Lolly Willowes (Penguin Modern Classics)

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Her novels include Mr Fortune's Maggot, The True Heart, Summer Will Show, After the Death of Don Juan, The Corner That Held Them and The Flint Anchor. I enjoyed her stories and writing style, and always meant to get around to reading more of her stuff. When I think of witches, I seem to see all over England, all over Europe, women living and growing old, as common as blackberries, and as unregarded. That seems kind of silly, but considering when this was written it is logical that this should happen.

So yes a feminist novel and while the final third is quite strange and didn’t quite work for me (I didn’t see why being a witch meant Satanism), it was a satisfying read. When out walking, she makes a pact with a force that she takes to be Satan, to be free from such duties. Because of the fine dust of the system of obligations he inherited from a generation wrapped up in values like Lolly’s, I really don’t think I officially met my dad as a person until I turned 21. Her father was a house-master at Harrow School and was, for many years, associated with the prestigious Harrow History Prize which was renamed the Townsend Warner History Prize in his honor, after his death in 1916. What a lovely defense of demanding and then enacting a life lived fully and deliciously and—take the term in whatever sense you prefer— queerly too.

She structures Laura’s story to carry her readers along with Laura’s awakening to her own desires and powers. It tells the story of Laura Willowes (“Lolly”), a very independent aging spinster (I dislike that word but that’s the word they use in the book) who lives in England with her brother and his family. It’s an excellent book, one of the most surprising and unexpected delights of my reading year to date. It’s very well-written and has this kin of wry sense of humor, while still managing to convey a sense of eeriness. It was scarcely audible, more perceptible as feeling than as sound, but by its regularity it dominated all the other voices.

The fantastical elements in the last third of the book are nicely done, encouraging the reader to go with the flow at the appropriate moments – and there are some beautiful passages of descriptive writing too, especially in the author’s portrayal of the natural world. I think you’d like it a lot – you just need to be willing to suspend disbelief when the story changes tack. This book is about witches, but mostly my first wish was that my dad decided to be a warlock a long time ago. Sylvia Townsend Warner's relationship with her American readers was cemented in 1929 when she was appointed guest editor of the New York Herald Tribune and subsequently became a long-term contributor of short stories to the New Yorker. Somehow, that age was like Aurora’s sixteenth birthday and triggered a magic spell that meant that “duty” could be relaxed a little- only a little, and only gradually, but it happened.The novel opens at the turn of the twentieth century, with Laura Willowes moving from Somerset to London to live with her brother Henry and his family. Laura Willowes (to allow her, her given name) is a dutiful unmarried daughter of twenty eight when her beloved father dies. I whole heartedly support the underlying philosophy or driving force of this book - proving a woman should have space of her own, a vote, a life, even if she deigns to stay single, etc. While she proves herself to be a reliable and trustworthy companion, Laura is often left feeling somewhat inadequate and taken for granted. It took a glowing review of a reprint of Summer Will Show in The Nation magazine to make me take the plunge and I’m glad I did.