books web page....

https://neglectedbooks.com/?p=5547

Finished it. Enjoyed it, and gave it 5*. Wasn't as grim as I had thought it was going to be ( which for me was a good thing). Yes Thwaites is a bombastic bully, but he is also a sad old man. Everyone in the Rosamund Tea Rooms knows him for what he is. His confrontations with Miss Roach are cruel, she finds them uncomfortable, but she is not totally crushed by them. Miss Roach still has some spirit. The scenes with her American made me laugh.
It was nice to read a different view of civilian WWII. Reminded me of the boarding house scenes in Tommy and Tuppence N or M.

Glad you enjoyed it so much Sonia


I'm looking forward to revisiting it

There's a 1980 radio dramatisation on BBC sounds available for the next 20 days....


England, 1943. No end of the war is in sight, but into the world of rationing and austerity something vital begins to intrude for a group of lonely boarding house residents.

Strange voices in the blackout, strange uniforms in the pubs. The Americans are taking over and beginning, dramatically, to affect the lives of vulnerable Miss Roach, that atrocious old bully Mr Thwaites, and the devious Miss Kugelmann.

Starring Gwen Watford as Miss Roach, Raymond Huntley as Mr Thwaites, Jill Bennett as Vicki Kugelmann and Peter Marinker as Dayton Pike.

Written by Patrick Hamilton.

Dramatised by William Fox.

Miss Roach .... Gwen Watford
Mr Thwaites .... Raymond Huntley
Lt Dayton Pike .... Peter Marinker
Vicki Kugelmann .... Jill Bennett
Mrs Barratt .... Joyce Carey
Miss Steele .... Lala Lloyd
Mrs Payne .... Yvonne Manners
Sheila .... Jenny Lee
Mr Prest .... Leonard Fenton
Lt Lummis .... Anthony Hyde
Maisie .... Lolly Cockerell
Jill / Hospital sister .... Diana Bishop
US Major / Ambulance driver .... John Church
Comedian's stooge ..... Alexander John
Roger .... Stephen Garlick
Doctor ..... John Bott

Director: John Cardy

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in November 1980.


‘The Slaves of Solitude’ is part of BBC Radio 4 Extra's Hidden Treasures collection, selected from titles returned to the BBC by various collectors


https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m00...

Thanks Nigel . This afternoon I went to see our local am dram society's ( Huddersfield Thespians) performance of Gaslight , the play that first presented the manipulation of " gaslighting" with which we have all become so familiar .

Excellent . Apparently their third production in several decades. Although the director did meddle a bit with the wife's part to give her a little more agency .

Very chilling .

Thanks Hester. Glad to learn it was a successful production


I saw a theatrical version in Brighton a few years back. I really enjoyed it. I write more about it on this thread….


https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Nigeyb wrote: "There's a 1980 radio dramatisation on BBC sounds available for the next 20 days...."

If it's as good as their dramatisation of Streets then it will be fantastic. I want to read the book first though, hopefully I'll be starting soon.

I’m making slow progress. I’m on page 32. It’s superb though

By the way there’s plenty of great insights over here courtesy of a few names you might recognise……


https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Thanks - I'm tempted to read that thread now but would prefer not to see spoilers till I'm done.

I'm starting this very minute!

Ah, PH's ability to summarize a character so deftly: Mrs Payne 'had no interest in knowledge, only in gain'.

This book is awash with such perceptive observations RC

For some reason I'd assumed from the blurb that Miss Roach would be much older than she actually is, and nice that she's got a job in London.

Yes indeed


She’s actually very relatable

I love the way she inwardly anticipates every utterance by the awful Thwaites

I have been so behind with my reading recently. However, I do remember a lot about this novel so I hope I can chip in, even if I don't get chance to re-read.

"I Hay ma Doots - I Hay ma Doots".

Just brilliant! Loving the first encounter between Miss Roach and Mr Thwaites and the discussion over 'your Russian friends'.

