| Title | : | The King of a Rainy Country |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 1853811785 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9781853811784 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 281 |
| Publication | : | First published July 9, 1990 |
The King of a Rainy Country Reviews
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Brigid Brophy’s semi-autobiographical book refuses to conform to expectations. When Susan meets Neale at a bohemian party it looks like the stage’s set for romance, maybe even a marriage plot, albeit a slightly unconventional one. It’s London in the early 1950s, a disaffected Susan moves in with Neale almost overnight. They’re so close they can finish each other’s sentences. Susan takes a job as assistant to a sleazy, back-street bookseller close to their flat in a perpetually murky Fitzrovia, Neale washes dishes in a restaurant. But events take an unexpected turn, first Neale brings home a stray Frenchman whose only English is the word “queer,” then Susan uncovers an unsettling image buried in the erotica her boss trades in. It’s Cynthia her former schoolfriend and long-lost love. Suddenly Brophy interrupts her monochromatic story with bursts of colour and it shifts from slice-of-life domestic drama into quest territory with Neale and Susan in hot pursuit of the enigmatic Cynthia. But this too is just another in Brophy’s series of twists and turns.
Brophy tries on then discards various types of narrative, as if, like her characters, they don’t quite fit. She flirts with the kitchen-sink realism that was so popular at the time, but splices it with fragments of a wistful, lesbian, school story. Next, she mixes in generous amounts of droll comedy as her central characters travel across Europe with a coach-load of querulous, Coca-Cola addicted Americans. Finally, Brophy takes inspiration from her favourite Mozart operas as her central characters catch up with their quarry Cynthia in the backstreets of Venice. Everything’s meticulously observed and Brophy’s prose’s disciplined throughout. She often adopts a drily distanced tone that reminded me of the clipped, upper middle-class accents so characteristic of the time: symbol of that repressive era and something Brophy’s clearly commenting on, and playing with here as part of a complex exploration of gender and sexuality. I did find the pacing a little uneven and aspects were infuriatingly oblique - particularly in the deliberately static, opening stages. But as this unfolded it was witty and intriguing enough to capture and hold my attention.
Rating: 3.5 -
I’m not sure what to think of this! A solid 4.5 seems fair. I truly enjoyed it, but expected something different going in, so I guess I’m a little thrown. The tone throughout is coolly detached, almost emotionless, and the relationships between characters are hard to crack. Every action and reaction, every motive is never quite what you expect it to be.
The blurb on the back of the Virago edition (which has an amazing cover sadly not pictured here) reads, “Susan, working for a distinctly dubious bookseller, is in love with the elusive Neale, but still obsessed with the memory of Cynthia, a rangy beauty from her schooldays.” First off, yes, Neale is elusive, but nearly all the other characters in the book are just as elusive, if not moreso, specifically Susan. Second, I’m not sure Susan was ever in love with Neale. I think maybe she felt like she should be in love with him, but that wasn’t the reality. It’s hard to say, though, as there’s a lot she doesn’t tell us as narrator.
Brophy’s writing style reminds me slightly of Millen Brand and maybe even Jane Bowles in a way, though less quirky. All their works have a similar off-kilter kind of feel (which I love). The overall ambiguity in regards to sexuality reminded me of Mary Renault, which is always a good thing!
My favorite section was Part Three. I think the conversations between Susan and Helen were the most significant and revealing, and they stuck with me more than any other. I immediately went back to them after finishing the novel because they tied in with the last (perfect!) sentence.
All in all, a very, very unusual book. I think the elusiveness works in its favor and adds to its originality. I’m excited to read more by Bridgid Brophy! -
1956 British novel about a drifting young couple of sexually ambiguous London bohemians, by the genre-defying Brigid Brophy. Last seen as a Virago Modern Classic in 1990, now republished by youthful indie fanzine types Coelacanth Press. This edition also comes with a couple of new introductions, helping to argue why this dusty old novel - and Brophy herself - are worthy of wider attention today.
I'd compare it to the later films of Lindsay Anderson, in that it feels both incredibly British, but also very European, trying to kick back at its Britishness at the same time as commenting upon it. There's doses of dazed Camus-style existentialism, plus a hint of Muriel Spark and Beryl Bainbridge's autobiographical works about bright young women in the post war era. It also echoes the genre of gay coming of age novels, and even a touch of the Beats when the location moves to Italy.
