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Post by Fading Fast on Apr 9, 2024 9:39:57 GMT
If Winter Comes by A.S.M Hutchinson originally published in 1921
The benefit of old novels today is both their entertainment value - novels are written to be enjoyed - and their window into a past era free of modern biases and agendas. Yes, they have their own era's biases and agendas, but that, too, provides a window into the past.
If Winter Comes is an engaging tale about a man of his time, but one who doesn't quite fit into his time. Mark Sabre is an Englishman when that meant something very specific, but he's too introspective and unwilling to just "go along" to truly fit the mold.
His time, the decades just before and then during World War I, challenged England to look hard at itself and its Empire. We know now that it would take another world war to end that Empire, but WWI was an early domino falling.
Sabre works for a publisher of textbooks, but he's not truly liked at work because he challenges the conventional views too much. After his relationship with his one true love stumbles, he marries a traditional English woman on the rebound.
Most of the book is a look at upper-middle-class England - the merchants and the well-paid salary men - that existed a level below the peerage. They were the vanguard of the “new“ England as the industrial revolution shifted wealth from land to commerce.
Sabre, though, fits neatly into no world. If there is an argument on any big issue - suffragettes, defense spending - or small ones - local zoning rules - he sees both sides of the argument so well that he rarely can decide himself.
It's honorable that he genuinely looks for the truth, but man would still be debating if this new thing called "fire" should be used to cook food or keep us warm if only the Sabres of the world existed.
It's this absolute belief in looking at every angle of an argument and a belief that there is one true justice that eventually gets Sabre into trouble as compromise and even some hypocrisy is the oil that keeps society moving forward.
Most of the book is seeing this good, kind man slowly start to lose his standing at work and at home. His wife is angered by what she sees as his obstinacy to conform to social conventions, especially in England that, at that time, will only bend so far.
Then the war hits and everything eventually snaps for Sabre. The country is stressed as a war it thought it would win in months drags on for years, with a horrific body count of young men.
When the war is nearly all over is when Sabre has to endure a personal war as those who tolerated him at work and at home before the war, now use his integrity against him to try to destroy him.
It's excruciating to see his enemies attempt to crush him as they use the construct of the law and the equally powerful construct of social norms against his forgiving nature. It's the butterfly on the wheel and it's awful to see, but maybe not final.
What is author A. S. M Hutchinson saying? Is Sabre a surrogate for England - an honorable England being undone by arrogance and comfort; an England that traded its values for wealth and security? Hutchinson puts a lot out there for the reader to consider.
Hutchinson is at his best in playing small ball. He sees and understands the intricacies of how people think to themselves as well as the minute gestures and nuances that drive relationships. He has a talent for making his characters come alive.
His writing style, though, is inconsistent. One assumes it's intentional, but he jarringly changes the narrator a few times, while sometimes wandering away from the story's plot to discuss nature or some philosophical issue.
These meanderings are mainly interesting and, for the most part, the story is a good yarn that has you turning the pages, but it does sometimes drive into an odd cul de sac. It's a fast read, but could still have benefitted from some smart pruning.
If Winter Comes was a hugely popular novel that was turned into a play and, then, into a movie twice, once in 1923 and again in 1947. Largely forgotten today, it still provides an insightful look into the past. Plus, it's still a pretty darn good read.
N.B. Comments on MGM's 1947 movie version here: "If Winter Comes"
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Post by Fading Fast on Apr 24, 2024 10:07:49 GMT
Ex-Wife by Ursula Parrott originally published in 1929
It is striking how late twentieth century Ex-Wife feels. Adjusted for some cultural norms, Ms. Parrott's tale of a young divorcee living in New York City in the 1920s, could have been written in the 1980s or 1990s.
Those latter two decades saw young women, with well-paying jobs, explore sexual freedom in New York City with a joie de vivre that was captured well, albeit with camp, in the TV show Sex and the City. After that, our modern culture wars turned the wheel away from fun.
Apparently, back in Jazz Age/flapper/Prohibition New York City, young women also worked, drank, partied and slept around with little shame according to Ms. Parrott's semi-autobiographical account of "Pat," an early-twenties divorcee.