Susan wrote:


"I have been so behind with my reading recently. However, I do remember a lot about this novel so I hope I can chip in, even if I don't get chance to re-read."


You can revisit your comments here Susan...

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...


Roman Clodia wrote:


"I Hay ma Doots - I Hay ma Doots".

🤠

He is not going to add 'as the Scotchman said' is he? Surely he is not going to add 'as the Scotchman said'?

🙌🏻

And now Miss Roach proud of the way she's dealt with the American serviceman in her room at night!

Mr Thwaite with his secret Nazi sympathies feels like he should be a member of Reform given today's news stories...

I googled gin and french, Miss Roach's drink of choice and it sounds delicious: gin, white vermouth, maybe a drop of soda. Different from gin and it which is made with red vermouth (it = Italian, rather than French) which sounds like it would grow up to be a negroni.

Great research RC

The first meeting (in the novel) with Vicki Kugelmann is a PH masterclass

Ooh, I'm there too.

Is Kugelmann a Jewish surname?

I wonder why Vicki is named by her first name when Miss Roach isn't?

Also, sounds like she's lived in England since the '20s.

Mr Thwaites over breakfast with his weird diction is like a character out of Mapp and Lucia!

"So at the Hour of Noon thou visiteth the Man of Many Medicines - dost thou?" 😂

So much to love about this novel


The descriptions of Mr Prest’s trips to London are very moving

Also interesting to discover how Miss Roach is very popular amongst her fellow residents

Ooh, things heating up between Vicki and Miss Roach after that night out at the Dragon. Such marvelous writing of female characters from PH again.

Miss Roach is unexpected as I expected someone prim and repressed but she stands up to Mr Thwaites and enjoys the drinking and kissing on the park bench, as she should.

So far I find Thwaites funnier and less creepy than Mr Eccles. It's the handsiness of the latter that gives me the shivers, and the way he will not accept a rejection.

Yes, Eccles is perhaps the creepier though Thwaites is pretty appalling

With the gloves off between Miss Roach and Vicki this is reminding me even more of Mapp and Lucia.

Mr Thwaites and his arch admiration for Vicki is appalling.

Why does he pick on Miss Roach? It's almost like he's been rejected by her. I was really wishing she'd throw her tea in his face - and good for her in fantasizing doing it.

Vicki’s constant use of the word sporty on their drunken night out


😬

I'm just a little ahead of you: Christmas Eve.

I'm loving this all over again


My third time and it always delivers

Peak Hamilton

Absolutely, loving it. I discovered another PH fan in a colleague last night as we were people-watching celebs arriving for the opening of the Summer Exhibition at the RA: Claudia Winkleman looked fab. I'm out again tonight so little reading time.

You're a social butterfly


By contrast I will be tucked up later with Patrick Hamilton (after my evening yoga class)

The Christmas scenes are Grim (with a capital G)

Just finished


Magnificent ❤️‍🔥

Nigeyb wrote: "Just finished


Magnificent ❤️‍🔥"

I'm tempted as have a copy, does it have a very downbeat ending? Not in the right headspace for that atm, but if it's happy then I'll take the plunge!

Alwynne wrote: "Nigeyb wrote: "Just finished


Magnificent ❤️‍🔥"

I'm tempted as have a copy, does it have a very downbeat ending? Not in the right headspace for that atm, but if it's happy then I'll take the plu..."

I would say it has a hopeful ending, and other storylines are resolved satisfactorily.

The ending is pretty upbeat Alwynne

I think you'll love it, Alwynne, as there's definitely a waspish, Mapp & Lucia edge to it. I wanted to cheer when Miss Roach loses her temper! I can see Barbara Pym and Elizabeth Taylor vibes as well.

