The Driftway
Penelope Lively
Publisher - Piccolo - 1972
Paperback - £0.50
This book was my original
Big Read number 3, but I began to flounder only a few chapters in. So, I
parked it and found something a little punchier instead. I like
Penelope Lively's books, so it had to be me, maybe my mood at the time. I
would come back to it. Not necessarily next but not too far down the
line. I've got other books lined up already, but I thought I would just read to
the end of the chapter I had stopped in the middle of. But I can’t even
get through that. I jumped a few pages - which I never do - picked up at
a new paragraph and still nothing. No, not nothing, I realise
I actually feel slightly irritated by it. And that
fascinates me.
My history with Penelope
Lively's books is as follows. I picked up a half dozen in a short period because
they fell into that ghostly folkloric genre that was calling to me at
the time, and still does. They have some very evocative covers, and she
comes with a great reputation from those that read her as a child and still do
as an adult. Someone I need to read, I thought.
The first one I read
was The Wild Hunt of Hagworthy (1971) which I loved and intend
to revisit at some point. Then I read The Ghost of Thomas Kempe (1973) a
Carnegie Medal winner, and really liked that. Then I read the The
Whispering Knights (1971) which I liked but was slightly disappointed
by. I put it down to the book's rep preceding it and perhaps colouring what I
thought it would be like. Then I read Going Back (1975)
which was good as I recall although I can’t really remember much
about it oddly. Then I read Astercote (1970) which again
I liked but not as much as I thought I was going to, given its rep. I
read it much more slowly than I expected. I chewed on it rather than devouring
it. On reflection I'm wondering now if I haven't been slowly coming down
off the initial hit of the first couple of books and that maybe I don't
much care for her writing style, even if I do really like her subject matter.
It's hard to be totally sure because along with that thought goes a slight
sense of disloyalty for some reason.
And now back to The
Driftway which I can’t even manage a few pages of. And I think
it’s because its overwritten. There, I said it. It feels soupy and verbose.
Not every sentence. Some are quite lovely but en masse there are so
many unnecessary extension to sentences with ands buzzing
around the page like wasps at a picnic. You know how it is; you ignore them at
first, then you flick a few away unthinkingly, but then you begin to
realise just how prevalent they are. Eventually it becomes all about
them and not about the food or the scenery any longer. And that's where I am
at.
To quantify that a little
bit; this is just the way I feel about it. It’s my problem. I'm not
saying Lively is a bad writer, God knows her career is long enough, her awards
are many and her fan-base is massive but I don't think she is for me anymore.
At least not for a while. My tastes may change but at the minute I can’t get
past stuff like this:
"As the brilliance of the
day began to ebb away the countryside had a tired, worn look, as though the
luxuriance of summer had drained it, leaving the gold and copper flaming
in the hedges and trees as a last grand gesture: there was already a hint of
winter in the bleached grasses that lined the road, and the naked fields,
patterned with the swirling curves of the plough."
Or this:
"Through a
gateway the valley beyond was spread wide to the sky, fawn-coloured fields
reaching up the slope to meet a blue-green drift of woodland, a stream along
the bottom edged with brilliant trees, rowan, beech, and crabapple, cows moving
peaceably on a stretch of grass spattered with the deep green of rushes and
marshland."
They are just two single
sentences plucked from the bottom of opposing pages. Two random sentences that
by the time you leave them, you can’t quite remember how they started, or even
care. It’s exhausting. Time to walk away.
But here is something of a tangential thought: Is my intolerance of this style of writing, with its overly descriptive kaleidoscope of visual imagery, an issue for me because it feels so much like an assault on my aphantasia impeded brain? Now there's a thought to ponder long into the night and maybe come back to again here.
As for Penelope Lively books, I've still got a couple on the TBR shelf; The House in Norham Gardens (1974) and A Stitch in Time (1976). And I really do want to reread The Wild Hunt of Hagworthy. So, I'll let some time pass and try again and who knows; I may end up having to take it all back.
Steve
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