The Long View

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a b c Wilson, Frances (30 December 2012). "Elizabeth Jane Howard: interview". The Telegraph . Retrieved 18 April 2014. Adams, Matthew (3–4 June 2017). "Talent and torment". The Sydney Morning Herald . Retrieved 4 September 2017. His daughter was a more subtle disaster. She was undoubtedly attractive, but although not a fool, she was not equipped with enough intellectual ballast for her charms Narrato come un percorso a ritroso, “Il lungo sguardo della scrittriceElizabeth Jane Howard mostra, attraverso la narrazione della famiglia della Antonia, le costrizioni di un matrimionio subito, una condizione matrimoniale scelta come fuga da una terribile famiglia di origine ma diventata un’altra prigione con un marito silenzioso, disinnamorato ma fedele alle convinzioni sociali, padre pessimo incapace di affetto nei confronti dei figli, perennemente critico nei confronti della moglie cinico e silenzioso con le amanti .

The Long View by Elizabeth Jane Howard is a brilliantly written but ultimately depressing story of a marriage. When we meet the Flemings they are ”celebrating” the engagement of their son who is entering a marriage that looks like it will replicate the disaster that is his parents’. After reading this story of Conrad, an interesting but selfish, difficult, and unlikable man, and his wife, Antonia, who searches for his approval over what feels like a lifetime, anyone might pause before getting married. A volte le sembrava di odiarlo: a volte le sembrava di amarlo tanto da poter avvizzire e morire sotto la sferza silenziosa della sua indifferenza. Si aggrappava sempre a lui o a se stessa, non ce la faceva ad affrontare la somma dei rispettivi sentimenti. The book has an autobiographical feel. Toni begins as a complete innocent about male female relationships, as is, 30 years later, the woman that Mrs Fleming’s son is to marry. Her daughter is less innocent in that she has become pregnant, but it’s surely innocence as well as foolishness that leads her to go off with the old, loving boyfriend. Perhaps all women (and all men?) begin in state of innocence still, but I think that the position of women has changed radically—it is perhaps the biggest change of the last century. You spend ninety per cent of your time with children, invalids, fools, and animals. What a mind will yours become.”Originally published in 1956, The Long View is Elizabeth Jane Howard's uncannily authentic portrait of one marriage and one woman. Observant and heartbreaking, written with exhilarating wit, it is a gut-wrenching account of the birth and death of a relationship - as extraordinary as it is timeless. Non ci sono paragoni tra i due, ma voglio dire che l'ho letto con una tale partecipazione che non so dire se sia un bel libro davvero. Nearly impossible for me to give Elizabeth Jane Howard anything less than 5 stars because 5 stars means I will re-read and I always want to re-read her.

I debated whether to give this 3 or 4 stars ⭐️ because as ever EJH’s writing is wonderful , but I decided on 3 because I just found it so depressing ! First published in 1956 it’s a story of a break down of a marriage on reverse , it wasn’t This I found depressing even though Conrad Fleming was a complete chauvinistic pig! It was the way older man so readily and easily prayed on young women and how young women weren’t taken seriously by either sexes of the older generation. Now after reading her memoir slipstream I think 🤔 mr & Mrs Fleming were based on her own parents, apart from Mrs Fleming being less Frigid as her real mother as the fling with Thompson in mariselle , France was some of the best writing. Ejh was abused by her own father and some of Conrad’s personality traits are copied from him (in my opinion) apart from ejhs own father loved women and was a serial charmer . Where as Conrad Fleming treats all women and She was a nice, ignorant, unimaginative girl, designed perfectly to reproduce herself; and regarding her, Mr Fleming, found it difficult to believe in The Origin of the SpeciesGreen Shades: An Anthology of Plants, Gardens and Gardeners. Pan Macmillan. 2021. ISBN 978-1529050738.

Howard paints a portrait of life (and marriage) in mid-20th century London. Her depiction of the society in which the Flemings live and the incisive examination of their marriage can be amusing. As written by Howard, it seems to be a time when a man marries under the illusion that he can take the raw material that he perceives as his wife and shape her into something pleasing to him. Antonia’s willingness to accept this situation and her continual striving for Conrad’s love also seems to belong to another time. But the sadness of a world in which love seems impossible and marriage at best a waste of people’s lives and at worst the opportunity for people to destroy someone (or themselves), becomes increasingly painful. Her second marriage, to Australian broadcaster Jim Douglas-Henry in 1958, was brief. [3] Her third marriage, to novelist Kingsley Amis, whom she met while organising the Cheltenham Literary Festival, [7] lasted from 1965 to 1983. For part of that time, 1968–1976, they lived at Lemmons, a Georgian house in Barnet, where Howard wrote Something in Disguise (1969). [11] Her stepson, Martin Amis, credited her with encouraging him to become a more serious reader and writer. [12] A biography, entitled Elizabeth Jane Howard: A Dangerous Innocence by Artemis Cooper, was published by John Murray in 2017. A reviewer said it was "strongest in the case it makes for the virtues of Howard's fiction". [10] Personal life [ edit ] If you think that you might read this book and don’t want to know anything about the plot, then read no further. Although the pleasure of the book is in the prose and acute observations of human relationships, so I don’t think that knowing a little about the book would matter much; and I’ve no idea anyway how much I will give away. She had acted in Stratford as a girl, and she would have liked what the day offered: the dark wintry river, the swans gliding by, and behind rain-streaked windows, new dramas in formation: human shadows, shuffling and whispering in the dimness, hoping – by varying and repeating their errors – to edge closer to getting it right. In Jane’s novels, the timid lose their scripts, the bold forget their lines, but a performance, somehow, is scrambled together; heads high, hearts sinking, her characters head out into the dazzle of circumstance. Every phrase is improvised and every breath a risk. The play concerns the pursuit of happiness, the pursuit of love. Standing ovations await the brave.” Hilary Mantel on EJHHoward, who died at 90 in 2014, became far from innocent, marrying three times and having a string of lovers, including her first husband’s brother, Arthur Koestler, Ken Tynan, Laurie Lee, Cyril Connolly, and Cecil Day-Lewis. Perhaps all those lovers were the result of a sort of innocence. Cooper, Artemis ‘’Elizabeth Jane Howard: A Dangerous Innocence’’, London: John Murray (2016), p.260. What a mistake it is to listen to one’s thoughts. But it is a mistake of such infinite variety that making it constitutes a chief pleasure in life. You should be more discriminating in the flattery you require. Or if that is beyond you, more selective as to time".