Skip to main content

Review: Devoted Ladies, by Molly Keane


Pages: 303

Original date of publication: 1934

My edition: 1984 (Virago)

Why I decided to read: Read this for Virago Reading Week

How I acquired my copy: The Book Trader, October 2010

I’ve been really up and down with Molly Keane’s books. On one hand, I loved The Rising Tide and Taking Chances; on the other, I really didn’t like Loving Without Tears or this one. This is the story of the friendship between two women in London (and then, in true Molly Keane fashion, a decaying old estate in Ireland). Jane is a weak-willed woman who is caught between her friendship with Jessica and her budding relationship with George Playfair; Jessica is controlling and manipulative.

Neither of the two main characters is particularly likable, which made it hard for me to care what ultimately happened to them. Jane is practically a doormat and not that smart; Jessica gets herself involved in everybody else’s life, which I found irritating to the extreme. Their relationship is passionate, stormy, and I couldn’t quite see why they were friends in the first place. I also didn’t like Piggy, and not because of the lesbian element; I just didn’t care for her character all that much.

Molly Keane had a very sharp sense of humor; sarcasm practically drips off the page, especially when they characters talk about each other. Sarcasm and wit is one thing, but I thought the excess was a bit too over the top. However, I did like some of Keane’s characterizations, especially Albert the (gay) manservant. In addition, much of the story takes place through dialogue; there’s not much action, which makes this novel a bit hard to follow at times. It’s too bad I didn’t like this one, but since I have the rest of Molly Keane’s oeuvre on the TBR shelf, I’m going to soldier on.

Labels:

Comments

Ann said…
This comment has been removed by the author.
February 16, 2011 at 2:19 PM
Ann said…
Don't you hate it when that happens? A fav author who doesn't quite deliver on a book? I had the same with Paullina Simons - loved all of her books until the latest one which took me a whole summer to get through...painful!
I haven't read any of Molly Keane - what would you recommend I start with?
February 16, 2011 at 2:20 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Another giveaway

This time, the publicist at WW Norton sent me two copies of The Glass of Time , by Michael Cox--so I'm giving away the second copy. Cox is the author of The Meaning of Night, and this book is the follow-up to that. Leave a comment here to enter to win it! The deadline is next Sunday, 10/5/08.
194 comments
Read more

A giveaway winner, and another giveaway

The winner of the Girl in a Blue Dress contest is... Anna, of Diary of An Eccentric ! My new contest is for a copy of The Shape of Mercy , by Susan Meissner. According to Publisher's Weekly : Meissner's newest novel is potentially life-changing, the kind of inspirational fiction that prompts readers to call up old friends, lost loves or fallen-away family members to tell them that all is forgiven and that life is too short for holding grudges. Achingly romantic, the novel features the legacy of Mercy Hayworth—a young woman convicted during the Salem witch trials—whose words reach out from the past to forever transform the lives of two present-day women. These book lovers—Abigail Boyles, elderly, bitter and frail, and Lauren Lars Durough, wealthy, earnest and young—become unlikely friends, drawn together over the untimely death of Mercy, whose precious diary is all that remains of her too short life. And what a diary! Mercy's words not only beguile but help Abigail and Lars...
115 comments
Read more

Review: The Piano Teacher, by Janice Y.K. Lee

The Piano Teacher is a complicated novel. On the surface, it’s about a love affair between two British ex-patriots in Hong Kong in 1952-3. Claire Pendleton comes to Hong Kong with her husband Martin at a time when the world is still recovering from WWII; Claire takes up work as a piano teacher for the daughter of a wealthy Chinese family, where she meets Will Truesdale, the Chens’ enigmatic chauffeur. The book jumps back in time between the 1950s and the beginning of WWII, when Will is interned in Stanley, a Hong Kong camp for enemies of Japan. On “the outside” is Tudy Liang, Will’s beautiful Eurasian lover. There’s no doubt that Lee’s writing is beautiful. But there’s something lacking in this short, terse novel that I can’t quite put my finger on. First, I think it’s the tenses she uses when taking about each story: that which is set in the 1950s is in the past tense, while the war scenes are talked about in the present tense (confusing, no?) The interpersonal relationships of the m...
12 comments
Read more