Although it's not as experimental as her later works (eg In Transit), I was particularly impressed by Brophy's device of carefully omitting the narrator's own name throughout the whole book, except at one crucial moment (as far as I can make out). -
4.5 stars
First published in 1956, The King of a Rainy Country was Brigid Brophy’s second novel, a semi-autobiographical work narrated by a nineteen-year-old girl named Susan, whom the author once described as a ‘cut-down version’ of herself. Witty, engaging and deceptively light on its feet, the book itself is divided into three fairly distinct parts, each one focussing on a different phase in the story.
As the novel opens, Susan is moving in with Neale in his flat in central London. At first it seems natural to assume that Susan and Neale are girlfriend and boyfriend, but in reality their connection is a little more ambiguous. Maybe they’re just friends; maybe they’re still getting to know one another. Whatever the true nature of their relationship, it’s a relatively relaxed one. Although they sleep in the same bed, sex doesn’t seem to feature here.
We lent each other money without keeping account; we spoke of what we could afford; sometimes we discussed a house we would own. Our relationship was verbal: allusive and entangled. Deviating further and further into obliquity we often lost track. “I don’t think I think you know what I mean.” “We’d better say it openly.” “Much better. But I’m not going to be the first to say it.” “Neither am I.”
Between confidence and the luxury of giving up we veered, straddled or fell. Sometimes Neale warned me to expect nothing of him. At other times it was he who accused me of not trying. […]
We were pleased at being coupled as you two, but also afraid lest, in the unspokenness of our understanding, neither of us really understood. (p.9)
Perhaps unsurprisingly given their bohemian lifestyle, Susan and Neale have very little money to spare. Neale spends his nights washing dishes in one of the local restaurants while Susan takes dictation for a bookseller, a rather dodgy individual by the name of Finkelheim who just happens to be based in one of the houses directly opposite the pair’s flat. One of the joys of this novel is Brophy’s wit, a skill that is plainly evident in her creation of Finkelheim, a man who has assumed a Jewish name as he believes it will be better for business. ‘That way nobody will expect any easy terms from you. You won’t get asked any favours.’ Here’s a brief flavour of the dynamic between Susan and her employer.
Confined together, Finkelheim and I were bound to observe one another and to think what we saw important. We kneaded our relationship for a day or two, and then it took shape: small, lumpish, putty-coloured but reassuring because defined; it created the atmosphere the place lacked. The leer he had given me at our first interview grew into a game. He would say:
“You still sharing with a friend?”
“Yes.”
“You let me know when the friend moves out.”
However, I felt perfectly safe. The game could not grow beyond a certain intensity for lack of material. (pp. 20-21)
It soon becomes clear to Susan that Finkelheim makes his money by peddling pornographic material; the other more respectable books are merely a sideline for the sake of appearances.
One day, when Finkelheim is out, Susan notices a familiar face while leafing through one of the racier titles, The Lady Revealed. The nude in question is Cynthia Bewly, an old friend and teenage crush from school. When Susan spots her former classmate, the memories of her schooldays come rushing back. At the time, Susan idolised Cynthia – and it seems those feelings were reciprocated too, at least to a certain extent…
Cynthia shewed me ways of swerving out of my course into hers. I took up art: and this meant that in free lessons Cynthia and I would draw from the life — from a girl in a gym tunic posed on a desk — while Annette worked at fancy lettering in another part of the studio. I discovered for myself that if I slipped into the wrong queue at dinner time I could sit next to Cynthia. I would watch her profile: I felt unable to eat. Presently this became her feeling too. We would each crumble a slice of bread, each worked on by asceticism. (p. 62)
Filled with a sense of curiosity about Cynthia, Susan is eager to reconnect with her old friend and schoolgirl crush. Neale too is intrigued by the mystery surrounding this girl from Susan’s past, so much so that the pair set about trying to trace Cynthia to see how her life has turned out. If nothing else, the very fact that she is featured in The Lady Revealed is all rather fascinating.
To read the rest of my review, please click here:
https://jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2016... -
It was a few years ago now, but I can still remember the day I found my copy of The King of a Rainy County. I was in Falmouth, for the first time in years, trawling the bookshops with my fiance. I picked up eight green Virago Modern Classics – including this one – in one shop, a few more in another, and a few other books I can’t quite remember. Out last port of call was the Oxfam bookshop and we dropped our bags by the counter while we looked around. When we went back they were gone.