You're right, Nigeyb, I have been a social butterfly the last couple of weeks so planning an introvert evening and weekend to compensate. Should finish this tonight. I love an evening yoga class too 😌

Enjoy your introvert evening and weekend RC


I'll wager that you'll be doing more cheering between now and the conclusion 🙌🏻

I hope you do read it Alwynne - would love to get your take

I've finished - and nothing to worry you, Alwynne, in the ending.

Objectively, this doesn't have the substance of Twenty Thousand Streets and that unsentimental, poignant tragi-comedy. This feels more black comedy with less at stake. But it's so enjoyable, I loved every word.

(view spoiler)[I was disappointed that Miss Roach says goodbye to Mr Prest after the theatre and doesn't intend to see him again. They could have been lovely friends. She's an odd mix, isn't she? On one hand, she's a repressed 'spinster' who has only once allowed herself to lose her temper; on the other, she's not ashamed of snogging the lieutenant and goes drinking with her boss quite comfortably. She doesn't seem shy. (hide spoiler)]

I definitely feel this would appeal to Pym and Elizabeth Taylor fans: minute social and character observation, a sardonic sense of humor, compassion and empathy along with the ability to create monstrous characters.

Interesting too to see WW2 from a suburban backwater point of view - Henley, I think?

Glad you found so much to love RC - I agree with your comments

It's fascinating that in the middle of WW2, PH gives us a German woman character and I'm interested in what others make of Vicki.

She's been living in England for about 15-20 years, expresses some sympathy for Hitler but also throws herself at the American lieutenant. She's acutely manipulative and 'bitchy'. But she also loses the sympathy of the boarding house by the end. It's a nicely nuanced portrait that hints at but doesn't make her a crude national stereotype.

I also think Miss Roach is so much more interesting than the 'timid spinster' stereotype that appears in novels. (view spoiler)[Is it me or is there a dark hint at the end that she won't survive the next attacks on London? (hide spoiler)] She's neither timid nor repressed, she's just ladylike, polite and conservative (small c). Great female characterisation again from PH.

I just looked through the previous discussion thread and interesting to see that some people felt the main relationship was Thwaites-Roach, and others Vicki-Roach. I tend to think the latter, though the former is important for the effect on Miss Roach.

On the use of Vicki's first name, the only one in use in the book, I think - I wonder if it's to make her seem younger and a bit racy, or whether it's that, as a German, she doesn't quite warrant the same social respect as the English people? Even the American is 'the lieutenant' and we don't hear him being first-named (even after all that snogging!)

I suspect the use of Vicki's first name adds to her otherness. She and Thwaites represent fascism and their qualities reinforce this - bullying, manipulation, disinformation etc.

Miss Roach is a fantastic character albeit a bit contradictory, but that only adds to her interest.

I wonder about the dark hint at the end too - I like to think PH meant that life would become more precarious in London and not that any particular outcome was a given.

Nigeyb wrote: "She and Thwaites represent fascism and their qualities reinforce this - bullying, manipulation, disinformation etc."

That's an interesting point, especially in light of the discussion we've had recently about Miss Jean Brodie and the extent to which she's a stand-in for fascist leaders.

I felt that PH was more subtle and less linear here but now you've raised it, there is a way in which we might see Miss Roach as a kind of avatar for a certain type of English womanhood: unflashy, modest, but essentially good-hearted, whether that's imagined or not.

So maybe her 'relationship' with the American lieutenant also has a symbolic effect: he's generous, brash, has dazzling teeth, energises everyone but also goes too far and is carried away with his own confidence. Miss Roach's conclusion that he's inconsequential is amusing (and perhaps not quite respectful given America's role in WW2) but might reflect her limited view of global politics.

Great points RC


I love the truth about Lt Pike as related to Miss Roach by Mr Prest.

Did you feel that Mr Prest was strangely under-used in the book? He seems like a voice of sanity and normality, and I loved that scene in the theatre. We didn't even see him interact much with Miss Roach till they randomly meet in the pub and then get on so well. Still sad they don't team up as friends.