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Catastrophe and Other Stories – Dino Buzzati (tr. Judith Landry)

Last year, I read Dino Buzzati’s brooding, existential masterpiece,The Tartar Steppe – a haunting, hypnotic novel of the inexorable passage of time, the hunger for meaning, and the elusive nature of glory. It’s a book that found a place on My Best Books of 2025 list, and I wanted to read more of his work. This time, I picked up a short story collection that displays many of Buzzati’s trademark themes which made The Tartar Steppe so compelling. Most stories in Catastrophe and Other Stories are translated by Judith Landry, while three are translated by E.R. Low and one by Cynthia Jolly.

Originally published between 1961 and 1978, Catastrophe and Other Stories by Dino Buzzati is a compelling collection of twenty tales uniquely infused with surreal, existential, and farcical elements, where the boundaries between ordinary reality and surreal strangeness are often blurred. It’s a collection that not only showcases the range of Buzzati’s imagination but also the depth of his themes.

Many of the stories in the collection depict the psychological impact of disasters, whether seen or unseen, natural or man-made. In the opening tale, “The Collapse of the Baliverna,” the narrator’s voice is immediately marked by dread: he is paralysed by the fear of being ensnared in a criminal investigation, even though he may bear no real culpability and there could be other bigger forces at play (“I am terrified. It’s no use my telling myself that no one will give evidence against me”). The narrator recalls an incident that occurred two years ago when he visited the area surrounding the Baliverna (“a huge, grim, brick building put up outside the town”), in the company of his brother-in-law, an entomologist. The narrator, we are told, often accompanies him on such excursions for fresh air.

I must say that the hideous building’s state of repair had impressed me the first time I saw it. Its decrepitude could be seen in the very colour of its bricks, in the rough repairs, the various beams acting as supports. The back wall was particularly horrifying – blankly bare, with a few small irregular openings more like loopholes than real windows; for this reason it looked higher than the façade, which was lightened by rows of windows.

On one such expedition, while his brother-in-law and the other men are absorbed in their fieldwork, the narrator is overtaken by a sudden, inexplicable impulse to scale the wall of the Baliverna. Drawing on his earlier experience as a mountain climber, he begins the ascent with confidence, and at first everything proceeds without incident. But when he shifts his weight onto one of the rusty iron spikes protruding from the wall, the metal gives way beneath him, and he falls to the ground. More disturbingly, the snapping of that single spike appears to trigger a chain reaction: one after another, the remaining spikes begin to loosen and break, and the concrete slabs they support start to tilt and balance precariously, conjuring the terrifying possibility that the entire structure may be on the brink of collapse…

The titular story, “Catastrophe,” vividly evokes the fear and creeping paranoia that seize people in the face of an imminent disaster, terror that intensifies precisely because the nature of the threat remains undefined. In this enigmatic narrative, the narrator is seated on a train hurtling through the countryside, passively watching the landscape slide past his window. Yet two brief, disquieting scenes disturb this calm. First, he notices a man outside urgently shouting to a woman, as though warning her of some approaching danger. Shortly thereafter, lulled by the train’s steady rhythm, the narrator glimpses another unsettling sight: a peasant crying out across the fields, while men seem to be running from every direction (“They were running, galvanized into frenzied activity by some unexpected foreboding which had shattered the peace of their lives”). These fragmentary impressions, half-caught and unexplained, deepen his apprehension and amplify the story’s atmosphere of mounting menace.

And yet, while the narrator scents a whiff of some disaster the nature of which he can’t quite fathom, somehow the atmosphere on the train remains tranquil as if it is unaffected by the ominous threats brewing outside.

We were rushing towards something ending in “-tion” – something that must indeed be terrible if the population of whole towns fled immediately on hearing about it. A new and powerful factor had broken up the life of the country, men and women thought of nothing but their own safety and were abandoning their houses, jobs, business, everything, while our train, our wretched train was proceeding with the regularity of clockwork, like the honest soldier making his way through the ranks of his defeated army to reach his trench where the enemy is already encamped. And our sense of decency, our pathetic self-respect denied us the courage to react. Trains, undeniably, are very like life.

In “The Landslide”, an eerie tale in which the human need for glory trumps tragedy, a reporter, Giovanni, is sent to the region of Valle Ortica near the village of Goro to cover a massive landslide that has reportedly resulted in casualties. Giovanni is anxious – not about the victims or their tragic deaths, but about reaching the site in time to cover the development, fearful that rival news networks will arrive first and gain an edge over him. Yet as he inches closer to the region – a bleak, desolate place – the people he encounters seem inexplicably unconcerned, which baffles him. When he finally reaches Goro, there are no visible signs that a landslide has occurred. His inquiries about its exact location are met with vague replies, and Giovanni finds himself on a wild goose chase, desperately trying to reach the scene of the tragedy before it is too late, a purpose that appears steadily shaky as the day wears on…

“And Yet They are Knocking at Your Door” centres on an aristocratic family so insulated within their cosy realm, so out of touch with the world beyond, that they fail to grasp the seriousness of a disaster knocking at their doors. The scene unfolds in a drawing room where these wealthy aristocrats – a family of four (father, mother, son, and daughter) and a friend – have gathered for the evening in their home, situated near a river. Outside, a violent storm is raging, and there are unmistakable signs of a looming, catastrophic flood, announcing itself through sighs, roars, and high-pitched sounds.

Cryptic signals emerge in their conversation, giving the reader a hint of what is unfolding, such as the startling sight of a pair of stone statues from the family park now resting on the riverbank. Yet, the family fails to register the uncanny significance of these omens. When they finally comprehend the gravity of the situation and the urgent need to evacuate, the lady of the house appears paralysed by the prospect of losing her prized possessions and the security of her home, refusing to acknowledge the grim reality of the catastrophe. It is an excellent story, a surreal, Kafkaesque tale that explores themes of denial, hubris, and upper-class complacency in the face of impending doom.

Many of these stories are shot through with a streak of absurdity that forms an essential feature of Buzzati’s fictional world, as seen in The Tartar Steppe, particularly in his portrayal of puzzling power structures and hidden, unfathomable bureaucracies that instill fear and a sense of fatality in ordinary, vulnerable people.

In “The Opening of the Road”, a group of high-ranking civil servants – led by Count Carlo Mortimer, Minister of the Interior, accompanied by his secretary, other officials, and engineers – travel from the capital to the town of San Piero to inaugurate a newly constructed road meant to connect that remote region to civilisation. As they proceed, however, the atmosphere grows increasingly disorienting. The road, which at the outset presents no difficulty, becomes progressively more arduous as they push forward. The farther they move from the city, the more wild and unfinished it appears, until it abruptly comes to an end. It is a road intended to symbolise progress and the triumph of human ambition, but instead it leads nowhere, into a void.

The road inexplicably interrupted, the lack of any kind of path, the utter desolation of the region, the fact that San Piero seemed to get farther away the farther they walked: these things all conspired to alarm Mortimer’s companions. They gathered around him and begged him to give up the idea of going on. It was time to escape from the nightmare.

Gradually, much of the entourage turns back toward the city, but the Minister of the Interior absurdly presses on toward the mirage that is San Piero, unwilling to abandon the town’s inhabitants, whom he believes are waiting for his arrival.

Equally haunting is the story “Seven Floors”, which explores the idea that bureaucracy and its hidden mechanisms can afflict individuals more cruelly than a serious disease itself. We are introduced to Giuseppe Corte, who, when the story begins, has checked into a pleasant, well-regarded sanatorium to recover from a mild illness – one that this particular hospital is fully equipped to cure.
Corte is impressed by the institution: the peaceful atmosphere of his room, the views over charming parts of the town, the light and elegant furniture and wallpaper, and the friendly, welcoming staff. He settles in comfortably, reassured by his surroundings. Yet when a nurse pays him a visit, a disquieting feature of the hospital’s system is revealed to him.

That was how he came to know its one extremely odd characteristic: the patients were housed on each floor according to the gravity of their state. The seventh – or top – floor was for extremely mild cases. The sixth was still for mild cases, but ones needing a certain amount of attention. On the fifth floor there were quite serious cases and so on, floor by floor. The second floor was for the very seriously ill. On the first floor were the hopeless cases.

