I especially liked the second part, Wrath, written in epistolary style with short letters. It gave me a humorous sense of the different views various family friends had of the divorce, almost like the legendary blind men describing the elephant by touch. My one criticism would be of her treatment of Kenneth, which I thought was a little too didactically cautionary. ( )

Betsy Canning has decided she and her husband Alec should no longer be married. In 1936, this decision was unusual, difficult to accomplish, and bound to result in scandal and stigma. Alec understands Betsy’s point of view and while not as headstrong, supports the idea. The two waffle back and forth but some maternal meddling catalyzes their plan. Betsy naively believes this is a simple matter between her and Alec, blithely assuring their three children that life will go on as normal for them.

But of course it doesn’t, and Margaret Kennedy expertly shows the ripple effects of a. divorce as seen through the eyes of Betsy, Alec, their teenage children Kenneth and Eliza, and others in their extended family. It wasn’t preachy or dramatic, and the characters were all “normal” people with strengths and flaws. It was as if Kennedy was saying, see this can happen to anyone, perhaps even you, and you’d better think it through first. The strong message, expertly delivered in a gentle “show, don’t tell” style, made for an excellent reading experience. ( )

I love Margaret Kennedy’s writing, but I didn’t rush to pick up this book because I wasn’t that taken with the subject matter. The disintegration of a marriage, and all of the fallout from that, in upper middle-class England between the wars ….

When I finally picked the book up – thinking of Margaret Kennedy Day, which is only a couple of weeks away – I was hooked from the first page. It is a wonderfully engaging human drama; beautifully written and rich with understanding and insight.

It all begins with a letter.

Betsy Canning wrote a long letter to her mother, explaining why her marriage was much less happy than it appeared, why her husband’s rise from suburban civil servant to successful librettist and the changes that it brought to their lives hadn’t suited her; and why, therefore, they had agreed to divorce.

She hoped that her mother would understand and support her; but Mrs Hewitt was terribly shocked and rushed back from her holiday in Switzerland, pausing only to send a telegram:

” … horrified … ‘do nothing irrevocable till I see you …”

Mrs Hewitt went immediately to Mrs Canning, her ‘fellow mother-in-law’, so that they could work together to set things right. But by the time she arrived she was in a state of nervous collapse, and the formidable Mrs Canning set out for her son’s Welsh holiday home without any real understanding of the crisis she was going to have to resolve.

Alec had persuaded Betsy to think again about divorce, they had agreed to go away for a while alone to talk it over, but Mrs Canning’s arrival and her efforts to reconcile the couple didn’t help at all. The peace talks collapsed, there were bitter arguments, and the mood of the house changed.

Alec decided that he had to go away.

Joy, his wife’s mother’s help, followed him. She was infatuated, he was charmed, and so they left together.

And so the stage was set for a terrible scandal and an acrimonious divorce.

Margaret Kennedy managed all of this drama beautifully. She drew her characters and relationships quite simply but so well that it was easy to understand why events played out as they did. I saw that Betsy and Alec could have been happy together, that their relationship could have been beautifully balances; but I could also see that it so easily unbalance and break.

The stories of what Betsy and Alec do next are fascinating. His career is damaged by the scandal surrounding is divorce and when he learns that Joy is expecting a child he realises that they are irrevocably bound together. She had liked the idea of independence but she is flattered by the attentions of Lord St Mullins and finds the lifestyle that marriage to a peer could bring her rather appealing.

The stories of the effects on their elder two children are more profound. Kenneth sides with his mother, and says that he will never speak with his father again; but he is troubled and that makes him easy prey for school bullies who will lead him into a great deal of trouble. Eliza would rather go to her father, but she fears losing touch with her siblings, and she is disturbed when she finds that there is a new baby in her fathers home.

Margaret Kennedy weaves a wonderful plot from these and other threads; drawing in enough to give a clear picture of the world around the different members of the Canning family as they spilled out of the family home.

She spoke clearly about how quickly events can run out of control, about how decisions can have so many repercussions, and about how vulnerable children are, even – and maybe particularly -when they are very nearly grown up.

Her characters are not always likeable, but they are real, fallible human beings, and their stories are full of real and varied emotions.

Everything rings true.

Some characters learn and grow; some characters don’t.

I loved the use of letters in this book, and this passage from a letter written by a family friend really struck me:

“I don’t see how any of them can ever be happy again. You say it is love gone bad. Do you think that is because they are all denying the truth? Love doesn’t go bad, however unhappy it makes you, unless you poison it yourself. It isn’t the injuries and wrongs that they can’t forgive; it’s because they know, Alec and Betsy know, and Joy does too, that in spite of everything, in spite of all they’ve done and said to hurt each other, they can’t bear to be apart.”

I loved that while this book is very much of its time there is a great deal about it that is timeless.

There were interesting details and points to ponder. I wondered if Joy, who became rather down-trodden, was suffering from post-natal depression. I noticed that she and Lord St Mullins had many shared interests and concerns. I wondered what would happen to the family of German refugees granted a home on the Cannings’ estate in Wales,

I’m inclined to agree with Margaret Kennedy’s daughter, Julia Birley, who writes into the introduction to the Virago edition of this book that this was one of her mother’s best half dozen.

