The Long View

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In the night she woke, and all the time of her life seemed concentrated on the moment of waking, and all the meaning of her existence on her being deeply, irrevocably, in love. Elizabeth Jane Howard - obituary". The Telegraph. 2 January 2014. ISSN 0307-1235 . Retrieved 17 February 2018.

Originally published in 1956, The Long View is Elizabeth Jane Howard's uncannily authentic portrait of one marriage and one woman. Observant and heartbreaking, written with exhilarating wit, it is a gut-wrenching account of the birth and death of a relationship - as extraordinary as it is timeless. Partecipazione, non immedesimazione. È sicuramente un romanzo imperfetto, ma mi ha coinvolto sia con la storia sia con la scrittura, davvero elegante, sottile, puntuale.You should be more discriminating in the flattery you require. Or if that is beyond you, more selective as to time".

Adams, Matthew (3–4 June 2017). "Talent and torment". The Sydney Morning Herald . Retrieved 4 September 2017. He never deprecated his wife, even by implication. He simply added, as it were, another storey to the structure of his personality, and invited the lady in question to put herself temporarily in possession: there she might perch precariously, in what she could be easily persuaded was an isolated castle in a rich and strange air". The book has an autobiographical feel. Toni begins as a complete innocent about male female relationships, as is, 30 years later, the woman that Mrs Fleming’s son is to marry. Her daughter is less innocent in that she has become pregnant, but it’s surely innocence as well as foolishness that leads her to go off with the old, loving boyfriend. Perhaps all women (and all men?) begin in state of innocence still, but I think that the position of women has changed radically—it is perhaps the biggest change of the last century.

Cooper, Artemis ‘’Elizabeth Jane Howard: A Dangerous Innocence’’, London: John Murray (2016), p.260. Narrato come un percorso a ritroso, “Il lungo sguardo della scrittriceElizabeth Jane Howard mostra, attraverso la narrazione della famiglia della Antonia, le costrizioni di un matrimionio subito, una condizione matrimoniale scelta come fuga da una terribile famiglia di origine ma diventata un’altra prigione con un marito silenzioso, disinnamorato ma fedele alle convinzioni sociali, padre pessimo incapace di affetto nei confronti dei figli, perennemente critico nei confronti della moglie cinico e silenzioso con le amanti .

The trouble with human relations is that the damned ball is always rolling, or in the air, never peacefully in charge of one person. This quotation is the very definition of the writing style in this book. Is this entire book a stream of consciousness from Mr. Fleming? A biography, entitled Elizabeth Jane Howard: A Dangerous Innocence by Artemis Cooper, was published by John Murray in 2017. A reviewer said it was "strongest in the case it makes for the virtues of Howard's fiction". [10] Personal life [ edit ] Howard's father was Major David Liddon Howard MC (1896–1958), a timber merchant who followed the work of his own father, Alexander Liddon Howard (1863-1946). [ citation needed] Her mother was Katharine Margaret ('Kit') Somervell (1895–1975), a dancer with Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes and daughter of composer Sir Arthur Somervell. [2] [3] (Howard's brother, Colin, lived with her and her third husband, Kingsley Amis, for 17 years.) [4] Mostly educated at home, Howard briefly attended Francis Holland School before attending domestic-science college at Ebury Street and secretarial college in central London. [3] Career [ edit ]I debated whether to give this 3 or 4 stars ⭐️ because as ever EJH’s writing is wonderful , but I decided on 3 because I just found it so depressing ! First published in 1956 it’s a story of a break down of a marriage on reverse , it wasn’t This I found depressing even though Conrad Fleming was a complete chauvinistic pig! It was the way older man so readily and easily prayed on young women and how young women weren’t taken seriously by either sexes of the older generation. Now after reading her memoir slipstream I think 🤔 mr & Mrs Fleming were based on her own parents, apart from Mrs Fleming being less Frigid as her real mother as the fling with Thompson in mariselle , France was some of the best writing. Ejh was abused by her own father and some of Conrad’s personality traits are copied from him (in my opinion) apart from ejhs own father loved women and was a serial charmer . Where as Conrad Fleming treats all women and The Chronicles were a family saga "about the ways in which English life changed during the war years, particularly for women." They follow three generations of a middle-class English family and draw strongly from Howard's own life and memories. [7] The first four volumes, The Light Years, Marking Time, Confusion, and Casting Off, were published from 1990 to 1995. Howard wrote the fifth, All Change (2013), in one year; it was her final novel. Millions of copies of the Cazalet Chronicles were sold worldwide. [1] Perhaps it is just that by the second half of the book I could hardly bear to be around Conrad and the damage he wreaks but I found the story weaker and less compelling than the first half. However, Howard is a very strong writer and even at her weakest greatly interesting. I’m just glad to be away from this suffocating world in which relationships are something to be avoided (not that living alone looks good either). Antonia Fleming surely deserves better than what she got. The Long View by Elizabeth Jane Howard is a brilliantly written but ultimately depressing story of a marriage. When we meet the Flemings they are ”celebrating” the engagement of their son who is entering a marriage that looks like it will replicate the disaster that is his parents’. After reading this story of Conrad, an interesting but selfish, difficult, and unlikable man, and his wife, Antonia, who searches for his approval over what feels like a lifetime, anyone might pause before getting married. It's a heartbreaking read but oh the skill of Howard showing every emotional nuance so that you experience all of it directly yourself.

