Diary of...
Apr. 22nd, 2007 11:42 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lizwilliamsI know that there will be people on the f-list who are familiar with this, but in a second hand bookshop on Friday I found a cheap copy of E M Delafield's DIARY OF A PROVINCIAL LADY. I've not read this before, although my mother has a copy.
It was written in 1930 and serialised - a kind of between-the-wars Bridget Jones, only funnier (BJ annoyed me, it must be said). The PL, who is not named, lives in Devon, is married with 2 kids and a non-communicative husband, has several disastrous animals and keeps getting overdraft statements from the bank, which means that she has to sneak out and pawn things. She's also an aspiring writer and gets to go up to London occasionally and attend literary bashes, which are pretty similar to the sort of things we have now. At one, she meets a serious young man in horn-rimmed spectacles who has written a modern novel. Afterwards, her hostess takes her aside and hisses 'DID you manage to talk to him about perversion? He's really terribly amusing about it.' Alas, all anyone talks to the PL about is stag-hunting, since she lives in the country.
It reads almost exactly like someone's LJ - the contemporary equivalent, I suppose. There are obvious differences- the PL has servants, like most people of her class at the time, but the kind of maids who react with smouldering disapproval if asked to do something unusual, like bring tea for late guests, and who flounce off the next morning. The PL's small daughter, meanwhile, specialises in learning swear words.
It's written in a very dry, wry and sometimes frankly acid manner. Highly recommended.
It was written in 1930 and serialised - a kind of between-the-wars Bridget Jones, only funnier (BJ annoyed me, it must be said). The PL, who is not named, lives in Devon, is married with 2 kids and a non-communicative husband, has several disastrous animals and keeps getting overdraft statements from the bank, which means that she has to sneak out and pawn things. She's also an aspiring writer and gets to go up to London occasionally and attend literary bashes, which are pretty similar to the sort of things we have now. At one, she meets a serious young man in horn-rimmed spectacles who has written a modern novel. Afterwards, her hostess takes her aside and hisses 'DID you manage to talk to him about perversion? He's really terribly amusing about it.' Alas, all anyone talks to the PL about is stag-hunting, since she lives in the country.
It reads almost exactly like someone's LJ - the contemporary equivalent, I suppose. There are obvious differences- the PL has servants, like most people of her class at the time, but the kind of maids who react with smouldering disapproval if asked to do something unusual, like bring tea for late guests, and who flounce off the next morning. The PL's small daughter, meanwhile, specialises in learning swear words.
It's written in a very dry, wry and sometimes frankly acid manner. Highly recommended.
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Date: 2007-04-22 01:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-22 01:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-22 02:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-22 05:39 pm (UTC)Oz
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Date: 2007-04-22 06:29 pm (UTC)I loved PL, but I will admit that the story also saddened me a little. Talk about someone who needed a different life. Different husband.