The story opens rather mundanely, with Mary Panton, a young, English widow spending time in a villa in Tuscany, awaiting a proposal from Sir Edgar Swift, soon to be Governor of Bengal.  Although she doesn’t love him, she does not refuse his offer of marriage, but instead asks for the three days that he is away in which to consider her answer.  During that time, however, a chance encounter in a restaurant turns her world upside down, and she must choose what to do.

The thing I love about coming to a new author without any expectations is that I never know where exactly the book will go.  In this case, when Up the Villa began in a serene, idyllic, rather sweet way I had no idea whether it was going to remain like that and be a pleasant, gentle novella or whether everything was going to be turned on its head (I deliberately refrained from reading the blurb on the back cover and I’m trying to give away as little as possible here too).  Maugham creates wonderfully atmospheric scenery which is described in emotional rather than physical terms, leaving no doubt that all is well in Mary’s world as she heads out for dinner:

To dine there on a June evening when it was still day,and after dinner to sit there till the softness of the night gradually enveloped her, was a delight of which Mary felt she could never tire.  It gave her a delicious feeling of peace, but not of an empty peace in which there was something lethargic, of an active, thrilling peace rather in which her brain was all alert and her senses quick to respond.  Perhaps it was something in that light Tuscan air that affected you so that even physical sensation had in it something spiritual.  It gave you just the same emotion as listening to the music of Mozart, so melodious and so gay, with its undercurrent of melancholy, which filled you with so great contentment that you felt as though the flesh no longer had any hold on you.  For a few blissful minutes you were purged of all grossness and the confusion of life was dissolved in perfect loveliness.  (p. 14)

Can’t you just image yourself there having dinner in the warm, Italian evening sun?  This quality of description is maintained throughout the novella and was one of the aspects that I loved.

This could all sound rather earnest, but Maugham has a light touch which laces the book with wry humour, often at unexpected moments.  I instantly warmed to Mary, for instance, when she decides:

If he were really going to ask her to marry him, well, it would make it easier for both of them, out in the open air, over a cup of tea, while she was nibbling a scone.  The setting was seemly and not unduly romantic. (p. 5)

Mary is a young woman who has been through a lot already and Maugham makes her an excellently well drawn, well rounded character.  The reader spends a lot of the book seeing events from her perspective and hearing her thoughts and they never feel inauthentic.  Her conversations with Rowley, and English gentleman of dubious morals, reveal her to be astute, self aware and remarkably candid about sex.  Perhaps because of her life experience she is under few illusions about herself and what life has to offer her, yet she remains remarkably naive about other things, which is what leads to the events of the story, and this makes her a very interesting character.

All of the characters are surprisingly vivid for such a short novella.  Maugham has a way of pinning characters down with just a few words and phrases so that the reader can instantly visualise and understand them, as in the case of the Princess:

The Princess gave him another of those quiet smiling looks of hers in which there was the indulgence of an old rip who has neither forgotten nor repented of her naughty past and at the same time the shrewdness of a woman who knows the world like the palm of her hand and come to the conclusion that no one is any better than he should be.  (p. 16)

The pacing of the story is excellent, starting off at the slow, languid speed that you might expect from a novel about the English upper classes in Italy and gradually speeding up until it feels almost out of control.  Nonetheless, there are several issues which are left too unresolved for my liking and I wish that there had been just one more chapter addressing these issues and tying up loose ends.  That would have made the book nearly perfect.  I also found the light, breezy tone of the conclusion rather disturbing, but then I think that’s exactly how I was supposed to feel.

I’ve really enjoyed my first foray into the writing of W. Somerset Maugham through this odd little book.  If the rest of the novels I have waiting for me in my collection from The Book People prove half as interesting I can see myself adding even more of his works to my wishlist before the year is out.

Up at the Villa by W. Somerset Maugham.  Published by Vintage, 2004, pp. 120.  Originally published in 1941.