Corte’s room is on the seventh floor – his illness, after all, is considered mild. Yet ominously, as the days pass, a series of bureaucratic “mistakes” and subtle, manipulative pressures from the staff compel him to move down, floor by floor. Although the lower levels house more serious cases, they are correspondingly better equipped. With each successive transfer downward, however, Corte’s fear, anger, and sense of helplessness intensify. On the one hand, he tries to reassure himself: if the treatment on the lower floors is superior, might he not recover more quickly? Should he really insist on being moved back upstairs? Or does his steady descent signal that his illness is far more serious than the doctors are willing to admit?

Exploring themes of fear and social exclusion is the story “Something Beginning with L”, in which Cristoforo Schroder, a timber merchant, arrives in the village of Sisto, a place he has visited two or three times before. On this occasion, however, he falls ill and takes to his bed immediately. The following day, he sends for Dr Lugosi, who arrives not alone but accompanied by a mysterious stranger named Melito. As Schroder settles into a chair and applies the leeches given to him by Lugosi for bloodletting, Melito begins, almost casually, to question him about an encounter he had with a curious man by the roadsidea few months back. Melito claims to have witnessed the exchange, yet its significance remains obscure to Schroder until the truth is revealed, to his mounting horror.

The all-pervading reach of politics, and the paranoia it breeds, is evocatively captured in two stories, “The Epidemic” and “The Scala Scare”. The first seems to gesture toward the darker dimensions of authoritarianism and the suffocating atmosphere of the police state, while the latter alludes to stark wealth inequality and the deep-seated fear of revolution that such disparity inevitably provokes.

In “The Epidemic”, a wonderfully peculiar story exploring paranoia and state surveillance, Colonel Ennio Molinas, a civil servant in a government ministry, finds himself grappling with the effects of a mysterious flu that has led to the sudden absence of several members of his staff. At first, the situation appears merely inconvenient. But then another official – jokingly, or perhaps not – suggests that the virus strikes only dissidents: those who oppose the government not merely through their actions, but through their thoughts and even their careless remarks. Molinas dismisses the claim as absurd – until he himself begins to feel unwell. As his fever rises, he becomes consumed with anxiety, taking elaborate precautions to ensure that his condition does not attract attention.

One of the longest stories in the collection, “The Scala Scare”, is a tense narrative about a wealthy circle of opera-goers trapped inside the Teatro alla Scala, who gradually convince themselves that a violent, apocalyptic revolution is unfolding beyond its walls. Even the opera being performed is considered controversial and a harbinger of doom – “a kind of prophetic allusion to a future revolution and the slaughter it would bring in its train, a condemnation of it in advance, and a warning to those who had power to suppress it in time…”

One of the regular attendees, Cottes, prepares for the gala evening with anticipation, eager for the spectacle of wealth, opulence, and beauty: the finery of the elite, their joie de vivre, and the overall lively aura that accompanies every performance. Yet as he surveys the resplendent audience, revelling in its splendour, his attention is drawn to a group of sombrely dressed men with grave expressions, whose presence unsettles him. Are they police officials or spies, and what might their watchfulness signify? When these men mysteriously disappear, rumours begin to circulate of a revolution brewing outside. Confined within the claustrophobic splendour of the opera house, the elite grow increasingly anxious about their fate, scheming, forming factions, and plotting how best to save their skins…

A couple of stories in this marvellous collection lay bare the depths of human folly and ignorance, as well as the capacity for violence and cruelty. “Just the Very Thing They Wanted” is a particularly disconcerting portrayal of mob mentality and hostility toward outsiders, illustrating how a society can descend into chaos when irrational violence takes centre stage. In the story, a young couple, Antonia and Anna, wander through a dusty town in desperate search of a bath to escape the stifling heat. Finding none, they come upon a fountain reserved for children. Exhausted and no longer caring about propriety, Anna impulsively plunges into it. Almost immediately, she senses the mounting hostility of the onlookers, who shout at her to get out. What begins as disapproval quickly gathers force, and the latent, simmering aggression of the crowd threatens to erupt into full-blown violence.

The arresting, deeply disturbing story “The Slaying of the Dragon” confronts mankind’s propensity for cruelty and its impulse to dominate and destroy nature. The narrative follows the aristocrat Count Gerol, who first hears of an enigmatic dragon from the peasant Longo, a trustworthy man who claims to have seen this large creature in the Valle Secca. Intrigued and eager to witness the marvel himself, Gerol assembles a small expedition to the desolate, barren mountains: the Governor of the province, his wife, a naturalist, and a taxidermy expert.

Along the way, they encounter a young boy carrying a goat, which he intends to leave as a sacrifice at the mouth of the cave where the dragon is said to dwell. Gerol forces the boy to surrender the animal, planning to use it as bait to lure the creature out. In the intense, shimmering heat, the party finally reaches the site of the reported sighting. Drawn by the scent of the goat, the dragon finally emerges, and the hunters are startled by how small and pitiful it appears. Driven by his thirst for glory, Gerol attacks. Yet, despite being repeatedly shot and gravely wounded, the creature neither dies nor retreats into its cave, a baffling spectacle that leaves the onlookers bewildered – until the explanation becomes painfully clear. In the end, Gerol’s grotesque display of cruelty suggests that he might receive his comeuppance.

The later stories in the collection are infused with the qualities of fables and fairy tales, often slipping into magical realism or allegory. “The Enchanted Coat” is a striking example, exploring themes of greed, moral decay, and the consequences of unearned wealth. In the story, a man commissions a beautifully cut suit from a mysterious tailor who asks for no payment. He soon discovers that each time he slips his hand into the pocket of his impeccably made coat, it miraculously fills with cash. There is, however, a catch: whenever he is blessed with this sudden wealth, an equivalent loss – bringing tragedy and ruin – occurs elsewhere. The man remains largely untroubled by this revelation and quickly embraces a life of luxury, acquiring a mansion, building a portfolio of stocks and bonds, and surrounding himself with every conceivable comfort. Yet fate, as always, has one more twist in store…

Many of these stories are lush with striking imagery where the utter desolation of the natural surroundings often mirrors the characters’ fragile states of mind as can be evinced from this paragraph in “The Slaying of the Dragon”…

Maria was silent – her former boldness had vanished alto-gether. Although she wouldn’t admit it, she would have given anything to be able to go back. She looked around at the walls of rock, at the scars of the old landslides and the debris of the recent ones, at the pillars of red earth which looked to her as though they might collapse any minute. Her husband, Count Gerol, the two naturalists and the hunters seemed negligible protection in the face of such solitude.

And in these passages from “The Landslide”…

It was only three miles from Goro to Sant’Elmo, but to Giovanni they seemed endless. The hairpin bends were so steep and violent that he had to reverse constantly and try again. The valley became darker and bleaker. The sound of a distant tolling of bells gave Giovanni hope.

Sant’Elmo was even smaller than Goro, even more broken down and poverty-stricken. It was now a quarter to one, but either because of the deep shadow of the surrounding mountains, or because of the very gloom produced by such desolation, it seemed almost nightfall.

Catastrophe and Other Stories, then, is a brilliant collection that explores themes of lurking dangers, bureaucratic absurdity, psychological unease, and the intrusion of the uncanny into everyday life. Throughout, Buzzati depicts characters trapped by their own apathy or by their inability to adapt to rapidly evolving, sinister circumstances.

Steeped in an atmosphere of fear and unease, the collection shows ordinary individuals confronted with extraordinary situations that strip away the veneer of the familiar and expose their anxieties about fate, society, mortality, and the limits of their own perception and understanding of the natural world. The stories are often quiet in tone yet heavy with gathering dread, and many conclude abruptly or without clear resolution, intensifying their unsettling effect. In short, this is a remarkable collection; one I would highly recommend.

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Makeshift – Sarah Campion

I have read some excellent titles in Brad Bigelow’s Recovered Books series published by Boiler House Press – Gentleman Overboard by Herbert Clyde Lewis, Time: The Present by Tess Slesinger, and Two Thousand Million Man-Power by Gertrude Trevelyan. Their latest title, Sarah Campion’s Makeshift, appealed to me given that it was set in 1930s Germany, a period also brilliantly depicted in Sally Carson’s Crooked Cross and Lion Feuchtwanger’s The Oppermanns.

