Diary of a Provincial Lady by E. M. Delafield.
This was the perfect book for summer. Lighthearted, a quick read, and very, very little plot. One could argue that the book had no overarching plot at all, in fact.
As the title suggests, the book is a fictional diary of a fictional diary. Our diarist (is that a word?), lives in the English countryside somewhere around 1930. She is married, and has two young children, one off at boarding school, the other with a French governess.
The time span of the diary is about a year, chronicling everything from colds, visits from school friends, and her children’s mishaps. What made the novel so interesting is her little comments and asides to the things going on in her life. The narrator is not only writing down the events in her life, she is also thinking about them. Her little remarks on events and people made me laugh aloud a couple of times. She wryly admits to not understanding the books and art everyone is raving about, but endeavors to hide it from her friends. She also wonders, many times, why good society creates such liars of everyone as to what they like, what they read, and the state of their finances.
I am afraid I am making it sound more philosophical than it actually is. Really, the fictional diary is like any other diary, full of events and notes of things she wants to remember. There is no overarching plot, just the events and little things that make up ordinary life, written down for us to read. It is like a little window into English country life at that time.
What I liked the most about it was the end. As I said, there is no plot, and I was curious as to how the author would wrap up the novel. How do you bring to a close an episode of ordinary life? After all, our own lives do not fall into plot lines. They continue on, flowing from month to month and year to year in their own way. Most novels have a goal they are trying to reach, and when it is reached, the novel ends.
How the author of this book chose to end our story was very clever, in my opinion anyway.
The closing event of the book is a party the narrator would like to avoid, but goes to anyway. After they get home, she puts it all down in her diary just as we, at this point in the novel, would expect her to. Then her husband asks what she is doing, and we close the novel with these lines:
“Robert says, Why don’t I get into Bed? I say, Because I am writing my Diary. Robert replies, kindly, but quite definitely, that In his opinion, That is Waste of Time.
I get into bed, and am confronted by Query: Can Robert by right?
Can only leave reply to Posterity.”
(all strange punctuation and capitalization are faithfully representations of the book itself)
I have been think about this ending ever since I read it. It is as if the author is glancing sideways at us, talking to the audience just a little bit, even as the characters are talking to each other. They are not breaking the fourth wall exactly, but almost. After all, we are the posterity she is referencing, we are the ones who decide whether this was all a ‘waste of time’ or not. It is different entirely from the ‘Dear reader’, comments I have seen before in novels. Those authors are talking directly to us, with various success. (they are a little overdone in my humble opinion) This author indirectly asking us a question, and I wonder very much if the author chuckled as she wrote this last bit.
The more I think about it, the more I think the ending was gutsy. After all, the author is indirectly asking us if we think the novel itself was a waste of time. Was it a waste of time for her to write it, or for me to read it? She, the author, is opening herself up to criticism on purpose. I don’t think many authors would do that, or pull it off so well. Of course, all readers ask themselves if they liked a book at the end of it. If whether it was a good use of their time, or if they perhaps should have chosen a different book instead.
But to have an author ask it of their own work? I haven’t ever seen that before. An invitation to think about the novel, and decide what we thought about it. As I very much liked the book, I do not think it was a waste of time. However, I don’t think I would have liked the book so well if the author had not chosen to end it that way. I love good endings, and I think this is one of my favorites.
Have a beautiful day,
Shaina Merrick
The Beauty of a Story 