"Surely one of the most gifted and prodigious literary writers of our times ..."
Having struggled too long with much of contemporary fiction as characterised by the unfathomable and frankly uninteresting offerings of millennial favourites like Sally Rooney, as well as shedloads of formulaic ‘psychological’ crime thrillers, it has been a tremendous relief to return to what (in my old-fashioned way) I call ‘proper storytellers’. Foremost among these is the brilliant Penelope Lively, surely one of the most gifted and prodigious literary writers of our times, now, at 88, sadly coming towards the end of her writing career.
What joy it is to revisit all those novels! In her first novel for adults, The Road to Lichfield (1977), she established early on one of her enduring themes – the lasting effect of the past upon the present – and examines with piercing insight and sensibility two staples of the human condition, Dying and Loving. Future novels, which never disappointed, included the dazzling Booker Prize winner in 1987, Moon Tiger, about a dying historian recalling her incestuous love affair with her brother. Two others, for me, stand out: Judgment Day, a perfect evocation of English village life and an unforgiveable death; and Passing On in which a shy brother and sister are finally able to cast aside the long shadow thrown by a monstrous mother.
For an excellent introduction to Penelope Lively’s extraordinary talent, look no further than Metamorphosis, in which she has selected the best of her published short stories over the years with the addition of two new longer stories bookending the collection, both written recently.
An archaeologist manquee, Lively has peerless skills in characterisation, recognising the layers upon layers of matter which make up a person, or indeed, a place. A person is many versions of himself or herself. Can you ever really know yourself? Can you know anyone? These questions preoccupy Lively here in several stories, especially in one of the new stories, Songs of Praise, where the death of Martha prompts family and friend diverse recollections. What they don’t know is the life-changing secret that Martha and her husband have kept all their lives. In the title story, Metamorphosis, or the Elephant’s Foot, Lively’s preoccupation with aspects of change such as coming of age, the march of time, shifting perspectives, comes to the fore. Harriet’s life history here spans the 20th century, each part of which is symbolised through inanimate objects. The first object, an umbrella stand fashioned out of an elephants’s foot standing in a house in London’s Harley Street in 1915, is perhaps the most literal and poignant metamorphosis: ‘The long-dead elephant had its foot – all four feet – in the 19th century and in the heart of Africa. It is - was – a long way away in every sense, but also relentlessly here, in early 20th century London, doing duty as a receptacle for umbrellas.’
“In deepest Devon, in 1947, Mrs Bennet lived on. Not as such, you understand, fictional or otherwise, but in the person of a Mrs Landon, Frances Landon, who was married to a man of deficient means, and had three daughters, now of marriageable age” begins one story. How could one not read on? Two of the said daughters efficiently marry into the local gentry but the third, Imogen, a rebel, chooses not to, and yet it is one of Immy’s great-great-great granddaughters whose emphatic tones, heard in a future century, are those of Britain’s second woman prime minister. “And so the century proceeded, to a time when the shade of Mrs Bennet would be laid to rest, except perhaps in some moribund enclave of the upper classes”.
Lively is occasionally mocked for seeming to concentrate on the middle/upper classes but this is unfair for they too don’t always escape Lively’s dry wit and laser-like observation. Such is the case in The Weekend, where a reluctant guest surveys her hostess’s lavish second home in the Cotswolds with all the standard accoutrements: “She hated this kitchen, from its rich green Aga (of course) through the row of copper pans slung from one wall, and the butcher’s block, and the dresser with pretty Victorian china (of course) and the shelf of Le Creuset casseroles in every size and shape. She hated it because she wanted it.”
Oh, how I envy you if you haven’t yet read her!
What joy it is to revisit all those novels! In her first novel for adults, The Road to Lichfield (1977), she established early on one of her enduring themes – the lasting effect of the past upon the present – and examines with piercing insight and sensibility two staples of the human condition, Dying and Loving. Future novels, which never disappointed, included the dazzling Booker Prize winner in 1987, Moon Tiger, about a dying historian recalling her incestuous love affair with her brother. Two others, for me, stand out: Judgment Day, a perfect evocation of English village life and an unforgiveable death; and Passing On in which a shy brother and sister are finally able to cast aside the long shadow thrown by a monstrous mother.
For an excellent introduction to Penelope Lively’s extraordinary talent, look no further than Metamorphosis, in which she has selected the best of her published short stories over the years with the addition of two new longer stories bookending the collection, both written recently.
An archaeologist manquee, Lively has peerless skills in characterisation, recognising the layers upon layers of matter which make up a person, or indeed, a place. A person is many versions of himself or herself. Can you ever really know yourself? Can you know anyone? These questions preoccupy Lively here in several stories, especially in one of the new stories, Songs of Praise, where the death of Martha prompts family and friend diverse recollections. What they don’t know is the life-changing secret that Martha and her husband have kept all their lives. In the title story, Metamorphosis, or the Elephant’s Foot, Lively’s preoccupation with aspects of change such as coming of age, the march of time, shifting perspectives, comes to the fore. Harriet’s life history here spans the 20th century, each part of which is symbolised through inanimate objects. The first object, an umbrella stand fashioned out of an elephants’s foot standing in a house in London’s Harley Street in 1915, is perhaps the most literal and poignant metamorphosis: ‘The long-dead elephant had its foot – all four feet – in the 19th century and in the heart of Africa. It is - was – a long way away in every sense, but also relentlessly here, in early 20th century London, doing duty as a receptacle for umbrellas.’
“In deepest Devon, in 1947, Mrs Bennet lived on. Not as such, you understand, fictional or otherwise, but in the person of a Mrs Landon, Frances Landon, who was married to a man of deficient means, and had three daughters, now of marriageable age” begins one story. How could one not read on? Two of the said daughters efficiently marry into the local gentry but the third, Imogen, a rebel, chooses not to, and yet it is one of Immy’s great-great-great granddaughters whose emphatic tones, heard in a future century, are those of Britain’s second woman prime minister. “And so the century proceeded, to a time when the shade of Mrs Bennet would be laid to rest, except perhaps in some moribund enclave of the upper classes”.
Lively is occasionally mocked for seeming to concentrate on the middle/upper classes but this is unfair for they too don’t always escape Lively’s dry wit and laser-like observation. Such is the case in The Weekend, where a reluctant guest surveys her hostess’s lavish second home in the Cotswolds with all the standard accoutrements: “She hated this kitchen, from its rich green Aga (of course) through the row of copper pans slung from one wall, and the butcher’s block, and the dresser with pretty Victorian china (of course) and the shelf of Le Creuset casseroles in every size and shape. She hated it because she wanted it.”
Oh, how I envy you if you haven’t yet read her!
Metamorphosis - Selected Stories is published by Fig Tree.
Carla McKay's The Reluctant Yogi is published by Gibson Square Books.
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