Daughters and Sons by I. Compton-Burnett (1937)

This is unexceptional in the sense of being consistent with the rest of the author's bibliography to this date. But, of course, any reader of Compton-Burnett knows that her work, compared to any other writer of her era, or any other, with the possible exception of Ronald Firbank, is utterly extraordinary. This difference is most exemplified in reference to the interpersonal atmosphere between her characters, pictured by what they say to one another. These novels are Beckett for an earlier generation: stripped down to dialogue only, with only the slightest authorial interference where absolutely necessary (probably a total of about five pages of these two hundred and ninety). But not only does the whole direction derive from the fact that speech is the means, which is very unusual. The tone is equally so: a criss-crossing of tangential comment is made between the characters, taking each other up on greater or lesser points, reframing contentiously so as to bitchily challenge, uncharitably agreeing with the original statement perhaps, or most candidly not. Grabbing the original statement and referring it to someone else with vicious intent. And all very syntactically complex and spare - the reader's mind must dig around for intended meanings. In this one, an 1890s family is dominated by an intense matriarch. The son is an author; his wife is long dead, but his four children reside in the house, ranging in age from late 20s to 11. The unmarried daughter is also resident, and manages the household forcefully. They bat and swat one another with savage truths (and some untruths) whilst trying to stay afloat in the tight atmosphere. Various governesses come and go, more or less exhausted by the thick air. Their few friends, arranged in tight groups of their own with all sorts of powerplays and attitudes reigning, visit from time to time. They refer to the intensity of the atmosphere of the central family, but in reality are just as much so themselves. Which begs the observation, which I've made before and can't get away from, that these novels' one difficulty is their lack of differentiation. Compton-Burnett has a style like a parlour-game, it applies to everyone, and so the depth of the extraordinariness is undercut whilst being emphasised. The climax of this one comes when a rumour is spread by a subsidiary character that the matriarch's will has preferred the tutor to her two grandsons, a young man who has befriended her in her last days, seeming to be her only true friend amongst an ungrateful family. He reveals himself to be less than noble after her death and the rumour of the will, by not reconferring the family wealth back onto it, instead saying he will keep half for himself and marry the eldest of the son's daughters. She is so needful of escape from the family's clutches that she agrees. When the will is finally formally revealed, the inheritance is not as was rumoured; he has not only not inherited, but has looked grasping and ignoble to boot. This also calls for a question to be asked about Compton-Burnett's plot: how could such a wily character risk so much on only a rumour? Surely someone embroiled in such minute teasings and stabbings would have caution as a byword? So, this wildly entertaining niggle-storm was ever so slightly undone by obviousness.