Originally published in 1940, Makeshift by Sarah Campion is an absorbing and finely wrought novel about a German Jewish woman in exile, tracing her quest for anchor and identity in the ominous years preceding the Second World War, as antisemitism intensifies under Hitler’s ascent to power.

The story opens in New Zealand, where our protagonist, Charlotte Hertz, is in a hospital recovering from a prolonged illness. She has been there for eight weeks in total, and from the outset her voice is sharp, restless, and acutely observant (“All that time, the sheets pricked like hot sand, the visitors crept in and out, stabbing me with their eyes, voluptuously drinking in every detail of my helplessness”).

Though the doctors prescribe spending time in the garden, it does little to revive Charlotte’s spirits; it is the prospect of remaining indoors and immersing herself in writing that she genuinely looks forward to (“Writing is the prime catharsis, the excellent emetic. For once you are delivered of the words, the pencil-and-paper form of your disorder, there is no reason why they should trouble you again”).

Only in writing about myself can I find sanity. Now I am all my world, for a few weeks I am I and only I, belonging to no one, standing alone looking inward, seeing myself as something that was for ever changing as a tree changes through the year and years, yet forever in essence, in my first wood and leaves, the same tree. Charlotte looks at Charlotte in the light of an unregretting present, without shame, modesty, or reproach, seeing her, as far as she can, not as she would like to be seen but as she in life was.

What follows, therefore, is an account of Charlotte’s life up to her hospitalisation, as she reminisces on her childhood, her sprawling Jewish family, and her restless sojourns abroad in England, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand, each move fuelled by the desire for new beginnings and, more importantly, an urgent longing for security.

Charlotte begins her story in post-World War I Berlin, in a cramped apartment where she and her sister, Mitzi, cling to one another as they struggle to survive. It is 1920, Mitzi is twenty-three, and Charlotte is seventeen. Their parents are dead, and we also learn of their middle brother, who dies tragically during a train journey in their childhood, his small body wrapped in their father’s overcoat, a detail that renders the loss all the more haunting. Now though, Mitzi has managed to secure a wealthy man to marry and settle in the United States. It is the first loss in a series of subsequent losses Charlotte will experience; once Mitzi marries and relocates to the US, Charlotte loses all contact with her sister. Around Charlotte, the early Weimar years unfold in turmoil: economic hardship, political unrest, and the gradual, insidious hardening of tensions between Germans and Jews become the defining conditions of her youth.

This isn’t to say that Charlotte is alone now that her parents are gone and her sister is far away. She has her extended family to fall back on – first and foremost, a formidable battery of aunts. There is Tante Cossima, who lends Mitzi her house for the wedding celebrations; the independent, nonconformist, and rebellious Tante Lydia; and Tante Clara, whose son Kurt will come to occupy an important place in Charlotte’s life.

I confess I look back on this young thing, this eager seeking Charlotte Herz, with wistful affection. She was not a lovable child, but she is dear to me now. She had a great fresh appetite for life. Like an innocent night-gowned infant peering through the door-chink at the dishes of an adult feast, she poked a finger into this one and that one, sucking it to try. Nothing that she found in any dish, however horrid, stopped her from trying the next. She had to try everything, so that she might know.

Charlotte’s youth unfolds in the intoxicating aftermath of the First World War, when the long shadow of conflict had lifted, and the future appeared charged with possibility. Yet within the confines of her conservative Jewish family, expectations remain stubbornly unchanged: she is urged to marry and settle, to follow the safe, conventional path taken by Mitzi. But Charlotte is not to be easily swayed (“Marriage was no longer the only end. It was like woolen underwear, desirable in middle life but not necessarily to the young”).

Soon, however, Charlotte falls in love with Kurt, her cousin and Tante Clara’s son. After finding a position at a tourist bureau, she moves in with Tante Clara and her daughters, Berta and Brigitta. When Kurt returns home after four years of war, Charlotte’s fascination with him intensifies. She is mesmerised by the shrapnel lodged in his throat and by the mysterious air about him, as though he were worldly-wise about love and other matters. It is the early 1920s, and Charlotte, Kurt, and their circle of friends and cousins take pleasure in their seemingly carefree existence, even if other forces linger in the background, casting a shadow.

Things were desperate, we hardly knew from day to day what our money would be worth. Kurt had lost his first job and could find no other. The state of the marriage market was so parlous that Berta and Brigitta despaired of being cupids. But we were young, we enjoyed ourselves, and let Tante Clara do the worrying.

Her brief liaison with Kurt leaves Charlotte pregnant, and she travels to Austria to give birth to a daughter she names Bärbel. Kurt remains unaware of both the child and her journey. In Grubl, the small Austrian town where she lodges, Charlotte passes her days in a state of quiet contentment, enveloped by the serenity and unspoiled beauty of the surrounding landscape.

After the birth of Barbel, the full weight of motherhood descends upon Charlotte. Her initial joy gives way to dread, as she is haunted by the question of how she can possibly raise a child without financial security, in a world unsettled by political upheaval (“Oh, God, I have brought a child into this mess, this litter of personal futilities, this life I can’t manage even for myself”). Overwhelmed, Charlotte makes an impulsive, desperate choice: she leaves the baby on a train bound for Berlin and disembarks midway, setting out alone on a perilous walk across the countryside toward Germany. She presses on through violent weather and thunderstorms, and even endures a tense, fleeting encounter with a stranger she meets along the way.

Once in Berlin, Charlotte takes up residence with Tante Lydia, whose independent, unmarried, and defiantly unconventional life makes her a figure of some notoriety. Charlotte also learns that Kurt has married Gisela and begun a family – news that pierces her with a brief, involuntary pang that she swiftly suppresses. Determined to find a job and press forward, Charlotte resolves to build a life of her own, though the shadow of Bärbel will resurface at unforeseen moments, troubling her in the years to come.

As the tide of anti-Semitism swells in the wake of Hitler’s rise to power, life in Berlin grows steadily more untenable for Charlotte and her relatives. The younger set, particularly, considers the idea of leaving Germany. The turning point comes when an uncle, savagely beaten by SS thugs, reveals to Charlotte and Kurt that he has painstakingly built up savings and a modest income in England, which he intends to leave to them. This is music to the ears of Kurt and Charlotte, who, in an already precarious and volatile environment, can finally put into motion their plans to leave Germany and settle abroad now that they have come into some money.

Let Germany seethe as she might, I wanted peace. Peace from the nagging need to earn money, peace from my own restlessness, peace from the daily tautness of life with Tante Lydia. But there was no peace.

Charlotte, in particular, begins to find Germany intolerable. As the threat of persecution looms, she leaves for England and stays with distant relatives, the Flowers, whose orderly, comfortable family life she privately and unabashedly scorns. Despite the relative safety England offers, she feels estranged and unhappy there, weighed down by boredom, inertia, and a desultory affair with a married man. She eventually returns to Berlin, but the worsening political climate ensures that her stay will be short-lived.

By this time, much of the younger set has already left the country, including Kurt’s sisters, Berta and Brigitta, who have sailed for the US. The elders, particularly the aunts and uncles, choose to remain in Berlin. Having spent their entire lives in Germany, the only country they have ever known, the prospect of starting life from scratch elsewhere at their age is inconceivable. Charlotte departs with Kurt, Gisela, and their children for South Africa to start anew, though they mourn the life they are compelled to leave behind.

That Germany was dead, and the young Kurt Seligmann who had fought for it was dead too, another war casualty. There remained now Kurt Seligmann the Jew, leaving Germany, with nothing but despair in his heart. He had little trust in the future, and looking into the past he could find nothing in it that was worth much.

The stark, barren, mountainous South African landscape stands in sharp contrast to the gentle, verdant beauty of the Austrian village in which Charlotte gives birth to Barbel, but she soon settles into the home of another aunt who has long since made South Africa her home. With Kurt, Gisela, and the children as company, Charlotte’s initial days in the country are filled with contentment and a sense of safety. Gradually, however, an all-pervading restlessness takes over, and while Kurt and Gisela manage to find a purpose in South Africa and make it their home, Charlotte feels trapped.

