Elders and Betters - Ivy Compton-Burnett

"Dear, dear, what clever talk it all is!"
"It sounds so," said Jenney, on a puzzled note.  "And yet it is all about nothing, isn't it?"

It's canny of Ivy Compton-Burnett to incorporate into Elders and Betters (1944) the main criticism aimed at her novels - it shows a self-awareness, but somehow also deflates the common argument (from those who have read her unadmiringly) that her work is all surface and no depth.  I'm going to do my best to defend her, but... I do have to concede that a lot of what I love about Ivy Compton-Burnett's exceptional writing is the surface wit.  A lot, but not all.  

Elders and Betters starts off on moving day for the Donne family.  Anna has chosen a house for them, and the various members of the family are moving in, in dribs and drabs.  Since we started off with only three, I thought that Ivy Compton-Burnett had been uncharacteristically frugal with her cast - but more and more arrived, and then we were introduced to a second family.  I'll save you some time, and rattle through them.  Skip the next paragraph if you want to - it's deathly dull, but needs must.  Here goes.

Father: Benjamin, children: Bernard, Esmond, Anna, Reuben (ages about 30 to 13, in that order). Benjamin's cousin Clara Bell 'known as Claribel to the family, and to as many people outside it as she could contrive'; housekeeper Maria Jennings (Jenney to all), Cook (nobody seems to know her name) and Ethel, the maid.  Benjamin's sister Jessica lives nearby, along with her husband Thomas, adult children Terence and Tullia, and young children Dora and Julius. Benjamin's other sister, Sukey, also lives there - and is dying of a vague heart condition, without any apparent time-limit on its fatal nature.  Finishing things off are Miss Lacy (the young children's teacher) and her niece Florence.

Phew!  At one point I did sketch out a family tree, but they actually all have quite distinct personalities and affinities, and it wasn't too tricky to keep them all sorted in my mind.  Back to the plot.  As I say, we start with visiting a new house - the sort of scene I always warm too, especially when one character is trying to convince others that it's a great choice, and they remain firmly unconvinced.

"The drawing-room and dining-room are what we should expect," said Anna, throwing open the doors.  "The kitchens are below them.  The staircase leads to those above."

"A natural use for a staircase," murmured Claribel to Jenney, as she set foot upon it.  "I am glad we are to be allowed to put it to its purpose."

Oh, how I adore the witty pedantry which informs so much of Ivy Compton-Burnett's writing.  And the backtracks and change of tempo brought about by her authorial asides.  How can you not adore a writer who constructs so perfect a sentence as this? :

Ethel tried not to smile and entirely succeeded.

Round and round the conversations go, seemingly to lead nowhere, but actually forming brilliant portraits of family dynamics, and exposing the barbs and bitternesses behind people's facades - as well their occasional generosity or kindness.  For her characters so rarely have facades - they say what they think, or (more often) contradict what others think.  There is one utterly wonderful scene where nothing more complex happens than someone notices there are thirteen sitting down to dinner - and they deliberate who shall sit down first (or last; they cannot recall the superstition correctly.)  It is a scene which should be anthologised time and again.

But Elders and Betters is not a novel where nothing happens.  Ivy Compton-Burnett was always keen to stress that novels must have plots, and hated those which seemed not to.  In Elders and Betters, the pivotal point could be borrowed from any detective novelist, even if the treatment could not.  Aunt Sukey has written two wills - one inheriting her sister Jessica, one her niece Anna. She asks Anna to destroy the will which would benefit her; Anna destroys the other.  Sukey, of course, dies shortly afterwards of her heart condition.  And this propels the happenings, and (more importantly) the conversations, for the rest of the novel.

Recently, on my very positive review of Elizabeth Bowen's The House in Paris, Rachel commented "I'm sure you'll entice some more people to read Bowen - she's streets ahead of ICB!!!"  Those exclamation marks show me that she was teasing, but I do have to say - I still think Ivy Compton-Burnett is a better and more important writer than Elizabeth Bowen.  These author-vs.-author battles are probably rather silly, and will end up going in circles, but the reason I think ICB is more important is that Elizabeth Bowen does, very well, what a lot of other authors try to do; Ivy Compton-Burnett does brilliantly what nobody has really tried to imitate.

