August Read: Christina Stead

Share your thoughts here.

Thanks for co-ordinating these for us, Dee! I will probably give Stead a miss, as I spent a long time with her Letty Fox recently and I don't feel ready to tackle another one. But I'll look forward to reading everyone else's thoughts! :)

Christina Stead was an Australian novelist and short story writer acclaimed for her satirical wit and penetrating psychological characterizations. She was a committed Marxist although she was never a member of the Communist Party.
from: Wikipedia

Born: July 17, 1902, Rockdale, Australia
Died: March 31, 1983, Sydney, Australia
Parents: David George Stead
Notable award: Patrick White Award
Education: St George Girls High School, Sydney Teachers' College

Her VMC:
Letty Fox: Her Luck
For Love Alone
Cotter's England
The Salzburg Tales
The Puzzleheaded Girl
Seven Poor Men of Sydney
Miss Herbert: The Suburban Wife
The Beauties and Furies
A Little Tea, a Little Chat
The People with the Dogs

Virago fiction:
I'm Dying Laughing
The Little Hotel

I find it interesting that while so many of her titles are published by Virago Press, it seems that she is read and liked by so few of us.

>3 rainpebble: Thanks Belva! :)

I liked what I read of The Puzzleheaded Girl, but Letty Fox was just too much. I'm still keen to read more when the time is right, though, and I have several on my shelves. Just not at the moment, because I'm starting to find War and Peace fairly all-consuming.

>4 kaggsy:
I love W & P, Karen. I love Tolstoy. I probably read him about every other year. And you are right....he is all consuming. I hope you are enjoying....

>3 rainpebble: Thanks for doing that Belva 🌹

Well, I've not been involved in these reads as much as I hoped but I'm intending to get to The Puzzle Headed Girl this month. Like Belva, I'm curious about Stead and if I don't read her this month will I ever?

I have Cotter's England (which I know Lyzzybee loathed), The puzzleheaded girl, For love alone and The Salzburg tales sitting unread, but I will be reading them next month instead of Nina Bawden. I'm looking forward to seeing how those of you who are reading this month get on.

>7 Sakerfalcon: I did! I LOATHED it. And I have been carefully not saying but now you've said so yes, I am not doing Christina Stead month, oh dear me no. Loathed. THREE PAGES I read. Hehe.

I've read Angela Carter's introduction to The Puzzleheaded Girl and have learnt that Stead writes what she sees, is not an stereotypically female writer and that "nothing in her work resembles anything of that in Jean Rhys". Which is a shame because I love Jean Rhys.

>9 Soupdragon:
Me too, Dee. Love Rhys!

I have all of the Stead Virago, both the VMC & the 'fiction'. However I have yet to read her so I was actually happy that she became one of our monthly authors as that will force me to read at least one. If I yak.......I will be tossing them all into the dust-bin, along with my cookies, upon completion of the one. I am hoping to be able to tolerate her. (at the least)
And tomorrow.........I begin The Little Hotel.

I have two Virago (Letty Fox in hardcover and The Beauties and Furies in Virago paperback along with two non-Virago (The Man Who Loved Children and The Little Hotel). At mrspenny's suggestion, I'm going to start with The Man Who Loved Children, though I'd like to get all four read for this month.

I will be giving The Puzzleheaded Girl a go, because it's a VMC and contains three (no, four!) novellas. Also, I like the title and it's the only one by Stead I have that has fewer than 300 pages!

ETA: I also have a non-fiction work entitled The Enigmatic Christina Stead, which I hope to fit in at some point.

I think I have The Salzburg tales somewhere but it is large and alarming looking. So, I bought A little tea, a little chat to read instead. I wonder how I shall get on with her.

>13 Heaven-Ali:
"I wonder how I shall get on with her." I think we are all wondering that same thing, Ali. I began my read last night but fell asleep too quickly to find out how I will get on. Good luck with your 'Tea with Christina Stead'. :-)

"When you grow up and marry, there is a shadow over everything; you can never really be happy again, it seems to me."
~Christina Stead
The Little Hotel

>11 CurrerBell: I just finished The Man Who Loved Children and I gave it 3½*** – maybe a bit ungenerously, and not because of its length but because of the very uncomfortable sensation I got of "ickiness" between Sam and Louie. It was just a bit too disturbing for my taste, and in fact the "covert" nature was even more disturbing than out-and-out incest.