Soon, she embarks on another journey, this time to Australia, where she meets Harry, a genial and elderly man toward whom she develops unexpected feelings, despite his coarse manners, outdated outlook, and often uncouth behaviour. Yet, her time in Australia is transient too, and Charlotte finally makes her way to New Zealand. There, she takes up a position as a governess, only to find herself once more unsettled as the household’s internal tensions begin to wear on her. The story, then, comes full circle to Charlotte’s eight-week stay in the hospital, as she desperately clings to the hopes of marriage if she is to ever find some semblance of security, however fraught.

Charlotte Herz is a fascinating, complex character. She recounts her life in a voice that is caustic, sharp, and intensely judgmental, which makes her consistently engaging, if not always sympathetic. Her piercing scrutiny spares no one: she delivers scathing assessments of Americans on holiday, of the English and the relatives who host her, of fellow Jewish émigrés, and of the entrenched racism she encounters in South Africa. Although she readily describes herself as a termagant and a shrew, Charlotte’s thoughts and opinions are often contradictory – for instance, in South Africa, she appears disturbed by the colonial attitudes of white landowners and their treatment of Black staff. Yet in New Zealand, she looks down on the household employees in the home where she works as a governess, disdainful of her colleagues.

Even when it comes to her fellow Jews, Charlotte is unflinching in her views, telling things as they are…

Really, I had sympathy with the man, for we travelling, fleeing, exile Jews are dreadful. One of us as leaven in a small company is excellent: two of us are fatal. For wherever we combine we create a new Jewry, another Palestine, with all the hates, strifes, schisms of the old. The sight of us, so persecuted, so unhappy, so worthy (surely?) of sympathy, rouses at once the lowest instincts in every Gentile breast. It is our misfortune, we can do nothing for it. And we are peculiarly loathsome on board ship, because pleasant shipboard life demands content. Content with existing things (for they are ruled by the sea, they cannot lightly be changed) and content to some measure with oneself. This we unhappy Jews, flying from a country which has spurned us to another which may well do the same with equal violence, cannot reach. We are thoroughly discontented.

And then…

The truth is we have committed the cardinal crime: we have survived persecution.

The title, Makeshift, aptly reflects the improvised, transient nature of Charlotte’s life in exile while capturing her persistent quest for stability and a place to call home. As she embarks on an arduous path that begins in England, then to South Africa, Australia, and finally New Zealand, in each place she confronts new realities and challenges: cultural estrangement, racial prejudices, and the broader difficulties faced by refugees seeking acceptance in societies that are often indifferent or unwelcoming. Although she eventually establishes a semblance of home in New Zealand, it remains fragile. The cumulative weight of displacement and the compromises she is compelled to make informs her reflections on identity, belonging, and the demands of survival in exile.

In many respects, Charlotte presents herself as a woman determined to live on her own terms. At least initially, she resists the constraints of conventional marriage, pursuing brief relationships that satisfy her desires while maintaining her independence and being resourceful in supporting herself. Even when she becomes pregnant, she embraces the idea of single parenthood, even if she ultimately abandons her baby…

Even now, as I waddled swollen between the parting Grübl grasses, I was blazing a new brave trail for womanhood, for single women: establishing the right of every woman to motherhood without any of the boredoms of marriage. After all, why not?

And yet, shaped by her experiences and the passage of time, from a hopeful seventeen-year-old to a weary thirty-five-year-old, Charlotte’s expectations from life undergo a marked change, particularly in relation to marriage. Where she once resisted the idea of settling into what she considered a dull, conventional union, dwindling choices as she grows older and the continued precariousness of her circumstances alter her perspective. Marriage suddenly seems an attractive possibility purely as a means of survival, a source of stability and anchorage, although throughout the novel, Charlotte’s choice of men remains dubious at best.

The snugness, security and warmth of it to a woman who had never known security! Then forthwith I saw as clearly the other way, myself going on alone, always alone, from country to country in this savage southern hemisphere, this alien stretch: myself lonely, free. But was not woman’s freedom, like virginity, made to be sacrificed?

The desperation to latch on to a man in the later chapters is also driven by the fear of being alone, as Charlotte is wracked by an all-encompassing sense of loneliness…

Perhaps one is sometimes doomed to mindless drifting, and I, following my doom, mindlessly drifted. Loneliness makes us do strange things, seek strange comforts: I had been unbearably lonely for years.

War, displacement, exile, loneliness, and the search for identity and belonging are central themes in Makeshift. Through Charlotte’s wanderings, Sarah Campion highlights the instability of the refugee experience, the uncertainty endured, the compromises made, and the emotional toll of never fully belonging. As Charlotte moves from identifying simply as a German woman to becoming acutely conscious of her Jewishness in a hostile world, Campion shows how social and political forces shape and redefine personal identity.

The novel is also imbued with an all-encompassing sense of loss, as felt by Charlotte: a promising youth cut short by war and persecution, a family irretrievably lost, the enduring grief over her daughter, and a love, however imperfect, that was never meant to be.

Here am I with my girlhood lost, forever gone, my womanhood slipping away so fast that middle-age, the drying up, the ebbing of the sap, seems but a matter of the next few moments. I must snatch while I can. Indeed, why not?

Campion’s prose is lush and evocative, particularly in her depictions of landscape and the forces of nature – whether the fury of thunderstorms and lashing rain (“The bruised roof rang, every shutter flung back and forth in the flying gale: pallid lightning flickered over the valley”), the verdant, postcard-like beauty of Grubl (“It was a place hooked out of the world’s reach, a finger of green valley stretched into the heart of those wild and sombre peaks”), or the dramatic panorama of Table Mountain in the dusty, shimmering heat of South Africa (“The Table Mountain reared its flattened crest against the heat, incredibly flat-topped, clean-cut like a slice of cake“).

Haunting and beautifully told, Makeshift, in a nutshell, is a poignant exploration of exile, survival, and the yearning to belong, tracing Charlotte Herz’s relentless pursuit of stability and companionship amid the upheavals of a hostile, ever-changing world. Highly recommended!

Posted on by Radz Pandit

A Dedicated Man – Elizabeth Taylor

I adore Elizabeth Taylor’s novels (Angel, A Game of Hide and Seek, Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont, A Wreath of Roses, The Soul of Kindness, and A View of the Harbour), but her short stories are just as good; she is such a wonderful writer. A couple of years ago, I read and loved her collection, The Devastating Boys, a book that found a place on My Best Books of 2023 list, and felt the time was ripe to savour another collection of hers – A Dedicated Man.

First published in 1965, A Dedicated Man is a wonderful collection of twelve stories that showcase Elizabeth Taylor’s signature gift for illuminating human nature, particularly her piercing and perceptive gaze into the hearts and minds of the characters she portrays.

We begin with “Girl Reading,” a subtle, beautifully wrought tale of class difference and the paralysing force of social embarrassment. Etta, spending the holidays with her school friend Sarah’s family, the Lippmanns, yearns to be enmeshed in their domestic rhythms and rituals (“Etta’s desire was to belong. Sometimes she felt on the fringe of the family, at other times drawn headily into its centre”). The Lippmanns are comfortably well-off, and while Etta is always welcomed as Sarah’s companion, no such expectation extends to her mother, Mrs Salkeld. We soon learn why – Etta’s impoverished working-class background, living in a dingy, dispiriting house with her mother, who goes out to work every day. Mrs Salkeld is wounded by her daughter’s preference for the Lippmanns, and Etta brushes aside any suggestion of inviting Sarah home. Enchanted by the Lippmanns’ easy glamour and lifestyle, she dreads exposing her own modest world, fearing that Sarah would find it unbearably dull.

For Etta, the brief time she spends with the Lippmanns offers a respite from the narrow confines of her life back home. Her mother senses this and resents it, yet remains powerless, haunted by the futility of her sacrifices and efforts that seem to amount to very little.

