Imagen del autor

Dorothy Edwards (1) (1902–1934)

Autor de Winter Sonata

Para otros autores llamados Dorothy Edwards, ver la página de desambiguación.

2 Obras 249 Miembros 8 Reseñas 1 Preferidas

Obras de Dorothy Edwards

Winter Sonata (1928) 132 copias
Rhapsody (1927) 117 copias

Etiquetado

Conocimiento común

Fecha de nacimiento
1902-08-18
Fecha de fallecimiento
1934-01-05
Lugar de sepultura
Glyn Taff, Pontypridd, Wales, UK
Género
female
Nacionalidad
Wales
UK
Lugar de nacimiento
Ogmore Vale, Wales, UK
Lugar de fallecimiento
Caerphilly, Wales, UK
Lugares de residencia
Ogmore Vale, Wales, UK
Cardiff, Wales, UK
Vienna, Austria
Florence, Italy
London, England, UK
Educación
Cardiff University
Howell's School for Girls, Llandaff, Wales, UK
Ocupaciones
novelist
poet
Welsh nationalist
short story writer
Biografía breve
Dorothy Edwards was born in a small mining valley near Cardiff, the daughter of a teacher and a headmaster. She was educated at her father’s boy’s school, at Howell's School for Girls in Llandaff, and at the University of Cardiff. She became a talented linguist, and went abroad to study languages in Vienna and in Florence, Italy, before returning to live with her widowed mother in Cardiff, determined to make a living as a writer. She became politically active, working for socialist and Welsh nationalist causes, but writing in English. She also was a talented amateur singer. She published two books in her lifetime: a collection of short stories called Rhapsody (1927, which was extremely well-received by the critics both in the UK and the USA; and the novel Winter Sonata (1928).
She went to live in London, where she met David Garnett, who introduced her to the other members of the Bloomsbury Group. To this day, Dorothy Edwards remains a somewhat enigmatic figure. She returned to her home at Pen-y-Dre, Rhiwbina, in Cardiff, and burned her papers and letters before committing suicide by throwing herself under a train near Caerphilly.

Miembros

Reseñas

Dorothy Edwards was a welsh writer – associated with some of the Bloomsbury group – who I suspect is little read now. Her writing is carefully restrained. In Rhapsody we have ten beautiful tales of loneliness and desire, stories with little plot – but so much pared back emotion. Aside from this collection of stories – she published only one novel Winter Sonata a year later (which I may have read many moons ago, but no longer own, sadly). Her life appears to have been quite unhappy, and in 1934 at the age of thirty-one, she threw herself under a train. The note she left behind read:

“I am killing myself because I have never sincerely loved any human being all my life. I have accepted kindness and friendship, and even love, without gratitude and given nothing in return.”

How truly sad. This sadness certainly seeps into her writing, in a number of ways, particularly in the relationships which so often never find fulfilment.

It is perhaps odd that these stories don’t reflect the world that Dorothy Edwards herself lived in. Here we have the polite, ordered world of the English country house – worlds that are often disrupted by an outsider, a visitor usually. These are characters who unlike Edwards’ family, had no money worries, their money was unearned, and they live deep in the English countryside of Dorothy Edwards imagination. Her narrators are male, which I admit threw me in the first story Rhapsody. I’m so used to women writers of about this period writing from a female perspective that I simply assumed the first-person narrator of the title story was woman, a couple of pages in I became a tad confused and had to do a rapid reassessment.

Music was important to Edwards and in this collection, music, either the playing of it or the appreciation of it is, a recurring theme. In the title story, a young man (as I finally realised) named Elliott, recently returned from abroad, meets a Mr Everett, a music enthusiast who lives in the country outside of London with his invalid wife. Everett invites his new friend to spend part of his holiday with him and his wife. Elliott is a fellow musical enthusiast and occasional singer, as Everett learns soon after meeting him. Everett’s love of music, verges on the obsessional and he engages a governess for his young son whose accomplishments are more musical than academic – Everett is enchanted by her voice. The days become devoted more and more to music, and Everett watches in some discomfort as the two grow closer – while poor Mrs Everett fades daily.

There are great similarities between the story of Rhapsody and many of the other stories, where an outsider, either disrupts or bears witness to the disruption of a marriage. In A Country House, an electrician employed to bring electric light to a large house, is the outsider who disrupts. In A Garland of Earth an old man remembers the son of one of his school friends, who in turn introduces him to his daughter Rahel – a scientist who her father believes will be as great as Curie. Though the point of view of these stories is largely male – the power is held lightly by the women.

In The Conquered another young man; Frederick, goes to stay with an aunt on the Welsh Borders. Here he is thrown into company with his cousins Jessica and Ruth, and through them meets Gwyneth who has been teaching Ruth how to sing. Frederick is enthralled by Gwyneth, though in time he starts to see her differently.

