Diary of a Provincial Lady

Clearly and obviously different books are read at different paces. If that needed any confirmation, and it probably didn't, that I started "Diary of a Provincial Lady" (almost 400 pages) on the 30th and finished it yesterday, February 2nd is further confirmation of this fact. As noted in the last post this is another of Elaine's suggestions and once again she is right on the mark.

The book purports to be the diary of a lady living in the English countryside around 1930 who appears to be struggling to maintain an upper middle class life style on a very inadequate income. Pictured in the club chair to the right is her husband, Robert -sleeping/reading the Times. It doesn't appear that Robert has any kind of paying job or if he does it is never mentioned. In addition not doing much, Robert seldom has much to say no matter what the situation or what his wife says to him.

Early in the book that leads to one of the many diary entries where having written something the provincial lady then puts down a mental note or query to herself. In this case she asks whether it is possible that even if her husband doesn't say anything, he may actually have been listening. Such comments/questions fill the book and are usually both funny and honest. There really isn't a plot to the book, merely a series of scenes where little seems to go as the provincial lady plans, but everyone survives none the less.

This is not in any way to suggest the book is not worth reading, in fact, I fully recommend it. The characters, the humour and the endless trials and tribulations of the household and the village make for relaxing reading. The setting of most of the book is the English countryside - I think it was in Elaine's post about such books that I first heard about it. While we learn much about the characters in this locale, we don't learn much about the setting itself which was something I missed.

As an American who has always lived in the New York metropolitan area, I am not sure what the attraction of the English countryside has for me. But I know it is real both in what I read and the last two times that I visited England - especially the villages in Staffordshire and Gloucester shire that my ancestors came from. Elaine has written how much she also loves these books, but has also noted that she probably couldn't tolerate living in one. Ultimately that would probably be true for me as well, although I would guess that with today's technology one could live in such a place and not experience the limitations of the past.

I believe that E.M. Delafield wrote some further books about the provincial lady in other locales. While I probably won't enjoy them as much as this one, I will take a look at them. In the meantime I am moving on to Mavis Cheek's "Mrs Fyton's Country Life" while still working my way through "Daniel Deronda." I have gotten a little bogged down in the latter book and we will see if I am as positive about it as I am about the rest of George Eliot's work.