Aveva sempre saputo che suo marito non le era fedele, credeva però che i suoi interessi fossero così superficiali da non costituire una seria minaccia alla loro vita insieme. E poi c’erano le reiterate sconfitte; giorno dopo giorno, quando lui entrava in camera, lei sapeva che la situazione era sempre la stessa e che perciò era, a dispetto di ogni logica, peggiore. A volte le sembrava di odiarlo: a volte le sembrava di amarlo tanto da poter avvizzire e morire sotto la sferza silenziosa della sua indifferenza. Si aggrappava sempre a lui o a se stessa, non ce la faceva ad affrontare la somma dei rispettivi sentimenti. Costruiva questi steccati per difendersi dalle umiliazioni.“ Antonia resiste , resiste fedele alla scelta compiuta, inamovibile nonostante sia intrisa bicchieri di whsky . resiste in un matrimonio che è coperto da cappe di silenzio come coperte a tensioni continue. The first section of the book is set in 1950. Mrs Fleming is married to an impossible man—conceited, rude, selfish, arrogant, and uncaring. The only man in the book who is not in some way a monster is her father, a man who cares not about the present but about 16th century social customs, is mostly reading in his library, and ignores the silly ways of his promiscuous wife. He is loved by Toni, as we later learn Mrs Fleming to be called, primarily because she hates her mother. Howard paints a portrait of life (and marriage) in mid-20th century London. Her depiction of the society in which the Flemings live and the incisive examination of their marriage can be amusing. As written by Howard, it seems to be a time when a man marries under the illusion that he can take the raw material that he perceives as his wife and shape her into something pleasing to him. Antonia’s willingness to accept this situation and her continual striving for Conrad’s love also seems to belong to another time. But the sadness of a world in which love seems impossible and marriage at best a waste of people’s lives and at worst the opportunity for people to destroy someone (or themselves), becomes increasingly painful. Three Miles Up and Other Strange Stories. 2003. ISBN 978-1-872621-75-3. (Contains the three stories included in We Are for the Dark, plus "Mr Wrong".)In 1950s London, Antonia Fleming faces the prospect of a life lived alone. Her children are now adults; her husband Conrad, a domineering and emotionally complex man, is now a stranger. She was a nice, ignorant, unimaginative girl, designed perfectly to reproduce herself; and regarding her, Mr Fleming, found it difficult to believe in The Origin of the Species One of his secret pleasures was the loading of social dice against himself. He did not seem for one moment to consider the efforts made by kind or sensitive people to even things up: or if such notions ever occurred to him, he would have observed them with detached amusement, and reloaded more dice. The Light Years and Marking Time were serialised by Cinema Verity for BBC Television as The Cazalets in 2001. A BBC Radio 4 version in 45 episodes was also broadcast from 2012. [7] a b c Beauman, Nicola (3 January 2014). "Elizabeth Jane Howard: Writer". The Independent . Retrieved 17 February 2018.