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description=Mostly books, with a little wine writing on the side;

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mean melissa nodded she doesn t deceive herself she is the more in love of the two i think she knows it i am not sure that she is going to be happy but she will never deceive herself she may be sorry she married him but she will never be sorry that she loved p 32 but despite melissa s concerns for her friend kennedy lets us know that lucy is entering this marriage with her eyes open having already learnt of patrick s shortcomings she lucy had loved him from the first meeting long before she knew that inner history his disgust his self contempt his degrading infatuation for jane lucas his half hearted schemes for escape for another life she did not love him because she knew all this she knew all this because she loved him p 38 as revealed in the first line of the novel s blurb patrick fails to show up at the church on his wedding day abandoning lucy and her family to clear up the mess in spite of her obvious devastation lucy is sufficiently level headed to know that a move to pastures new would be the best way to start afresh somewhere where no one knows her relationship history and humiliating rejection through a tip off from a college friend lucy lands a job at an arts institute in ravonsbridge a small town in severnshire well away from the gossips of goring in her new role with the institute s drama department lucy is plunged into a complex web of petty internal politics and underhand manoeuvres involving the organisation s staff council members and longstanding patron lady frances millwood who is likened to jane austen s lady catherine de bourgh but with heart having been established by lady frances late husband matthew millwood the institute aims to provide first rate concerts plays and arts education to the local community as the novel unfolds there is no shortage of developments to keep lucy occupied from managing the institute s production of hamlet when a senior colleague goes abroad to a romantic entanglement with lady frances son charles who becomes increasingly smitten with the new arrival as the weeks pass in particular she derives genuine satisfaction from helping quite ordinary people to produce something remarkable in a small provincial setting but internal politics at the institute prove particularly trying for all concerned and before long lucy with her upstanding principles and values ruffles some feathers amongst the powerful higher ups much to their annoyance central to the novel is the question of whether lucy should settle for the security of marriage with someone she doesn t truly love or hold out for the one even though her ideal match might never come along frustratingly she would have patrick back in a heartbeat if he ever reappeared kennedy keeps us guessing about lucy s future until the closing chapters nevertheless fans of a hopeful ending will find it satisfying i think the class divide is another key theme and kennedy explores this through tensions between owen rees a talented actor from the working class sector of town and lady frances son charles firmly a member of the upper class milieu both owen and charles are attracted to lucy albeit in different respects which adds to the antagonism between them the novel is at its strongest however when focusing on human nature particularly lucy s inner feelings as she tries to recover her sense of self kennedy has a keen understanding of human behaviour and there are several perceptive insights into rejection resilience and happiness hiding amongst the pretty politics at ravonsbridge and other secondary storylines but lucy s heart was unoccupied since the sorrowful ghost of patrick had ceased to haunt it friends lodged there and enjoyed its generous hospitality but no one called it home p 430 lucy s relationship with melissa is lively caring and beautifully drawn so much so that i would have liked less ravonsbridge politics and more interactions between the two college friends to add spark and genuine insight at melissa s wedding for instance everyone remarks on how well lucy is looking the unspoken implication being that she is bearing up adequately despite the trauma of being jilted at the altar nevertheless these well meaning comments have the opposite effect as they leave lucy wondering if she will ever be free of this awful stigma he john like everybody else was determined to remember her trouble just when he had every excuse for forgetting it there was to be no escape where she was known she must take it about with her like a label which nobody would allow her to remove she had thought that she would remember long after everyone else had forgotten but it seemed as though things might turn out the other way she herself could now go for days at a time without any painful recollections while to all these people she was permanently an object of compassion p 209 there are also some beautifully poignant scenes in the novel s opening section as lucy realises that her frequently irritating younger brother stephen is trying to fill their father s shoes by stepping up to the plate in a time of crisis it s heartbreaking for her to observe particularly as the shock of being abandoned by patrick is still sinking in at this point nevertheless the lengthy sections on the institute s internal politics lack focus and are too drawn out there s the makings of a good novel here but it seems in need of a ruthless edit to strip away the unnecessary fat while the novel in its entirety is something of a curate s egg i enjoyed spending time with lucy and melissa and kennedy s observations on life love and the nature of happiness are undoubtedly perceptive i ll finish with a passage from the novel s closing chapters which are beautifully done she had been perfectly happy by herself he had seen that in his first glimpse of her all alone and perfectly happy flying through the wintry fields and now he had come tumbling down the bank wanting to shatter this solitude wanting her never to be happy again unless he was there it was he felt rather tough to be planning to sweep her off her feet in a week it was hardly fair to a girl who could manage to be happy all alone in spite of so much sorrow defeat and humiliation i must never forget it he told himself if she comes i must never forget what she gave up for me p 471 lucy carmichael is published by penguin books personal copy this entry was posted in book reviews kennedy margaret and tagged readwomen book review fiction margaret kennedy penguin books uk on april 2 2026 by jacquiwine woman in the pillory by brigitte reimann tr lucy jones 23 replies a few years ago i read and very much enjoyed siblings an edgy and evocative novella by brigitte reimann one of east germany s foremost writers from the mid 20th century somewhat surprisingly especially given the quality of her prose siblings was the first of reimann s books to be translated and published in english but now we have another novella to enjoy woman in the pillory also ably translated by lucy jones when siblings came out in 1963 it illustrated reimann s ideological belief in the possibility of an egalitarian socialist future in the gdr following the turmoil of the second world war woman in the pillory is however an earlier and more straightforward novella than siblings but if anything i found its clarity of focus and underlying message even more compelling in essence the book is a testament to the importance of showing