We first see Pat and Peter's marriage fall apart: he cheated, she revenge cheated and he did not see that as evening the score at all. Pat then carves out a life as a separated and then divorced young woman.
This is where Ex-Wife kicks into modern gear. Pat, now alone, focusess, by day, on her job as a senior advertising copywriter at a department store. She finds she can do quite well, especially with some freelance work on the side.
But at night, Pat and her new female roommate - who live in a quite-nice two-bedroom, two-bath apartment - party like it's the 1980s or, well, the 1920s. They go out to dinner, shows, clubs and "speaks" most nights, often with different men.
Pat isn't sleeping with all of them, but enough that she admits, five years later, she can't really keep track (which was the plot of a Sex and the City episode six decades later). Pat understands that some will see her as "promiscuous," but she knows she's not atypical for her group.
Was she typical for the average American girl in the 1920s? Probably not, as having a high-paying job, being a young divorcee (you can only save yourself once for marriage) and living in a sexually amped up city wasn't the average American girl experience.
Parrott's writing style has a casual moderness to it, note the blunt title. Also, her characters speak with very little of the fussiness one often reads in other books from the era. Again, one wonders how much of that was specific to New York City and not the entire country.
The story gets a bit far-fetched toward the end leaving one to wonder if Parrott took liberties with her own doppelganger story or if there really was a pretty unbelievable twist. It doesn't really matter, though, as the plot is the least important part of Ex-Wife.
What matters is its reveal of a surprisingly modern way of thinking - and talking - in the 1920s. Here, a young woman works hard at a demanding job so she can, yes, pay her rent, but also buy a lot - a whole lot - of clothes and go out partying nearly every night.
Many women out of college in the 1980s and 1990s in New York City did the same thing. After a few years, the successful ones, like Parrott/Pat, started earning good money and spent it on wardrobes and having fun. Again, think Carrie from Sex and the City and all of her shoes.
The women in Parrott's circle also talked frankly about sex. While it's not quite the graphic crudeness of Sex and the City, it's closer to that than the "we don't even use the word 'sex'" reserve seen in movies made under the Motion Picture Production Code.
Even the "my marriage failed, do I need a man to complete myself" theme of Ex-Wife echoes the 1980s/90s. Many young girls, then, had cohabitation relationships that failed. They, like our heroine Pat, were also rethinking their life goals and expectations.
Ex-Wife is incredible time travel to the 1920s. From "girls lunch" at the Waldorf, to the ubiquitous bootleg alcohol, to everyone trying to escape the heat of the summer in pre-air conditioned New York, you experience the city in a Jazz Age way.
Parrott is no Faulkner or Fitzgerald, but she has a writer's eye for detail and, in Ex-Wife, she's following the first rule of writing - write what you know. The result is a page-turner that argues 1920s New York City was surprisingly like its 1980s/90s version.
N.B. #1 One other similarity between women in the 1920s and the 1980s/90s is that Pat works out regularly to maintain her figure. She does calisthenics every morning and uses the running track on the roof of her office building. Who knew they had those in the 1920s? She also hits a commercial gym after work sometimes. It's stunningly modern.
N.B. #2 Ex-Wife was turned into the very good 1930 precode movie The Divorcee starring Norma Shearer. As is Hollywood's wont, though, a lot of the story was changed, but some of the core is still there. Plus Hollywood's version is powerful in its own way. Comments on the movie here: "The Divorcee"
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Post by christine on Apr 24, 2024 17:18:52 GMT
What a vast amount of knowledge and information on this thread. I don't know why I have't visited before other than my excuse is time. I love to read, I love books and I love movies/screen plays taken from books. Enjoyed the information about IF WINTER COMES. I was fascinated by the 1947 film starring Walter Pidgeon. Always felt it was ahead of it's time. Great information about EX-WIFE. Made me think about how everything is tied in together. Once again I believe that's why film history is so tied to our history. Whether it's a reflection or an inspiration. I will definitely be visiting more often.
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