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The Tortoise and the Hare
In affairs of the heart the race is not necessarily won by the swift or the fair.
Imogen, the beautiful and much younger wife of distinguished barrister Evelyn Gresham, is facing the greatest challenge of her married life. Their neighbour Blanche Silcox, competent, middle-aged and ungainly - the very opposite of Imogen - seems to be vying for Evelyn's attention. And to Imogen's increasing disbelief, she may be succeeding.
'A subtle and beautiful book ... Very few authors combine her acute psychological insight with her grace and style. There is plenty of life in the modern novel, plenty of authors who will shock and amaze you - but who will put on the page a beautiful sentence, a sentence you will want to read twice?' Hilary Mantel, Sunday Times
Imogen, the beautiful and much younger wife of distinguished barrister Evelyn Gresham, is facing the greatest challenge of her married life. Their neighbour Blanche Silcox, competent, middle-aged and ungainly - the very opposite of Imogen - seems to be vying for Evelyn's attention. And to Imogen's increasing disbelief, she may be succeeding.
'A subtle and beautiful book ... Very few authors combine her acute psychological insight with her grace and style. There is plenty of life in the modern novel, plenty of authors who will shock and amaze you - but who will put on the page a beautiful sentence, a sentence you will want to read twice?' Hilary Mantel, Sunday Times
272 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1954
About the author
Elizabeth Jenkins
48 books50 followersFrom Elizabeth Jenkins' obituary in The New York Times:
As a novelist, Ms. Jenkins was best known for “The Tortoise and the Hare” (1954), the story of a disintegrating marriage between a barrister and his desperate wife that Hilary Mantel, writing in The Sunday Times of London in 1993, called “as smooth and seductive as a bowl of cream.” Its author, Ms. Mantel wrote, “seems to know a good deal about how women think and how their lives are arranged; what women collude in, what they fear.”
To a wider public Ms. Jenkins was known as the author of psychologically acute, stylishly written, accessible biographies. Most dealt with important literary or historical figures, but in “Joseph Lister” (1960) she told the life of the English surgeon who pioneered the concept of sterilization in medicine, and in “Dr. Gully’s Story” (1972) she reconstructed a Victorian murder and love triangle.
Margaret Elizabeth Jenkins was born on Oct. 31, 1905, in Hitchin, Hertfordshire, where a year earlier her father had founded Caldicott, a prep school.
She studied English and history at Newnham College, Cambridge, where at the time women could take exams but not receive degrees. The principal of the college was Pernel Strachey, sister of the biographer and Bloomsbury figure Lytton Strachey, and through her Ms. Jenkins met Edith Sitwell and Leonard and Virginia Woolf.
She found the company intellectually distinguished but rude and unpleasant. Woolf’s description of Ms. Jenkins’s first novel, “Virginia Water” (1929), as “a sweet white grape of a book” did not erase the impression.
Despite good reviews for her first novel and a three-book deal with the publisher Victor Gollancz, Ms. Jenkins began teaching English at King Alfred’s School in Hampstead, where she remained until the outbreak of World War II.
In this period she wrote two of her most admired biographies, “Lady Caroline Lamb” (1932) and “Jane Austen” (1938), as well as the chilling “Harriet” (1934), a novel about the sufferings of a mentally disabled woman whose husband, a scheming clerk, marries for her money.
During the war Ms. Jenkins worked for the Assistance Board, helping Jewish refugees and victims of the German air raids on London. She later worked for the Board of Trade and the Ministry of Information.
“Elizabeth the Great” (1958) showed her biographical talents at their most effective. Although she relied on the standard historical sources, Ms. Jenkins added a psychological dimension to her portrait that other historians had scanted.
The historian Garrett Mattingly, in a review, wrote that Ms. Jenkins “is really not much interested in war and diplomacy, politics and finance.” Her specialty, he argued, was the human heart. “We believe Elizabeth Jenkins,” he added, “because, by imaginative insight and instinctive sympathy, she can make the figures of a remote historical pageant as real, as living, as three-dimensional as characters in a novel.”
Ms. Jenkins returned to the Elizabethan period in “Elizabeth and Leicester” (1961) and roamed further afield in “The Mystery of King Arthur” (1975) and “The Princes in the Tower” (1978). In “Six Criminal Women” (1949), she presented short studies of two murderers, a pickpocket, a blackmailer and a con artist living between the 14th and 19th centuries. A more wholesome gallery of characters was put on view in “Ten Fascinating Women” (1955).
In 1940 she helped found the Jane Austen Society and took part in its campaign to buy Austen’s house at Chawton, where Austen spent the last eight years of her life. It is now a museum.
Her novels included “Doubtful Joy” (1935), “The Phoenix’ Nest” (1936), “Robert and Helen” (1944), “Brightness” (1963) and “Honey” (1968).
In 2004 Ms. Jenkins published a memoir, “The View From Downshire Hill.” Its title refers to the Hampstead neighborhood whe
As a novelist, Ms. Jenkins was best known for “The Tortoise and the Hare” (1954), the story of a disintegrating marriage between a barrister and his desperate wife that Hilary Mantel, writing in The Sunday Times of London in 1993, called “as smooth and seductive as a bowl of cream.” Its author, Ms. Mantel wrote, “seems to know a good deal about how women think and how their lives are arranged; what women collude in, what they fear.”
To a wider public Ms. Jenkins was known as the author of psychologically acute, stylishly written, accessible biographies. Most dealt with important literary or historical figures, but in “Joseph Lister” (1960) she told the life of the English surgeon who pioneered the concept of sterilization in medicine, and in “Dr. Gully’s Story” (1972) she reconstructed a Victorian murder and love triangle.
Margaret Elizabeth Jenkins was born on Oct. 31, 1905, in Hitchin, Hertfordshire, where a year earlier her father had founded Caldicott, a prep school.
She studied English and history at Newnham College, Cambridge, where at the time women could take exams but not receive degrees. The principal of the college was Pernel Strachey, sister of the biographer and Bloomsbury figure Lytton Strachey, and through her Ms. Jenkins met Edith Sitwell and Leonard and Virginia Woolf.
She found the company intellectually distinguished but rude and unpleasant. Woolf’s description of Ms. Jenkins’s first novel, “Virginia Water” (1929), as “a sweet white grape of a book” did not erase the impression.
Despite good reviews for her first novel and a three-book deal with the publisher Victor Gollancz, Ms. Jenkins began teaching English at King Alfred’s School in Hampstead, where she remained until the outbreak of World War II.
In this period she wrote two of her most admired biographies, “Lady Caroline Lamb” (1932) and “Jane Austen” (1938), as well as the chilling “Harriet” (1934), a novel about the sufferings of a mentally disabled woman whose husband, a scheming clerk, marries for her money.
During the war Ms. Jenkins worked for the Assistance Board, helping Jewish refugees and victims of the German air raids on London. She later worked for the Board of Trade and the Ministry of Information.
“Elizabeth the Great” (1958) showed her biographical talents at their most effective. Although she relied on the standard historical sources, Ms. Jenkins added a psychological dimension to her portrait that other historians had scanted.
The historian Garrett Mattingly, in a review, wrote that Ms. Jenkins “is really not much interested in war and diplomacy, politics and finance.” Her specialty, he argued, was the human heart. “We believe Elizabeth Jenkins,” he added, “because, by imaginative insight and instinctive sympathy, she can make the figures of a remote historical pageant as real, as living, as three-dimensional as characters in a novel.”
Ms. Jenkins returned to the Elizabethan period in “Elizabeth and Leicester” (1961) and roamed further afield in “The Mystery of King Arthur” (1975) and “The Princes in the Tower” (1978). In “Six Criminal Women” (1949), she presented short studies of two murderers, a pickpocket, a blackmailer and a con artist living between the 14th and 19th centuries. A more wholesome gallery of characters was put on view in “Ten Fascinating Women” (1955).
In 1940 she helped found the Jane Austen Society and took part in its campaign to buy Austen’s house at Chawton, where Austen spent the last eight years of her life. It is now a museum.
Her novels included “Doubtful Joy” (1935), “The Phoenix’ Nest” (1936), “Robert and Helen” (1944), “Brightness” (1963) and “Honey” (1968).
In 2004 Ms. Jenkins published a memoir, “The View From Downshire Hill.” Its title refers to the Hampstead neighborhood whe
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 213 reviews
May 29, 2024
Well, this might be the slowest moving novel I've ever enjoyed.
The Tortoise and the Hare is set in the mid-20th Century in the English countryside, and sees the (very) slow crumbling of domestic paradise and, with it, convention.
Imogen Gresham is a good, traditional woman. Young, beautiful, submissive, passively accepting and serving the desires of her husband and son. She accepts their criticisms and holds her tongue.
Yet, the more she sacrifices herself for them, the less respect she earns, and the more they come to see her as something of a fool. Her weakness enables them to walk over her further, and fosters, not love, but disdain.
Enter neighbour Blanche Silcox. A sharp, smart, middle-aged woman who rides, fishes and drives a Rolls Royce. Despite being older, unfashionable and purportedly unattractive, Imogen's husband Evelyn seems increasingly enamoured by her ability to think for herself and hold a conversation about his masculine passions. Their son, Gavin, is also mesmerised by her.
While this might seem a heavy-handed message, I'd argue it's not. It moves languidly, lacking in all drama and conspicuous statement. Imogen is a highly sympathetic, well-drawn character who genuinely loves her role of pleasing her husband and cannot make sense of the situation she finds herself in.
It is not pleasurable to watch someone who asks for so little suddenly fearful of losing what they have. I'd say the book cautions against making others your entire world at the expense of yourself. They rarely thank you for it and if, as Imogen discovers, they decide to pull away from you... what do you have left?
The Tortoise and the Hare is set in the mid-20th Century in the English countryside, and sees the (very) slow crumbling of domestic paradise and, with it, convention.
Imogen Gresham is a good, traditional woman. Young, beautiful, submissive, passively accepting and serving the desires of her husband and son. She accepts their criticisms and holds her tongue.
Yet, the more she sacrifices herself for them, the less respect she earns, and the more they come to see her as something of a fool. Her weakness enables them to walk over her further, and fosters, not love, but disdain.
Enter neighbour Blanche Silcox. A sharp, smart, middle-aged woman who rides, fishes and drives a Rolls Royce. Despite being older, unfashionable and purportedly unattractive, Imogen's husband Evelyn seems increasingly enamoured by her ability to think for herself and hold a conversation about his masculine passions. Their son, Gavin, is also mesmerised by her.
While this might seem a heavy-handed message, I'd argue it's not. It moves languidly, lacking in all drama and conspicuous statement. Imogen is a highly sympathetic, well-drawn character who genuinely loves her role of pleasing her husband and cannot make sense of the situation she finds herself in.
