I have a new book on my list of favourites and, much to my surprise, it’s by an author whose writing I had previously described as “a long-winded mess” and “a chore to work through to the finish”. What is this delightful, joyful, life-changing (at least in my attitude towards its author) book you may ask? The Flowering Thorn by Margery Sharp.
Published in 1933 (but recently reissued), the book begins several years earlier as twenty-nine-year old Lesley comes to a startling realisation after a dud of a date: she is not a woman that men fall in love with. Yes, they flirt with her and try to get her into bed but when she meets a man she’d actually like to fall in love with – nothing. No sparks whatsoever. And if that is the case, she begins to wonder, what is the point of the whirlwind social life among artists and other bright young things, and the obsession with powdering, plucking, and painting herself into a modern beauty?
And so, in search of a purpose, she decides to adopt an orphaned four-year old boy (Pat) whom her aunt has unexpectedly been left in charge with. In doing so, she realises she will have to leave her beloved London flat (no children allowed) and, at least for the next four years until he can be sent to boarding school, completely upend her well-ordered life. It begins with a move to the country after having discovered she can’t afford anything suitable in town. The suburbs, when suggested to her by estate agents, are completely out of the question:
Lesley listened incredulously: it was as though they advised her to try Australia. There were the suburbs, of course, through which one occasionally passed in a car, and where people out of Punch borrowed each other’s mowers; but as for living there –
In the country, not surprisingly, everyone immediately assumes Pat is Lesley’s child. She after all has all the markings of a frivolous, moral-less young thing likely to get herself into such a situation and then brazen it out. It’s important to clarify the truth to a few people – the vicar and his wife, for instance, not because Lesley has taken up religion in any way but because they have four young children for Pat to play with which nicely occupies the bulk of his day – but after that Lesley couldn’t care less. She is a practical young woman: what does it matter what the villagers think as she is only going to be there for four years?
But, inevitably as the years pass, Lesley finds herself being absorbed by country life. She is on friendly terms with the neighbours but, most importantly, she makes a dear friend of Sir Philip, her landlord and an old school friend of her uncle’s. Despite an awkward beginning (at their first meeting Sir Philip, a racy late Victorian at heart, was encouraged by her backless dress and painted beauty into a rather unwelcome advance) they become good friends able to speak very frankly to one another:
‘You are enjoying yourself,’ said Lesley.
Sir Philip grunted.
‘The modern woman,’ he said. ‘Your grandmother, my dear, or even your mother, would at once have flown to my pillows. Take some sherry.’
‘But your pillows are beautiful,’ protested Lesley, doing as she was told. ‘Why should I come and disarrange them?’
‘Because I should like you to. Because every man, when feeling a trifle uneasy, likes to believe that his women are feeling even more so. It panders to our sense of superiority.’
Socially, that’s all Lesley requires. Part of the joy of the book is that young Pat is relegated firmly to the background. Lesley grows to care about him but, as other characters wonderingly remark, she doesn’t really love him or try to mother him. She is simply there providing a modicum of adult supervision and, increasingly, fondness. Lesley is much more interested in spending time with Sir Philip or making improvements to her awkward little cottage. It is a life completely removed from the social whirlwind in which she used to exist and she blossoms.
But her London life does intrude every so often. Old friends descend on her cottage for a weekend, bringing with them noise, rudeness, and plenty of alcohol and cigarettes. Her greatest London friend, Elissa, who “when given time to arrange her thighs, looked as thin as a toothpick”, soon forgets all about Lesley mouldering in the country and it is up to Lesley to keep up the friendship. But encounters with her old crowd only serve to remind her how far she has drifted from them – and how happy she is to have done so. She retains her love for London – for theatres and galleries and intellectual discussion – but is done with all the artifice of her former life. She has figured out what matters to her and, as the book ends with Pat going off to school and Lesley regaining much of her freedom, she knows exactly how she plans to live. And it seems her new life has room for that thing she had given up on only a few years before – love.
I adored this book. Yes, the central message tends a little towards “reject modern womanhood and you will be healthier, happier, and more loveable” but it is so funny and so extraordinarily well written. The completely lack of sentimentality is what really did it for me. The premise – beautiful spinster adopts small boy – could be terrifyingly twee in another author’s hands but Sharp, who lives up to her name, wisely doesn’t try to turn Lesley into anything maternal. In fact, Lesley almost immediately after taking charge of Pat wants to give him back. They do not bond or say winsome things to one another, they merely get on in a spirit of peaceable companionship, each concerned with their own interests. How wise! I finished it completely delighted by its wit and heart and determined to read much, much more by Sharp. Many thanks to Jane for organizing Margery Sharp Day (as part of her Birthday Book of Underappreciated Lady Authors), which gave me the impetus to read this.
