Status
Available
Call number
Genres
Publication
New York: Viking, 1984
Description
In this potent tale of love and loneliness, Elizabeth Jolley has woven two parallel stories into a dazzlingly original novel. Arabella Thorne is a brilliant, witty and accomplished woman. The exotic tale of this flamboyant eccentric and her European travels - with jealous secretary and shy schoolgirl protégée - is the inheritance that transforms the uneventful suburban life of Miss Peabody.
User reviews
LibraryThing member stillatim
More than a few reviews of this delightful novel deduct points because the characters are mostly lesbians. To which I can only shake my head in bafflement. Who are these people?
Anyway, this is a wonderful comic novel wrapped up in a meta-fictional frame that adds just enough to justify itself.
The meta-narrative features the Australian novelist writing the above book in letters to a fan in England. The novelist (fairly obviously Thorne) is not so subtely seducing her reader (somewhat like the student, somewhat like the life-partner) from afar. Literary critics, here is your mud; go to it like pigs, but beware the ending.
There's even a joke about writing in the present tense, something I've previously complained about in Jolley's work. Touche, Liz, touche.
Anyway, this is a wonderful comic novel wrapped up in a meta-fictional frame that adds just enough to justify itself.
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First, the comic novel: Miss Arabella Thorne (note the hyper-Trollopian name) runs a boarding school in Australia, falls for her students, takes one to Europe, is generally unpleasant to her jealous life-partner, then gets taught a lesson in jealousy herself. It's wonderful, it's funny, it's moderately thought provoking. It's Oscar Wilde. The meta-narrative features the Australian novelist writing the above book in letters to a fan in England. The novelist (fairly obviously Thorne) is not so subtely seducing her reader (somewhat like the student, somewhat like the life-partner) from afar. Literary critics, here is your mud; go to it like pigs, but beware the ending.
There's even a joke about writing in the present tense, something I've previously complained about in Jolley's work. Touche, Liz, touche.
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LibraryThing member starbox
My second read by the wonderful Ms Jolley- and, as expected, it's weird, hilarious and unputdownable.
Miss Peabody is a sad old London spinster, her life devoted to a job in an office and caring for a sick mother. One day she writes to the Australian author of a novel she just enjoyed...and receives
The enthusiastic letters from the other side of the world include instalments of a story- an Australian boarding school headmistress, a couple of lesbian colleagues- one as much of a wet weekend as Miss Peabody- and a couple of the "gels" embark on a European tour
As the group hit London, Miss Peabody is so caught up in the story that she looks for them in the crowd...
Quite fabulous.
Miss Peabody is a sad old London spinster, her life devoted to a job in an office and caring for a sick mother. One day she writes to the Australian author of a novel she just enjoyed...and receives
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a reply.The enthusiastic letters from the other side of the world include instalments of a story- an Australian boarding school headmistress, a couple of lesbian colleagues- one as much of a wet weekend as Miss Peabody- and a couple of the "gels" embark on a European tour
As the group hit London, Miss Peabody is so caught up in the story that she looks for them in the crowd...
Quite fabulous.
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Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
1983
Physical description
157 p.; 23 cm
ISBN
0670479527 / 9780670479528