It is not pleasurable to watch someone who asks for so little suddenly fearful of losing what they have. I'd say the book cautions against making others your entire world at the expense of yourself. They rarely thank you for it and if, as Imogen discovers, they decide to pull away from you... what do you have left?
May 14, 2022
Profoundly entertaining and often quite depressing - what seems at first to be a comedy of errors with a large cast of British eccentrics turns slowly into a chamber drama - we know more than the characters, and as the fun leeches out of the novel, it turns into, at moments, something horrifying.
June 14, 2011
My girl Hilary Mantel was the means of my discovery of Elizabeth Jenkins. Ah Hilary. She always does me good. Anyway, right there in the middle of Hilary’s shelf space between Wolf Hall (How nice would it be to read that again for the first time!) and Fludd (The scene where the spinster housekeeper is making herself a wedding band out of a sweets wrapper? Genius!) was a copy of The Tortoise and the Hare by Elizabeth Jenkins.
It was fate. My girl wrote the introduction to Tortoise. Her name was on the cover big as life along with the authors’ and a bookseller’s mistake became my delighted discovery. The understandable mis-shelving created a new author experience for me. So thank you confused bookseller.
The Tortoise and the Hare is a title with immediate meaning for any reader. We all know that story, slow but sure the tortoise wins the race. Elizabeth Jenkins does not rewrite this fable so much as she redefines it as a study of marriage. She also talented and smart enough to never let you feel comfortable in your choice of which character is the tortoise and which is the hare.
Your choices are Imogen and Blanche. Imogen is a young 37. She is an attractive, self-effacing, passive, show piece wife. A good hostess, always stylish and a lover of all the arts. Blanche is a moneyed country woman. She can hunt, solve problems, and build a dam with a piece of cheese and robin’s egg shell. She is short, stout with legs like a bull and is a settled 52 years old. The race to win, their competition, is Evelyn Gresham. Evelyn is a successful 50 year old barrister and Imogen’s husband . Imogen and Evelyn, though not unhappy, have a marriage based on her adoration and his condescending affection. Could Imogen possibly lose her husband to Margaret Rutherford’s twin?
Jenkins rounds out this unusual love triangle with a clear eyed look at neighbors, friends and the upper middle class country life of the period. With the exception of Blanche all of the other adults in the novel juxtapose the Gresham’s relationship in some way. For better and worse they are well drawn examples of the road not taken.
Thinking this might be a little chicklit-y? Think again, my friend. This is an intricate comedy of manners with ever more well defined characters encased in absolutely gorgeous writing. The kind of writing that makes you read sentences over and over again. I adored The Tortoise and the Hare and I cannot wait to read more Elizabeth Jenkins!
It was fate. My girl wrote the introduction to Tortoise. Her name was on the cover big as life along with the authors’ and a bookseller’s mistake became my delighted discovery. The understandable mis-shelving created a new author experience for me. So thank you confused bookseller.
The Tortoise and the Hare is a title with immediate meaning for any reader. We all know that story, slow but sure the tortoise wins the race. Elizabeth Jenkins does not rewrite this fable so much as she redefines it as a study of marriage. She also talented and smart enough to never let you feel comfortable in your choice of which character is the tortoise and which is the hare.
Your choices are Imogen and Blanche. Imogen is a young 37. She is an attractive, self-effacing, passive, show piece wife. A good hostess, always stylish and a lover of all the arts. Blanche is a moneyed country woman. She can hunt, solve problems, and build a dam with a piece of cheese and robin’s egg shell. She is short, stout with legs like a bull and is a settled 52 years old. The race to win, their competition, is Evelyn Gresham. Evelyn is a successful 50 year old barrister and Imogen’s husband . Imogen and Evelyn, though not unhappy, have a marriage based on her adoration and his condescending affection. Could Imogen possibly lose her husband to Margaret Rutherford’s twin?
Jenkins rounds out this unusual love triangle with a clear eyed look at neighbors, friends and the upper middle class country life of the period. With the exception of Blanche all of the other adults in the novel juxtapose the Gresham’s relationship in some way. For better and worse they are well drawn examples of the road not taken.
Thinking this might be a little chicklit-y? Think again, my friend. This is an intricate comedy of manners with ever more well defined characters encased in absolutely gorgeous writing. The kind of writing that makes you read sentences over and over again. I adored The Tortoise and the Hare and I cannot wait to read more Elizabeth Jenkins!
May 25, 2022
3.5 stars from me. Another good read that is from the Virago Modern Classics series.
There was one passage that I did not ‘get” early on in this novel...I knew it was important, so I wrote it down, and sure enough although I did not understand it when I was reading the novel, the person who wrote the Introduction, Helen McNeil, explained it, and it was important to understanding the eventual outcome of the novel.
• Another defect in her relationship with him had never weighed on her in the early years of their marriage. Her capacity for romantic affection was so great, the happiness of being the object of his passionate love was so enchanting, that for a long time she scarcely recognized her own deficiency in the sphere of physical passion. When she did realize it, she hoped always that her capacity would improve, that what was bright already would become brighter, and what was sweet, wildly and unimaginably so. She now had to face the truth that the happiness of this relationship would never improve and could now onwards only decay. Her own content would have been complete had she not known that he wished her to feel something more. Now that their relationship was no longer romantic, this knowledge, this sense of missing something herself and being subtly belittled and condemned because she did so, began to have a fatal effect upon her happiness.
“It’s an art, I suppose,” he had said carelessly. “Some people have it.’ The faint, unconscious note of contempt she thought she detected made her long wildly not only to be dead, but never to have been born. The tears flooded her eyes and welled down her cheeks...
😮 😑 😬 🙄 😯
If you need to read a cheery pick-me-up novel, refrain from this one. However, if in the mood for some good writing, then pick this one up...
Note:
• In a later Virago edition (2012), Hilary Mantel wrote the Introduction. Well. now I read another review and there must be another reissue because Carmen Callil (founder of the Virago Press in 1972) wrote an Afterword!
Reviews (all good but if you want to read this book, hold off on reading these reviews...they give too much away):
• https://girlwithherheadinabook.co.uk/...
• https://rohanmaitzen.com/2019/08/03/e...
• https://heavenali.wordpress.com/2014/...
• https://mygoodbookshelf.wordpress.com...
There was one passage that I did not ‘get” early on in this novel...I knew it was important, so I wrote it down, and sure enough although I did not understand it when I was reading the novel, the person who wrote the Introduction, Helen McNeil, explained it, and it was important to understanding the eventual outcome of the novel.
• Another defect in her relationship with him had never weighed on her in the early years of their marriage. Her capacity for romantic affection was so great, the happiness of being the object of his passionate love was so enchanting, that for a long time she scarcely recognized her own deficiency in the sphere of physical passion. When she did realize it, she hoped always that her capacity would improve, that what was bright already would become brighter, and what was sweet, wildly and unimaginably so. She now had to face the truth that the happiness of this relationship would never improve and could now onwards only decay. Her own content would have been complete had she not known that he wished her to feel something more. Now that their relationship was no longer romantic, this knowledge, this sense of missing something herself and being subtly belittled and condemned because she did so, began to have a fatal effect upon her happiness.
“It’s an art, I suppose,” he had said carelessly. “Some people have it.’ The faint, unconscious note of contempt she thought she detected made her long wildly not only to be dead, but never to have been born. The tears flooded her eyes and welled down her cheeks...
😮 😑 😬 🙄 😯
If you need to read a cheery pick-me-up novel, refrain from this one. However, if in the mood for some good writing, then pick this one up...
Note:
• In a later Virago edition (2012), Hilary Mantel wrote the Introduction. Well. now I read another review and there must be another reissue because Carmen Callil (founder of the Virago Press in 1972) wrote an Afterword!
Reviews (all good but if you want to read this book, hold off on reading these reviews...they give too much away):
• https://girlwithherheadinabook.co.uk/...
• https://rohanmaitzen.com/2019/08/03/e...
• https://heavenali.wordpress.com/2014/...
• https://mygoodbookshelf.wordpress.com...
September 9, 2023
4.25 stars
““Imogen,” he said with forced patience, “you have plenty of occupations of your own, and you don’t care to do the things that give a great deal of pleasure to me – when I have time to do them. You don’t want to fish or shoot and you can’t drive my car, which would be a help to me sometimes. Am I to understand that you object to my having the companionship of another woman who can do these things?””
“Are you sure you know what men fall in love with?”
Another Virago! The title is obviously a reference to one of Aesop’s Fables. It was published in the early 1950s and is set around that time. Elizabeth Jenkins (who died in 2010 at 105) wrote a few novels, this being the best known. She is better known for writing biographies (a couple on Elizabeth I, Jane Austen, the Princes in the Tower and King Arthur amongst others) and for co-founding the Jane Austen society.
This is an emotionally complex novel, claustrophobic and it doesn’t go for the easy and obvious at the end. This is about betrayal: a love triangle if you will. Evelyn is a barrister aged 52. He is married to Imogen who is 37 and conventionally beautiful. They have a son. Gavin who is 12 and the image of his father. One of their neighbours is Blanche Silcox, who is the same age as Evelyn and not conventionally beautiful. When I say neighbour, this is the countryside with large houses, so we are thinking a couple of miles. As Hilary Mantel says in her introduction, marriage is akin to warfare and Evelyn is generally assertive and likes his own way whilst Imogen is generally pliant. There are some well-developed minor characters, who do contribute to the whole.
The premise is simple Evelyn begins to spend more time with Blanche, they begin an affair and eventually move in together. This is the 1950s in rural England and so everything is gradual and conventions have to be noted. It is interesting to work out who is the tortoise and who is the hare: by the end it isn’t entirely obvious. The plot is fairly flimsy in itself, it’s what Jenkins makes of it.
“Imogen went into the house. From the end window of her bedroom she looked out on the drive, a yellow gravelled circus surrounded by evergreens. The gate was pushed back against a box hedge, and standing with one hand on it, Evelyn was talking to Blanche Silcox, a neighbour who lived behind the hanger. She was on the way to the post in the village, it seemed, for she held several envelopes in her leather-gauntleted hand. The tweed suit, expensive but of singular cut, increased the breadth of her middle-aged figure. She appeared kind and unassuming, which made it the more strange that her hats should be so very intimidating.”
This is a tale of domestic disharmony which isn’t formulaic. The male lead in this really is not likeable, but there is nuance to his character as well. I did enjoy this and Jenkins reminded me of Elizabeth Taylor and her novels.
““Imogen,” he said with forced patience, “you have plenty of occupations of your own, and you don’t care to do the things that give a great deal of pleasure to me – when I have time to do them. You don’t want to fish or shoot and you can’t drive my car, which would be a help to me sometimes. Am I to understand that you object to my having the companionship of another woman who can do these things?””
“Are you sure you know what men fall in love with?”
