Talk about keeping a stiff upper lip! Sophia must have 5 pounds of starch in her's because she shares her tale of woe in such a cool calm and detached manner you'd think that she's a Stepford Wife, London division.
Sophia marries fellow artist Charles despite his family's objections. They're poor and Charles won't work because he's an artist! What follows next is poverty! Babies! An abortion! Adultery with Snidely Whiplash! An illegitimate child! Scarlet fever! Divine punishment! A divorce! Single motherhood! Indentured servitude (kind of)! And then the unrealistic happy ending!
Comyns description of the birthing process for the poors in a big London hospital, no matter how detached Sophia comes across as being, sounds like a sticky circle in hell designed to shame women for having sex. According to a note in the foreword the chapter dealing with Sophia giving birth is all true. Ick! Nast!
I appreciate Comyns keeping the tone "*shrug* and so that happened... and then this happened next. *shrug*" because this is actually a sad and horrific story and in the wrong hands it could have been an annoying girly melodrama. Instead of "you rat bastard!" moments, we get a lot of polite moments of intense dislike.
I've personally been on the business end of that cool detached and disinterested English stoicism and it can be frustrating to the point you want to punch that stoic bastard the hell out, so if you need yelling, banshee like wailing and a lot of face slapping in your stories of love gone wrong, then this is not the book for you.
Susan Garth is 16 years old and like most 16 year olds she has problems. Her father may have killed her mother, someone may have tried to rape her and she just might be possessed by Satan or she may just be crazy.
Father Gregory is a priest rooted in logic and psychology, he likes to drink and he might be a heretic because he doesn't believe in Satan.
When Father Gregory gets reassigned to a parish in a small town as punishment for being drunk while performing last rites he meets Susan Garth a clearly troubled teen who is afraid of going to hell. She's refusing to attend church and she got naked and attacked the priest who ran the parish previously to him. Father Gregory thinks she needs psychological help but Bishop Crimmings is convinced that she's possessed after a game of "is that a half dollar, quarter or rosary crucifix on your arm?" ends in a painful burn.
Exorcisms seem to be boring, besides vomiting and uttering the word "shit" not much happens and I felt that same sense of boredom when I read The Exorcist. I guess exorcisms in general are boring affairs.
Russell populates this book with minor characters who's only purpose is that of filler, they really do nothing to move the story along.
I don't know if this book was considered frightening or shocking in 1962 but I do know that in 2016 its neither.
Poor Alice, her life is no wonderland. Her father is a cruel and abusive man and after her mother's death Alice becomes a full time servant for her father and his live in strumpet, Rosa. Her father so despises her that he sends her off to be the companion of his former assistant's mother in the hopes that he never has to see her again. After a distressing episode Alice learns she has a special talent and when she has to return to her father's home he learns of it too and decides to exploit it to a disastrous end.
This was my first time reading Barbara Comyns and what a good introduction it was.
