By Philippa Tracy
In this short novel about first love, growing up and relationships, Rose Tremain’s 17th, she brilliantly recreates an England of the 1950s and 1960s. It is an England that she grew up in and one that I recognise. An England that is full of beauty and freedom in parts, as well as thwarted dreams and stifling oppression. Marianne, the protagonist and narrator, is taught to be thankful of the beauty of England at school and realises when she enters the world of work, as a secretary for an agony aunt on a women’s magazine in London, that, “England was densely populated with unhappy people, mainly of the female gender.” Some women may have been swinging in London in the Sixties but others were marginalised in the home counties.
Marianne grows up in a privileged middle-class circle in Berkshire. She hopes that her life will be far more interesting than her parents who play Scrabble and shop at the local department store. They drink pink gin at sunset and talk about the war with their friends, the Forster-Pellisiers, on holiday in Cornwall. Marianne tells their son, Hugo, “I’m never going to become like the parents. I’m going to live in Paris and meet Simone de Beauvoir.”
The novel starts in the late 1950s when Marianne falls in love with Simon Hurst, a boy with “gorgeous floppy” hair and “shockingly smooth and beautiful” skin who once “behaved badly” with her friend Rowena. She declares several times in the novel that she loves him, “absolutely and forever.” You suspect quite quickly that the feeling may not be mutual. However, this first great love is what shapes the next few years of her life and the decisions that she makes.
Marianne’s love for Simon is all consuming. She dreams of marrying Simon and travelling the world with him. When her father is angry at her for not focusing on school, she wants to tell him, “I’m never going to do anything clever or useful. I’m just going to become Mrs Simon Hurst. That is my only plan.” Of course, life doesn’t always turn out the way we would like. Simon has other plans. He wants to go to Oxford and be a writer. But when he fails his Oxford entrance exam, he thinks he will go to Paris and “just hang out in jazz clubs or try to meet Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir and get drunk on existential nihilism.” I won’t spoil what happened next. Suffice to say, Marianne is continually disappointed.
This novel is easy to read in one sitting and Marianne is a compelling narrator. At one point she despairs that she is turning into her mother. Fortunately, the novel ends on a more optimistic note. It also has much to say on subjects other than love, parenting for one.
It also has something to say on the issue of the ongoing feminist struggle. When her History teacher asks Marianne where would women be without those who fought for women’s suffrage, Marianne responds that women have no power anyway. She says that when her mother “exerted any power, like daring to win a Scrabble game, Daddy got into such a red rage that it was easier and more peaceful for her to keep on losing.” For much of the novel Marianne chooses the path of least resistance when navigating the ups and downs and tragedies of her young life. By the end of it, she finally finds her voice. I highly recommend this short read.