Another Virago! The title is obviously a reference to one of Aesop’s Fables. It was published in the early 1950s and is set around that time. Elizabeth Jenkins (who died in 2010 at 105) wrote a few novels, this being the best known. She is better known for writing biographies (a couple on Elizabeth I, Jane Austen, the Princes in the Tower and King Arthur amongst others) and for co-founding the Jane Austen society.
This is an emotionally complex novel, claustrophobic and it doesn’t go for the easy and obvious at the end. This is about betrayal: a love triangle if you will. Evelyn is a barrister aged 52. He is married to Imogen who is 37 and conventionally beautiful. They have a son. Gavin who is 12 and the image of his father. One of their neighbours is Blanche Silcox, who is the same age as Evelyn and not conventionally beautiful. When I say neighbour, this is the countryside with large houses, so we are thinking a couple of miles. As Hilary Mantel says in her introduction, marriage is akin to warfare and Evelyn is generally assertive and likes his own way whilst Imogen is generally pliant. There are some well-developed minor characters, who do contribute to the whole.
The premise is simple Evelyn begins to spend more time with Blanche, they begin an affair and eventually move in together. This is the 1950s in rural England and so everything is gradual and conventions have to be noted. It is interesting to work out who is the tortoise and who is the hare: by the end it isn’t entirely obvious. The plot is fairly flimsy in itself, it’s what Jenkins makes of it.
“Imogen went into the house. From the end window of her bedroom she looked out on the drive, a yellow gravelled circus surrounded by evergreens. The gate was pushed back against a box hedge, and standing with one hand on it, Evelyn was talking to Blanche Silcox, a neighbour who lived behind the hanger. She was on the way to the post in the village, it seemed, for she held several envelopes in her leather-gauntleted hand. The tweed suit, expensive but of singular cut, increased the breadth of her middle-aged figure. She appeared kind and unassuming, which made it the more strange that her hats should be so very intimidating.”
This is a tale of domestic disharmony which isn’t formulaic. The male lead in this really is not likeable, but there is nuance to his character as well. I did enjoy this and Jenkins reminded me of Elizabeth Taylor and her novels.
July 19, 2023
Have you ever read a book that had you on edge to the point it gave you a stomach ache? Well, this book did that to me. It brought out so many emotions- anxiety, hatred, sorrow, pity, tears. Elizabeth Jenkins has written a very compelling, albeit bleak tale!
We meet Imogene and her husband Evelyn Gresham. He is 50 years old and a prominent barrister. He is a controlling, contemptuous man. Imogene, who is 12 years younger, is a submissive, obedient wife. She is pretty, gentle and well like by their friends. Into their sphere comes their next door neighbour, Blanche Silcox- a 52 year old unmarried, sturdy, rich country woman, who is very involved in the community, in hunting and fishing and is herself quite an aggressive individual. She sets her sights on Evelyn!
Who will win in this love triangle- the tortoise or the hare? Of course, the reader has to decide who is who in this story.
To say I could not stand Evelyn is an understatement.
“ Silence was becoming a shield, a cloak of invisibility. “ If I have not said anything, he can’t be angry.”
Can you imagine being married to such a man. He made my blood boil.!!
Besides marriage, the theme of motherhood and friendships are also explored. Imogene’s son, Gavin, is an exact replica of his father. His best friend, Tim, is the neglected son of a nearby family, who is simply priceless in this novel.
This novel was written in 1954. Women’s place in society was still secondary to men’s. The inequality in marriage, what role a wife was supposed to play are well displayed throughout this novel.
A novel that will stay with me because of all the emotions it made me feel. It was rather an exhausting read!!
Highly recommended!
Published: 1954.
We meet Imogene and her husband Evelyn Gresham. He is 50 years old and a prominent barrister. He is a controlling, contemptuous man. Imogene, who is 12 years younger, is a submissive, obedient wife. She is pretty, gentle and well like by their friends. Into their sphere comes their next door neighbour, Blanche Silcox- a 52 year old unmarried, sturdy, rich country woman, who is very involved in the community, in hunting and fishing and is herself quite an aggressive individual. She sets her sights on Evelyn!
Who will win in this love triangle- the tortoise or the hare? Of course, the reader has to decide who is who in this story.
To say I could not stand Evelyn is an understatement.
“ Silence was becoming a shield, a cloak of invisibility. “ If I have not said anything, he can’t be angry.”
Can you imagine being married to such a man. He made my blood boil.!!
Besides marriage, the theme of motherhood and friendships are also explored. Imogene’s son, Gavin, is an exact replica of his father. His best friend, Tim, is the neglected son of a nearby family, who is simply priceless in this novel.
This novel was written in 1954. Women’s place in society was still secondary to men’s. The inequality in marriage, what role a wife was supposed to play are well displayed throughout this novel.
A novel that will stay with me because of all the emotions it made me feel. It was rather an exhausting read!!
Highly recommended!
Published: 1954.
April 17, 2019
First published in 1954, this was the sixth, of twelve, novels written by Elizabeth Jenkins. She is somewhat forgotten now, with her books hard to get hold of and, I must admit, that I had not heard of her before. This novel was recommended by my friend, and fellow reviewer, Nigeyb, and I am pleased that he did so. It is, without doubt, a gem of a book and, undoubtedly, one to which I will return.
Evelyn Gresham is a fifty two year old barrister. Competent, successful and self-assured, he lives with younger wife, Imogen and their son, Gavin, in the country. Imogen is beautiful, sensitive and kind. She tends to defer to Evelyn and is somewhat downtrodden by both her husband and son. Her needs are always secondary, she does all she can to create an easy, and harmonious, life for Evelyn and, of course, he doesn’t appreciate this one bit.
Gradually, Evelyn falls under the spell of country neighbour, Blanche Silcox. While Imogen is all dreamy introspection, Blanche likes to get out and do things. She strides around, shooting birds, catching fish, riding, hiking, running every local organisation and, as she is older, and definitely less attractive than Imogen, the danger is not, at first, scented. Before long, though, Blanche is everywhere. She will pick Evelyn up in her car (Imogen does not drive), capably discuss his cases with him (Imogen suffers while waiting for news), organises his – and Gavin’s – life and insinuates herself into more and more of their lives, and Imogen’s, marriage.
As well as the main characters, there are many other people who inhabit these pages; many of whom are in the unenviable position of having to pick sides. There are the local bohemian family, whose mother floats around, neglecting her children; including Gavin’s friend, Tim, who witnesses much of what happens in the Gresham household. There is also Blanches’s disagreeable stepsister, Marcia, Imogen’s friend, Paul Nugent, also unhappily married (and more than a little in love with her), and her close female friend, Cecil; as well as Hunter, who is a friend to both Evelyn and Imogen.
This scenario does happen and people are left thinking, for example, Charles preferred Camilla to Diana, or John abandoned Cynthia, for Yoko, with varying degrees of shock, and surprise. Of course, attraction is not just physical and Blanche is both astute and determined. You feel she is a woman who has been overlooked, who suddenly blossoms under this new, female power. Where Jenkins is so clever is in showing that nowhere is the shock greater than with the woman whose husband looks elsewhere, and how it affects her self esteem. Imogen’s wounded self-pride shocks, as Jenkins bares her soul, for us to see. However, the human heart is a resilient one and, as the title suggests, there may be a twist in who is, ultimately, the tortoise and who is the hare?
Evelyn Gresham is a fifty two year old barrister. Competent, successful and self-assured, he lives with younger wife, Imogen and their son, Gavin, in the country. Imogen is beautiful, sensitive and kind. She tends to defer to Evelyn and is somewhat downtrodden by both her husband and son. Her needs are always secondary, she does all she can to create an easy, and harmonious, life for Evelyn and, of course, he doesn’t appreciate this one bit.
Gradually, Evelyn falls under the spell of country neighbour, Blanche Silcox. While Imogen is all dreamy introspection, Blanche likes to get out and do things. She strides around, shooting birds, catching fish, riding, hiking, running every local organisation and, as she is older, and definitely less attractive than Imogen, the danger is not, at first, scented. Before long, though, Blanche is everywhere. She will pick Evelyn up in her car (Imogen does not drive), capably discuss his cases with him (Imogen suffers while waiting for news), organises his – and Gavin’s – life and insinuates herself into more and more of their lives, and Imogen’s, marriage.
As well as the main characters, there are many other people who inhabit these pages; many of whom are in the unenviable position of having to pick sides. There are the local bohemian family, whose mother floats around, neglecting her children; including Gavin’s friend, Tim, who witnesses much of what happens in the Gresham household. There is also Blanches’s disagreeable stepsister, Marcia, Imogen’s friend, Paul Nugent, also unhappily married (and more than a little in love with her), and her close female friend, Cecil; as well as Hunter, who is a friend to both Evelyn and Imogen.
This scenario does happen and people are left thinking, for example, Charles preferred Camilla to Diana, or John abandoned Cynthia, for Yoko, with varying degrees of shock, and surprise. Of course, attraction is not just physical and Blanche is both astute and determined. You feel she is a woman who has been overlooked, who suddenly blossoms under this new, female power. Where Jenkins is so clever is in showing that nowhere is the shock greater than with the woman whose husband looks elsewhere, and how it affects her self esteem. Imogen’s wounded self-pride shocks, as Jenkins bares her soul, for us to see. However, the human heart is a resilient one and, as the title suggests, there may be a twist in who is, ultimately, the tortoise and who is the hare?
February 2, 2019
Should I start this review by remarking on the condition of women and how far we have come since a mere 60 years ago? Or should I start this review by remarking on the terrible consequences of love? Or should I start by saying that you know the book is good when you want to enter the story and yell at the characters involved?
The idea of barging in on Evelyn Gresham's and telling him how much of a worthless, spineless man he is quite entertaining. God knows he deserves it.
But let me put try to put some order into this review and start from the beginning. The Tortoise and the Hare tells the story of a seemingly happy couple, Evelyn and Imogen Gresham. Evelyn is an important lawyer, part of that English middle-upper class the tabloids look up to as the example of perfect Britain. Imogen is 15 years younger than him. She has everything to be the kind of character one feels compelled to despise: she's judgemental and vain. However, because she's so aware of her failings and her insecurities, and because the readers are privy to her thoughts, we can't help but sympathize with her.
It is obvious from the beginning that something is wrong in the Gresham's household. Starting by the relationship between Imogen and her son, Gavin, who is as annoying as only someone called Gavin could be. Imogen stands in awe of the boy in the same way she stands in awe of the husband. Yes, Imogen idolizes her husband. Nothing can disturb dear, brilliant, handsome Evelyn. Everything has to be exactly the way Evelyn wants or else something unspeakable might happen. We don't exactly know what it would be but we know it would be terrible. Poor Imogen tries, she tries a lot but somehow she always falls short.