>16 CurrerBell: Just starting The Little Hotel (like The Man Who loved Children, not a Virago, but it's also quite a short read and, since I've had it for a while, also qualifies for ROOTing). After that, I'll do The Beauties and the Furies (a Virago and also a ROOT).

>17 CurrerBell:
Mike, The Little Hotel is not a VMC but it is a Virago published fiction. And your rating of The Man Who loved Children gives me hope for Stead.

I am trying to read The Little Hotel but am having so much trouble with my eyes. For the past many months I have only been able to read by squinting my eyes and now they are watering and burning whenever I open a book. I have only read a few pages thus far into the month. :-(
Waiting for surgery........no fun. Being unable to read makes me really sad.

>18 rainpebble: I'll be curious about your thoughts on The Little Hotel, which I'm (maybe generously) giving 2½**. Say this much for it, it's only a couple of hundred pages. I can't see any point to it. It's supposed to be "often funny, very moving" (according to a dust-jacket quote from the London Times), but it's really just repetitive. Also, it's got a very confusing narrative point-of-view, always narrated by the hotel owner but often including incidents that the hotel owner couldn't have witnessed.

Mike - the Little Hotel was my first Stead as well. I expected to enjoy it, thinking that it would be similar to Anita Brookner's Hotel du Lac. But I wound up finding it really unappealing and disjointed as well. Not to worry - I then went on to Cotter's England because it was one of Carmen Cahill's 100 most loved books but never finished it.

>19 CurrerBell:
Mike, I only got about 45 pages into The Little Hotel and was actually enjoying it more than I anticipated but I had to set it aside because of my vision. I was beginning to get into some of the characters. Our mayor was so anal about everything that he kept cracking me up. If I do get to have corrective surgery..........am thinking it is just cataracts but find out for sure tomorrow.......then I will finish the book afterward.

edited to say that I did complete the read and like you, I rated The Little Hotel 2 1/2 stars as well.....
My thoughts: Here we have a few amusing tales and a few which are not so amusing. The setting is a run of the mill, shabby 'little hotel' in Switzerland. The time is a few years after the end of WWII. Most persons living or staying in the hotel are elderly Europeans with a few English thrown in for a bit of variety. They are all rather eccentric or a bit off.
The stories are told from the POV of the woman who runs the hotel and numerous little stories run parallel throughout the novel.
I was doing okay with this one until Stead decided to switch up the narration; changing the voice from the lady managing the hotel to that of an aging guest. This particular guest is involved with a man who isn't interested in marrying her but wants to get his hands on her money.
I actually think that the novel would have worked better for this reader had the author begun here, but the switch in mid-stream threw me off and I never regained my interest in the story, though I managed to finish the read. The book felt to me, at this juncture, as if our author may have felt the same.

>20 romain:
I am going out on a limb here Barbara, and guessing that Stead is a 'no-go' for you, eh?

I read just over 40 pages of A Little Tea, a Little chat but couldn't quite take to it, so have set it aside, I may just come back to it in a week or two - on the other hand I might not.

I'm too old to be wasting time on some author I don't really like Belva. I always do two books and then quit if I am not happy. In her case I did one and a half :)

>21 rainpebble: Good luck with your vision, Belva. Myself, I've got a colonoscopy coming up Friday and I've been on a liquid fast starting last Friday since I have a lot of trouble (including gastroparesis) in purging myself enough for the lower GI. A couple months ago my gastroenterologist did a scoping successfully on the upper endo but the anesthesiologist wouldn't let him proceed down into the colon because my stomach was still too full and he feared reflux and aspiration.

And do remember, my namesake's father had successful cataract surgery and that was back in the mid-19th century. We've come a long way in the past 150+ years, so don't worry yourself too much.

I hope we do disagree on The Little Hotel and that you enjoy it. I agree with you on the mayor, but we'll see if you don't get tired of him by the time you get to page 100 or 125.

