Down Among the Women

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The first people (women) we are introduced to are Wanda, aged sixty-four, and her daughter, Scarlet. THIS IS A BOOK I READ MANY YEARS AGO AND WAS DELIGHTED TO SEE THAT I HAD THE OPTION TO PURCHASE IT VIA MY KINDLE. Jag hade förväntat mig mer humor, men istället är det en ganska sorglig historia om kvinnoöden som berättas. The novel is by now a bit dated, but I think that it stands out as a testament to the way women where perceived and perceived themselves in that era. So begins Fay Weldon’s novel, opening onto 1950s London, where Wanda, a former radical who has left her husband, has raised her daughter Scarlet to be as tough and independent as she is.

Gradually the plot moves away from Scarlet and through these lives and others, spiralling outwards until certain parallels emerge between all these lives: the sense of male-female relationships as a series of inevitable and painful compromises, both romantic and financial, and the ever-present twin threats of violence and poverty which keep women in their place. Respectable wife, unmarried mother, divorcee, femme fatale - these are roles that society demands from Scarlet, Jocelyn, Helen, Susan and Audrey. We’re introduced to this circle of other women in an initial meeting at Scarlet’s bedside, and we follow them over the course of many years as they have affairs, marry, divorce, and sometimes die. A queste donne non resta che cercare di sopravvivere; e poi guardare con speranza alle nuove generazioni, cresciute diversamente da come le madri avevano cresciuto loro, destinate a rompere con molti degli schemi che le avevano soffocate, una volta approdate nei tumultuosi anni '60.It’s a wry, smart, darkly funny book, and there are occasional glimpses of an early 70s hipsterism in the style that I sometimes found grating.

All of them tried to follow some sort of feminine ideal and great unhappiness resulted from squelching their own desires. Her friends are no happier: Sylvia, a born victim; respectable Jocelyn, hopelessly trapped in her dull, bourgeois existence; Audrey, who finally breaks out of her conventional life; and Helen, beautiful, vibrant, and doomed. Fogli ben conservati, saldi e privi di sgualciture da lettura, tonalità ossidate vintage, tagli bruniti dalla luce.

The novel follows a group of 'friends' as they grow into women, amidst the patriarchal structure of post-war British society.

FROM THE PUBLISHER - Follow Wanda, the tough 30s radical, her daughter Scarlet, unmarried, pregnant and frightened, and Scarlet's friends -- born victims, snobs, obsessive lovers -- in their absurd, nightmarish, often hilariously awful liaisons. That because the novel presents itself as an ironic portrait of English society in the 1950s, with a focus on the women; it deceives you, making you land lightly at the tragedies that await these women who (when you realise it, it's heartbreaking) are not even for a moment the real owners of their lives. The gaudy cover of this particular edition doesn’t do the contents justice in this regard: the pink crepe background and the cheeky snapshots of 50s cliches seem rather lightweight in comparison to the scenes of destruction that lie within.The novels Down Among the Women (1971), Female Friends (1974), and Remember Me (1976) focus on various women’s reactions to male-and-female relationships. The tension between mother and daughter is political as well as generational; the former is a tough pragmatist, worn hard by the work of the Second World War, with a bleak and cynical outlook of gender relations. Scarlet, starts as a sort of protagonist but the story, and the characters, soon become multi-faceted and Scarlet is the least of all concerns. If we look upward, it’s not toward the stars or the ineffable, it’s to dust the tops of the windows.