We worked out that another lady who had been there with several bags must have picked ours up too. The lady in the shop didn’t know her, and we didn’t know when she’d notice. And when she did would she realise where she picked them up? Would she know where to bring them back? And if she did, when? Falmouth is just that far away that it isn’t easy to just pop back.
But luck was with us – when we went outside and looked up and down the street I spotted a lady coming towards us with a bag I recognised!
So the book came home, but I must confess I catalogued it, but it on a shelf and forgot about it.
Until late last year, when I received an email from The Coelacanth Press advocating a book that they clearly loved. I realised that it would fit nicely into my Century of Books. I realised that it would work for Venice in February. And so I took my copy off the shelf and read it!
I have to say that it was a very good book, and that I could see that Brigid Brophy had a wonderful talent for writing. A lovely, distinctive way with descriptive prose; the ability to draw engaging characters with a few simple strokes; and the ability to spin a story full of ideas.
That story unfolded in three acts.
Act 1
In grey, rainy, post-war London Susan found a job with a slightly shady publisher. And she moved on with Neale, who might have been a boyfriend, or might have been a friend who was a boy. They lived in a way that some would call bohemian but I’d be more inclined to all post-student.
One day at work, quite by chance, Susan saw a striking photograph of Cynthia. She and Susan had been at school together, they were classmates, and they might have been friends or they might have been rather more to one another.
Susan decided that she must find Cynthia, and Neale showed an interest in finding her too. They discovered that she was in Venice, and decided that they must find a way to get there.
I liked them both, I wanted to know them better and understand their relationship, so I was always going to follow.
Act 2
Susan and Neale showed wonderful initiative, finding jobs as couriers on a coach tour that would end in Venice. And the story shifted into colourful comedy, as the novice couriers were kept busy managing a coachload of brash American tourists. They managed things magnificently, and they enjoyed the journey too,
The shift was dramatic, and I’m not usually a lover of comic writing, but I have to say that I was glad when we arrived in Venice.
Act 3
In Venice the story shifted again, it became more quiet, more subtle, in a way that suited the setting and the story perfectly. Susan and Neale saw the city and they were very taken with it. They found Cynthia, they met her friend, the famous singer, Helena Buchan, and they met a gentleman who might have been her companion or might not.
There are a lot of mights in this book, and they work very well.
I rather liked Helena, but I couldn’t take to Cynthia I’m afraid.
Another story unfolds in Venice, of course it does, but I shouldn’t say exactly what that was. But it was intriguing, it was surprising, and it was entirely right.
As was the ending, back in London. Though it was one of those endings that wasn’t really an ending, it was the start of a different life.
I’d had a wonderful life watching lives full of possibility, seeing wonderful places, and being given so many ideas – both big and small to turn over in my mind.
And yet it wasn’t demanding at all; I found myself reading easily and naturally, and I was always eager to know what would happen next.
Brigid Brophy has a style entirely own, but I’d venture to suggest that if you like authors like Muriel Spark and Beryl Bainbridge there’s every chance you’ll really like The King of a Rainy Country.
I did! -
My review:
https://theblankgarden.com/2019/08/20... -
This is a novel I spent years intending to read, and I'm so glad I finally did. There's a coolness to it — not "hip" cool but "reserved" cool — that reminds me of Paul Bowles' The Sheltering Sky, but for a novel driven so much by memory (quite literally, as it's a memory of an old schoolmate that sets the characters off on their travels), I was surprised that the memories weren't difficult ones or traumatic ones to be reconciled with — that's such a familiar type of story and Brophy avoids it. What strikes me in The King of A Rainy Country is that the characters don't seem traumatized or damaged so much as bored with the options before them and actively trying to make possible a different kind of life. AndA bohemian life of a "life as art." I don't mean that in a dismissive or cheap way, because Brophy's narrator Susan is so precise, so clear in her vision and so attentive to the world (the descriptions of arriving in and exploring Venice alone are some of the best I've ever read) that there really is a sense of turning the world into art and beauty. The language and style of the novel elevate the characters' desires which could have been mere youthful pretension otherwise. It's very, very funny at times, but also wise and sad, and without spoiling anything the way things turn at one point on two characters who thought they were on the same quest realizing they aren't, and having to decide what to do next, is one of the truest moments I've read in fiction.
