A Family and a Fortune by I. Compton-Burnett (1939)

[Reading this brought on an extra urge, which was devising further Compton-Burnettesque titles as an extension of her bibliography. Each one which was convincing enough I will scatter through this summary in square brackets just for fun. I've allotted them each a year of publication and have managed to extend the author's career (and lifetime!) by quite a margin. We'll start with The Guessed and the Glimpsed 1973]. The main tonality of this instalment in the C-B lists is no different from those which have preceded it. [Destinies and Histories 1976]. There is still the late Victorian/Edwardian family; they still bicker endlessly, loving all the contretemps flickering between them, picking each other up and revealing faultlines with agitated glee. [Going Without Saying: An Autobiography in Dialogue 1978]. These cerebral scenes still have occasionally physical consequences where interlocutors are shoved aside, people run out of the house 'never to return', doors are kicked - bashing people's heads. [The Most and the Least (a magnum opus of 660 pages) 1981]. In other words, the fuming regurgitative spiral of interplay is the mode here as it always seems to have been. [The Exposed and the Excused 1983]. But nevertheless there has been a revolution. The change is in how much Compton-Burnett tells us via authorial interpolation. [A Pauper and His Plenty 1986]. Whereas the previous few novels have seemed to betray the author's wish to develop the project of scraping out everything except dialogue, this one tells a different story. [Yeasayers and Naysayers (a tiny novel of 76 pages) 1991]. That scheme has been dispensed with here; she gives us a great deal more in her own voice, describing how people react, how and where they move, the looks in their faces, and so on - the 'usual fare' of novel-writing. Now what has prompted this change? [The Moulded and the Marred 1993]. Did that particular effort reach a 'natural' end, or was this a specific piece which needed a more traditional approach? Will the all-dialogue project be taken up again in the next book? [A Firebrand and Her Foil 1996]. We'll see, but I will admit to the after-feeling of a great deal more filled-outness in this piece, and there's a form of satisfaction in it. [Compton-Burnett-reanimes has reached the grand old age of 112 by the time that that last mentioned novel has been published. I think I'll keep her going well on into her second century as good ideas for titles present themselves].