“I remember how one night I went out by myself down in the direction of her house, where my steps always seemed to take me. When I reached the traveller’s-nightshade it was growing dark. For a moment I looked towards her house and a flood of joy came into my soul, and I began to think how strange it was that, although I have met so many interesting people, I should come there simply by chance and meet her. I walked towards the entrance of a little wood, and, full of a profound joy and happiness, I walked in between the trees. I stayed there for a long time imagining her coming gaily into the wood where the moonlight shone through the branches.”
(The Conquered)

Treachery in the Forest was one of my favourite stories. Mr Wendover spends his holidays in a cottage in a forest. Here he meets Mr and Mrs Harding, a couple who spend their time painting. The Hardings invite Mr Wendover to their house to play Bach for them, and so he is drawn into their lives, enjoying their company, looking forward to when he will see them again, delighting in the gift of hens’ eggs for them.

“Very carefully, two in one hand and one in the other. People who passed him, especially people in charabancs, laughed at him, though there was really nothing to laugh about.”
(Treachery in the Forest)

Another very memorable story is Summertime, in which Joseph Laurel goes to stay at a country house. Here he becomes smitten by a red-haired school girl, more than twenty years his junior. Joseph’s old friend Beatrice is of the party too, and Joseph can’t understand her sly little smiles, the amusement which, he suspects must be directed his way. Only when forced to recognise the girl’s youth, as he watches her walk away with a boy her own age, does he come to suspect the reason for Beatrice’s amused contempt.

These stories are quiet, beautifully controlled pieces. They will perhaps not suit everyone – especially those who like an obvious plot – but they are beautiful little masterpieces well worth seeking out.
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Denunciada
Heaven-Ali | otra reseña | Apr 2, 2018 |
an interesting book where NOTHING happens really.
 
Denunciada
mahallett | 5 reseñas más. | Jun 1, 2016 |
Winter Sonata revolves around the lives of several people in a small English village. Arnold Nettle is a shy telegraph operator, disinclined towards conversation, which nonetheless is invited to his neighbors, where he plays the cello for them in the evenings. He falls in love with Olivia, the eldest daughter, a smart, introspective young woman with good judgment about other people. Other characters in the drama include Olivia’s teenage sister Eleanor, their cousin George, his best friend Mr. Premiss, and Mr. Nettle’s landlady’s teenage daughter, Pauline.

Although the book claims to be a love story, it is mostly about the interactions between the main characters. Although part of the group, Mr. Nettle is completely detached from them, and it’s interesting to watch the difference between Olivia, who’s in her twenties and has a head on her shoulders, and the two teenage girls, who are both completely infatuated by Mr. Premiss—a roué who thrives on the admiration of women if ever there was one. Olivia can see what a pompous ass he is, and part of the fun of the book is watching her play around with him. Dorothy Edwards depicts the differences between these girls and women very well. There is also a subtle commentary on the stratification of social class, seen in the difference between Mrs. Clark and Pauline, and the Nerans and Curles.

Like the eponymous season, this book is somewhat bleak in its aspects; there are endless, repetitive references to the weather. In a sense, though, the weather and the characters’ moods are very similar; there’s a sense of gloominess in the tone of the book and the prose Edwards uses to describe her characters’ mental and emotional states. It’s maybe reflective of the author’s own state of mind.
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1 vota
Denunciada
Kasthu | 5 reseñas más. | Sep 9, 2012 |
Not a bad book, but didn’t do too much for me. It starts out as the story of Arthur Nettle, a quiet man who moves to a small town. He observes his harried landlady and her sullen teenage daughter Pauline and meets the Neran sisters, Olivia and Eleanor. Nettle falls in love with Olivia, but it’s something he can’t even mention. Their cousin, George Curle, takes him up even though he rarely talks. In the second part, George’s friend David Premiss comes to visit and flirts – though not seriously – with all three women.

The small-town atmosphere was nice, I enjoyed reading the descriptions of the natural setting and some class differences were conveyed in an understated way but this one failed to really engage me. Possibly I couldn’t connect with the characters. I thought George and his mother, Mrs. Curle, were underdeveloped and Nettle remains just a shy man with an unattainable crush. Pauline comes off as your typical sulky, self-involved teenager though her mother sees her as an accident waiting to happen. Happily, there’s no punishment for her for just being a silly teenager. Olivia and Eleanor were nicely distinguished and Premiss was interesting because he was a little infuriating. The book does form a sonata-like structure – the first theme is Nettle, various developments occur though the theme stays the same, then this gives way to a second theme, Premiss, where developments are all his little flirtations with small variations. In the end, the first theme returns, in a slightly different key.
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Denunciada
DieFledermaus | 5 reseñas más. | Mar 13, 2012 |

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Estadísticas

Obras
2
Miembros
249
Popularidad
#91,698
Valoración
½ 3.3
Reseñas
8
ISBNs
181
Idiomas
6
Favorito
1

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