It’s not my favourite, but it is a very good book, I’m very glad that I finally picked it up, and I think that Margaret Kennedy did what she set out to do very well indeed. ( )

Je n’avais jamais entendu parler de Margaret Kennedy avant de voir passer sur les blogs anglophones une semaine dédiée à cette auteure. Apparemment, elle a été traduite en français plutôt dans les années 50-60 et plus rééditée depuis, à une exception près au Mercure de France, en 2006. En effet, cette maison a réédité, sous le titre Tessa, ce qui semble être son œuvre majeure La nymphe au cœur fidèle. Je n’ai bien sûr pas lu ce livre …

Together and Apart, c’est tout simplement l’histoire d’un divorce dans les années 40. Le roman commence par une lettre qui m’a tout de suite fait penser que ce livre me plairait. Lisez plutôt :

[…]

Well now mother, listen. I have something to tell you that you won’t like at all. In fact, I’m afraid that it will be a terrible shock and you will hate it at first. but do try to get used to the idea and bring father round to it.

Alec and I are parting company. We are going to get a divorce.

I know this will horrify you: the more so because I have, perhaps mistakenly, tried very hard to conceal our happiness during these last years I didn’t, naturally, want anybody to know while there was still a chance of keeping things going. But the fact is, we have been quite miserable, both of us. We simply are unsuited to one another and unable to get on. How much of this have you guessed ?

Life is so different from what we expected when we first married. Alec has quite changed, and he needs a different sort of wife. I never wanted all this money and success. I married a very nice but quite undistinguished civil servant. With my money we had quite enough to live on in a comfortable and civilised way. We had plenty of friends, our little circle, people like ourselves, amusing and well bred, not rich, but decently well off. Alec says now that they bored him. But he didn’t say so at the time.

I must say it’s rather hard on me that he took so long to find out what he really wanted. He says it’s all his mother’s fault, and that she bullied him so that he was past thirty before it ever occured to him to call his soul his own. I dare say this is true, but I have to suffer for it.

[…]

We no longer have the same friends. He seems to be completely submerged in the stage world. He is so popular and so genial. Everybody likes him and he likes everybody. Our house is perpetually crammed with people with home I have nothing in common, who simply regard me as « Alec’s wife » if they even know me by sight, which often they don’t, I really believe.

[…]

Reading this over, I feel it sounds rather like a list of grievances, as if I were the only sufferer. But indeed Alec has suffered equally. I’m not the right woman for him any more, and he can’t be happy with me.

[…]

Then why didn’t divorce him before ? Because of the children. I felt they ought to have a home, that we must all stay together as long as any decent appearance of harmony could be kept up. And now, because of the children, I have changed my mind. I now think that they would be happier if Alec and I gave up this miserable attempt. They are getting old enough to feel the stain and the tension, especially Kenneth, who quite realizes that Alec doesn’t always treat me considerately, and resents it violently. A father and son can mean so much to one another ; it would be terrible if they become permanebtly alienated. I don’t want the children to grow up with a distorded idea of marriage, got from the spectacle of parents who can’t get on. I think the time has come to be quite open with them about it.

N’est-ce pas trop moderne ? Bien sûr, aujourd’hui on n’écrirait plus de lettre pour annoncer son divorce à sa mère mais par contre, les raisons sont toujours les mêmes. Tout le roman (400 pages apparemment ; je l’ai lu en électronique) est comme cela. C’est un livre qui n’est absolument pas daté en tout cas en version originale.

Les parents décident de divorcer parce qu’ils ne sont plus aussi bien ensemble, même si à la description du couple, on se rend rapidement compte qu’ils sont fait l’un pour l’autre. Le mari se console avec une jeune demoiselle, éperdument amoureuse de lui depuis toujours (bien évidemment). Cela va « dégénérer » puisqu’elle va tomber enceinte, le mari l’épouse mais n’arrive plus à créer (alors que c’est son métier et ce qui lui permet de vivre). L’ex-femme cède aux avances d’un prétendant de toujours pour montrer qu’elle n’est pas en reste. Là-dessus se greffe des enfants adolescents, qui prennent partie, font de grosse bêtises car ils « ne sont plus surveillés ». Il y a aussi les parents du couple qui essaient de comprendre. Je trouve que c’est exactement ce qu’on pourrait voir aujourd’hui dans un film, que l’on regarderait pour se détendre.

Ce livre est exactement cela. Un moment sympathique de lecture, qui détend, le niveau d’anglais n’étant pas particulièrement difficile en plus. En plus, la narration est rondement menée, avec suffisamment de rebondissements pour que l’attention du lecteur ne faiblisse passe. Je tiens à souligner encore une fois que ce texte devait être assez osé pour l’époque à mon avis. ( )

Though this novel still has something of the oddly flat affect of the other two Kennedy novels I've read, it seemed more focused and had more intensity. It tells the story of the separation and divorce of a pretty ordinary middle-class couple and traces the effects of this breaking up of the family particularly on them and their son and daughter. It's all realistically messy and uneven and equivocal, from the reasons the wife initiates the separation to the new relationships she and her husband fall into, and the selfishly confused responses of their children. Kennedy shifts around to different points of view to capture the range of consequences and feelings that follow on the initial upheaval. There's a particularly nice little section of letters from friends and family that shed some ironic light on the protagonists.