Status
Available
Call number
Genres
Collection
Publication
NYRB Classics (2001), Paperback, 328 pages
Description
A ruthless satire of power struggles and petty economies, Manservant and Maidservant exposes the violence and cruelty at the core of Victorian family life.
User reviews
LibraryThing member gayla.bassham
So much dialogue I felt like I was reading a play! Very dark humor. Not entirely successful, but still interesting, and I enjoyed it more than most of what I've been reading lately.
LibraryThing member NinieB
Another book very different from what I normally read. I’m glad to finally understand why Ivy Compton-Burnett’s novels tend to polarize readers. Where I fall, though, I’m not sure of yet, as I found the book both A bit of a slog and fascinating at the same time. George was my favorite
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character; I enjoyed his rebelliousness. Show Less
LibraryThing member therebelprince
A bewildering novel by a bewildering author. Perhaps my own impression was only 3 stars but I feel I must award a 4th for sheer success of concept.
As other reviewers have summarised, Horace Lamb is a dismissive, uncaring gentleman from an era long past, whose wife can't stand him, servants find
This is my first Compton-Burnett novel and it seems clear that plot, as such, is not at the top of her priority list. This is a conversational novel, and a stylised one at that. Writing between the wars (i.e. long after the Victorian and Edwardian eras she depicts), Compton-Burnett creates a highly artificial, ironic world in which prose and narrative voice are sparse, and dialogue must carry the day. From the housekeeper to the youngest child, everyone's speech is arch, poisonous, and proverbial. (A tone once described by Hal Prince, of his musical A Little Night Music as being "knives dipped in icing sugar".) It feels almost like the achievement of pointillist painting, where the eye makes the colours mingle; here, the reader must make the dialogue serve for all of the other parts of writing too. "Charlotte", says Horace at one point," I have not spoken to you of the thing that is between us. It may be that I shall not speak of it." Elsewhere, to quote the character of Gideon, "My feelings are not easy; they go deep like everything about me."
Everything both high and ironic, rather like the older way of translating the Greek tragedies.
This structure has clearly confused a range of readers here on Goodreads, who have decided that Ms Compton-Burnett can't have known what she was doing. "No-one speaks like that!" cries a popular refrain, which suggests these armchair critics have never read Austen or Dickens, Pynchon or Hardy, and yet have somehow progressed to this obscure novelist from the early 20th century.
It will surprise no-one to hear that this book is hard-going. I think Ms Compton-Burnett, whose personal history you should also look up, was hard-going in general. Yet I'm glad to have finally made my way through one of her volumes. This is a book that almost cries out to be read aloud, with the subtleties of dialogue somewhat lost over the generations but still an intriguing experiment if nothing else. Will you enjoy it? If you enjoy extreme stylisation and narrative playfulness, perhaps yes. In the NYRB Classics edition, Diane Johnson's introduction refers to Manservant and Maidservant as a "noir version" of the British drama series Upstairs, Downstairs. It's a deeply strange comparison but, I think, rather apt.
As other reviewers have summarised, Horace Lamb is a dismissive, uncaring gentleman from an era long past, whose wife can't stand him, servants find
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unappealing (when they're not outright attempting to kill him), and whose children seem to have grown old before their time. (If I take nothing from this, it will be a desire to use such names as Avery, Tamasin, and Jasper for any future unlucky children I may sire!). Horace's turning point is discovering how everyone feels about him, leading to an attempted change of personality, juxtaposed with the minor antics of his extended household.This is my first Compton-Burnett novel and it seems clear that plot, as such, is not at the top of her priority list. This is a conversational novel, and a stylised one at that. Writing between the wars (i.e. long after the Victorian and Edwardian eras she depicts), Compton-Burnett creates a highly artificial, ironic world in which prose and narrative voice are sparse, and dialogue must carry the day. From the housekeeper to the youngest child, everyone's speech is arch, poisonous, and proverbial. (A tone once described by Hal Prince, of his musical A Little Night Music as being "knives dipped in icing sugar".) It feels almost like the achievement of pointillist painting, where the eye makes the colours mingle; here, the reader must make the dialogue serve for all of the other parts of writing too. "Charlotte", says Horace at one point," I have not spoken to you of the thing that is between us. It may be that I shall not speak of it." Elsewhere, to quote the character of Gideon, "My feelings are not easy; they go deep like everything about me."
Everything both high and ironic, rather like the older way of translating the Greek tragedies.
This structure has clearly confused a range of readers here on Goodreads, who have decided that Ms Compton-Burnett can't have known what she was doing. "No-one speaks like that!" cries a popular refrain, which suggests these armchair critics have never read Austen or Dickens, Pynchon or Hardy, and yet have somehow progressed to this obscure novelist from the early 20th century.
It will surprise no-one to hear that this book is hard-going. I think Ms Compton-Burnett, whose personal history you should also look up, was hard-going in general. Yet I'm glad to have finally made my way through one of her volumes. This is a book that almost cries out to be read aloud, with the subtleties of dialogue somewhat lost over the generations but still an intriguing experiment if nothing else. Will you enjoy it? If you enjoy extreme stylisation and narrative playfulness, perhaps yes. In the NYRB Classics edition, Diane Johnson's introduction refers to Manservant and Maidservant as a "noir version" of the British drama series Upstairs, Downstairs. It's a deeply strange comparison but, I think, rather apt.
Show Less
Subjects
Language
Original publication date
1947
Physical description
328 p.; 7.98 inches
ISBN
0940322633 / 9780940322639