The trivial round, the common task

 

I read this book in 3 days. After constipating through a dreary book that took forever to finish, I was riveted. 

Actually I picked it up because I like tales about clergymen's daughters. They constitute a certain type of gentlewoman that I like reading about.

My favourite, of course, is the protagonist of Excellent Women, by Barbara Pym. Now she, if you like, made it a habit to write about clergymen's daughters. Or other clergy-adjacent women. Fussy spinsters who do most of the work of the parish and turn up as figures of fun in popular fiction. 

But her books are light and full of humour and fun. And when you read them, you feel like sitting down to tea or even offering tea and company as a panacea for all evils. They are, in short, what this book is not. Full of human feeling. Maybe this comes of a man trying to write a book from a woman's point of view.

I have found that when they do that, they leave out something, some sensitivity of perception. It was like when I watched Alexandra's Project, an arthouse wife's revenge movie made by a man. Her revenge was so all-encompassing and ruthless that you knew this did not come from the brain of a woman. She would have relented, at least a little. She would have been less unforgiving.

However, for Orwell to write about a clergyman's daughter, now that was different. Not quite in his usual line, I would have thought.

And I was right. As I said earlier, I found the book riveting. Orwell himself had no particular affection for it and referred to it as a potboiler that he would have been happy to see disappear altogether. In fact it had been edited out of recognition by overly scrupulous editors afraid of offending anyone, with an eye to lawsuits.

In this edition, they have tried to restore his original manuscript as closely as possible, although it is impossible as he didn't keep the manuscript so they were proceeding by guesswork based on the letters between Orwell and his publishing company. 

The protagonist is Dorothy Hare, worn to a shred at 28, by an unaffectionate and impractical father who takes it for granted that she will smooth his path in life without worrying him about sordid details such as where to get the money to pay the tradesmen. Her particular bugbear is the butcher who hasn't been paid for months and who is bearing down hard on her. 

Her father, the younger son of a younger son of a baronet considers paying tradesmen as something the gentry just don't do. If one becomes difficult, just switch to another. It's not that he doesn't have money. It's just that his money is invested...in doubtful investments that he is unwilling to let go off.

The first extremely long chapter is a typical day in Dorothy's life, where she wakes up exhausted at half past five, takes a cold bath, reviews her to-do list for the day, and then boils water for her father's shave and gets breakfast ready. If the water is not ready on time she incurs his sarcasm and a few harsh words.

Oh yes, before breakfast, he conducts a service that she attends, and receives Holy Communion. She fasts beforehand. Dorothy's religion is one of duty and penance. If she finds her heart taking flight because it is a beautiful day and the flowers and sky fill her with joy, she pricks her finger with a pin or thorn to reprove herself for pantheism or the worship of nature.

But in the second chapter the story takes an unexpected turn. She wakes up on a street in  London not knowing how she got there or even who she is. She is immediately claimed by a party of cockneys on their way to pick hops. Because of the way she's dressed they mistake her for a tart fallen on bad times. Her chief attraction is a half crown she finds in her pocket.

It says something for the drudgery of her life before that she's able to fit into this life, walking for days with hardly any food (they are reduced to begging and stealing) quite easily. Two of the party unable to take even the journey there, drop out. She continues forward with the originator of the scheme. They end up with a job that pays enough for subsistence, though barely that, and it is one of the very few times in the novel that Dorothy experiences anything approaching joy. 

There's one thing I forgot to mention about Dorothy; she's afraid of sex. This is why she never married although she was pursued by a curate whom she quite liked. Why she hates sex is vague (as is the explanation for how she finds herself in London). Apparently she saw her father and mother, an unhappy couple, doing it, and it put her off for life.

Towards the end of the novel, a reprobate who likes her proposes. He is disgusting and old and fat and bold but in his proposal he does not forefront his attractions but rather what her life will look like if she remains unmarried. A drudge, a thankless slave, ad infinitum. 

Dorothy endures such hardship that she loses her faith completely. But nothing comes to replace it. There is a brief flash of meaning when she becomes a schoolteacher and at first, is given the freedom to educate young minds and the children respond. But this is cut short when the parents (shopkeepers all, with narrow, shopkeeper minds) object. She is to stick to 2 subjects. Handwriting and arithmetic.

There is no really pleasant person in the novel. It's kind of nihilistic. A loss of meaning, a loss of purpose in life, which she forces herself to forget by adhering to her ever more demanding to-do list.

When she returns home after her disappearance, she is not greeted with joy. She simply takes up where she left off, resuming her drudgery. 

I guess this is what being afraid of sex leaves you with. Thankless drudgery. Not a scrap of human affection. Being taken for granted over and over again, by everybody.

Orwell doesn't offer any solutions. It would be better, one would guess, if Dorothy were not so averse to sex. Then, there would be some escape. But there isn't. 

And she doesn't even try.