PERIOD PIECE by Gwen Raverat - Reviewer: Susan Price
I've been sorting out my book-shelves recently and - horror -
throwing some away. Part of this job, of course, is sitting down on the
floor with a book you've just rediscovered, and reading it for three
hours, while others step over you.
'Period Piece, Gwen Raverat |
One rediscovered book, which distracted me for more than three hours, was PERIOD PIECE: A
CAMBRIDGE CHILDHOOD, by Gwen Raverat, my copy of which is an old Faber
paperback from the 1960s, pale pink, with a black stripe down the opening edge. Its original price was '6s 6d, net.' (32p)
Gwen Raverat |
Gwen Raverat: self-portrait |
'Theories'
is not about anything like the Theory of Evolution, but her mother's theories
about how children should be raised : 'I
was...born into the trying position of being the eldest of the family, so that
the full force of my mother's theories about education were brought to bear
upon me; and it fell to me to blaze a path to freedom for my juniors, through
the forest of her good intentions.' As an eldest child - though from quite a different kind of family - I can identify with that.
For
those who may have theories and children of their own, Raverat has these
soothing words: 'Dear Reader, you may
take it from me, that however hard you try – or don't try; whatever you do – or
don't do; for better, for worse; for richer, for poorer; every way and every
day:
THE PARENT IS ALWAYS WRONG.
So it is no good bothering
about it. When the little pests grow up
they will certainly tell you exactly what you did wrong in their case. But never mind; they will be just as wrong
themselves in their turn. So take things
easily; and above all, eschew good intentions.'
Illustration: Gwen Raverat |
In
'Propriety' she dissects the odd notions of good behaviour which held sway
during her childhood, and which she seems to have found odd even then; and
tells us of some things which actually did shock her. '...I
once saw, through the banisters at Down, one of my Darwin uncles give a
friendly conjugal kiss to... his wife. I
rushed away in absolute horror from this unprecedented orgy... And then
there was 'Charley's Aunt'. This was the first real play we ever
saw. It did not seem to me at all funny,
only tremendous and exciting and, at one point, most dangerously
improper... [One] of the young men
dressed up as Charley's Aunt, and ran across the stage, lifting up his
petticoats, and showing his trousers underneath. Nothing since then has ever
shocked me so much.'
The
chapter on Aunt Etty was, I think, worth the 6s 6d alone, and Aunt Etty in full
cry after the stinkhorns has made me laugh out loud, as has the short,
illustrated passage on 'The Habitat of
the British Tiger', and its sad suffering from 'canopy cramp'. (The tiger is shown lurking on top of a bed's tiny canopy, the better to eat the child within the bed.) The tiger comes in another chapter, Ghosts
and Horrors, some of which is genuinely disturbing.
'Religion'
opens, 'The first religious experience I
can remember is getting under the nursery table to pray that the dancing class
mistress might be dead before we got to Dancing Class.' A little later she describes God for us: '[He] had a smooth oval face, with no hair
and no beard and no ears. I imagine that
He was not descended, as most Gods are, from Father Christmas, but rather from
the Sun Insurance Office sign. Even now
this hairless, earless, eggshaped face... gives me a sort of holy feeling in my
stomach.'
It's a hard book to sum up.
It's a lively, vivid memoir of a particular time and place, and a
wonderful recreation of the way a child sees and thinks about the world. Since Raverat ends the book as a young woman,
it could be called 'a coming of age story.'
She closes the book with the words: 'When
I look back on those years when I was neither fish nor flesh, between the ages
of sixteen and twenty-two, I remember them as an uncomfortable time, and
sometimes a very unhappy one. Now I have
certainly attained the status of Good Red Herring, I may at last be allowed to
say: Oh dear, how horrid it was being young, and how nice it is being old and
not having to mind what people think.'
However
it might be classified, it's a book I would never willingly part with, and I
value it for its humour, its charm, its perception and wisdom - all expressed with great elegance.
I thought 'Period Piece' would be available on Kindle, but it isn't. However, here is the copy that I own, and here is a newer edition, with many other rave reviews.
Another example of Gwen Raverat's work. She was one of the first women to be trained at the Slade. |
I thought 'Period Piece' would be available on Kindle, but it isn't. However, here is the copy that I own, and here is a newer edition, with many other rave reviews.
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