This was fascinating review which i really enjoyed reading it
Thanks!
So glad you’ve found a Sharp to love. I found her in my early thirties in a tiny New England library. I was, at the time, buried in domesticity. Margery was the spritz of lemon who loaned a piquant sizzle to my life.
She is rather zingy, isn’t she? I love that about her.
Oh this does sound delightful, you use the word joyful and the story does sound exactly that. I have two other Margery Sharp books on my kindle which I am looking forward to, I think I may need to acquire this one as well at some point.
I’d certainly recommend it!
I read Britannia Mews for this year’s Margery Sharp Day, but I read this one last year and really enjoyed it. It was the lack of sentimentality in Lesley and Pat’s relationship that I loved too.
Sharp gets the balance just right here, I think. What put me off some of her other books was that while they were funny I didn’t have any particularly sympathy for any of her characters. Here, they are funny and sympathetic and yet still it is all done without any sickly sentimentality. Very clever.
I am so pleased that you found a Margery Sharp book to love. I thought this might be the one for you, and it feels wonderfully symmetrical that you’ve read this 1933 novel that I love just after I read ‘Hostages to Fortune’ from the same year, a book that I know you hold in high regard.
That is excellent symmetry – and I’m so happy to hear you enjoyed Hostages to Fortune!
This is one of my favourite Margery Sharps; I am thrilled to hear that you had such a good experience with it.
Taking up a comment in your last paragraph, don’t you think it is less a “rejection of modern womanhood” than a “don’t be a posturing phony” argument?
And yes, the pragmatic versus sentimental emotions of Lesley carry the story. She grapples with the thought of the easy way out – “there’s always the orphanage” – and decides to go on with the morally right thing (because she’s given a promise to young Pat), despite her realization that her impulse was just that and that she will see her life turned upside down because of it.
Such a good book.
I think it’s Lesley’s encounter with her uncle at the book’s end that really cements the “rejection of modern womanhood” message for me. “Don’t be a posturing phony” is certainly part of her overall development but the things he admires (like her being happy to be led around by him rather than her leading as she used to) seem much more about female meekness than abandoning artifice and posturing.
But, regardless, it is a fabulous book.
This sounds completely charming! I have yet to read anything by Margery Sharp, but I have a strong suspicion she and I are going to get on very well…
It is charming and funny and just altogether wonderful! I can’t conceive of a reader who wouldn’t enjoy this one.
That is my favorite Margery Sharp book.
Understandably!
“they merely get on in a spirit of peaceable companionship, each concerned with their own interests. How wise!” – exactly! I think this would be my favorite as well, and you’re making me want to read it again. I so much enjoy watching Lesley make a home and a life, even when she had no intention of doing so. And I love the ending, including the encounter with her uncle (and that she doesn’t stand him up for the theatre!)
I do love books about characters making homes for themselves (witness my obsession with D.E. Stevenson) but Sharp never less Lesley turn saccharine and I love that.
Oh lovely! And considering that, of the three Margery Sharp novels I’ve read and really liked, they include the two that you had reservations about, I imagine I’d adore this one!
I’m completely certain you would!
I have loved this novel since I read it as a dissatisfied teenager on a family holiday in Cornwall. as an adult I eventually tracked down a copy. Even as that girl of 12 or 13 I think I sensed my future coming towards me – I could see the relationship between Lesley and Pat as making complete sense – of course she would go out of her way – change her life even- for a child – but, equally of course, this might not be her own child.
My life hasn’t followed her exact pattern – but it has been full of other people’s children, rather than my own, as I taught my way through four large secondary comprehensive schools in different parts of London – and, more recently, for the last five years I have had my friends’ children – ranging in age from 16 -25 – living with me for months or even years on end or dropping in from time to time. I have loved it! rich but not as close as a parent – there’s a great place in everyone’s life for those adults who are not part of the parent network but there only because of the young person in front of them.
One detail I loved in the book was when Lesley finds her hair growing thicker and more vigorous because she is leading a better life – better food, more sleep, much simpler and more fun…
thank you for reminding us of this novel.
What a lovely comment! I completely agree that it’s wonderful for young people to have adults in their lives who are not their parents. They can be both kinder and harsher than parents ever could and that’s such a valuable thing.