Chatterton Square

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I was surprised by this book, as I didn't really know anything about EH Young and expected it to be fairly frivolous. While I think Rosamund is probably meant to be the "hero" of the book, for me Mrs Blackett wins on points.

But once it because apparent that Bertha resented her husband for the way he treated her and had always treated her (like she was his possession and she was there to cater to his every whim and fancy and to listen to him blather on and he could give a damn if she had an opinion on something because he was smarter than her and he was a man and she a woman), then E. In reality however, Bertha – who is constantly referred to as Mrs Blackett in the novel – is far smarter than her husband suspects. It’s rare to find this degree of depth and complexity in the creation of four key characters in the same book – Rosamund, Mrs Blackett, Miss Spanner and Mr Blackett (perhaps the most flawed of them all).E. H Young spent close to 300 pages constantly having us being privy to Bertha’s thoughts (I can’t stand my husband, thought in 10,000 different ways [and we have to listen to all 10,000 ways]) and Bertha’s pithy comments to him (10,000 different sarcastic rejoinders to his comments (and we have to listen to all 10,000 rejoinders). H. Young’s other novels, and although it is centered on one of her most memorable characters, Rosamund Frazer, it is both more important and more compelling than any of her previous novels because of the decade which has intervened between it and her others.

The contrast between the Blackett and the Fraser households is stark and rests almost entirely with it’s patriarch. For those of us who have so many choices, it is an interesting reminder of what life didn't offer single women in other eras. Young’s special “timbre” is the result of writing in the best tradition of English fiction and never for a moment forgetting that she is a woman writing in this tradition. You have lots to look forward to with this one, Karen, as the characterisation is particularly strong. Framed by the advance of the Second World War, the subtle mechanics of marriage and love are laid bare through the observation of three of the marital options open to the mid-century woman: unmarried, separated, miserably married.Both women are in unhappy marriages – Rosamund’s husband has left her and she is in love with Piers Lindsay; Bertha’s husband is a conceited, selfish man.