In the beginning the reader thinks this is only her perception of things. It is Imogen who thinks she's falling short. It is all in her head. Surely her husband can't be so thick and selfish to think so. Turns out he can. And this is where Blanche Silcox comes. Oh, Blanche Silcox. She is perfect for Evelyn and she is keenly aware of this fact. She drives, she fishes, she probably hunts as well. She is a practical woman we're told countless times. She knows all about the countryside, the stock market, silverware, cars, fishing, horses, guns. She is the kind of woman you d'want at your side in a crisis because she knows where everything is and I bet still makes a wonderful cup of tea. Blanche Silcox attracts Evelyn because she is everything that Imogen is not but that Evelyn needs her to be.
Blanche Silcox is not really beautiful and she's (even!) older than Evelyn. But to Imogen's suprise that doesn't matter in the least.
And so Evelyn begins an affair right under his wife's eyes. You need to be a really nasty piece of work to bring your mistress to your dinner table and include her in your domestic affairs. It is unbelievable that Evelyn gets away with this for such a long time.
See, the problem is that Evelyn isn't cruel. He's never mean. He's always pleasant. In fact, whenever he is present interacting with other characters, he comes off as rather nice and even kind. But when you get down to it, and you think about what he has done, you see that he really is a terrible person. Far more than Blanche who despite her manipulations is an insecure, inexperienced woman who could have been set straight by a more honest man.
The book asks intereesting questions about feminism. It can be argued that it tries to set the two women against each other. There is some degree of truth here; Blanche, despite everything, comes off as rather unsympathetic, a woman who knows precisely what she is doing, and what she wants. And what she wants is Evelyn.
But one can also argue that Imogen and Blanche devote their lives to try to please this man. But Imogen has the benefit of realising, at a certain point, that she has lived all her life in a society that prepared her only for this role; that of pleasing men. Of not being in their way. Of facilitating their lives. Making things easier for them so that the strain of their Very Serious Work is lessened. Perhaps it is because of this that I am a little annoyed that Blanche, such an independent and strong woman, is so prone to lay down her life for Evelyn whereas Imogen, far weaker and less independent, is more prone to question the way she was brought up.
(There's also a bit where Blanche goes on a rant against Free Health Service and how those terrible poor people are getting sick at the expense of the wealthy and quite frankly that did not endear her to me)
The genius of this book is that nothing really happens for the greater part of it. Tensions build up, slowly, very slowly, and the ending is unsurprising yet shocking if I can sustain the paradox. And yet, the second ending – for there is one – is sweet and so very fitting.
I believe it is also fitting to see the title as Hilary Mantel does in the Afterword: “For me then Imogen is the Tortoise because she struggles through a mire of misery but leaves it behind; Blanche is the Hare because though she has raced off with the trophy-husband, where love is betrayed once, so it may be again.”
Although I can pity Blanche for what is to come, it brings me some satisfaction to think that the modern reader, especially the modern female reader, is more prone to think that it is Imogen, and not Blanche, who got the better end of the deal.
The idea of barging in on Evelyn Gresham's and telling him how much of a worthless, spineless man he is quite entertaining. God knows he deserves it.
But let me put try to put some order into this review and start from the beginning. The Tortoise and the Hare tells the story of a seemingly happy couple, Evelyn and Imogen Gresham. Evelyn is an important lawyer, part of that English middle-upper class the tabloids look up to as the example of perfect Britain. Imogen is 15 years younger than him. She has everything to be the kind of character one feels compelled to despise: she's judgemental and vain. However, because she's so aware of her failings and her insecurities, and because the readers are privy to her thoughts, we can't help but sympathize with her.
It is obvious from the beginning that something is wrong in the Gresham's household. Starting by the relationship between Imogen and her son, Gavin, who is as annoying as only someone called Gavin could be. Imogen stands in awe of the boy in the same way she stands in awe of the husband. Yes, Imogen idolizes her husband. Nothing can disturb dear, brilliant, handsome Evelyn. Everything has to be exactly the way Evelyn wants or else something unspeakable might happen. We don't exactly know what it would be but we know it would be terrible. Poor Imogen tries, she tries a lot but somehow she always falls short.
In the beginning the reader thinks this is only her perception of things. It is Imogen who thinks she's falling short. It is all in her head. Surely her husband can't be so thick and selfish to think so. Turns out he can. And this is where Blanche Silcox comes. Oh, Blanche Silcox. She is perfect for Evelyn and she is keenly aware of this fact. She drives, she fishes, she probably hunts as well. She is a practical woman we're told countless times. She knows all about the countryside, the stock market, silverware, cars, fishing, horses, guns. She is the kind of woman you d'want at your side in a crisis because she knows where everything is and I bet still makes a wonderful cup of tea. Blanche Silcox attracts Evelyn because she is everything that Imogen is not but that Evelyn needs her to be.
Blanche Silcox is not really beautiful and she's (even!) older than Evelyn. But to Imogen's suprise that doesn't matter in the least.
And so Evelyn begins an affair right under his wife's eyes. You need to be a really nasty piece of work to bring your mistress to your dinner table and include her in your domestic affairs. It is unbelievable that Evelyn gets away with this for such a long time.
See, the problem is that Evelyn isn't cruel. He's never mean. He's always pleasant. In fact, whenever he is present interacting with other characters, he comes off as rather nice and even kind. But when you get down to it, and you think about what he has done, you see that he really is a terrible person. Far more than Blanche who despite her manipulations is an insecure, inexperienced woman who could have been set straight by a more honest man.
The book asks intereesting questions about feminism. It can be argued that it tries to set the two women against each other. There is some degree of truth here; Blanche, despite everything, comes off as rather unsympathetic, a woman who knows precisely what she is doing, and what she wants. And what she wants is Evelyn.
But one can also argue that Imogen and Blanche devote their lives to try to please this man. But Imogen has the benefit of realising, at a certain point, that she has lived all her life in a society that prepared her only for this role; that of pleasing men. Of not being in their way. Of facilitating their lives. Making things easier for them so that the strain of their Very Serious Work is lessened. Perhaps it is because of this that I am a little annoyed that Blanche, such an independent and strong woman, is so prone to lay down her life for Evelyn whereas Imogen, far weaker and less independent, is more prone to question the way she was brought up.
(There's also a bit where Blanche goes on a rant against Free Health Service and how those terrible poor people are getting sick at the expense of the wealthy and quite frankly that did not endear her to me)
The genius of this book is that nothing really happens for the greater part of it. Tensions build up, slowly, very slowly, and the ending is unsurprising yet shocking if I can sustain the paradox. And yet, the second ending – for there is one – is sweet and so very fitting.
I believe it is also fitting to see the title as Hilary Mantel does in the Afterword: “For me then Imogen is the Tortoise because she struggles through a mire of misery but leaves it behind; Blanche is the Hare because though she has raced off with the trophy-husband, where love is betrayed once, so it may be again.”
Although I can pity Blanche for what is to come, it brings me some satisfaction to think that the modern reader, especially the modern female reader, is more prone to think that it is Imogen, and not Blanche, who got the better end of the deal.
September 6, 2023
Evelyn is a distinguished barrister with a beautiful but unaccomplished wife, Imogen. He also has a plain, sturdy neighbour in Blanche. She is you typical tweedy country-woman. Member of the WI, and the Girl Guides, she hunts and fishes. To Imogen increasing astonishment, this woman starts to command more and more of her husbands time, she is clearly after him. By the end of the novels, as others have stated, we are left wondering who is the Tortoise and who is the Hare.
April 23, 2019
I heard about The Tortoise and the Hare (1954) by Elizabeth Jenkins via an episode of the always splendid Backlisted Podcast.
Carmen Callil, the legendary publisher and writer, who is best known for founding the Virago Press in 1972, was a guest on the podcast as The Tortoise and the Hare is one of her favourite novels. The Tortoise and the Hare was first published by Gollancz in 1954 and then triumphantly reissued by Virago Modern Classics in 1983.
If you enjoy perceptive and clever books that contain astute psychological insights into human behaviour then this is the book for you. If you also enjoy books set in the repressive milieu of 1950s midde England, then pick this up as soon as you can.
The Tortoise and the Hare charts the gradual breakdown of a relationship in which the husband is assailed from a more determined and ruthless suitor. Although the wife, Imogen, appears to be the victim, the denouement is more ambiguous and leaves many intriguing questions in the reader's mind. Imogen who lacks agency and has been socialised to place the needs of others before her own is suddenly on the cusp of freedom. It's a book that you will probably want to discuss once you've finished. It is very enjoyable, intriguing, subtle and well written.
The introduction by Hilary Mantel, and the afterword by Carmen Callil, add even more richness and context to this enjoyable book.
5/5
The Tortoise and the Hare by Elizabeth Jenkins
Carmen Callil, the legendary publisher and writer, who is best known for founding the Virago Press in 1972, was a guest on the podcast as The Tortoise and the Hare is one of her favourite novels. The Tortoise and the Hare was first published by Gollancz in 1954 and then triumphantly reissued by Virago Modern Classics in 1983.
If you enjoy perceptive and clever books that contain astute psychological insights into human behaviour then this is the book for you. If you also enjoy books set in the repressive milieu of 1950s midde England, then pick this up as soon as you can.
The Tortoise and the Hare charts the gradual breakdown of a relationship in which the husband is assailed from a more determined and ruthless suitor. Although the wife, Imogen, appears to be the victim, the denouement is more ambiguous and leaves many intriguing questions in the reader's mind. Imogen who lacks agency and has been socialised to place the needs of others before her own is suddenly on the cusp of freedom. It's a book that you will probably want to discuss once you've finished. It is very enjoyable, intriguing, subtle and well written.
The introduction by Hilary Mantel, and the afterword by Carmen Callil, add even more richness and context to this enjoyable book.
5/5
The Tortoise and the Hare by Elizabeth Jenkins
July 7, 2023
A marvelous novel. Smooth, slow (but not boring), and gently paced. I am in awe of how it was told. Without melodrama, yet with touching, life-changing events. I can't decide what I appreciated the most: a marriage study, a relationship between parents and a child, the different roles (and personalities) of women and how they changed, two meanings (consequences) of endurance, Tim? The numerous issues, that Elizabeth Jenkins put, weaved a wise, deep story.
And I am glad, that in spite of all the sadness in which the book is soaked, I got a bit of hope at the end.
And I am glad, that in spite of all the sadness in which the book is soaked, I got a bit of hope at the end.
April 15, 2014
This book lived up to the title....the writing gripped me from the beginning, then slowly drip fed me more and more until the very end.
I had never heard of this book. I had never heard of the author - though she's also known as a founding member of the Jane Austen Society. I picked the book up from the library, for the sole reason that it had a pretty cover. It paid off. I'm not sure how I can describe it, as I would certainly make it sound dreary and mundane, though it's nothing but. There is not much of a plot, nor did I especially feel much affinity for any of the characters, but I cannot stop thinking about the story several days later and I think it's one that will stay with me for a while. The blurb gives just enough detail of what happens, but cannot convey how simply wonderful the story evolves.
