The Brandons by Angela Thirkell is absolutely charming, much like Mrs Lavinia Brandon herself. The Brandon family set – consisting of mother Lavinia, twenty-three year old Francis and nineteen year old Delia – is really too content and well adjusted to be of much interest. Mr Brandon is long dead and both Brandon children are adept at handling their mother’s occasionally nonsensical flights:
Francis and Delia again exchanged glances. It was a habit of their mother’s to make them entirely responsible for any difficulties brought into the family by the late Mr Brandon, saying the words ‘your father’ is a voice that implied a sinister collaboration between that gentleman and the powers of darkness for which her children were somehow to blame. As for Mr Brandon’s merits, which consisted chiefly in having been an uninterested husband and father for some six or seven years and then dying and leaving his widow quite well off, no one thought of them.
Happy families are nice but when you introduce Lavinia’s love-struck admirers things get much more entertaining. Hilary Grant, a sort of cousin of the Brandons, falls instantly and desperately in love with Lavinia when he meets her, despite her being twenty years older than him (such is Mrs Brandon’s infinite allure). Much fun is had at his expense by both the narrator and the Brandon children, who classify their contemporary as another of their mother’s hopeless ‘cases’. Poor Hilary is dreadfully earnest in his passion and oh my but it’s amusing:
…his incoherent and jumbled wish had been entirely a prayer to be allowed to die some violent and heroic death while saving Mrs. Brandon from something or somebody, to have her holding his chill hand, and perhaps letting her cheek rest for a moment against his as his gallant spirit fled, all with a kind of unspoken understanding that he should not really be hurt and should somehow go on living very comfortably in spite of being heroically dead.
Hilary does eventually come to his senses before the end of the novel, easily transferring his affections to Delia Brandon, as practical and energetic as her mother is scattered and sedate. Like all Thirkell endings, it is highly satisfactory. But, for me, the truly sweet love story is between Mr Miller, the Vicar, and Miss Morris, companion to the now deceased Miss Brandon (an elderly relation of the Brandons). Both now in their forties, the two had known and loved one another in their youth a quarter of a century before when Mr Miller had boarded with and studied under Miss Morris’ father. An ideological rift between the two men had separated the young folk and watching them slowly come back together is an absolute delight. How to resist a romance where a character is so enraptured as to adore someone for their ability to letter signs for the village fete and organise the placement of waste bins? Truly, the ordinariness of their circumstances is what makes their reunion so charming.
The fete is the highlight of the book, if only because there are thrilling appearances by my favourite characters: Tony Morland, Lydia Keith, and Noel Merton. Noel had appeared previously in his professional legal capacity when handling Miss Brandon’s estate but he is so much more entertaining in tandem with Lydia. I do feel cheated out of some entertainment by there not having been more attention given to Tony and Lydia’s interactions. Still, any time Tony is about, he has the fantastic ability to steal all of the narrator’s attention for himself and the results are always amusing, nevermore so than when he is showing off his boundless knowledge on any and all subjects (sourced from who knows where):
Before Tony could collect his forces for a withering reply, the whole of the younger set, hearing the world ballet, burst into the argument without knowing what it was about, intoxicating themselves by the names of their favourite dancers, Russian and English. Tony quickly recovered himself and plunged headlong into the fray, managing to give the impression of one who had lived in the coulisses from earliest childhood, and ogled the legs of Taglioni. Mrs Morland, who knew that her youngest son had not been more than three or four times to the ballet, marveled humbly at his grasp of the subject.
Like any of Thirkell’s books, the story here is simple. Hilary Grant falls in and out of love with Lavinia Brandon, old lovers are reunited, and, as always, the citizens of Barsetshire go about their business, visiting with neighbours, relaxing with their families, and making appearances at any local events of note. These are ordinary lives, made engaging by Thirkell’s customary wit and warmth. The final scene of the novel, of those two dedicated and accomplished flirts Lavinia and Noel doing what they do best, is a perfect frothy end to this light-hearted book.
A great review of one of my favorite Thirkells, I think the first one that I read. To me, Mr Miller & Miss Morris are the heart of the story, though Mrs Brandon is the heroine, and I’m always glad to see them again in the later books. It was also my introduction to Noel & Lydia, and the Morlands. As much as I appreciate Tony, I do prefer him in smaller doses!
You’re absolutely right that Tony is best in small doses! I like his appearances scattered about throughout a book, which, happily, is what Thirkell seemed to like best too. On the other hand, I can never get enough of Lydia (and Noel) and would be perfectly happy if they had appeared in
every book after Summer Half. Obviously, that’s not what happened (and they did get their fair share of appearances) but how nice that would have been!
What a great book to serve as your introduction to Thirkell! My first was Wild Strawberries, which is also a great place to start.
I enjoyed your review. I agree with you…I LOVE Tony…can’t get enough! To your last paragraph…so true. A simple story is enough. So much more interesting to focus on use of language and character development.
If you or any of your readers would like to join us on the Angela Thirkell Appreciation Group on Facebook, we would be thrilled to have you. We just starting reading High Rising together and plan to read and discuss all the Barsetshire books in order.
Great to hear about the Angela Thirkell Appreciation Group, Margaret! Good luck with your read alongs. I’m still trying to track down all the Barsetshire books so for now I’m enjoying reading them widely out of order but I know that one day, once I do have access to a complete set, I’ll enjoy reading them in proper sequence.
I have been hearing a lot about Angela Thirkell of late, so I’m feeling quite left out that I’ve yet to find any of her books on my used bookstore forays. She sounds utterly delightful!
I am having an awful time tracking down her books in stores (most of mine come from my trip to Powell’s in Portland last winter) and even the library doesn’t have them all. I can tell you they are worth the effort to search out though, so good luck hunting for them!
Angela Thirkell writes some charming comedies, but went out of fashion like so many other authors in the 1960s. Amongst the accusations against her then was that she was was a snob, and although I liked this book, I could see where the detractors were coming from. I almost turned communist by time I had finished it – Mrs Brandon does not do a hands turn, but is always exhausted by social events, and devoted servants tell her not to tire herself, and run around getting her cups of tea. Her daughter Delia is going the same way, and I was glad to see the book was written in 1939 – I thought the war will shake them out of their idle ways! However, still a charming story and worth reading for Mr Miller and Miss Morris alone.
Being a huge fan of women’s middlebrow fiction, I’m a certainly accustomed to authors who are now shunned as snobs for their portraits of comfortable middle class lives! Thirkell’s wartime books do portray everyone as being filled with very patriotic and slightly uncharacteristic enthusiasm but her Barsetshire does return to its lovely indolent self after.
[…] It is possible (just possible, mind you) that not everyone spends as much time as I do anticipating Virago’s releases of Angela Thirkell’s Barsetshire books. Yes, they are publishing two next month (Pomfret Towers and Christmas at High Rising) but what I am most excited about right now are the three titles they are releasing in May 2014: August Folly, Summer Half, and The Brandons. […]
[…] Yesterday, Virago released their three new Angela Thirkell titles: Summer Half, August Folly, and The Brandons. The Brandons is as charming as Lavinia Brandon herself, August Folly delights with the foolish […]
I just finished this, having finally found a lone Barsetshire novel in my library (odd, don’t you think?). I will be scouring the bookshops for more!