Alana Estelle

It’s been a while since I’ve done an “Under the Radar” post. In these posts, I highlight fantastic books I’ve come across that don’t get the hype they deserve.

On to the 5th installment! 

“I believe that many more miracles take place in the world than we think. You only need to know how to see - how to follow a thread, how to follow the links in a chain of events, not rejecting something merely because it’s improbable, neither jumbling the facts nor forcing your own explanations on them.”

Female Russian author Teffi is a real treat and Subtly Worded, which is a collection of short stories, is such a fun and interesting read. Subtly Worded includes both fiction and non-fiction. This collection includes her accounts meeting both Rasputin and Leo Tolstoy. Teffi’s writing is witty, precise, evocative and at times, down right hilarious. We also get glimpses of Revolutionary Russia. In the short story “Petrograd Monologue”, the narrator cannot stop thinking about how hungry she is. Teffi’s commentary on Rasputin is the highlight to this collection for me. Her descriptions of him are so eerie and mysterious. There is even a more philosophical piece that focuses on old age, death and reflections of one’s life. Fans of Russian lit - this is for you!

“I like what’s uncertain - what’s imperfect. I like what - what breaks out behind the features and is suddenly there and gone again.”

The Weather in the Streets by, Rosamond Lehmann has lived in my head rent free since I read it last year. This is a novel about an adulterous relationship between Olivia Curtis and the married Rollo Spencer. Olivia and Rollo, childhood acquaintances, cross paths in adulthood and quickly pursue a relationship. Rosamond eloquently portrays the reality of leading a double life and the damage that adultery inflicts on the parties involved. Lehmann’s writing is poetic, descriptive, evocative. 

She will often meander from 3rd person to 1st person in the same paragraph and it’s so elegantly done, that I didn’t even realize what she was doing. As one could assume from the title, weather plays a significant role in the narrative. Lehmann is constantly describing the weather and uses this as a device to foreshadow immediate events to come. I was also surprised to detect an existential undertone throughout the book.

“She had been a child then, in the first embrace of belonging, equating love with order and homogeneity, identifying color as the core of character. Now, through falling in love with Meade, she had been forced to admit that identity is not inherent.”

The Wedding by, Dorothy West is a novel about a prominent black family that is preparing for the wedding of one of their own - Shelby. However, Shelby’s fiancé is a white jazz musician, Meade. Instead of focusing on the relationship of Shelby and Meade, the narrative goes into the family tree of this prominent, northern black family and how, through their lineage, as slaves to a family of doctors and socialites, living in well-to-do areas of New York City. This novel could have easily been a story about the complexities of interracial relationships, however, West goes deeper and explores the complexities of race, colorism, and classism from multiple perspectives. She calls everyone out - black and white. Shelby comes to the realization that “color” and race really have no bearing on a person’s character. Society boxes people into categories, based simply on their outward appearance. People are people and all groups of people have issues because all groups of people are comprised of fallible human beings. It’s when people with a conscious and a desire to do good, regardless of what they look like, come together is where good change happens.

Have you read any of these novels and if not, are you interested in picking any of these up?

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Last March I posted about how I’m fascinated by the topic of adultery in literature, after reading Madam Bovary and Anna Karenina. As I said in that post, I’ll be circling back to this theme from time to time as it’s a topic that is rather common. The question that mainly came to mind was, “What is the difference between how men and women write about adultery? 

Since last spring, I’ve read quite a few books that either feature an adulterous relationship or briefly mention one. Here, I’ve selected four books that raise interesting questions. 

Stoner by, John Williams - Stoner’s marriage is a massive flop and he develops a relationship with a woman at the university in which they both work. Stoner’s life is incredibly melancholy and this brief relationship is one of his only moments of happiness. As a reader, I was incredibly sympathetic towards Stoner and this created an interesting internal tension between his infidelity and his need for someone who truly understands him. 

Someone at a Distance by, Dorothy Whipple - I adore Whipple’s writing and her novels I’ve read thus far. Someone at a Distance is from a wife’s perspective and how destructive adultery is to the family. Her husband is unfaithful to her with a young women and Whipple expertly writes how this family falls apart at the seams. As much as I really disliked what the husband did to this family, through his actions, Whipple made it so that I still wanted this family to work it out. Whipple’s novel also reminds one that no one is immune to situations like this - no matter how happy the family was initially. 

The Odyssey by, Homer- This is an interesting one, because Odysseus is being help captive, against his will, by Calypso. Odysseus longs to get back home to his wife and son, but Calypso’s desire for him technically results in unfaithfulness against his wife. It’s evident that Odysseus does not like being with Calypso and doesn’t have much choice in the matter; Homer gives us images go Odysseus crying and looking out at the sea. Can he really be blamed in this situation when he’s own free will is pretty much non-existent? 

The Weather in the Streets by, Rosamond Lehmann - I just reviewed this a book a few posts ago. Olivia Spencer and Rollo, who is married, begin an adulterous relationship and Lehmann excellently evokes a subtle sense of paranoia throughout the novel. Lehmann doesn’t make excuses for people’s behavior; she’s writing realistically about things that happen and the complexities of relationships and the consequences of the decisions that people make. Like with Stoner, I felt an internal tension because Olivia and Rollo work as a couple, but infidelity is infidelity, plain and simple. 