Meanwhile, at the Lippmanns’, Etta becomes absorbed in the intricacies of the Lippmanns’ family life, especially the romance between Sarah’s brother David and his girlfriend, Nora. Steeped in the ideals of love she has gleaned from books, Etta is startled to discover how candid and unvarnished their real-life relationship is, so unlike the romantic notions she has imagined. Then there is Roger, another of Sarah’s brothers, who harbours quiet feelings for Etta, feelings she remains oblivious to. When Mrs Salkeld announces her intention to collect Etta at the end of her stay, Etta dreads the impending encounter between her mother and the bohemian Mrs Lippmann, anxious about the impression her mother might make, but it turns out that Roger is embarrassed by his mother’s behaviour too. And for Etta, there will be a surprise in store…

No writer renders loneliness with as much aching beauty and quiet devastation as Taylor, and “The Thames Spread Out” is a superb example – another of her stories focused on a middle-aged woman constrained by the boundaries of being a married man’s mistress. Rose has been seeing Gilbert for years, installed in a cottage by the river, a convenient detour for him when he is away from home.

By four o’clock she would be ready, and Gilbert, who was punctual over his illicit escapades as with everything else, would soon after drive down the lane. Perhaps escapade was altogether too exciting a word for the homely ways they had drifted into. She fussed over his little ailments far more than his wife had ever done, not because she loved him more, or indeed at all, but because her position was more precarious.

But on this particular winter weekend, Rose is relieved he won’t be coming. The river has risen, flooding its banks, transforming the neighbourhood into a “Thames-side Venice,” leaving her isolated in the house. At first, she is captivated by the pearly light on the still water and the tranquil seabirds, as well as the surreal loveliness of the landscape. Gradually, though, the darkness closes in, and Rose is forced to confront the wretchedness of her situation – the dead-end reality of being tethered forever to the dull, dreary Gilbert.

“In A Different Light” captures the fleeting novelty of chance encounters on holiday, a spell that dissolves once those same faces are glimpsed again in the ordinariness of home. The story unfolds on the simmering, sun-soaked islands of Greece, where Barbara, a married, middle-aged woman, is visiting her widowed sister, Jane. Beyond sisterly companionship, Barbara arrives with a mission: to persuade Jane to return to England rather than continue living alone in Greece. Jane, however, remains resolute. Taylor evocatively renders the life of a small Greek village, the steady arrivals and departures of tourists at the quayside observed by café-bound onlookers of whom Jane and Barbara are a part. That is how they spot Roland, stepping ashore one day, and soon they strike up a conversation. An architect, married yet travelling alone, Roland is gripped by a sense of emptiness that gnaws at him.

His holiday was almost over and he felt lost and disconsolate. Dreams had come true, but merely to give birth to others. He had overcome discomfort, his skin was now at terms with the sun as his digestion was with the food, and he had formed new habits, such as sleeping in the afternoons and eating late at night. It was life in Hampstead that had the look of strangeness about it now…

Over the following days, Barbara forms an unsettling bond with him as they wander the island together. Any hint of romance the reader might entertain is firmly dispelled when the time comes for Roland to leave. Meanwhile, back in England, Barbara, on an impulse, invites Roland and his wife Iris to dinner, only to discover that he is no longer the man she met in Greece.

She smiled self-consciously and glanced at him for the first time, she realised and saw how utterly unfamiliar he looked in his dark suit – a different person, a different kind of person.

The titular story, “A Dedicated Man,” centres on Silcox and Edith, whose shared ambition leads them into an unconventional arrangement designed to advance their careers. They first meet at a seaside hotel where, working as a waiter and waitress, they regard both the establishment and its clientele with a faintly scornful eye, disdainful of every lapse in taste and refinement. When Silcox is offered a post at a more plush and reputable hotel inland, he seizes the chance, only to discover that the position comes with a peculiar condition: the proprietress prefers her staff to be married, as only a single room is available for their lodgings. Silcox persuades Edith to join him, proposing that they perform the roles of husband and wife in public while quietly dismantling this fiction in private. Edith consents, and their carefully managed charade proceeds without any incident – until Silcox, in his obsessive pursuit of perfection, invents a son, a fictional addition whose unforeseen complications begin to disrupt both their relationship and their professional lives.

One striking theme in this collection is that of holidaying – the transient encounters it fosters and the quiet, often acute observations it invites. “In A Different Light,” as mentioned above, engages with this theme, but it also resonates in stories like “The Voices” and “In the Sun.” In “The Voices,” Laura, the protagonist, travels alone to Greece at her parents’ urging, ostensibly to recover from an illness. Yet she remains weighed down by apathy, finding little motivation to explore on her own. Instead, she derives vicarious pleasure from the conversations of two women in the adjoining room, whose voices drift through the thin walls. They speak animatedly of towns and villages visited, sightseeing excursions, and the delights of Greek life. Though strangers, their experiences become a substitute for Laura’s own; she seems more captivated by living through them than by creating her own memories. Rather than immerse herself in the newness around her, Laura is content to absorb the world indirectly, through the lives of others.

The habit of inertia is a hard one to shake off, the accidie of mind and body torments as it takes hold. After a long illness, her parents had persuaded her to go away-perhaps as a holiday for themselves as well. For her, it was too soon; travel had not broken into her apathy; flying in, she had gazed down at the islands with indifference, though their tawny beauty would at one time have moved her to tears.

“In the Sun” follows three couples on holiday, likely in Morocco, and closely observes the subtle tensions between them. Deirdre Wallace and her husband Bunny frequently become the focus of the other two couples’ curiosity – the Crouches and the Troughtons. Are they truly happy together? Why is Deirdre so eager to please, and why does Bunny sometimes seem restless? Mrs Troughton and Mrs Crouch trade gossip and snide remarks, yet Deirdre keeps her distance, her contempt quite evident. Later, an unexpected revelation about the Wallaces gives the others even more to speculate about. This is a superbly observed story about quiet disappointments, idle gossip, and the uneasy acquaintances formed on holiday. 

“He reminds me of someone,” Mrs Troughton said, thinking what awful company one sometimes fell in with on holiday – and often, through proximity and one’s tolerant holiday spirit, became quite absorbed in their lives. “Someone I’ve seen somewhere or seen a photograph of,” she added.

Loneliness, solitude, and old age emerge vividly and poignantly in stories such as “The Benefactress” and “Mice and Birds and Boy.” “Four widows lived in the almhouses beside the church” – thus begins “The Benefactress”, where we are told how these women live independently, their lives marked by graveyard visits, gardening, and other small routines. Among them is Mrs Swan, who endures the visits of her niece Evie with stoic patience. Evie, in the flush of youth, prefers to talk of dresses and fashions, subjects that hold little interest for Mrs Swan, while the older woman’s proximity to death and decay only heightens Evie’s desolation. Soon, Mrs Phyllis Bucher begins visiting Mrs Swan, seeking refuge from her unhappy marriage and her husband’s constant critical eye. Despite her assertive, even uppity demeanor, Phyllis is acutely image-conscious and anxious about how others perceive her. A chance encounter with a stranger in a bar leads to a new friendship, and gradually Mrs Swan recedes from her life. In “Mice and Birds and Boy,” loneliness manifests in an elderly, somewhat eccentric woman, who cherishes the visits of a young boy from a nearby home, delighting in the details of his family life – until his mother forbids him to continue.

Tense mother-daughter dynamics reverberate in stories such as “As If I Should Care” and “Mr Wharton.” In the former, we meet Rita, an angry and unhappy woman, whose indifference and hostility often erupt into terse exchanges with her mother. Rita works at a hairdresser’s and revels in the joy and freedom of stepping out of the house every morning, a daily escape from what she perceives as the claustrophobic confines of her home.

The damp, misty air, the bubbles and the leaves on the slow-moving water seemed not at all melancholy to her; the scene, from the one advantage of being out of doors, uplifted her. She was away from the dark house, and the old and the sick and the dejected. Even to go to work was a relief.

Rita despairs of her grandmother, who leaves no stone unturned in needling her, her passive, ill father, who must not be disturbed, and her long-suffering mother, who persistently reproaches her for her defiance and ingratitude. Yet, Rita harbours a secret: she knows she is adopted, a truth revealed to her by a childhood friend, though she never lets her mother see that knowledge. Since that revelation, a certain spark has dimmed within her. One evening, when Rita returns home after drinking, a fraught, charged conversation with her mother unfolds, laying bare the tensions that have long simmered beneath the surface.