Ha ha
I think we have been and are quite the stalwart group to be brave enough to tackle Stead. Personally I will try to complete The Little Hotel after my surgery just so I can say I did. After that she is going in the dust bin. Somehow I accumulated eleven of her books back when I thought I had to have everything in green that I could get my hands on. (foolish woman that I am) I no longer feel that way!

edited to say:
I feel a sense of accomplishment. Like dear Barbara says: "Life is too short to waste time reading books & / or authors one doesn't appreciate." Seven Steads G-0-N-E! The others to follow when I locate them.

Just finished The Beauties and the Furies and I'll give it another 2½** like The Little Hotel. Say this for The Little Hotel, at least it's shorter, but The Beauties and the Furies does have an interesting ending, though it's a terribly long slog getting there.

I have some other Steads, and I wouldn't mind getting hold of that biography of her that I've seen in a used bookstore, but for now I'm going over strictly to AVAA and start my Anne with an E! marathon, then go on to the Emily of New Moon trilogy and Jane of Lantern Hill, all of which are now VMC children's books. (I've also got a copy of Pat of Silver Bush, though I don't think that's a VMC, at least not yet.)

Almost all of my Lucy Maud Montgomerys will also qualify for ROOTing.

>20 romain:

I, too, am an Anita Brookner fan and, IMO, Hotel du Lac is a perfect book. I wanted nothing more after I finished it. That's what I call a satisfying read.

Nominations thread for our final 2017 VMC monthly reads here

Last night I couldn't sleep so I took advantage of the time to complete The Little Hotel which I found to be okay though it did throw me off-stride in the middle when Stead switched up the narration. I never got completely back in the story but yes, I finished. YEA!~!
2 1/2 stars

I finished The Puzzleheaded Girl after about two weeks, on and off, mostly off. This was mainly because I had three non-fiction books to read which were due back at the library. Clearly the book did not grab me or I would have finished it in a day or two. I nearly didn't start it after reading Angela Carter's introduction, and particularly one paragraph which suggested to me that Christina Stead was not a good writer but a 'difficult' one.

In an attempt to 'understand better' what I had read I then read the introduction and the relevant chapter in The Enigmatic Christina Stead. After that I made myself read about the other novels covered in this book so at least I could make an informed judgement about whether or not I wanted to read more of Stead's work. As a result I will probably not read any of her novels. A disappointing result as I have quite a few of them. However, I did find that anything by Rumer Godden is a very good antidote to anything by or about Christina Stead, so that was one benefit from the month at least.

I've read the first novella in The puzzleheaded girl, which is the titular one. It was more readable than some of her novels, in that there is a lot less repetitive dialogue, and the figure of Honor Lawrence is interesting. We only see her through the eyes of others, mostly men, making her shadowy and enigmatic and her behaviour often inexplicable. The novella is also a revealing look at the options available for girls and women in early C20th America. Hopefully I will get a seat on the train this evening so I can start the next story in the book.

I have to say that after my recent attempts with Stead I'm not likely to pick up another one of her books in a hurry... So I applaud everyone who's done well with her this month! :)) Like Mike says, she's a terribly long slog mostly...

I sat this one out. I read The Man Who Loved Children several years back, and it was okay. I have a couple other books on my shelves but they weren't calling to me. I have no regrets :)

See you all on the Nina Bawden thread!

I've just read For love alone and enjoyed it more than I have most of Stead's novels. Her characters are not often sympathetic, and here Teresa could be frustrating at times, but I found myself engaged with her story. The book was better written than some of her others, with some beautiful writing in the Australian section describing the sea and the coast. She also draws a vivid picture of life in the working classes there during the 1930s, and how marriage really seemed to be the only option for so many women. The other character who dominates the book is the horrendous misogynist Jonathan Crow, and I could have done with fewer pages of his thoughts and opinions. Teresa's adolescence and observations of the world around her have left her all too ready to believe his theory that women are parasites who just want to lure a man into marriage and then suck him dry; it is very satisfying to see her gradually reject this and learn a healthier view of love. This is a long read, probably longer than it needed to be, and rarely upbeat, so it's difficult to recommend, but I'm pleased to have read it.