August Folly

After finishing "Mary Barton," my second book in the Victorian Challenge, I decided to take a break and read one of Angela Thirkell's Barsetshire novels - "Wild Strawberries." As noted in that post I had started that book several times, but couldn't get into it. Once I did, however, I enjoyed it which led me to tempted to go on to the next of these 29 novels - "August Folly."

I gave into temptation and I am glad I did, thus far "August Folly" is my favorite of the half dozen or so that I have read to this point. The story takes place in the little village of Worsted which according to the map in my copy is in east Barsetshire almost at the opposite end of this mythical county from Rushwater Manor, the site of "Wild Strawberries."

The story focuses on three families, the Tebbens, Deans, and Palmers. The latter two families are related and are well off financially while the Tebbens live a middle class life, but struggle to do so. The events in the book take place in the summer and sort of revolve around an amateur production of a Greek tragedy - thus the picture on the cover. Like all of Thirkell novels the book is funny and contains "This England" moments typically subtle descriptions of the beauty of the English countryside.

I also like the literary references that are sort of planted in the book appealing to those who get them, but in no way insulting to those who don't. There are several allusions in this book to some of Thirkell's other novels, one of which concerns a bull being brought from the Leslie's home at Rushwater Manor which was a frequent topic in "Wild Strawberries." There is an incident where the bull momentarily threatens a young child and Richard Tebben intervenes to prevent the crisis from getting worse. Reluctant to tell his parents the full story, the Tebben cottage is overrun with people exaggerating the story including the number of bulls involved. When the really story is finally told, Thirkell notes that "the bulls in buckram dwindled to one." This is a reference to the great tavern scene in "Henry IV, Part I," when as Falstaff tells the story of being "robbed" the number of thieves in buckram grows exponentially with each sentence.

All of this is very enjoyable and at some level escapist, but as I noted in my post about "Wild Strawberries" there is a deeper side to Thirkell's writing. This is even more fully developed in "August Folly" where the author takes us deep into the minds of a number of the characters to understand their desires, fears and to some extent sadness and loneliness. This is especially true of Charles Fanshowe, a bachelor, an Oxford tutor and close friend of the Deans who spends part of the summer with them. Deeply a part of the Dean family, Fanshowe is more than a little lonely, but has a hard time coming to grips with the need to decide what he wants and then pursue it. I am not doing true justice to this, but my point is that Thirkell has created characters who are fully human and, therefore, sympathetic. In the past I have been critical of Jane Austen's work because every character gets what he or she deserves. The same can be said of Thirkell, but it doesn't both me anywhere as much - perhaps the explanation is her ability to create such sympathetic characters.

Now in spite of all Thirkell temptations, I will go on to "The Way We Live Now."