Such a shame that it doesn't have more of an audience here on GR, but I would wholeheartedly recommend it.
I had never heard of this book. I had never heard of the author - though she's also known as a founding member of the Jane Austen Society. I picked the book up from the library, for the sole reason that it had a pretty cover. It paid off. I'm not sure how I can describe it, as I would certainly make it sound dreary and mundane, though it's nothing but. There is not much of a plot, nor did I especially feel much affinity for any of the characters, but I cannot stop thinking about the story several days later and I think it's one that will stay with me for a while. The blurb gives just enough detail of what happens, but cannot convey how simply wonderful the story evolves.
Such a shame that it doesn't have more of an audience here on GR, but I would wholeheartedly recommend it.
March 27, 2019
With prose so impeccable and a situation so initially tranquil that it is not until much too late that it registers that Jenkins has actually enticed the reader into a kind of vice, and all the screws have been cheerfully locked into place and the lever is already being cranked. Anybody who has ever underestimated a romantic rival and lost all because of it will find trajectories here outlined with a unnerving precision. And yet there is a certain quiet generosity present too: even the more unlikable characters are never completely villainized, and no one ever emerges as a protagonist; instead all—and that includes us as readers too—are ultimately forced to confront the full weight of all decisions, both made and not made.
"The re-dipping of dishes was a small matter, but the emotional texture of married life is made up of small matters. This one had become invested with a fatal quality."
"The re-dipping of dishes was a small matter, but the emotional texture of married life is made up of small matters. This one had become invested with a fatal quality."
October 23, 2014
The Tortoise and the Hare was Elizabeth Jenkin’s sixth novel, one which was described to me recently as a forgotten masterpiece. I have had a copy for a while so I absolutely had to read it right away. My only other experience of Elizabeth Jenkins was in the novel Harriet – published by Persephone books. Of her writing Hilary Mantel – in her introduction to this edition says:
“…she is like Jane Austen: formal, nuanced, acid. She surveys a room as if she were perched on the mantelpiece: an unruffled owl of Minerva, a recording angel”
My full review here: http://heavenali.wordpress.com/2014/1...
“…she is like Jane Austen: formal, nuanced, acid. She surveys a room as if she were perched on the mantelpiece: an unruffled owl of Minerva, a recording angel”
My full review here: http://heavenali.wordpress.com/2014/1...
August 25, 2017
Absolutely brilliant. I was expecting a pleasant, quiet read, but Miss Jenkins surpassed all my expectations. She's such a keen observer of the human nature and her prose flows gorgeously. The Tortoise and the Hare, the story of a disintegrating marriage, is followed in minute details, and although you come to despise most characters one by one, Jenkins keeps you reading because you need to know the outcome and how long will Evelyn keep on being an asshole and how long will Imogen take it and Blanche, will you just stop being SO annoyingly perfect?!
Great discovery. My foray into British feminine lit of the first half of the 20th century continues.
4.5*
Great discovery. My foray into British feminine lit of the first half of the 20th century continues.
4.5*
June 16, 2017
UGH.
Another abandoned book.
Read 70 pages from the start, found myself rolling my eyes so I skipped to the last 30 pages to see if it really is as predictable as I’m guessing and nope…this is not for me. The writing is stunning but the story and the characters are so cringe-worthy and stereotypical I wanted to gouge my eyes.
Another abandoned book.
Read 70 pages from the start, found myself rolling my eyes so I skipped to the last 30 pages to see if it really is as predictable as I’m guessing and nope…this is not for me. The writing is stunning but the story and the characters are so cringe-worthy and stereotypical I wanted to gouge my eyes.
May 1, 2019
The Tortoise and the Hare is the sixth of Elizabeth Jenkin's twelve novels and was published in 1954.
Imogen aged 37 is the beautiful wife of the successful barrister Evelyn Gresham aged 52.
Imogen has a very comfortable life, big house in the Berkshire countryside, a son about to go to public school, maids to wait on her and plenty of money.
Blanche Silcox, their neighbour, who is the very opposite of Imogen, frumpish, middle-aged and tweedy seems to be vying for Evelyn's attention.To Imogen's horror she feels she may be succeeding...
Beautifully written with great descriptions of the countryside, Elizabeth Jenkins asks the reader who is the tortoise and who is the hare in the story.
A sad story with some great characters and definitely worth reading.
Imogen aged 37 is the beautiful wife of the successful barrister Evelyn Gresham aged 52.
Imogen has a very comfortable life, big house in the Berkshire countryside, a son about to go to public school, maids to wait on her and plenty of money.
Blanche Silcox, their neighbour, who is the very opposite of Imogen, frumpish, middle-aged and tweedy seems to be vying for Evelyn's attention.To Imogen's horror she feels she may be succeeding...
Beautifully written with great descriptions of the countryside, Elizabeth Jenkins asks the reader who is the tortoise and who is the hare in the story.
A sad story with some great characters and definitely worth reading.
June 29, 2020
I enjoyed this, and I really wish there was a sequel because Imogen's story is nowhere NEAR complete. Elizabeth Jenkins has an understanding of women that is surprising to read, because some moments she writes about I have never seen on paper before, but they define plenty of my actions or interactions with other women.
December 29, 2012
“Apart from a war, what could be more interesting than a marriage?” Hilary Mantel ponders in her introduction, and indeed, what could be? I cannot imagine any other piece of work striking such icy dread into my married veins. This is domestic fiction of the early 20th century at its best, but only for the most steely hearted.
Graceful, beautiful Imogen suddenly finds herself strickened with jealousy. The seemingly plain and unpreposessing neighbour, Blanche Silcox, is insiduously competing for her husband Evelyn’s attentions, and thus menacing her fragile peace. Beware the tweedy, dowdy piece of work! Like a hardy weed, Blanche inhabits her country life with immense vigour, with the calm mettle of the thick-skinned and able. Imogen, with her stuttering lack of confidence, is a shrinking violet. She accepts Evelyn’s faults and incontestable authority as a necessary compliment to his merits. Even as his actions strike a painful, discordant chord, she meekly accepts a surreal domestic intimacy with her rival.
There is a suggestion that for all her beauty, there is a lack of sexual chemistry – “It’s an art, I suppose, some people have it” Evelyn carelessly says. While Imogen craves for a deep romantic love, the balm of Paul Nugent’s chivalrous ardour is hardly a consolation. “Do you know what men fall in love with?” Paul asks, while she remains sweetly and knowingly ignorant of his undeclared affections.
Even Imogen and Evelyn’s final showdown (brilliantly rehearsed in my mind, at least) is ultimately a let down. Her accusation is feeble as a subservient cry - “I don’t want to spoil your happiness and be a drag on you”! Drizzling with tears, we feel her piteous yearning for a reprieve that does not come.
Who is the tortoise, and who the hare? It does not matter, for in the end, Imogen and Blanche are both prey. The tortoise - the clumsy defender, retreating beneath the fortress of a shell; the hare - elegant and swift, but vulnerable to traps. The real winner is the detestable Evelyn.
5 gold stars, and wholly independent of Florence Broadhurst's elegant Japanese floral print - I would go as far to say that this is the best book I have read this year.
(Not-Sure-When-2012, Fishpond.com, AUD$20)
Graceful, beautiful Imogen suddenly finds herself strickened with jealousy. The seemingly plain and unpreposessing neighbour, Blanche Silcox, is insiduously competing for her husband Evelyn’s attentions, and thus menacing her fragile peace. Beware the tweedy, dowdy piece of work! Like a hardy weed, Blanche inhabits her country life with immense vigour, with the calm mettle of the thick-skinned and able. Imogen, with her stuttering lack of confidence, is a shrinking violet. She accepts Evelyn’s faults and incontestable authority as a necessary compliment to his merits. Even as his actions strike a painful, discordant chord, she meekly accepts a surreal domestic intimacy with her rival.
There is a suggestion that for all her beauty, there is a lack of sexual chemistry – “It’s an art, I suppose, some people have it” Evelyn carelessly says. While Imogen craves for a deep romantic love, the balm of Paul Nugent’s chivalrous ardour is hardly a consolation. “Do you know what men fall in love with?” Paul asks, while she remains sweetly and knowingly ignorant of his undeclared affections.
Even Imogen and Evelyn’s final showdown (brilliantly rehearsed in my mind, at least) is ultimately a let down. Her accusation is feeble as a subservient cry - “I don’t want to spoil your happiness and be a drag on you”! Drizzling with tears, we feel her piteous yearning for a reprieve that does not come.
Who is the tortoise, and who the hare? It does not matter, for in the end, Imogen and Blanche are both prey. The tortoise - the clumsy defender, retreating beneath the fortress of a shell; the hare - elegant and swift, but vulnerable to traps. The real winner is the detestable Evelyn.
5 gold stars, and wholly independent of Florence Broadhurst's elegant Japanese floral print - I would go as far to say that this is the best book I have read this year.
(Not-Sure-When-2012, Fishpond.com, AUD$20)
February 7, 2018
Posh post-war period piece.
“Well, there were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded.” So said the late Princess Diana in her television interview with Martin Bashir in 1995. I was reminded of this famous quote while reading this recently re-issued novel by Elizabeth Jenkins. It is about an attractive young wife who loses her considerably older husband to a plain, matronly woman of his own age.
Set in the early ‘50s, the Greshams have moved from town to a beautiful riverside property in moneyed Berkshire. Husband Evelyn is a barrister, distinguished in both career and looks. He appreciates the finer things in life and requires everything to be ‘just so’. Imogen fulfils her role as ornamental accessory; she’s far from stupid but her intelligence is muted and, in any event, not the kind that appeals much to Evelyn. He’s much more interested in their new neighbour Blanche Silcox, a huntin’, shootin’ and fishin’ type who drives a Roller and ferries Evelyn up and down to his chambers and incrementally worms her way into his life and his affections. The Greshams’ only child – the horrid son Gavin - favours his father and, as time goes on, it is only Gavin’s young friend Tim who really seems to like Imogen. True, she has many admirers but it’s her husband’s affection that she craves.
I wasn’t too sure about this book at first; the language is so dated and everybody seems to talk in a cut-glass accent - indeed, very much like the royals. But the human dynamic is interesting and whilst some of the attitudes are appallingly old-fashioned, there are odd moments of curious sexual freedom. Most confusing! Ultimately, I find I can recommend this as a rather unusual read – but with these reservations.
“Well, there were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded.” So said the late Princess Diana in her television interview with Martin Bashir in 1995. I was reminded of this famous quote while reading this recently re-issued novel by Elizabeth Jenkins. It is about an attractive young wife who loses her considerably older husband to a plain, matronly woman of his own age.