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This was a very pleasant read. Got it from Barbara Grier’s “Lesbiana,” a very thorough listing of any remotely gay content getting published through the 1950s and 1960s. The sexual ambiguity and fluidity of the main characters was interesting to follow, and gave me a better sense of the period. The word “queer” is used as a self-descriptor by one character, but for the protagonist it doesn’t strike her as particularly unusual that she had a crush on a female friend in all-girls’ school, though it’s maybe not something she talks to everyone about. And it certainly isn’t incompatible with heterosexual marriage.
Brophy’s prose is very smooth going—I read 150 pages in one afternoon without noticing how it happened. The adventures in Italy and with the pornographic bookseller are very funny. And the idea that you could get a job traveling the next week just by walking into a travel agency is so thrilling, especially during this pandemic.
I was glad I had some French when reading the first section where there are whole important conversations in that language, but I think it lets up after the first section. -
"I told some imprecisely imagined interlocutor that each year I hoped to have outgrown being moved by the autumn and each year I hadn't."
This was an interesting one in my reread pile; I remember reading it at least twice in high school or college, I suppose around the narrator's age, but I barely recalled what happened in it. Mostly just a romantic sense of the characters drifting around Europe having Meaningful Conversations in evocative weather, right? It's from the 1950s and... has it aged well? Don't ask me.
I'm not sure I'd love it now as a first-time read, as someone looking for a solid story or deep characters...but as a re-read, expecting to recapture that familiar mood of shabby bohemian aimlessness with a good queer slant, I got exactly what I wanted. Sometimes funny, sometimes tragic, very much full of the feeling of being young and broke and half in love with unsuitable people. -
I am glad I found this book in a second hand book shop written in 1956 and my book is a reprint from 1990 with an afterword of the author . It took me to an era of "naive" writing ,I could feel the situations the scenes came to life ,yet it felt some sharp corners were rounded off . I liked it for this .
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Cheerful book, easy and pleasant to read!
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I don’t know why I loved this book so much, but I really, really did.
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Hilarious joyful emotional chaotic bisexual genius.
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Semi eccentric, enigmatic Brits. Amusing portraits of Americans abroad. Improbable but enjoyable
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The King of a Rainy Country – was Brigid Brophy’s second novel. As the author explains in her afterword to this edition, the novel does have some autobiographical elements, especially in the characters of Neale and the first person narrator Susan. Brophy creates a fascinating world of both London Bohemianism and European glamour, suffused through with humour, depth and for me moments of poignancy. I absolutely loved it.
“O I’m so afraid that it’s true about to travel hopefully being better than to arrive. It might be all in the quest, all in the search, all in the anticipation. When it came, there might be nothing there.”
In this brilliantly stylish, witty novel Brigid Brophy introduces us to the world of two post war impoverished bohemians, Susan and Neale. As the novel opens Susan is moving in with Neale – although their relationship is somewhat ambiguous. On the day she moves Susan manages to secure a badly paying job, working for a definitely dodgy bookseller, coincidently in premises directly across the road from the flat she will be sharing with Neale. The proprietor Finkelheim is a distinctly odd man, his name an assumed one, it isn’t long before Susan discovers his chief trade is in pornography.
On days when Finkelheim is absent, Susan invites Neale over to spend time with her during the afternoons, the pair start examining some of the stock. Leafing through one of Finkelheim’s books Susan is taken aback to see a nude picture of Cynthia – a girl she had known at school, and for whom she’d had complicated feelings. Seeing the picture of Cynthia brings back memories of Susan’s adolescence at school and her all too brief friendship with Cynthia.
Full review:
https://heavenali.wordpress.com/2015/... -
Brilliant, quite poignant. For all the whimsy and mischief of Susan and Neale's travels, Susan's own quieter personal journey/growth is the true story here and Brophy renders it with great tenderness and understanding. Many times I've read a book and been disappointed and frustrated with the lack of certainty at the end, but I feel perfectly content and even sort of thrilled with the many ambiguities The King of a Rainy Country leaves us with.
Cheers to Coelacanth Press for bringing this book back! I am already planning to reread it. -
Ah what fun! My second Brophy novel ended up being her sevond novel. And what a novel!
The narrator, Susan, takes us on a mad bohemian journey through her job with a dodgy bookseller and then through italy to Venice in a tale of unfulfilled and unrequited love, sapphic longing and general mid-century bohemian shennanigans.