All of this being said, it continues to fascinate me how complex and interesting adultery in narratives can be. I have noticed that when women write about it, there is a heavier focus on the detriment it does to the family unit and how these women do their best to fight for their marriages. Lehmann’s character Olivia really portrays the emotional turmoil these types of relationship have, even on the mistress. In short, with women, one could argue a more significant focus on the domestic. One does not have to agree with a character’s action to sympathize. In Stoner, we see a man who is so utterly unhappy, in a way we can over look that he’s being unfaithful to his wife and we are more compelled to give him a “pass.” Actually in a lot of the novels focusing on the male, written by the male, the male is incredibly unhappy in his marine. Lehmann actually portrays this with Rollo very well. 

Have you noticed any interesting features in these types of narratives and a difference between how men and women write about them, beyond how narratives like Anna Karenina and Madam Bovary show the hypocrisy between how men and women are treated, who do the same thing. Do you ever feel a bit awkward for rooting for a character or a relationship that is morally wrong? 

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“I like what’s uncertain - what’s imperfect. I like what - what breaks out behind the features and is suddenly there and gone again.”

The Weather in the Streets by, Rosamond Lehmann is a novel about an adulterous relationship between Olivia Curtis and the married Rollo Spencer. Olivia and Rollo, childhood acquaintances, cross paths in adulthood and quickly pursue a relationship. Rosamond eloquently portrays the reality of leading a double life and the damage that adultery inflicts on the parties involved. 

The Weather in the Streets surprised me - I was hoping to enjoy it, as I hope to enjoy every book I pick up, but I really enjoyed this novel. It as a quick read for me, but that doesn’t mean that it was simple. Lehmann’s writing is poetic, descriptive, evocative. She will often meander from 3rd person to 1st person in the same paragraph and it’s so elegantly done, that I didn’t even realize what she was doing. The narrative is mainly from Olivia’s perspective, but glimpses into other character’s thoughts are included. 

As one could assume from the title, weather plays a significant role in the narrative. Lehmann is constantly describing the weather and uses this as a device to foreshadow immediate events to come. 

“The rain had stopped, the day was dark, grey, cold and gusty - one or two tattered blue holes blown into the sky for a moment, then over-blown again.”

“Two days later came the telegram - meet him in Oxford, the Mitre, one o’clock. It was Friday, hot and sunny.”

Throughout the book, the weather descriptions can be analyzed further beyond just foreshadowing a “good” or “bad” event. None of the descriptions are the same and if I wanted to, I could go back and link each subsequent event to an exact detail. This tactic could easily become cliche with a less skilled writer, but Lehmann pulls this off so beautifully, that it adds more depth to the narrative. 

I was also surprised to detect an existential undertone throughout the book. Many of the characters ask questions about the self, how the self is perceived by others, and the tension between the self and happiness. This adds to the concept in this novel that outward self is often at war with the internal self. Olivia and Rollo are operating under a facade to keep their relationship secret, but their decision to be dishonest wears on them internally. 

• The Self: “Tell me, Livia, do you ever feel as if you weren’t real?” “Often.” “It’s a beastly feeling. Everybody has a solid real life except oneself.”
• The Self & Others: “How do you know what you’ve done? It’s all in the mind of the beholder - We don’t know what we look like. We’re not just ourselves - we’re just a tiny nut of self, and the rest is a complicated mass of unknown quantities - according to who’s looking at us.”
• The Self & Happiness: “What do people mean about being happy, there’s so much talk about it, as if it was the one aim and motive - far from it; doesn’t affect anything, as far as I can see, it isn’t the desire for happiness that moves people to do what they do…”

However, Lehmann doesn’t just focus on Olivia and Rollo regarding people and the double lives they lead. She covers the facade of wealth, class, and perceived respectability. She also glosses over the concept of ethics and morality in relation to one’s profession. The most unlikely person often does unexpected things behind closed doors that would shock society. 

Lehmann does not glamorize adultery in any way. It’s very evident from the beginning that both Rollo and Olivia are at war with themselves for the decisions they’ve made, regardless of how much they try to justify their behavior. Lehmann is realistic about adultery and regardless of how unsavory of a topic it is, it’s a reality. 

“There was this inward double living under amourphous impacts of dark and light mixed: that was when we were together … not being together was a vacuum. It was an unborn place in the shadow of the time before and the time to come. It was remembering and looking forward, drawn out painfully both ways, taut like a bit of elastic … Wearing…” 

Lehmann writes about Olivia and Rollo’s relationship in such a way that I never lost sympathy for any of the characters involved, even if I didn’t necessarily agree with their decisions. Lehmann handles very sensitive topics so gracefully and really nailed both the fragility and beauty of relationships. 

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed The Weather in the Streets. I didn’t want to put it down and before I was even halfway through the book, I was looking up her other novels. I hope to eventually read the rest of her work because her writing is stunning, her characters are complex and interesting and she’s willing to writing eloquently about topics that are “taboo”. After reading this novel, I don’t care what she’s written about, I’ll read it because her writing is that good. 

Rating: 4/5. 

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