Set in the early ‘50s, the Greshams have moved from town to a beautiful riverside property in moneyed Berkshire. Husband Evelyn is a barrister, distinguished in both career and looks. He appreciates the finer things in life and requires everything to be ‘just so’. Imogen fulfils her role as ornamental accessory; she’s far from stupid but her intelligence is muted and, in any event, not the kind that appeals much to Evelyn. He’s much more interested in their new neighbour Blanche Silcox, a huntin’, shootin’ and fishin’ type who drives a Roller and ferries Evelyn up and down to his chambers and incrementally worms her way into his life and his affections. The Greshams’ only child – the horrid son Gavin - favours his father and, as time goes on, it is only Gavin’s young friend Tim who really seems to like Imogen. True, she has many admirers but it’s her husband’s affection that she craves.
I wasn’t too sure about this book at first; the language is so dated and everybody seems to talk in a cut-glass accent - indeed, very much like the royals. But the human dynamic is interesting and whilst some of the attitudes are appallingly old-fashioned, there are odd moments of curious sexual freedom. Most confusing! Ultimately, I find I can recommend this as a rather unusual read – but with these reservations.
March 30, 2024
I picked this edition up from the library shelves as the pattern on the cover (by wallpaper designer Florence Broadhurst) was so attractive; I'd never come across the author before. It is in the Virago Modern Classics series, with an introduction by Hilary Mantel, and an afterword by Carmen Callil. Elizabeth Jenkins writes beautifully, especially her descriptions of nature - and I can see the influence of Jane Austen, mentioned by Mantel. The book was published in 1954, and it is like reading a story from far further back in time, so radically has British society changed. Yet for me, brought up in Surrey in the '50's in the 'stockbroker belt', it was strangely familiar. It made me wonder how profoundly this lost way of life has influenced me, for good and ill. I felt intensely annoyed at the main character, Imogen, and yet also felt sympathy for her. I did not feel any sympathy for her husband, Evelyn.
I can't do any better than quote from Carmen Callil's afterword:-
'Elizabeth Jenkins has a wry and precise way of assessing and describing women, and the intelligence which illuminates this eloquent cry against betrayal is icy, dazzling. This is a novel about women and beauty, about husbands as protectors and demi-gods, about women and work, about different kinds of loving, about an England well gone,and about the centuries of instruction to women to be beautiful and submissive, reminding us, in the most enchanting way, what a waste of life and time such instructions always were.'
I re-read this in March 2024, this time for my Book Group in Harrogate, and enjoyed it just as much.
I can't do any better than quote from Carmen Callil's afterword:-
'Elizabeth Jenkins has a wry and precise way of assessing and describing women, and the intelligence which illuminates this eloquent cry against betrayal is icy, dazzling. This is a novel about women and beauty, about husbands as protectors and demi-gods, about women and work, about different kinds of loving, about an England well gone,and about the centuries of instruction to women to be beautiful and submissive, reminding us, in the most enchanting way, what a waste of life and time such instructions always were.'
I re-read this in March 2024, this time for my Book Group in Harrogate, and enjoyed it just as much.
August 3, 2010
A really fascinating portrait of a marriage and of a beleaguered wife who is respected by neither her husband nor her son and continually diminished by both. To her great surprise, the young and beautiful Imogen (she's also sensitive and kind) finds herself losing her barrister husband Evelyn to their country neighbor, the homely and brusque, but also wealthy and capable, Blanche Silcox. Before she knows it, Imogen is hearing Blanche's name is just about every conversation she has with Evelyn, watching (or hearing) him make runs to Blanche's comfortable home, and putting up with Blanche's playing an increasing role not only in the life she has with her husband (Blanche drives Evelyn to and from London on a weekly basis, orders firewood for both their houses, telephones him regularly) but also her son Gavin too. (Blanche encourages Gavin and Evelyn to fish on her property, she oversees Gavin's riding lessons.) Imogen realizes that Evelyn has become engaged in a passionate affair with their neighbor but seems absolutely powerless to do anything about it. Imogen's friends are loyal and caring, but they watch her suffering without much means to comfort her. Oddly, Imogen's savior is likely to be Gavin's unassuming friend Tim. This novel was first published in 1954, but I found it a very absorbing read.
June 11, 2016
Repressed and wounded vanities render Imogen, a beautiful trophy wife, inadequate... (So frustrating.) You can only give enough benefit of the doubt to someone who for 241 pages out of 275 is continuously being psychologically beaten, showing weakness, and debilitating reticence over her marriage until you have to decide that this person is pretty much not at all a heroine and maybe she likes wallowing in her own misery. All she can do is bend her head low, stay quiet and drag herself around, endlessly brewing her grievances until it turns dark and strong. I was so frustrated with Imogen. I just can't abide by this defeatist attitude from a character. It's anathema to my reading ethos. But I kept reading. And then comes a silent strength that floored me and offered so much redemption in the end. I was ready to give up on this book so early on if it weren't for the excellent writing of Jenkins. I should've known to trust in her expertise that there's so much more to the story than what I was willing to concede to at first. This is a really deep-cutting look at being a woman in an unhappy marriage and one I'll keep thinking about for a very long time.
June 5, 2021
The story of the disintegrating marriage of Imogen, our protagonist, and Evelyn, an accomplished lawyer 15 years her senior. Imogen embodies the passive, lovely, subservient wife with few interests of her own. She treats their son, Gavin, with kid gloves, as he appears to have little use for her. Gradually Evelyn falls in love with their neighbor, the practical and extroverted Blanche, who is 50.
The book of course takes its title from the fable of the tortoise and the hare, where the slow, plodding and one-minded contestant wins against the quick, distracted runner who thought she had everything. An afterward by the publisher, however, makes it clear that we can read it the other way. Imogen may lose her husband but she has something to gain in insight and possibly a better life. To be honest, as Evelyn was slipping away from Imogen it was hard to wish he wouldn't, though he isn't really outright bad.
I loved this story. The characters are great, from the ghastly and seemingly upstanding Evelyn, to the cold Gavin, the tragic Paul, the annoying and beautiful poet Zenobia, and her wonderful nephew Tim.
The book of course takes its title from the fable of the tortoise and the hare, where the slow, plodding and one-minded contestant wins against the quick, distracted runner who thought she had everything. An afterward by the publisher, however, makes it clear that we can read it the other way. Imogen may lose her husband but she has something to gain in insight and possibly a better life. To be honest, as Evelyn was slipping away from Imogen it was hard to wish he wouldn't, though he isn't really outright bad.
I loved this story. The characters are great, from the ghastly and seemingly upstanding Evelyn, to the cold Gavin, the tragic Paul, the annoying and beautiful poet Zenobia, and her wonderful nephew Tim.
February 9, 2016
This book is definitely a slow burner & my goodness the three main protagonists are extremely annoying . But the more involved you become in the story the more engrossed you become. Divorce, Separation and illicit affairs were dealt with very differently in the 40s/50s when this novel was written , but still the same heart breaking consequences as in modern day. Surprisingly I really enjoyed the very sad tale of one woman's ambition to snare a man and the decline of the other woman and watching her slide into despair. It's not a happy read but a very well written classic and highly recommended. One final point the son Gavin - what a total spoilt horrible little git. I'm glad to say no boys in my family / children of friends , behave like that with that Attitude and behaviour towards their mums. So I'd say modern little boys are far far nicer !
February 14, 2018
What a strange book. I am tempted to exchange the word strange for dull, but there was something about it that kept me reading about Imogen and her pretty rotten life, wife to the obnoxious lawyer Evelyn and coping with her objectionable son Gavin. Add the quietly intrusive neighbour Miss Silcox into the mix and what was a standard 1950s marriage soon begins to feel like a bit of a nightmare.
Admittedly the Afterword by Carmen Callil guided me towards pondering who is the Hare and who is the Tortoise, and suddenly I began to see a greater depth to the novel. Occasional moments of levity were welcome, and there were other sub-plots involving family friends which gave some respite to my frustrations. But having said that it still wouldn't figure high on my 'to read again' pile.
Admittedly the Afterword by Carmen Callil guided me towards pondering who is the Hare and who is the Tortoise, and suddenly I began to see a greater depth to the novel. Occasional moments of levity were welcome, and there were other sub-plots involving family friends which gave some respite to my frustrations. But having said that it still wouldn't figure high on my 'to read again' pile.
April 26, 2019
For my full review: https://girlwithherheadinabook.co.uk/...