"It is a modest but pleasant house," said Reuben's voice, "and a home is where a family is gathered together."

"That is what makes family problems," said Bernard.

"We have none of those," said Benjamin, in a tone that defied contradiction.

"None," muttered Esmond. "Problems imply a solution."

"Jenney is proud of me for being able to talk like other people, though I cannot walk like them," said Reuben, rightly interpreting the expression on Jenney's face.

It is not true that Ivy Compton-Burnett's narrative voice is absent - although her novels are mostly dialogue, she very often gives speech this sting in the tail, offering a flash of insight into a character's mind, and darting away again just as quickly.  Hopefully I have given some examples of what makes her so special, so different, so important a novelist.

But, while musing about Ivy Compton-Burnett on the bus (for such is my glamorous life), I wondered why I believed her to be such a significant author, considering she seemed to inspire no one and take inspiration from no one.  There appears to be no distinct literary tradition that she adapted or futhered, besides the vague quantities of the domestic novel.  And then it struck me, the author she most reminded me of - which is, curiously perhaps, Shakespeare.

Characters who speak as no person would ever speak (for who ever spoke in blank verse?) but who perfectly represent how people feel and think.  Characters engaged in large-scale comedy and tragedy, but bound by the familial ties, and rarely missing the opportunity to philosophise in the midst of anguish or (more rarely) joy.  And of course, with all that dialogue, Ivy Compton-Burnett's books are as much plays as they are novels.  The deal was sealed when, in the final act (if you will) a flurry of unexpected engagements occurred.  Perhaps with these criteria I could compare Ivy Compton-Burnett to any playwright in a Shakespearean tradition, but it seemed to me that it was William S's particular mantle that Dame Ivy was seeking to inherit.  This only struck me towards the end - with my next venture in Ivy Compton-Burnett's novels, I shall keep it in mind from the outset, and see what it brings out of the text and reading experience.  Elders and Betters, to conclude, is not my favourite of the Ivy Compton-Burnett novels I've read (More Women Than Men retains that crown), nor is it in the top half, but she seems incapable of writing a novel that I will not thrive upon and relish - Elders and Betters is no exception.

More Women Than Men - Ivy Compton-Burnett

When I wrote about Pamela Hansford Johnson's pamphlet on Ivy Compton-Burnett, I mentioned that it had made me keen to read more of my beloved Dame Ivy's work soon.  It didn't take me long - at Easter I delved through my collection of Ivy Compton-Burnett novels to find one to fill a gap in A Century of Books, and opted (because I love its dryly prosaic title) for More Women Than Men (1933).

If I dared, I would try an Ivy Compton-Burnett Reading Week, but I don't think it work - partly because people often seem intimidated by her, but also because it's no secret that Ivy Compton-Burnett's novels are all similar in tone and title.  It's difficult to differentiate Mother and Son from Daughters and Sons; Parents and Children from Elders and Betters; A Family and a Fortune from A Father and his Fate, etc. etc.  The previous owner of my copy of More Women Than Men obviously had the same issues, for she has noted down a little list on the first page:

1933
Girls' school
Mrs Napier
Felix Bacon.

Well, anonymous (and probably deceased) owner of my book, you have organised my thoughts for me.  More Women Than Men does, indeed, take place in a girls' school - which is unusual for Ivy Compton-Burnett, who usually sets her novels in sprawling families with nine or so children.  I initially thought that she would just transfer this dynamic to the hierarchies and alliances of pupils and teachers, but in actual fact none of the girls say anything at all in the novel.  Rather, we watch the headmistress, Josephine Napier, rule over family and staff with a firmness which doesn't repress the verbal dalliances of those around her, but which does render them powerless in the face of her unflappable logic.  People love to chop logic in Ivy Compton-Burnett's novels - and I love reading them do it.  Truisms are interrogated; the polite shorthand tricks of conversation are exposed as evasions, and analysed to death.  None of it is very natural, it is definitely stylised - but deliciously so.

"I feel a little conscious of my appearance," said Felix, coming up to the group.  "Perhaps it is being one of the few people who can wear formal clothes."

His speech was met by incredulous mirth, his hearers keeping their eyes on his face, in case of further entertainment.

"Well, I hope that no one will be conscious of mine," said Josephine.  "It is not my habit to be aware of it; but when I am oblivious, it may be hitting other people in the eye.  I got into the garment in time, but I admit it does not add to the occasion."