Title:

Author: Margaret Atwood

Published: Virago Press, 1990, pp. 345

Genre: General fiction

Blurb: From fat girl to thin, from red hair to mud brown, from London to Toronto, from Polish count to radical husband, from writer of romances to distinguished poet — Joan Foster is utterly confused by her life of multiple identities.  She decides to escape to an Italian seaside resort to take stock of her life.  But first, she must plan her death…

Where, when and why: The fact that I have absolutely no idea when or where I bought this book is a fairly good indication of quite how long it has languished on my shelves.  I ended up reading this book after a weekend of picking up books, reading the first few pages, and then discarding them.  I’m like a woman who has a whole wardrobe of clothes but complains she has nothing to wear: I have shelves of books but nothing to read.  I kept trying my luck among my older books (some of which are so old, they almost merit their own bus pass) and eventually settled upon this book.  It counts towards my Books Off the Shelf Challenge for 2010, details of which can be found by clicking the picture at the top of this post.

What I thought: If I were to say that this book was the humorous story of a girl who battles with her mother, her relationships and, most of all, her weight, you would probably dismiss it as fluffy chick lit, and that is certainly what it sounds like.  However, nothing could be further from the truth; this book is a perfect example of how a novel can be so much more than its plot.  Margaret Atwood incorporates all these aspects typical of chick lit in Lady Oracle and treats them in a way that is intelligent, engaging, and blackly comic .

It is impossible not to be drawn in to a novel which starts with the line:

I planned my death carefully; unlike my life, which meandered along from one thing to another, despite my feeble attempts to control it. (p. 7)

The narrator is fantastically unreliable. She spends the book developing so many different fictions of her own life to tell to people in order to disguise the truth that is is difficult to keep track of what is real and what isn’t, and furthermore I could never quite work out if what Jean is relating now is just another fiction, performing herself for yet another audience.  This novel reflects, distorts and echoes itself through layers upon layers of deception.  However, the pleasure of reading comes not from trying to find out the truth and outwit the narrator, but from becoming lost in the lies and so being made to examine the fragmentary nature of character.  Unlike a lot of books which have an idea though, Lady Oracle also has an engaging story with fascinating characters, and so I was able to enjoy the thoughts that the book inspired without having the feeling of being cheated that I get when I read a book that that seems to have been written purely to convey that idea without any thought for plot.

It sounds a bit pompous, not to mention odd for a book which involves faking one’s own death, but there is a peculiar universality to the narration which speaks to the reader.  My situation is very different from Jean’s (my mother is lovely, thank you very much; I somehow managed to completely avoid being bullied throughout my childhood; I have never been, nor intend to be, the mistress of a Polish count; and my future husband is not a manic depressive political activist) yet I found myself identifying with a lot of the things she said.  My copy of the book is filled with little pieces of paper marking memorable quotes that I particularly liked. I’m sure I’m not the only person who can identify with Jean’s despairing observation:

That was the difference between us: for Arthur there were true paths, several of them perhaps, but only one at a time.  For me there were no paths at all.  Thickets, ditches, ponds, labyrinths, morasses, but no paths. (p.169)

These observations always have a wry, humorous tone to them which made the book a very good read.  Jean’s imaginings of the home lives of important theorists and politicians, complete with peculiar hobbies and nagging wives, were particularly amusing.  And anyone who has ever been to Italy will recognise the truth when she relates:

Driving in Italy made me nervous.  People steered cars as if they were horses.  They didn’t think in terms of roads but in terms of where they wanted to go: a road was where someone else wanted you to go, a road was an insult.  I admired this attitude, as long as I wasn’t driving. (p. 132)

I could go on much longer with all the great quotations from this book, but you’d be far better reading it yourself.  It really is worth the time.

Where this book goes: It’s a mark of how good this book is that I didn’t even need to finish it before I knew it would be going back on my shelves.  I have three other unread Atwoods lurking on my shelves (one of which is also a bookshelf OAP) and enjoying Lady Oracle so much has inspired me to get some of those off the TBR pile sooner rather than later, so watch out for more Margaret Atwood books in the not-too-distant future.

Tea Talk: As the Polish count observes to Jean, Tea is the English remedy for everything.  They are a strange people. (p. 146). I may perhaps be strange, but my love for tea is completely understandable when it is tea as delicious as Regent’s Park tea from Yumchaa, which has been filling my pot again these past few days.  I’ll have to move on to something else soon or I’ll use it all up already.