Skip to main content

Review: The Vet's Daughter, by Barbara Comyns


Pages: 133
Original date of publication: 1959
My edition: 2003 (NYRB Classics)
Why I decided to read:
How I acquired my copy: The Strand, NYC, July 2011


Barbara Comyns’s novels are hard to explain. They’re very dark and macabre; she writes about very tough subjects with a very detached eye, unemotionally writing about people and the things that happen to them.

The Vet’s Daughter is one of them. The story is told from the point of view of Alice Rowlands, who lives in a London suburb with her abusive father and sick mother. When her mother dies, her father takes up with a bad woman, who attempts to lead Alice down the wrong track, so to speak. Eventually, Alice discovers that she has a secret talent, which eventually leads to what might be her salvation.

As I’ve said, Barbara Comyns’s novels are very unemotional, despite the fact that she writes about tough subjects. What I liked about Alice’s character is that she’s so detached from all the horrible things that happen to her. I think a weaker person would have broken down from the emotional strain, but Alice has an incredible strength of will, despite the fact that she doesn’t seem to have anything to live for. She talks about the things that happen to her as if they’re a matter of course and not unusual.

The characters in the book are wonderfully diverse and Dickensian, right down to Mrs. Peebles and the sinister couple that have been hired to live in her house. I loved the “supernatural” aspect of the novel; it seemed symbolic of Alice’s ability to emotionally detach herself from her surroundings. The Vet’s Daughter is a stunning novel, and going on to my list of best reads for this year.

Comments

StuckInABook said…
I love Comyns so much - you're definitely right about the lack of emotion in her narrative; it's all very matter-of-fact, but she does it brilliantly. My favourite of hers is Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead, but this is probably second.

Popular posts from this blog

Another giveaway

This time, the publicist at WW Norton sent me two copies of The Glass of Time , by Michael Cox--so I'm giving away the second copy. Cox is the author of The Meaning of Night, and this book is the follow-up to that. Leave a comment here to enter to win it! The deadline is next Sunday, 10/5/08.

A giveaway winner, and another giveaway

The winner of the Girl in a Blue Dress contest is... Anna, of Diary of An Eccentric ! My new contest is for a copy of The Shape of Mercy , by Susan Meissner. According to Publisher's Weekly : Meissner's newest novel is potentially life-changing, the kind of inspirational fiction that prompts readers to call up old friends, lost loves or fallen-away family members to tell them that all is forgiven and that life is too short for holding grudges. Achingly romantic, the novel features the legacy of Mercy Hayworth—a young woman convicted during the Salem witch trials—whose words reach out from the past to forever transform the lives of two present-day women. These book lovers—Abigail Boyles, elderly, bitter and frail, and Lauren Lars Durough, wealthy, earnest and young—become unlikely friends, drawn together over the untimely death of Mercy, whose precious diary is all that remains of her too short life. And what a diary! Mercy's words not only beguile but help Abigail and Lars

Six Degrees of Barbara Pym's Novels

This year seems to be The Year of Barbara Pym; I know some of you out there are involved in some kind of a readalong in honor of the 100th year of her birth. I’ve read most of her canon, with only The Sweet Dove Died, Civil to Strangers, An Academic Question, and Crampton Hodnet left to go (sadly). Barbara Pym’s novels feature very similar casts of characters: spinsters, clergymen, retirees, clerks, and anthropologists, with which she had direct experience. So it stands to reason that there would be overlaps in characters between the novels. You can trace that though the publication history of her books and therefore see how Pym onionizes her stories and characters. She adds layers onto layers, adding more details as her books progress. Some Tame Gazelle (1950): Archdeacon Hoccleve makes his first appearance. Excellent Women (1952): Archdeacon Hoccleve gives a sermon that is almost incomprehensible to Mildred Lathbury; Everard Bone understands it, however, and laughs