"People always seem to think admission alter things," said Helen, "when it really rather helps to establish them."

I'm running ahead of myself, as usual, since I haven't explained who these people are.  Apologies if the following run-through is confusing - there are always a lot of characters in Ivy Compton-Burnett's novels, often with complex interrelations.  More Women Than Men starts with Josephine greeting her all-female staff back after the school holidays.  Helen is a new staff member, and the others are returning - none of these are pivotal to the plot, for the majority of the novel, but each is rather wonderful to read about.  Miss Munday is large, vapid, and doleful; Miss Luke is grateful and ignored; Mrs. Chattaway is one of the few who has been married (now widowed):

Mrs. Chattaway seldom referred to her wedded life, and her companions, in spite of their sincere deprecation of the married state, assigned her reticence to her sense of loss; whereas the truth was, as they might consistently have guessed, that the memory was uncongenial.

Josephine herself is married to Simon, who fades into the background - not so much browbeaten as so wholly in her shadow as to be rendered free of personality.  They have an adopted son, Gabriel, who is in fact Josephine's nephew - he is in his early twenties, but still living at home, rather uselessly.  Josephine's brother Jonathan (Gabriel's father) taught pupils independently, until the last one stayed with him for 22 years.  This last one is Felix Bacon, who (joining together disparate groups) becomes the drawing master at Josephine's school.  There are plenty of amusing conversations where Felix defends the idea of a man teaching girls to pupils' fathers who think the job beneath him.  (I should add that More Women Than Men, like maybe of Dame Ivy's novels, is set in a vaguely Edwardian period.)  And then there is the change of dynamic when a man is introduced to the all-female staff...

"You will find that not much gossip is done here," said Josephine, smiling as if in spite of herself.

"I suppose it hardly could be in a common room."

"Either there or elsewhere."

"And in a community of women!  I am glad I am seeing life for myself, as all the theories about it are untrue.  Now I see that you are dismissing me with a look.  Of course you are one of those people whose glance is obeyed."

Josephine initially appears to be the paragon of diligence and kindness - a rather dominant and detached paragon, one whose glance is indeed obeyed, but a paragon nonetheless.  It becomes apparent, however, that she is ruthlessly manipulative - and yet she is far more complex than those words suggest.  Her love for husband and adopted son is deeply genuine, but it is coupled with her immovable sense of justice, and the love she demands in return.  She puts up a great deal of resistance when Gabriel becomes engaged to Ruth, the daughter of Elizabeth, an old acquaintance of Josephine and Simon Napier whose reappearance causes quite a stir earlier in the novel.

"In that case you will be grateful to Ruth, Josephine," said Gabriel, coming nearer with a stumble, to avoid lifting his head.  "She is giving me a happiness greater than I had conceived."

"Then it must be on a generous scale indeed, indulged boy," said Josephine, her tone out of accordance with the change in her eyes.  "Let us hear about it before I resume my labours.  Come to the point, and enunciate some demand of youth."

"It is the demand that I was bound to make one day.  It is naturally often a demand of youth.  This breaking up of our life seemed to the best time to make it.  The lesser change must count less at the time of the greater.  I make the demand with confidence, having been taught, as you will say, to make demands.  I have said enough for you to understand me?"

"No," said Josephine, in a quiet, conversational tone; "I don't think so.  You have not said anything definite, have you?"

There are almost never histrionics in an Ivy Compton-Burnett novel.  Whatever their emotions may be, characters are far more likely to react by calmly picking apart their antagonist's sentence than hysterically screaming in their face.  These verbal gymnastics are not true to life, but they raise tension far more effectively (and originally) than a few outbursts could achieve.

did you really think that Sherpa wouldn't find her way into this post?

The interconnections, misalliances, grievances, dependencies and loyalties between characters in More Women Than Men would be impossible to explain in a mere blog post.  Although the dialogue is undeniably stylised, there are complex and believable relationships throughout the novel - an aspect of Ivy Compton-Burnett's writing which is seldom applauded.  A discussion of whether or not her novels are realistic would be fascinating - because 'realistic' has so many facets and definitions.  Would people talk like this?  No, definitely not.  Would people act like this?  Probably no.   But would people feel like these characters feel?  Yes - absolutely - and it is Ivy Compton-Burnett's genius that she can interweave the genuine and the bizarre.

