Book Review: Mariana (1940) by Monica Dickens #1940Club

Today I have my review of Mariana by Monica Dickens, my second pick for the #1940Club hosted by Karen at Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings, and Simon at Stuck in a Book.

A coming-of-age story and a story of finding love, with plenty of humour, a range of interesting (some the slightest bit eccentric) characters, and some wonderful writing, Mariana (1940) by Monica Dickens was an engaging and delightful read all through.

As the book opens, we meet Mary as a young woman who has come away from London to Little Creek End (with Bingo the dog) for a weekend of solitude as her husband is away at the war. But news of a ship that has been sunk sends her into a spiral of anxiety causing her to reflect on the paths her life has taken so far. Young Mary had lost her own father (whom she hardly knew) to the Great War and was brought up by her mother Mrs Shannon whose chose to earn her own living (first teaching dressmaking and then joining, partnering in and eventually taking over a dress shop) rather than rely on her wealthy father-in-law who offered help, and uncle Geoffrey Payne, an actor, initially on the stage and who later makes his way to Hollywood. She has a fairly happy childhood doing okay at school but really revelling in the vacations spent at her grandparents’ country home Charbury House, where she and her cousins, including the handsome and domineering Denys (to whom she considers herself engaged) fill their time with games and dares. Her moment of triumph in these halcyon days comes when she writes a play (being dubbed a genius by her uncle Geoffrey) which the cousins put on causing their audience to laugh ‘in all the right places and not too many of the wrong ones’.

Time passes and Mary grows, seeking unlike her mother, a conservative life with marriage and lots of children (twenty-six, she says at one point), but love is elusive, coming and going, bringing with it its fair share of heartbreak. In the meantime, things must be done and Mary finds her way to drama school which turns out not quite what she expected and from which she (like Monica Dickens herself) finds herself thrown out (though I don’t know if Dickens’ exit was as colourful as Mary’s) and then to learning dressmaking in Paris (so as to be of help in her mother’s shop). And so, Mary’s adventures and misadventures see her in different places and training for and taking some interesting ‘jobs’ (like chauffeuring her mother’s client), as she navigates the worlds of childhood and young adulthood, searching ultimately for love.

This was an absolutely delightful book to read, with Dickens’ wonderful writing standing out right from the start, and staying just that way all through the book. (As always, I lost track while reading and only ended up highlighting one little passage right at the start)

Her mother did not understand that she wanted to brood; she did not want distraction. She wanted to fill her waiting time with thoughts of him, and to keep herself aloof, as if she were holding herself in trust until he returned.

While capturing the many phases and moods of Mary’s life, whether the carefree and largely happy days of childhood to heartbreak and wrong decisions in love at other points, the book manages to stay light in tone through most of it, except for a brief moment towards the end where one’s heart does skip a beat wondering whether it is changing direction, but luckily it doesn’t! Humour is also woven through the book, both in the writing and some fun incidents. But amidst this lightness, graver themes and moments of life (whether death, heartbreak or the need for solitude) are explored as well.

Love or rather the search for it is a central thread running through the book, and while we essentially follow Mary’s journey as she makes some of the usual mistakes, other characters too find their own share of it (there are some fun surprises here). When love does find Mary, it does so in an unexpected way, and yet I enjoyed how everything falls into place—dreamlike yet firmly on the ground.

We have plenty of likeable characters from Mrs Shannon who is a very likeable person to the fun Uncle Geoffrey (who on one occasion takes Mary out to dinner and ends up with his own crowd), Mary’s grandmother Shannon, wonderful with her and who has a chocolate for each of the grandchildren every evening, or even her slightly eccentric grandmother Payne (who drops Mary’s engagement ring into the dark recesses under her bed). There are also a range of relatives whom we encounter off and on, and whose lives too we end up following to some extent.

Mary is a heroine who, like any real-life person, journeys through childhood and youth with the usual occurrences and bumps in the road (friendships, family, homework and exams, falling in and out love); exploring life and taking right paths and wrong, and someone one sympathises with all along.  I enjoyed following her life into which Dickens weaves in Tennyson’s poem Mariana. This was my first time reading a novel by Monica Dickens, though I have previously read One Pair of Hands (1939) by her and it won’t be my last. Without realising it, it seems I have started her works in the order they were published (and I have her third book One Pair of Feet waiting too)!

Incidentally, the ending of this one is described as ambiguous, but I thought there was a bit fat hint which made things fairly clear.

Bookish coincidences: This was the second book in my recent reading (How Green Was My Valley, read last month was the other) where we have characters struggling with (well, in the first it was only working on) those wretched maths problems involving taps fillings tanks or tubs with water. I started liking maths only long after I finished school and began exploring it on my own, but those tubs, never ever!

The second was the fox hunt, which was also a small part of my last read The Children of Cherry Tree Farm with both Mary in this book and the children there disapproving of and commenting on its cruelty.