The story is a funny, absurd and moving one full of Brophy's own biographical details (though it is not what one would call 'Autofiction').
I couldn't put it down and was quite moved by the ending!
Note: some of the language and imagery used has aged very badly. -
A beautiful new edition of Brophy's 1956 novel - but still as fresh and appealing over 50 years later. One of Ali Smith's books of the year (Observer).
Deborah -
I registered a book at BookCrossing.com!
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/13001404 -
If someone had told me I would be giving this book 3.5 stars (4 stars by Goodreads system) after the first 50 or so pages of reading this book I would have looked at that person like they were crazy. The book consisted of three parts, and I thought the first part or most of it was pretentious and perhaps dated (it was written in 1956). But I was sort of curious as to how it would turn out given the short description of the book on the opening page before the novel actually started. That, and the novel started to be humorous at times. And actually quite a bit of the time. So that by the end of the book I was glad to have read it.
I will say one thing, and I find it to be humorous in and of itself. My version of the book was a paperback version of it by the publishing house, Corgi. In perhaps the most important line of the book there was a crucial typographical error. I read it once (the first time reading it not realizing there was an error) and I knew the sentence was important to the telling of the story, but something was clearly wrong. So I thought about it for a bit and saw that by substituting a ‘t for an existing ‘r’ in the word ‘required’ so that it was ‘requited’ the sentence made perfect sense, and I was satisfied. Shame on the proofreader for letting this go by! I hope it was not in the original publication! Here is the sentence, but I am going to hide it in the event you want to read the book... .
Synopsis at front of book:
• When Susan, working for a shady bookseller, finds in a book a picture of Cynthia, her girlhood passion, she is impelled to discover what has happened to her. Neale, with whom she is platonically living, joins her in the search. When at last they find Cynthia, matters reach a surprising climax, in which comedy and semi-comedy are subtly blended.
Reviews (they all like it 🙂 🙃):
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https://jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2016...
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https://heavenali.wordpress.com/2015/...
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https://pechorinsjournal.wordpress.co...
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https://emilybooks.wordpress.com/2013...
Biography of the author (I read yesterday a sentence from perhaps Goodreads that this book was supposed to be semi-autobiographical in nature...):
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brigid_...
Note:
• We should all be grateful to The Coelacanth Press for prising opening the shutters on Brigid Brophy herself. This remarkable woman who led an extraordinary life and, if this is anything to go by, wrote wonderful novels, is almost forgotten. The Coelacanth Press have republished The King of a Rainy Country as a labour of love – it being the only book they’ve published. I urge you to buy it and keep Brophy on the bookshelves. It might even encourage The Coelacanth Press to publish more work by such wrongly neglected, brilliant writers. (JimZ: I just checked....that’s the only book they have re-issued.)
• I found another typo in the book and either the publisher went through printed copies of the book and corrected it (my book has a strikeout of the letter that needed to be moved....it was spelled ‘acqaunited’ and should have been ‘acquainted’) or the reader before me made a notation of the error. -
I read this book in 24 hours: Brophy's prose is funny, precise and entertaining. But her excellent style does not disguise the fact that this book does not really hold together. Susan lives with Neale in a flat in London in the 1950s: they share a bedroom, but do not have sex. Susan works for a man who sells (fairly tame) pornography, and, in one of the books of nudes, discovers a picture of a school friend, Cynthia, with whom she was in love. She and Neale set out to uncover Cynthia's whereabouts, and eventually discover that she is in Venice. They contrive to get jobs that will take them to Venice, and to meet Cynthia. I was disappointed by the story because Brophy didn't let me inside the head of any of the characters: even though it is written in first person from Susan's perspective, I never felt I understood Susan, or knew why she lives with Neale, or went on the quest for Cynthia. Neale, the other major character, was even more opaque to me. I kept reading, hoping the farcical plot or characters' motivation would begin to make sense, but it never did. The final section is as opaque and emotionless as the rest of the book.
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3.68 stars
A funny little adventure book (where the stakes are matters of the heart) that spans England to Italy as nineteen-year-old Susan goes in search of the girl she kissed once in high school. Shenanigans ensue, feelings are hurt, and lessons (one imagines) are only learned years later, off the page and in retrospect. -
hunt it down...
Ref - Jane & Overbylass