In “Mr Wharton”, Hilda Provis makes a brief trip from the countryside to London to help her daughter, Pat, settle into her new flat. During her visit, she often hears Pat’s accounts of her unpleasant boss, Mr Wharton, and Hilda, eager to bond with her daughter, readily echoes Pat’s opinions. Hilda envisages moving in with her daughter to stave off the loneliness of her advancing years, but Pat has other plans. She intends to take on a roommate – and when the prospective tenant arrives to view the flat, she surprisingly agrees to move in, an impulsiveness that strikes Hilda as odd.

We see a wide assortment of people in this marvellous collection – unhappy couples, wearied mothers and embarrassed daughters, lonely women and exacting men, holidaymakers and travellers, and so on. Themes of loneliness, the uneven texture of marital relationships, class divides, fraught family dynamics, hidden grievances, and the charm of unexpected connections are astutely and sensitively explored.

A Dedicated Man, then, is a superb collection of stories, one that showcases the full artistry of Elizabeth Taylor’s style – her sharp, observant eye, her finely tuned insight into human nature, and her remarkable gift for distilling the essence of her characters into just a few sentences while examining their flaws and foibles in an unsentimental, non-judgmental manner. Across these stories, the distinctive force of her writing shines in the way she elevates ordinary moments – domestic routines, social interactions, holiday experiences, fleeting impressions – into the centre of quiet dramas, shimmering tensions, and surprising revelations. The collection sparkles with psychological nuance and the unspoken frictions that govern everyday life. Highly recommended!

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The Corner That Held Them – Sylvia Townsend Warner

Sylvia Townsend Warner has written several novels, and what sets them apart is that they are all strikingly different. Until now, I had read only Lolly Willowes, which was absolutely terrific, and the time felt right to return to her work with The Corner That Held Them.

In a novel set in a medieval English convent with its spirited nuns, perhaps the greatest irony is that it comes into existence through an act of infidelity. The opening pages, set in the twelfth century, find Alianor de Retteville in bed with her lover, Giles, when the scene erupts into violence as her husband, Brian, storms in with his cousins. Giles is killed, but Brian spares Alianor, much to the jeers of his cousins. Brian, we are told, is a cuckolded husband who threatens to banish his wife to a nunnery, though Alianor knows the threat is hollow – his attachment to her wealth is sure to outweigh his outrage. A decade passes. Alianor dies in childbirth, and her death, in some inexplicable way, alters Brian.

He resolves to found a Benedictine nunnery at Oby in her memory, financing it with half of her dowry and keeping the other half for himself.

The site chosen was a manor called Oby. Oby had been part of Alianor’s dowry, and in the early days of their marriage they had often lived there, for it was good hawking country along the Waxle Stream; but as his taste in hunting turned to larger quarries the manor house had fallen into neglect and now only the shell of it remained, housing several families of serfs and countless bats. Now this shell was made weatherproof, whitewashed within and partitioned into dormitories and chambers. A chapel was constructed and a bell hung in the squat belfry, the barns were re-roofed and the moat was cleaned. The dedication was made to Our Lady and Saint Leonard, patron of prisoners…

The first contingent of nuns arrives and must immediately contend with the stark realities of survival.  For even a life pledged to chastity and simplicity demands food, shelter, and habitable conditions – practical necessities Brian had hardly considered.

When he chose to found his nunnery there it did not occur to him that nuns live in a place all the year round, and must feed through the hungry half of the year as well as through the plentiful half.

Tucked in a little corner of nowhere, surrounded by a flat, listless horizon, there also exists the peril of boredom.

Men with their inexhaustible interest in themselves may do well enough in a wilderness, but the shallower egoism of women demands some nourishment from the outer world, and preferably in the form of danger or disaster.

Meanwhile, Brian de Retteville dies in 1170, and, akin to fast forwarding a cinema reel, Warner propels the narrative through a succession of years – 1208, marked by the Interdict; 1223, when lightning ignites the granary; and onward – until it arrives at 1349, the year the Black Death unleashes its terror on the convent of Oby. From this point, time once again slows down, and the greater part of the novel unfolds, culminating in the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381.

A TRAY OF BUNS, A TRAY OF NUNS…AND A PRIEST

She stared at their faces, so familiar and undecipherable. They are like a tray of buns, she thought. In some the leaven has worked more than in others, some are a little under-baked, some a little scorched, in others the spice has clotted and shows like a brown stain; but one can see that they all come out of the same oven and that one hand pulled them apart from the same lump of dough.

Spanning three decades, from 1349 to 1382, nuns and prioresses come and go at Oby, but it is Dame Alicia de Foley who leaves the deepest imprint on the convent, assuming the office just as the plague descends upon both the country and the cloister.

When Prioress Isabella first began to gasp and turn blue Dame Alicia de Foley framed a vow to Saint Leonard, patron of the convent and of all prisoners, that if their tyrant should die of her plum-stone a spire, beautiful as art and money could make it, should be added to their squat chapel.

For Prioress Alicia, a nun acutely attuned to beauty, the spire becomes the emblem of her ambition.  Over the years, the costly project inches toward completion, but only through a series of delays, setbacks, and tragedies. At the novel’s outset, she is first tested by the Black Death: nuns perish, and novices with rich dowries are withdrawn, draining the convent’s revenues even as the spire’s expenses mount. Obstacles multiply – a shortage of masons in the plague’s aftermath, simmering tensions between the builders and the manor’s residents, and a procession of further misfortunes, from deaths and murrains to a devastating flood. In time, the spire itself collapses, a nun dies, and the structure is raised again. Prioress Alicia finally sees her vision realised, and yet the completed spire fails to instill a sense of triumph in the Prioress, who is now consumed by emptiness and rage.

At the height of the plague, the prioress suffers a decisive blow. As the disease sweeps through nearby Waxelby, the convent’s priest deserts Oby to administer last rites among the dying, driven by a fearful urgency to prevent the peasants from confessing and shriving one another. Who will cater to the nuns’ spiritual needs? Almost simultaneously, a passing traveller, Ralph Kello, arrives seeking alms. He intends to stay only for the night, yet in the course of his brief refuge, he falsely claims to be a priest; his evident learning lends credibility to his deception, and the nuns accept him as such.

He was no priest, and he was here in a house of nuns, absolving the dying, saying mass. The absolutions were void, the rite was sacrilege. He was damning himself and abetting the damnation of others.

But the plague does not spare Ralph either. At the height of his illness, he raves in delirium that he is no priest, that he is damned. Dame Susanna, the convent’s infirmaress, hears his confession-laced murmurs, as does Ursula, a repentant nun. They outwardly dismiss them as the incoherent babblings of an afflicted man, yet in Dame Susanna’s mind a shadow of doubt takes root, one she has no means to confirm.

Sir Ralph thus settles into the convent as its priest for decades, quietly outliving the succession of prioresses who come and go. From time to time, he is assailed by thoughts of the ambition he never pursued, of the opportunities he might have seized had he stirred himself to act; yet inertia prevails, and he remains, year after year, rooted in the life of the convent.

Then there is Dame Johanna, a nun from Dilworth sent to Oby alongside Dame Alice after the Dilworth nunnery goes bankrupt. In her eager attempts to please, Johanna often irritates the other nuns, including the prioress. The prioress’s animosity towards Johanna intensifies when the spire collapses, and the convent contemplates legal action against the masons. When Dame Alicia dies, Johanna is unexpectedly elected prioress even if Dame Matilda is the favoured candidate.

After Johanna, drawing on her earlier experience at Oby as treasurer, Prioress Matilda manages the convent with her hallmark pragmatism, bolstered by the influence of her wealthy family connections. Matilda lacks the singular ambition of Prioress Alicia or her refined appreciation for beauty, and in that sense, she is perhaps unremarkable, yet she is competent and, more importantly to her, popular. During her tenure, Oby faces a scandal involving the priest Ralph as well as the murder of a nun – both matters Matilda chooses largely to ignore. She also contends with an austere, sanctimonious bishop who laments Oby’s shoddy bookkeeping and indulgent ways, appointing Henry Yellowlees as custos to oversee the convent finances.

