Tag Archives: Winifred Holtby

#BookReview ‘Poor Caroline’ by Winifred Holtby #historical

2 Replies

I can’t help but think this novel would be helped by a better title. Poor Caroline is such a negative sounding title for this, the fourth novel by Yorkshire author Winifred Holtby. From the first page, it is clear this is a fond but sharp satire of the inter-war years showing how the expectations of people can on the surface appear aligned but in reality are self-serving. Winifred HoltbyCaroline Denton-Smyth, honorary secretary of the Christian Cinema Company, works hard in the belief that her company is doing good. But the people on the board of directors each have their own reason for being involved with the company, reasons that are not admitted and which diverge hugely from Caroline’s intentions. One hopes to leverage connections with the chairman to gain entrance for his son to Eton. Another wishes to sell his new type of film. Caroline has so many ideas but little success. At the age of 72 she has no money and is dependent on loans from long-suffering relatives. But she is always hopeful. This is the story of Caroline, her fellow directors, and the Christian Cinema Company. Holtby tells the story of each person in turn so the full picture, and the extent of Caroline’s folly, becomes evident. You can’t help but feel simultaneously sorry for her and exasperated with her inability to see the truth.
It is a while before we meet the eponymous heroine. First we learn of her death, as some distant relatives return from her funeral. In her will, Caroline left bequests of money she didn’t have. “Oh, you can’t alter people like Caroline. She always thought she knew better than anyone. She was always going to do something extraordinary.”
Two scenes in particular stayed with me. The description of the odious Clifton Roderick Johnson’s screenwriting class is a classic. He spits instructions to his paltry four students. ‘They did not know, and indeed Mr Johnson hardly knew, that their lecturer who spoke so confidently of technique, cuts, drama and royalties had himself been able to sell for performance only one scenario and a set of captions.’ And the storm at film inventor Hugh Macafee’s derelict warehouse when he continues to work despite the efforts of two fellow directors to evacuate him before a wall collapses.
This novel requires patience, to allow the author time to draw the full scenario so the true manipulations, fraud, dissembling and love, can unfold.

Click the title to read my review of ANDERBY WOLD, also by Winifred Holtby.

If you like this, try:-
‘Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day’ by Winifred Watson
‘Curtain Call’ by Anthony Quinn
‘Highland Fling’ by Nancy Mitford

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview POOR CAROLINE by Winifred Holtby https://wp.me/p5gEM4-3nn via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘Anderby Wold’ by Winifred Holtby #historical

3 Replies

I was a teenager when I first read South Riding by Winifred Holtby but, until now, hadn’t read her earlier novels. Anderby Wold is her first; published in 1923 it is a portrayal of a Yorkshire Wolds village in the first years of the twentieth century. I was struck by the similarity to Jane Austen: both focus on the personalities, tensions, the pettiness, resentments and emotions of small communities, and both combine acute social observations with sharp humour. Winifred HoltbyThe novel opens with a family party at the farm, Anderby Wold, as Mary Robson and John, her husband of ten years and also her cousin, are celebrating a decade of hard work and penny pinching to clear the mortgage on the farm they had inherited. We are introduced to Mary and the family from the viewpoint of John’s sister, the spiteful Sarah. If ever there was a negative first chapter that makes you think the story is going to be full of unlikeable characters, this is it. It is, perhaps, a sign of its times; I am not sure a novel would be published today with such an ill-feeling introduction. But do persist, this novel is worth reading.
We are slowly introduced to each key character with their own viewpoint and take on their agricultural world, where hard toil, tough weather and difficult land unites – and separates – the community. Mary thinks of herself as a considerate benevolent mistress, she sits with sick people, visits the old, supports the school, and distributes gifts at Christmas. But she is unaware that some of the farm labourers resent what they see as her Mrs Bountiful role, a vision of her behaviour to which she is blind. She feels dissatisfaction with the minutiae of her life, dissatisfaction she pragmatically ignores. At a gathering of the village ladies, she listens to the gossip, ‘Mary shivered. They were as lifeless as the uprooted trees, carried from the wold side and laid in the back garden of the farm, awaiting destruction for firewood. Their talk was as meaningless as the rustle of dry leaves on brittle twigs.’
Into this fragile world where people speak bluntly and behaviour can be brusque, comes a writer from Manchester. He is researching the lot of the agricultural labourer with an eye on social change. When he comes into conflict with Mary, the beliefs and assumptions of both are challenged in an Austen-esque manner. As an outsider, David Rossitur is treated first with silence, then with suspicion. The innkeeper’s wife worries about his motivations, ‘Mrs Todd, being a personal of small imagination, had divided mankind into two classes, those who had designs on Victoria [her daughter], those who had designs on her Beer. Last night she had come to the regrettable conclusion that David had no true appreciation of Beer.’ A trade union for agricultural workers is formed, followed inevitably for a strike. At harvest time. Anderby Wold will be changed forever.

Click the title to read my review of POOR CAROLINE, also by Winifred Holtby.

If you like this, try:-
‘The Ballroom’ by Anna Hope
‘Time Will Darken It’ by William Maxwell
‘Under a Pole Star’ by Stef Penney

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview ANDERBY WOLD by Winifred Holtby https://wp.me/p5gEM4-353 via @SandraDanby