The Tortoise and the Hare is a book which seems to come up a lot within the book blogging community. Somehow or other though, I had always had the idea that it was at least slightly comedic. Because of this, when I finally took a look, the story's mood took me by surprise. Evelyn and Imogen Gresham live a comfortable life in the countryside with their eleven year-old son Gavin. Evelyn is a distinguished and successful KC. Imogen is beautiful, artistic and gentle. All should be idyllic. But then Blanche Silcox steps onto the scene. Stout, middle-aged and a spinster, Blanche has none of Imogen's grace - so why is Evelyn's head turned? An in-depth and even chilling examination of a marriage in disarray, I could not love this novel but I had to admire its stunning psychological artistry.The title is an obvious reference to Aesop's Fables, that tale told to all of us from earliest childhood. The moral is that slow and steady wins the race. The conundrum for the reader to consider is who between Imogen and Blanche is the tortoise and who is the hare. Imogen is fifteen years younger than Evelyn, attractive, accommodating and been brought up to please. She is however utterly impractical when it comes to domestic tasks, ignorant about country ways and held in increasing contempt by Gavin. She is unable to even learn to drive. The only person who does not think her a fool is Gavin's young friend Tim Leeper. Blanche may wear odd hats and ugly gloves but she is a pillar of the local community, carries out voluntary work, drives a Rolls Royce and is a dab hand at just about every possible country sport. She has a self-confidence that Imogen totally lacks and over the course of the novel, Blanche steadily invades and conquers.Elizabeth Jenkins commented in her memoirs that The Tortoise and the Hare came under criticism from certain readers for being too solely confined to one class, even to one income bracket. A male undergraduate student told her that 'what was wrong with the book was that it wasn’t about anything that really mattered. As I felt that the suffering caused by the break-up of a marriage was something that did matter, I asked him, in surprise, what were some of the things that really mattered? After a pause, he said, ‘Well, trade unions.’' By contrast, in her introduction to the new Virago edition, Hilary Mantel proclaims that 'Apart from a war, what could be more interesting than a marriage?' Rather than the more commonplace trajectory of girl-meets-boy-and-heads-to-altar, Tortoise looks at long-term relationships as 'a grand game of strategy' with the central territory of Evelyn the grand prize even as the question hovers as to whether he really is so much worth having.Having studied 1940s literature at university, I was struck by how post-war ideas overshadow the novel. Imogen embodies the pre-war ideals of how a wife should behave - she is purely decorative. In the pragmatic post-war era, the more practical Blanche becomes far more attractive. In Mollie Panter-Downes' One Fine Day, the Marshall family have to evaluate what their family identity will be now that the country they live in has changed forever. Here, Evelyn seems to have reconsidered what he wants in a spouse. With their son Gavin preparing to go away to school, both he and Evelyn appear to have outgrown Imogen. Blanche can give Evelyn lifts to and from the station, she can help sort out Gavin's riding lessons, she hosts lunches in her flat in town. Exceptionally capable in every situation, Blanche's maturity commands respect in the Gresham men in a way that the lady of the house cannot.A lot of the other reviews that I read of this book spoke unfavourably of Imogen. She was seen as limp, lack lustre, deserving of what she got. Her passivity seemed to frustrate most readers. I expected to find her pathetic but instead felt an awful sympathy for her. I was reminded of how Hooper hounds and then overcomes Kingshaw in Susan Hill's I'm the King of the Castle. From the assured position of wife, Imogen becomes increasingly frazzled, fraying at the edges in her anxiety. There is the cruelty of how Evelyn cuts down Imogen's murmured protest at Blanche's position in their lives,'“Imogen,” he said with forced patience, “you have plenty of occupations of your own, and you don’t care to do the things that give a great deal of pleasure to me – when I have time to do them. You don’t want to fish or shoot and you can’t drive my car, which would be a help to me sometimes. Am I to understand that you object to my having the companionship of another woman who can do these things?”'Perhaps though my own bias comes into play here. I have always loathed adultery and been disgusted by those who participate in it. Authors can try to use it to add a frisson to a narrative but I remain invariably stony-eyed and unimpressed. I should add here that I have never to my knowledge been the victim of it and that in all other areas I try to be as non-judgmental as possible. I just think that infidelity is the worst thing that one person can do to another which is not actually illegal. Over the years I have heard any number of excuses about why this situation or that one was somehow 'not really' cheating. One of the most common excuses is to blame the wronged spouse for somehow failing in their duties. It's a funny thing how men who have affairs always have dreadful wives.Although she herself never married, Jenkins described Tortoise as 'autobiographical not in fact but in feeling'. If she really felt the misery and humiliation which radiates from Imogen so vividly, I could only feel a horrible sympathy for her. Apparently the characters of Evelyn and Blanche are indeed drawn from life, with that of Blanche representing the scion of a well-known brewing family and needing to be toned down for publication. There is something akin to Nora Ephron's Heartburn going on here. For all that Imogen may be down-trodden, it is nice to know that in some form at least, she does get her revenge.Indeed, if Tortoise does represent a vengeance of sorts, it is a remarkably sophisticated one. It has at its core an emotional complexity seldom seen in literature. The characters are all fully-realised and there are no true heroes or villains. The interloper Blanche is described with even-handedness. Imogen's friend Cecil expects to dislike her, knowing the threat she represents, but is caught off guard by Blanche's generosity as a host. Blanche is very kind to Gavin. She takes Evelyn's work very seriously. She loves him. Yet she also looks daggers when she sees Imogen with her hand on Evelyn's arm. Blanche has the audacity to show jealousy when her lover is touched by his wife. For that, I could not care for her as a character, not even when she too showed obvious pain at the situation.Tortoise lays bare the physical humiliation of infidelity. Imogen, who has always been pleased with her appearance, is appalled that her husband has had his head turned by someone as unattractive as Blanche. The heavy implication that Evelyn finds Blanche a more satisfying lover only causes Imogen further shame. Evelyn's friend Paul, who has long harboured an affection for Imogen, explains to her that she perhaps does not understand what it is that men fall in love with. The satellite character Zenobia wields a terrifying sensuality and assumes that all men must fall in love with her and yet Evelyn is repulsed by her. So often we are told that men's heads can be turned by looks alone but there are few authors shrewd enough to point out that there is generally much more to it than that.Jenkins was one of the founding members of the Jane Austen Society, an interesting fact given that it was of Austen's elegance as a prose stylist that I was reminded while reading Tortoise. Jenkins shares also Austen's clear-eyed and even acidic view of human relationships. In the opening lines, Imogen examines a teacup in a shop and appreciates the purity of its colour while Evelyn sees only the chip at its base and orders her to put it back. From this first moment, we are told everything that we need to know about their relationship. Like Austen, Jenkins writes with the wisdom of the outsider, seeing allThe Tortoise and the Hare made me feel incredibly sad for Imogen. The slow capsize of her marriage made me frustrated and even indignant on her behalf, but yet I am unlikely to be the only one who wondered whether Evelyn was really such a prize after all. The question mark hovers - what is Imogen really holding on to? If, as Mantel suggests, marriage is akin to warfare, what is its objective when the situation is as unpleasant as the union between the Greshams? Is the territory really worth holding? One of the couple's friends even remarks that Evelyn may not quite know what he is getting into with Blanche - she will not cede to his every wish as Imogen has done.A less sophisticated writer might have found a way to pair Imogen off with Paul and thus force together a romantic comedy happy ending. Jenkins does not shy away from the realities of the situation. Even the loathsome Gavin, who treats his mother with utter disdain, shows distress at the consequences of his parents' separation. Yet still, Imogen is not left totally desolate. While her husband may have lost interest and her son may seem out of reach, young Tim Leeper unexpectedly declares his allegiance. In the background of the novel, he has been quietly miserable with his bohemian family, spending all the time he can at Gavin's home and quietly adoring of Imogen. His appearance at Imogen's new flat and announcement that he will be living with her now was an expected ray of sunshine in a novel that until then had seemed unremittingly bleak.Tortoise has stuck in my mind in the months since I read it. This review may appear spoilerific but the novel is driven by feeling rather than events. Reading it, I was drawn into the claustrophobic horror of Imogen's situation, a woman trying to pretend that her husband is not in love with someone else, but worse than that, being gaslit by her husband that the situation is normal. Evelyn insists to Imogen that Blanche is a family friend rather than a woman who despises his wife and is trying to replace her in his life. Imogen is a leftover of Victorian morality, encouraged to be the child-wife like Dora Spenlow in David Copperfield and Jenkins shows us how post-war Britain requires more than the angel in the house. Too unhappy a tale to be beloved, the fight between the tortoise and the hare is nonetheless both a total masterpiece of a marriage plot and also a novel of rare emotional intelligence. Well worth the reading.
The Tortoise and the Hare is a book which seems to come up a lot within the book blogging community. Somehow or other though, I had always had the idea that it was at least slightly comedic. Because of this, when I finally took a look, the story's mood took me by surprise. Evelyn and Imogen Gresham live a comfortable life in the countryside with their eleven year-old son Gavin. Evelyn is a distinguished and successful KC. Imogen is beautiful, artistic and gentle. All should be idyllic. But then Blanche Silcox steps onto the scene. Stout, middle-aged and a spinster, Blanche has none of Imogen's grace - so why is Evelyn's head turned? An in-depth and even chilling examination of a marriage in disarray, I could not love this novel but I had to admire its stunning psychological artistry.The title is an obvious reference to Aesop's Fables, that tale told to all of us from earliest childhood. The moral is that slow and steady wins the race. The conundrum for the reader to consider is who between Imogen and Blanche is the tortoise and who is the hare. Imogen is fifteen years younger than Evelyn, attractive, accommodating and been brought up to please. She is however utterly impractical when it comes to domestic tasks, ignorant about country ways and held in increasing contempt by Gavin. She is unable to even learn to drive. The only person who does not think her a fool is Gavin's young friend Tim Leeper. Blanche may wear odd hats and ugly gloves but she is a pillar of the local community, carries out voluntary work, drives a Rolls Royce and is a dab hand at just about every possible country sport. She has a self-confidence that Imogen totally lacks and over the course of the novel, Blanche steadily invades and conquers.Elizabeth Jenkins commented in her memoirs that The Tortoise and the Hare came under criticism from certain readers for being too solely confined to one class, even to one income bracket. A male undergraduate student told her that 'what was wrong with the book was that it wasn’t about anything that really mattered. As I felt that the suffering caused by the break-up of a marriage was something that did matter, I asked him, in surprise, what were some of the things that really mattered? After a pause, he said, ‘Well, trade unions.’' By contrast, in her introduction to the new Virago edition, Hilary Mantel proclaims that 'Apart from a war, what could be more interesting than a marriage?' Rather than the more commonplace trajectory of girl-meets-boy-and-heads-to-altar, Tortoise looks at long-term relationships as 'a grand game of strategy' with the central territory of Evelyn the grand prize even as the question hovers as to whether he really is so much worth having.Having studied 1940s literature at university, I was struck by how post-war ideas overshadow the novel. Imogen embodies the pre-war ideals of how a wife should behave - she is purely decorative. In the pragmatic post-war era, the more practical Blanche becomes far more attractive. In Mollie Panter-Downes' One Fine Day, the Marshall family have to evaluate what their family identity will be now that the country they live in has changed forever. Here, Evelyn seems to have reconsidered what he wants in a spouse. With their son Gavin preparing to go away to school, both he and Evelyn appear to have outgrown Imogen. Blanche can give Evelyn lifts to and from the station, she can help sort out Gavin's riding lessons, she hosts lunches in her flat in town. Exceptionally capable in every situation, Blanche's maturity commands respect in the Gresham men in a way that the lady of the house cannot.A lot of the other reviews that I read of this book spoke unfavourably of Imogen. She was seen as limp, lack lustre, deserving of what she got. Her passivity seemed to frustrate most readers. I expected to find her pathetic but instead felt an awful sympathy for her. I was reminded of how Hooper hounds and then overcomes Kingshaw in Susan Hill's I'm the King of the Castle. From the assured position of wife, Imogen becomes increasingly frazzled, fraying at the edges in her anxiety. There is the cruelty of how Evelyn cuts down Imogen's murmured protest at Blanche's position in their lives,'“Imogen,” he said with forced patience, “you