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Elizabeth Jane Howard Slipstream

PostPosted: Fri Aug 22, 2014 11:54 am
by jasperjoffe
Memoir. Quite sad. Although adored by various male luminaries, they rarely satisfied. To be a woman in last century was to be groped and patronised, and it seems she was rather lonely in the end. Made me realise something about Kingsley Amis, author of one great books: Lucky Jim, that his characters constant complaints about poor alcohol supply probably reflect hosts reluctance to release a drunken right-wing boor (Amis). Back to Howard, it left me melancholy: marriages, and houses, and easy infidelities, and mismatched people. In the old days you'd just drop off your kid with a family friend and see them again when they got married. There was less sentimentality and less happiness, perhaps.