Finally, there is Prioress Margaret, elected at an old age and known for her intransigence, whose tenure coincides with the Peasants’ Revolt in the book’s closing chapters. During her leadership, the carelessness of some nuns leads to the theft of valuable items from the convent, leaving a significant gap in Oby’s finances and forcing the nuns to resort to begging for alms.

Throughout the novel, many nuns come and go at Oby, but there are some who stand out more than the others. In the beginning, just before Alicia de Foley becomes prioress, we are told about Prioress Isabella and her fearful brand of tyranny in the convent. We meet Dame Susanna, the infirmaress, who is tormented by Ralph’s delirious claims of not being a priest but unable to confess it to anyone. Then there is Dame Lilias, a melancholic nun who envisages becoming an anchoress, living in isolation and cut off from the world after a saintly vision, but will her wish be granted? Dame Sibilla is installed at the convent at her uncle Bishop Walters’ behest, serving as his caregiver in his final days. Finally, there is Dame Adela, a scatterbrained descendant of Prioress Alicia, whose naiveté will cost the convent dearly later.

A RISING TOWER OF AMBITION

A convent, devoted to God and spiritual pursuits, would seem an unlikely arena for ambition, and yet Oby proves otherwise. Prioress Alicia’s spire embodies her singular purpose, and she remains steadfast in her determination to see it rise, even when circumstances threaten to crush her hopes. Labour shortages, poor workmanship, accidents, tragic deaths, and depleted finances do little to diminish her resolve. On the same plane, Ralph appears to be the antithesis of ambition, certainly in the earlier chapters, plagued by an emptiness and lack of direction, yet too powerless or complacent to act, surrendering instead to the comfortable rhythms of convent life. Ambition, however, resurfaces in subtler forms, particularly during the prioress elections later in the narrative, when several nuns come to see themselves as the rightful heirs to leadership, each driven by their own sense of entitlement and aspiration.

“I REALLY DO NOT SEE HOW WE CAN LIVE ON AIR”

One of the most striking aspects of the novel is how worldly and economic realities pervade convent life. The nuns are continually preoccupied with debts, dowries, rents from tenants, and the costs of daily survival.

While their spiritual aspirations remain central, these often collide with the practical demands of managing the convent. Prioresses Alicia and Matilda, in particular, must constantly navigate financial pressures – restoring the convent’s solvency, accepting novices whose substantial dowries help sustain the establishment, and seeking other sources of income. In this context, the role of treasuress becomes nearly as crucial as that of the prioress. Yet not all nuns are skilled in accounting, and over the years, bishops come to criticize the convent for indulgence and haphazard bookkeeping.

A CONVENT, A WORKPLACE

First published in 1948, The Corner That Held Them often reads like a workplace novel, offering a lens through which we observe the inner workings of an institution. This is evident not only in the hierarchy of prioresses and other positions of authority among the nuns but also in the complex dynamics between them. Politics run rampant, as they do in any workplace, and the convent is rife with quarrels, rivalries, and subtle power plays. While the nuns are united in their pursuit of spiritual goals, they remain distinct individuals, each shaped by her own quirks, ambitions, and opinions. In one moment, Prioress Alicia harbours uncharitable thoughts about Dame Matilda, who much later will ascend to the position of prioress herself.

In 1345, when she first vowed her spire, Dame Matilda was a raw-boned stockish creature, very shy, and looking much younger than her real age. Time went on, and she became self-possessed, massive, even stately, all without appearing to make any especial effort and with no one taking any pains on her behalf. The spire was still unfinished. Why should the most prosaic of her nuns have grown as smoothly as Solomon’s temple while the spire lagged and pined like a rickety child? Because of this unfortunate association of ideas the prioress felt that somehow the one had grown at the expense of the other, that Dame Matilda was the spire’s rival, and her indifference to it charged with ill-will where the indifference of the other nuns was merely due to stupidity.

And yet on another occasion, they work seamlessly as partners, particularly when negotiating favourable terms on debt. Like in any institution, beyond interpersonal dynamics, the novel also traces the practical challenges of convent life: each prioress must navigate the demands of managing the community, securing income, and keeping expenses under control. More importantly, like any continuing institution, Oby persists through countless upheavals and constant change – new recruits arrive, nuns grow old and pass away, and the political landscape shifts, but the convent continues steadily onward.

WOMEN’S LIVES IN A PATRIARCHAL WORLD

Through a woman-centric lens, The Corner That Held Them portrays Oby as a convent with its own distinct personality, governed by women who navigate, negotiate, and at times resist the dictates of a patriarchal world. Early in the novel, for instance, the first prioress confronts the challenge of managing a convent hastily constructed with little thought for its future residents, devising practical strategies for survival and order. Later, when the condescending Bishop Walters reprimands the nuns for their perceived excesses, sending a scathing letter to the prioress and dispatching a custos to oversee their affairs, they unite in giving him the cold shoulder. Each prioress, in turn, shapes the convent according to her vision, constrained and informed by the resources at hand and the nuns who inhabit Oby. Within a world dominated by men, the convent emerges as a microcosm of female agency, a space where women govern and create life on their own terms.

Throughout, the nuns reflect on their roles, navigating the terrain between what they are taught and how they must adapt to a changing world – two forces that often diverge.

That was how one should manage: with bold strokes, with a policy that fitted the times. In these days a convent could not afford to turn its back on the world, spin its own wool and wear it, live on eggs and salad through the summer, sleep through the winter like a dormouse, and never receive a novice who had not three aunts and a cousin among the nuns.

‘Yet we are told to renounce the world,’ said Dame Susanna.

The nuns at Oby also reflect a generational divide, with differing outlooks, priorities, and ways of understanding their world.

Divided on a moral issue – the old nuns so naturally saying that one must be faithful to old ideas, and the younger nuns saying that one must live in the date where God has set one – the convent was preserved from lesser bickerings.

THE CRACKS AND CAMARADERIE OF COMMUNAL LIVING

The novel delves into the intricacies of life within a tightly knit community, one where personal tensions and conflicting opinions are laid bare, yet the nuns display a united front against unwelcome male authority. Later, the nuns discover a shared purpose through a collective needlework project – an engrossing task that allows them to set aside their differences and work together in quiet harmony.

THE INEXORABLE PASSAGE OF TIME

The Corner That Held Them is also a meditation on the passage of time. Years pass, nuns come and go, prioresses die, and new ones are elected, but convent life, like any institution, goes on. Much happens in the three decades STW covers – the old guard gives way to the new, the outer world rapidly evolves and transforms as do the fortunes of the convent – but the central preoccupations about governing and surviving essentially remain the same.

A SLICE OF MEDIEVAL ENGLAND

The Corner That Held Them is often categorized as a historical novel, but only in the sense that historical events provide the backdrop against which life at the convent unfolds; the story does not hinge on the presence of famous historical figures. The narrative is framed by the Black Death of 1349 at the beginning and the Peasants’ Revolt of 1382 at the end, with these aspects of history juxtaposed against and influencing the events that unfold specifically  at Oby – murder, sex, theft, kidnapping, accidents, deaths, and what have you. While the Black Death occupies only a small portion of the book, its effects reverberate throughout the convent, shaping both its personnel and its finances for years to come.

THE WIT AND VERVE OF WARNER’S WRITING

The Corner That Held Them eschews a conventional plot, unfolding instead as a tapestry of episodes and events spanning decades that offer intimate glimpses into convent life in medieval England.  There is no single dominant character here; the novel unfurls through a collective of characters, where the only constant is the convent. Sylvia Townsend Warner’s prose and narration is wonderfully absorbing; artful and meticulously constructed sentences that compel you to slow down and savour her masterful style while being wholly transported into another world. The richness of her writing is heightened by her impeccable comic timing, as she infuses the narrative with a delightfully dry and incisive wit that enlivens every scene.

Then Dame Cecilia began to have fits and to prophesy. This infuriated Richenda de Foley, to whom any talk of the end of the world after she had worked so hard and successfully to put the convent on a good footing for the next century seemed rank ingratitude.

Here’s another wonderful passage depicting Henry Yellowlees’ opinion on the Bishop who has appointed him as custos…

His spirits, sharpened by disliking the bishop as an appetite is sharpened by pickles, took an upward turn. He began to think well of a future in which he would clear up the usual nuns’ tangle at Oby and become Oby’s champion against that sanctimonious old gadfly.