It is not true, either, that nothing happens in Ivy Compton-Burnett novels.  In fact, More Women Than Men contains one of the most ingenious murders ever - done by exposing a ill person to a draught.  A spoiler, yes, but the reason that Compton-Burnett's novels have the reputation of nothing happening is that the plot, as such, doesn't really matter.  It's the way things happen, and the way she writes.  Oh! the way she writes!  I adore it.  Settling down to her aphorisms and linguistic somersaults is a joy - because they are not simply clever, but hilarious.

Of the six Ivy Compton-Burnett novels I've now read, this is perhaps my favourite.  Others have had sections where they dragged, but this one never did.  It's not the easiest of her novels to find, but definitely worth hunting down - I'm hoping that my enthusiasm will lead to one or two Ivy Compton-Burnett converts, or at least encourage some more readers to give her a go.  You'll love or loathe - and, if you love, you'll never look back.

Authors on Authors (Part 2)

A series of pamphlets called Writers and Their Work was issued by British Book News in the early 1950s, and I happen to have got my hands on two of them.  In fact, they were amongst the books I bought during Project 24.  As you'll be gathering from this week (as if you didn't already know) I love authors writing about authors - especially when both sides of the equation are authors whom I love.  I. Compton Burnett by Pamela Hansford Johnson was a no-brainer for me - I love ICB, and I like PHJ, so I had to get hold of this.  Plus it ticks off 1951 on A Century of Books in under fifty pages.  I'll try to make my post appropriately brief.

I bang on about Dame Ivy quite a bit here - basically, I want everyone to try her, and I've resigned myself to the fact that at least four-fifths of those who give Ivy a whirl will be unimpressed.  But the final fifth... oh, boy, we love her!  As Hansford Johnson writes, 'She is not to be mildly liked or disliked.  She is a writer to be left alone, or else to be made into an addiction.'  Reading this pamphlet has made this addict desperate to read another ICB novel, and I imagine it won't be long before I'm writing about one.  I love reading another author's enthusiasm for ICB, especially when she describes so perfectly what it is that I love about the Ivester.  (Sorry.  That won't happen again.)

The peculiar charm of Miss Compton-Burnett's novels, the charm that has won her not merely admirers but addicts, lies in her speaking of home-truths.  She achieves this by a certain fixed method.  One character propounds some ordinary, homely hypocrisy, the kind of phrase from which mankind for centuries has had his comfort and his peace of mind.  Immediately another character shows it up for the fraud it is, and does it in so plain and so frightful a fashion that one feels the sky is far more likely to fall upon the truth-teller than the hypocrite.  In these books there is always someone to lie and someone to tell the truth; the power of light and the power of darkness speaking antiphonally, with a dispassionate mutual understanding.

I can't add much to that, except 'agreed!'  A perceptive reader is always such a joy to read - that's why we love blogs, isn't it? - and Hansford Johnson writes as a reader, rather than a critic.  She shares the joy of the ICB addict; she recommends which novel to start with, and which to save for later; she even writes what amount to mini blog reviews of each novel - and, be warned, she gives away most of the plot, although plot is easily the least essential ingredient of a Compton-Burnett novel.  Drastic and shocking events occur, but only incidental to a lengthy discussion about grammar or, as PHJ points out above, the hypocrisy of a common phrase.  There is the occasional sense that PHJ wrote this quickly and could have done with editing a bit - one particular sentiment about service being unpleasant is repeated three times in 43 pages - but we can forgive her that.

What makes this pamphlet even more intriguing is that it was written in the middle of Ivy Compton-Burnett's career.  In 1951 she still had seven novels yet to write, including my introduction to her, Mother and Son.  So this is not the place to go for the final say on Dame Ivy's work, but it is fascinating to read a response in media res, as it were.


There is one description in this pamphlet which I will cherish - which so perfectly sums up ICB's peculiar genius, and which I will finish on.  (Come back tomorrow for the final in this mini-series of Authors on Authors - and one which is rather less niche.)

This is why Miss Compton-Burnett's writing appears so strange to the reader who comes upon it without warning, a gentle tea-cosy madness, a coil of vipers in a sewing-basket.