compassion and humanity to other nationalities in the most testing of circumstances while also illustrating the devastating consequences for families when these values are extinguished in this instance cruelly overridden by heinous nationalist rhetoric published in germany in 1956 pillory is set in a rural german community in 1943 the type of village where everyone closely monitors everyone else s business especially during wartime reimann s primary focus is kathrin marten a sensitive self effacing woman in her late twenties pale thin and delicate by nature kathrin and her husband heinrich have been married for five years but they are not terribly well matched heinrich who we soon discover married kathrin to gain access to her farmland is stocky crude and prejudiced the very opposite of his wife in appearance and temperament while heinrich is away at war fighting the russians on the eastern front his equally overbearing sister frieda rules the roost back at the farm bossing kathrin around as if she were a maid and the property were frieda s own with the women in need of additional labour to maintain the farm heinrich arranges for a russian prisoner of war to be sent to help after all the captive can be locked in the barn at night to ensure he doesn t escape consequently horst lange the local overseer allocates a ukrainian prisoner named alexei to the martens farm at first kathrin is wary of alexei having heard rumours of brutality elsewhere a misguided view fuelled by frieda s determination to brand the russians as half human no better than animals who need to be watched if anything frieda seems to enjoy working alexei to the bone admonishing kathrin for suggesting they give him a blanket to keep out the cold at night there will be no mollycoddling of prisoners as long as frieda is in charge of the house meanwhile alexei simply accepts his fate working hard and saying as little as possible to avoid rocking the boat one day when alexei spontaneously helps kathrin with a heavy load she sees the humanity behind the veneer of his status as a pow despite losing his entire family to the war alexei remains idealistic touchingly hopeful for the emergence of a new more positive kind of society once the conflict is over these glimpses of benevolence give rise to a dilemma in kathrin s mind should she show some compassion towards alexei even though he is russian and an enemy of her country or should she side with frieda by treating him like a slave unsurprisingly particularly given kathrin s sympathetic nature decency and morality win through and she warms to alexei treating him with dignity as they go about their work he looked at her and for a moment the apathy and stoicism vanished from his face he smiled confused and shocked not knowing where to look kathrin quickly turned away the man left and she could hear his footsteps on the flagstones in the entrance hall alongside the hammering of her heart the russian was singing kathrin hadn t sung for a long time not since she was a little girl but ever since she d moved to this house she d fallen silent in the yard the stranger s song was dark mournful it seemed both familiar and unfamiliar to kathrin at the same time p 12 slowly but surely a tender relationship develops between kathrin and alexei mostly through shared private moments when frieda is out of sight in due course this friendship blossoms into love throwing the emotionally strained nature of kathrin s relationship with her husband heinrich into sharp relief in short alexei is everything that heinrich is not sensitive loving compassionate and humane from then on the prisoner of war and the farmer s wife sat on the upturned trough next to the pump every evening talking or sitting together in silence there was a lot of work to do in may and time was racing on but despite their exhaustion they still found time for that one hour of the day and spent the other twenty three hours living for it they called what they felt for each other friendship and sometimes they even believed that friendship was what they felt for each other p 46 when kathrin receives word of heinrich s achievements on the front the remorseless slaughter of entire villages women and children included she is disgusted and pledges her heart to alexei in a shared vision of their future but despite these glimmers of hope we sense a reckoning on the horizon of kathrin and alexei especially given the novella s ominous title as talk of the pair s closeness spreads throughout the village it is only a matter of time before the lovers are discovered in a compromising position cleaving open their privacy to the condemnation of others when kathrin marten walked down the road to the baker s she was followed by furtive looks she s got a skip in her step today she s got her chin up what a bright blouse she s wearing some women stopped her and tried to draw her into conversation not bothering to hide their insinuations how was the prisoner getting along was she satisfied p 69 reimann skilfully exposes the inherent hypocrisy in german society here why for instance is it considered an honour for german women to sleep with ss officers and bear their children while relationships with prisoners of war or foreign nationals are branded as betrayals surely emotions as natural as love and desire should transcend national and racial boundaries otherwise what hope for humanity remains in a strictly segregated world there are other references to double standards too not least heinrich s determination for his own farm to prosper while he willingly destroys the lives and livelihoods of his russian contemporaries on the battlefield kathrin said harshly can you make sense of it all heinrich takes care of his fields and when he s on leave he slaves away to keep everything running smoothly only to set off and destroy fields in another country and burn down other people s farms it s all so hard to understand p 56 despite the slim nature of this book reimann manages to convey some excellent character development here especially in her portrayal of kathrin who blossoms from a slight submissive creature to a stronger more assertive woman as her relationship with alexei deepens it s a joy to see her standing up to frieda who has grown increasingly bitter and small minded as her own prospects for happiness have dwindled kathrin said i m the head of the house not you frieda you re only here on sufferance you understand for far too long you ve been ordering me around and now that s over for good i m the one who s going to run things around here from now on and i say that the russian eats at our table if you don t like it you can leave p 36 moreover reimann carefully avoids making her characters seem too black or white both henrich and frieda are shown to experience conflicting emotions from time to time hinting at more morally complex and nuanced values than might be apparent at first sight there are glimmers of soul searching and remorse here even if these regrets are secondary to racism the minor characters are nicely drawn too particularly kathrin s friend trude the local district nurse who has lost loved ones in the war more worldly wise than kathrin trude warns her friend of the dangers of forming any kind of attachment to alexei not because she is prejudiced in fact the opposite is true but because she doesn t want kathrin to be tortured a cruel inevitability if a transgression is suspected but still kathrin you have to be careful in this country among these people even friendship is dangerous he s a russian after all a...