By turns both bleak and funny, The Corner That Held Them is a fabulous novel about convent life spanning decades and centuries, filled with pestilence, politics, ambition, money, sex, and murder – nothing is off limits in STW’s striking, immersive world. Highly recommended!

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Stories for Winter and Nights by the Fire – Angela Carter, Shirley Jackson, Katherine Mansfield & more…

Published as part of the British Library Women Writers series, Stories for Winter and Nights by the Fire gathers a marvellous collection of winter-set stories.  Alongside established literary heavyweights – Edith Wharton, Elizabeth Taylor, Elizabeth Bowen, Shirley Jackson, and Katherine Mansfield – the volume also offers delightful discoveries in Violet M. MacDonald, Elizabeth Banks, and Angela Dickens.

The collection opens with Edith Wharton’s “The Reckoning”, a superb exploration of an unconventional marriage and the quiet crisis brewing within a woman. Julia and Clement Westall enter matrimony on an agreement that they will not be bound by the conventional dictates of marriage; should either grow weary of the other, they would be free to part without bitterness or blame. It is Julia, scarred by the suffocating misery of her first marriage, who insists on these terms. Yet, as the years pass, Julia grows to cherish the harmony she shares with Clement, the comfort and companionship that gradually take root. And it is precisely then that the equilibrium begins to falter. Clement begins giving informal lectures on the nature of ‘modern marriage’, the very principles that shaped his own marriage to Julia, to an eager, youthful audience – particularly its women – and suddenly the ideals Julia once championed feel fraught and threatening. It is Julia, now, who experiences a shift in her feelings, but Clement might have other ideas.

The only necessary condition to a harmonious marriage was a frank recognition of this truth, and a solemn agreement between the contracting parties to keep faith with themselves, and not to live together for a moment after complete accord had ceased to exist between them. The new adultery was unfaithfulness to self.

No writer renders loneliness with as much aching beauty and quiet devastation as Elizabeth Taylor, and “The Thames Spread Out” is a superb example – another of her stories focused on a middle-aged woman constrained by the boundaries of being a married man’s mistress. Rose has been seeing Gilbert for years, installed in a cottage by the river, a convenient detour for him when he is away from home.

By four o’clock she would be ready, and Gilbert, who was punctual over his illicit escapades as with everything else, would soon after drive down the lane. Perhaps escapade was altogether too exciting a word for the homely ways they had drifted into. She fussed over his little ailments far more than his wife had ever done, not because she loved him more, or indeed at all, but because her position was more precarious.

But on this particular winter weekend, Rose is relieved he won’t be coming. The river has risen, flooding its banks, transforming the neighbourhood into a “Thames-side Venice,” leaving her isolated in the house. At first, she is captivated by the pearly light on the still water and the tranquil seabirds, the surreal loveliness of the landscape. Gradually, though, the darkness closes in, and Rose is forced to confront the wretchedness of her situation – the dead-end reality of being tethered forever to the dull, dreary Gilbert.

Elizabeth Bowen’s “Ann Lee’s” is a strange, elusive tale about female friendship and class differences centred on two well-to-do friends – Mrs Dick Logan and Miss Ames – who venture to an out-of-the-way shop in search of hats. It is Miss Ames who suggests the shop, tucked away in a seedy quarter of London, and Mrs Logan, eager to find the perfect hat without spending enough to incur her husband’s disapproval, reluctantly agrees. Initially wary of Ann Lee herself, whose manner strikes her as cool and faintly condescending, Mrs Logan soon finds herself dazzled by the hats on display. But the atmosphere shifts dramatically when a sinister man enters, insisting he has an appointment with Miss Lee. His presence unsettles the women, who become increasingly distracted and uneasy as Miss Lee pointedly dismisses him, to little effect. His intentions remain unclear, until the story’s final moments when some clue does likely emerge.

A strikingly peculiar tale in the collection is Violet M. MacDonald’s “The Snowstorm,” set in the depths of winter and steeped in shimmering descriptions of snowbound roads and an icy, whitewashed landscape (“Now the map was white, with wavering lines of hedge and copse finely engraved upon it”). The story opens with a letter from a stranger to the protagonist, a woman, proposing that she accompany him to his old country house while his wife is away. In a flashback to the past, the woman remembers being unexpectedly captivated by this stranger she meets at an inn – a chance encounter that takes an uncanny turn when he writes to her. She is both alarmed and intrigued, but yields to the thrill of the adventure and what follows is a fleeting affair that throws in sharp relief an aching sense of loss and a yearning for things that could have been.

The weight of the hours in front of her drove at Elizabeth’s breast with the weight of years, as though in this interval before taking up her life again she must re-live all the years from her youth till now. She must re-endure the crash, the plunge into the world unripe, unready; the blundering search for some foothold, some steadying purpose; and then her late marriage and early widowhood, and the blanker loneliness that had ensued. It all pressed against her with a physical pain, as though the walls of a tunnel were falling in upon her.

Another excellent story exploring class difference and female insecurity is Katherine Mansfield’s “A Cup of Tea.” Its protagonist, Rosemary Fell, is a young, privileged woman who has been married for two years to a wealthy and indulgent husband. Though not conventionally beautiful, Rosemary more than compensates with her modern sensibility: she is well read, fashionably dressed, socially prominent, and keenly aware of her own youth. One cold, rain-soaked winter afternoon, after a shopping expedition, she encounters a destitute young woman who beseeches her for her cup of tea. Instead of offering money, Rosemary impulsively invites the girl home, taking pleasure in the ritual of feeding her, laying out an elaborate tea, and basking in the warmth and luxury of her own surroundings. Yet, there’s a sense that Rosemary’s generosity is more performative than genuine, more about flattering her own self-image. Soon after, her husband casually remarks on the girl’s beauty, and Rosemary feels threatened.

Ghosts surface in Angela Dickens’s “My Fellow Travellers”, a story-within-a-story in which an older, erudite woman recalls a strange and unsettling train journey from several years earlier. The disturbing presence of a domineering man and a troubled woman in her compartment builds towards an incident that may amount to murder, while in Elizabeth Bibesco’s “A Motor”, a particular make of motorcar becomes the lens through which two separate failed relationships are examined.

There’s subtle comedy too particularly in Shirley Jackson’s “My Life with R.H. Macy” and Sylvia Townsend Warner’s “The Cold”. Jackson’s story is a satire on the experiences of a newly hired department-store employee whose brief tenure lasts only two days. Warner’s story brims with her characteristic dry wit: a stubborn cold sweeps through an English household, exhausting everyone in its wake, until the lady of the house is confronted with an unthinkable blow – her long-serving, loyal maid announces her intention to leave, worn down by relentless caregiving and falling ill herself.  

As its title implies, most of the stories unfold in winter – across dreary afternoons or under the persistent chill of winter rains or as seen in Angela Carter’s “The Smile of Winter” at a desolate seaside where “the glittering sun transfigures everything so brilliantly that the beach looks like a desert and the ocean like a mirage.” A few are truly steeped in snow and ice, most notably “The Snowstorm,” which is rich with arresting imagery of a world blanketed in white.

The head-lights of the car threw two white shafts into space, and the wind-screen wiper clicked steadily back and forth, clearing the fine dust of snow from the glass as it drove and drove against it ceaselessly. The world seemed dissolving under the gentle, insistent action of the snow, that was seen to be twisting in slow spirals across the light.

In my part of the world, December brings neither snow nor frost nor ice; the days are cool but agreeable, and this collection nonetheless felt perfectly attuned to the season. Across stories spanning the 1910s to the 1950s, we encounter wronged women and jealous wives, lonely mistresses and flustered friends, distressed maids and dissatisfied employees. Exploring themes of loneliness, fractured marriages, class divisions, grief and loss, self-discovery, chance encounters, and life-altering revelations, Stories for Winter and Nights by the Fire proved a superb way to close out 2025.

This is, after all, the season of abandonment, of the suspension of vitality, a long cessation of vigour in which we must cultivate our stoicism. Everything has put on the desolate smile of winter.