Round-Up Reviews: Three Heavenly Classics Club Reads

Despite falling woefully behind in reviews, I have been steadily reading through more of my Classics Club selections. This year, I started out with the second of Dorothy L. Sayers’ Lord Peter Wimsey novels quite soon after I read the first one, then went on to read F. Scott Fitzgerald’s first novel, and finally got around to local Manitoban author Margaret Laurence’s most well-known work. I enjoyed all of them more than I even hoped to, so it’s only fair that I should have something to say about them as I mark them off my list.

1. Clouds of Witness, Dorothy L. Sayers
2. This Side of Paradise, F. Scott Fitzgerald
3. The Stone Angel, Margaret Laurence

Clouds of Witness, Dorothy L. Sayers

I bought Clouds of Witness in the same 3 for $10 haul that I got Whose Body? In the second novel, Sayers brings the crime and its implications to the heart of Lord Peter’s family, when Lord Peter’s brother, the Duke of Denver, is charged with the murder of their sister’s fiance.

This mystery contains the classic setting of a party of houseguests and the question of who could hear what from which part of the house, whether somebody left their room or didn’t when they said they had or hadn’t, and what the mysterious letter could have contained that sent the murdered man into a fluster before he stormed out of the house for the last time alive.

Intrigue, Bolsheviks, isolated country houses harbouring secrets of abuse and infidelity, perilous transatlantic flights bringing evidence at the eleventh hour to save the accused from the gallows… this novel has it all.

I loved that the focus immediately went to Lord Peter’s personal life, exploring his family dynamics within the framework of a traumatic event that he is prevailed upon to investigate. It’s a brilliant way of pushing him into the stakes and fleshing out his character through his relationships with his family–all of whom are suspects.

It’s easy to see which side of the family has the detective instinct… I think my mother’s talents deserve a little acknowledgement. I said so to her, as a matter of fact, and she replied in these memorable words: “My dear child, you can give it a long name if you like, but I’m an old-fashioned woman and I call it mother-wit, and it’s so rare for a man to have it that if he does you write a book about him and call him Sherlock Holmes.”

Lord Peter Wimsey in Clouds of Witness by Dorothy Sayers

It really answers the personal conflict about his motivation for solving crimes from Whose Body? when Lord Peter was at risk of detaching himself from the case and the impact on its victims. Now, he has to face the ruin and personal tragedy that these events bring with them.

There are also some elements of classism, whether it is a resentment of the nobility, an unfavorable rendering of contemporary artist communities, or the question of a “suitable” marriage, that taken all together seem too prominent to be wholly unintentional. A final unflattering scene featuring Lord Peter further solidifies the personal toll of the case, while also subtly indicating that there may be some cause for working-class resentment against the nobility.

Overall, the personal and social nature of this Wimsey mystery is fascinating and the complexity of the layers makes it my favourite of the series so far. Though I may have to look out for a better copy to keep; my cheap 3 for $10 deal book has the title in the top margin of each spread of pages erroneously printed as Clouds Without Witness.

This Side of Paradise, F. Scott Fitzgerald

I got this novel in an omnibus edition of three of Fitzgerald’s works, also including The Great Gatsby and The Beautiful and Damned. This Side of Paradise was the only of the three I hadn’t yet read. Good things do truly come in threes.

The story follows Amory Blaine, self-described “cynical idealist,” and his upbringing and education. He drifts through the highs and lows of childhood skate parties for rich heiresses and their boyish suitors, years of “education” at Princeton among the young hopefuls of future America, first love, the Great War, and the soldier’s return moving into the Roaring Twenties. This is a bildungsroman if it is anything, a coming of age for the previous century.

Throughout his education, Amory plays with ideas and perspectives he gleans from the people around him, whether his roommates, classmates, female friends, or the Monsignor.

He gallavants across the country in parties of bright young things or goes on solitary night walks that lead him to the lays of enchantresses. But a dark figure first glimpsed in a night of debauchery dogs his steps. Is it death, romance, or a long-buried faith come to claim him?

Even with the aspects I haven’t experienced, like heartbreak or war, I found myself identifying in a lot of ways with Amory’s intellectual journey. This novel moves with growing self-awareness, through the assumed diffidence of youth toward true self-realization.

“Why do I make lists?” Amory asked him one night. “Lists of all sorts of things?”

“Because you’re a mediaevalist,” Monsignor answered. “We both are. It’s the passion for classifying and finding a type.”

…

“I was beginning to think I was going eccentric. It was a pose, I guess.”

“Don’t worry about that; for you not posing may be the biggest pose of all. Pose… But do the next thing.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise

Amory is not idealized or saintly by any means, has genuine qualms with himself and the world, yet continually learns and grows in a way that won’t admit total despair. “Do the next thing,” as Monsignor suggests.

I genuinely love Fitzgerald’s writing and this novel is no exception. Even including passages formatted like a stage play, interspersed with Amory’s or someone else’s writings, overall this is a quick read. I didn’t want it to end and I anticipate revisiting it often.

The Stone Angel, Margaret Laurence

Far from a bildungsroman, The Stone Angel instead takes on the reflection of a life nearing its end. Hagar Shipley is an elderly woman whose memory shows gaps. Her son and daughter-in-law live with her, but they are aging as well and her care has become too taxing for them. Her daughter-in-law in particular pushes for placing Hagar in a home.

Beginning with some memories of her childhood and Hagar’s place among the townspeople as the daughter of a store-owner, I was initially concerned the story’s action would be largely retrospective. However, the consequences and the way Hagar continues to reason and make choices are very much the main action of the story in the fictive present, though some pivotal events in Hagar’s past are revealed as the film of her long-term memory gains more clarity.

Hagar, disowned by her father after marrying against his wishes, realizes how difficult the life she has chosen is. Hagar is bright and well-educated but marries Bram, a handsome but haphazard farmer who is slovenly and uncouth, only to realize too late that intellectual disparity can lead to mutual resentment. Yet, she continues on with determination and an admirable self-sufficiency that helps her survive and claw back her public dignity, even as it slowly eats away at her humanity.

The real core of Hagar’s heart is slowly revealed through references to another son and what may have happened to him. Recollections organically flow as events bring them to Hagar’s mind, whether by a trip to a nursing home or a solitary flight to a cabin in the woods in hopes of recapturing the contentment of a childhood picnic. Before her last days, Hagar has some realizations that enable her to find her spirit and really connect with human kindness.

Every good joy I might have held, in my man or any child of mine or even the plain light of morning, of walking the earth, all were forced to a standstill by some brake of proper appearances–oh, proper to whom? When did I ever speak heart’s truth?

Margaret Laurence, The Stone Angel

Hagar is in a uniquely intriguing position as a protagonist. She is somewhat unreliable and at times unlikeable. A curmudgeony old person at times, she is as funny as she can be frustrating. Her internal journey is beautiful to watch unfold.

I have read several similar family epic literary novels and largely concluded they are not my favourite type of story. Yet, I’m glad I had The Stone Angel on my list. Its slow feed of revelation and elegant prose make it a compelling and quick read. I enjoyed it and it stuck with me more than I expected.

---

As I collected these titles to review, I noticed they all have to do with somewhat heavenly aspects: clouds, paradise, and angels.

On a similar theme, I also read Look Homeward, Angel by Thomas Wolfe this year, but it didn’t fit into my list as a Classics Club review. Just as well. I don’t know I could do it justice at this point. It also features literal angel monuments that serve as a motif throughout the novel, like Laurence’s The Stone Angel.

I’ve seen the monument that supposedly inspired Laurence with the idea for the stone angel in Neepawa, MB, and this past July I went to a book sale at the Margaret Laurence House with my sister and her kids.

It was a temperamental day that sweated with a boiling heat in the early afternoon as we walked up the treed street to the two-storey stone heritage home. By the time we had finished at the booksale and made one more stop, grey rainsheets walled the town and sluiced down its gutters.

While I didn’t buy my copy of The Stone Angel at the Laurence House booksale, I did get a few more Lord Peter Wimsey books I found in the boxes laid out on the wraparound veranda.

---

This has been my twenty-second, twenty-third, and twenty-fourth Classics Club book reviews! Check out the rest of my list here.