have plenty of occupations of your own, and you don’t care to do the things that give a great deal of pleasure to me – when I have time to do them. You don’t want to fish or shoot and you can’t drive my car, which would be a help to me sometimes. Am I to understand that you object to my having the companionship of another woman who can do these things?”'Perhaps though my own bias comes into play here. I have always loathed adultery and been disgusted by those who participate in it. Authors can try to use it to add a frisson to a narrative but I remain invariably stony-eyed and unimpressed. I should add here that I have never to my knowledge been the victim of it and that in all other areas I try to be as non-judgmental as possible. I just think that infidelity is the worst thing that one person can do to another which is not actually illegal. Over the years I have heard any number of excuses about why this situation or that one was somehow 'not really' cheating. One of the most common excuses is to blame the wronged spouse for somehow failing in their duties. It's a funny thing how men who have affairs always have dreadful wives.Although she herself never married, Jenkins described Tortoise as 'autobiographical not in fact but in feeling'. If she really felt the misery and humiliation which radiates from Imogen so vividly, I could only feel a horrible sympathy for her. Apparently the characters of Evelyn and Blanche are indeed drawn from life, with that of Blanche representing the scion of a well-known brewing family and needing to be toned down for publication. There is something akin to Nora Ephron's Heartburn going on here. For all that Imogen may be down-trodden, it is nice to know that in some form at least, she does get her revenge.Indeed, if Tortoise does represent a vengeance of sorts, it is a remarkably sophisticated one. It has at its core an emotional complexity seldom seen in literature. The characters are all fully-realised and there are no true heroes or villains. The interloper Blanche is described with even-handedness. Imogen's friend Cecil expects to dislike her, knowing the threat she represents, but is caught off guard by Blanche's generosity as a host. Blanche is very kind to Gavin. She takes Evelyn's work very seriously. She loves him. Yet she also looks daggers when she sees Imogen with her hand on Evelyn's arm. Blanche has the audacity to show jealousy when her lover is touched by his wife. For that, I could not care for her as a character, not even when she too showed obvious pain at the situation.Tortoise lays bare the physical humiliation of infidelity. Imogen, who has always been pleased with her appearance, is appalled that her husband has had his head turned by someone as unattractive as Blanche. The heavy implication that Evelyn finds Blanche a more satisfying lover only causes Imogen further shame. Evelyn's friend Paul, who has long harboured an affection for Imogen, explains to her that she perhaps does not understand what it is that men fall in love with. The satellite character Zenobia wields a terrifying sensuality and assumes that all men must fall in love with her and yet Evelyn is repulsed by her. So often we are told that men's heads can be turned by looks alone but there are few authors shrewd enough to point out that there is generally much more to it than that.Jenkins was one of the founding members of the Jane Austen Society, an interesting fact given that it was of Austen's elegance as a prose stylist that I was reminded while reading Tortoise. Jenkins shares also Austen's clear-eyed and even acidic view of human relationships. In the opening lines, Imogen examines a teacup in a shop and appreciates the purity of its colour while Evelyn sees only the chip at its base and orders her to put it back. From this first moment, we are told everything that we need to know about their relationship. Like Austen, Jenkins writes with the wisdom of the outsider, seeing allThe Tortoise and the Hare made me feel incredibly sad for Imogen. The slow capsize of her marriage made me frustrated and even indignant on her behalf, but yet I am unlikely to be the only one who wondered whether Evelyn was really such a prize after all. The question mark hovers - what is Imogen really holding on to? If, as Mantel suggests, marriage is akin to warfare, what is its objective when the situation is as unpleasant as the union between the Greshams? Is the territory really worth holding? One of the couple's friends even remarks that Evelyn may not quite know what he is getting into with Blanche - she will not cede to his every wish as Imogen has done.A less sophisticated writer might have found a way to pair Imogen off with Paul and thus force together a romantic comedy happy ending. Jenkins does not shy away from the realities of the situation. Even the loathsome Gavin, who treats his mother with utter disdain, shows distress at the consequences of his parents' separation. Yet still, Imogen is not left totally desolate. While her husband may have lost interest and her son may seem out of reach, young Tim Leeper unexpectedly declares his allegiance. In the background of the novel, he has been quietly miserable with his bohemian family, spending all the time he can at Gavin's home and quietly adoring of Imogen. His appearance at Imogen's new flat and announcement that he will be living with her now was an expected ray of sunshine in a novel that until then had seemed unremittingly bleak.Tortoise has stuck in my mind in the months since I read it. This review may appear spoilerific but the novel is driven by feeling rather than events. Reading it, I was drawn into the claustrophobic horror of Imogen's situation, a woman trying to pretend that her husband is not in love with someone else, but worse than that, being gaslit by her husband that the situation is normal. Evelyn insists to Imogen that Blanche is a family friend rather than a woman who despises his wife and is trying to replace her in his life. Imogen is a leftover of Victorian morality, encouraged to be the child-wife like Dora Spenlow in David Copperfield and Jenkins shows us how post-war Britain requires more than the angel in the house. Too unhappy a tale to be beloved, the fight between the tortoise and the hare is nonetheless both a total masterpiece of a marriage plot and also a novel of rare emotional intelligence. Well worth the reading.
September 27, 2023
I read this book years ago, when I was a similar age (38) to Imogen, the protagonist. Although I’ve read many mid-century novels in the past decade, this is one of the few that has truly embedded itself in my mind. Reading it again - this time with a group of diverse women, with varying opinions of it - I felt just as moved by it, and just as appreciative of the author’s great skill in creating a nuanced study of a breakdown of a marriage. Because I identify and sympathise so strongly with the character of Imogen, it was interesting to debate the book with women who found her to be an infuriating or even negligible woman.
The three central characters are Imogen and Evelyn Gresham and their neighbour Blanche Silcox. They are not a ‘ménage a trois’ in the strictest sense, but they do form an unwanted and awkward household of three. It’s important to note that Blanche is much the same age (early 50s) as Evelyn, and like him, she has a masterful and managing character. Although she has never married, she has inherited a sizeable fortune and the social connections to place her firmly within the highest tier of Surrey country gentry. Evelyn’s admiration for her skill and know-how is mentioned at our first introduction to her. Although Imogen is fully prepared to make a small god of her husband - “There was never a doubt in her mind that to meet his demands was the most absorbing and the most valuable end to which her energies could be used” - her success at meeting his various “demands” is only mixed. She lacks efficiency, authority - especially in dealing with their son, Gavin - and perhaps practicality. She is also, and this is delicately hinted at, not as passionate in bed as he would like.
There is an interesting passage in the book that gives insight into the way that Imogen thinks - or rather, has been taught to think - about the pairing off of men and women. The book takes place in the early 1950s, so she would have come of age in the early 1930s.
By this equation, Imogen is the “hare” in the book’s title. She is pretty, gentle and quite a bit younger than Evelyn. She makes a good match, while Blanche - despite her family money and connections - remains unmarried. There can be no doubt about how Blanche rates in this system of rating. This physical description of her is one that stuck vividly in my mind:
So here is Blanche, the “tortoise” and in no way presented as the typical sexual seductress, but the progress of the book’s plot is the story of how she overtakes Imogen in Evelyn’s affections.
When I reread the book, I appreciated the various secondary characters - both the male and female ones. Jenkins fills in the story with enough variety of women to provide an interesting contrast to the Imogen/Blanche dynamic. Imogen may have been raised to think of relationships in a simplistic formula of beauty and charm, but Jenkins is aware that there are other qualities at work as well. My favourite secondary female character is Imogen’s friend Cecil, who would be described as a “career woman” and has remained unmarried. Near the end of the book, Cecil and another Gresham friend called Hunter are discussing Blanche and Hunter describes her charms as having “no intolerable faults,” “a warm, magnetic nature” and when Cecil adds in “having a great deal of money” he acknowledges that the money is “always a point.” Even so, when Cecil reflects that she could not be said to have any of these good points, it hasn’t stopped Hunter from falling in love with her.
There is so much more to the book, and Jenkins does a great deal with telling details, but at its core is the relationship between the sexes. To a 21st century mind, Evelyn is unbearably pompous and arrogant - and I felt that Imogen was far better without him - and perhaps that absolute male power is what most dates this book. Still, for me at least, the book has retained all of its emotional power.
The three central characters are Imogen and Evelyn Gresham and their neighbour Blanche Silcox. They are not a ‘ménage a trois’ in the strictest sense, but they do form an unwanted and awkward household of three. It’s important to note that Blanche is much the same age (early 50s) as Evelyn, and like him, she has a masterful and managing character. Although she has never married, she has inherited a sizeable fortune and the social connections to place her firmly within the highest tier of Surrey country gentry. Evelyn’s admiration for her skill and know-how is mentioned at our first introduction to her. Although Imogen is fully prepared to make a small god of her husband - “There was never a doubt in her mind that to meet his demands was the most absorbing and the most valuable end to which her energies could be used” - her success at meeting his various “demands” is only mixed. She lacks efficiency, authority - especially in dealing with their son, Gavin - and perhaps practicality. She is also, and this is delicately hinted at, not as passionate in bed as he would like.
There is an interesting passage in the book that gives insight into the way that Imogen thinks - or rather, has been taught to think - about the pairing off of men and women. The book takes place in the early 1950s, so she would have come of age in the early 1930s.
In those days they had practised among themselves and on everyone else they knew a kind of sexual rating. When they spoke of a match they could decide immediately, to their own satisfaction at least, which of the parties had had the luck, which should consider themselves as only too fortunate and be prepared to conduct themselves accordingly. Money and social standing modified the sexual rating a little, and it was considered, too, that the woman in order to equal the man in this calculation must have a higher level of charm and desirableness than his, because there were too many women, and because often the man was going to become steadily more eligible long beyond the point at which the woman would being to be less so.
By this equation, Imogen is the “hare” in the book’s title. She is pretty, gentle and quite a bit younger than Evelyn. She makes a good match, while Blanche - despite her family money and connections - remains unmarried. There can be no doubt about how Blanche rates in this system of rating. This physical description of her is one that stuck vividly in my mind:
”She was now fifty and made no attempt to appear younger, though this would have been by no means impossible to her, for the something ungainly and frumpish in her appearance was the result more of mental than of physical characteristics. The effect of her figure, with its bloated waist, in contrast to which her small leg and her feet in pointed shoes, looked the slender forelegs that unexpectedly support a bull, could have been minimised by a woman who knew how to dress, but her tweed suit did nothing to disguise it.”
So here is Blanche, the “tortoise” and in no way presented as the typical sexual seductress, but the progress of the book’s plot is the story of how she overtakes Imogen in Evelyn’s affections.
When I reread the book, I appreciated the various secondary characters - both the male and female ones. Jenkins fills in the story with enough variety of women to provide an interesting contrast to the Imogen/Blanche dynamic. Imogen may have been raised to think of relationships in a simplistic formula of beauty and charm, but Jenkins is aware that there are other qualities at work as well. My favourite secondary female character is Imogen’s friend Cecil, who would be described as a “career woman” and has remained unmarried. Near the end of the book, Cecil and another Gresham friend called Hunter are discussing Blanche and Hunter describes her charms as having “no intolerable faults,” “a warm, magnetic nature” and when Cecil adds in “having a great deal of money” he acknowledges that the money is “always a point.” Even so, when Cecil reflects that she could not be said to have any of these good points, it hasn’t stopped Hunter from falling in love with her.
There is so much more to the book, and Jenkins does a great deal with telling details, but at its core is the relationship between the sexes. To a 21st century mind, Evelyn is unbearably pompous and arrogant - and I felt that Imogen was far better without him - and perhaps that absolute male power is what most dates this book. Still, for me at least, the book has retained all of its emotional power.
December 29, 2022
Evelyn Gresham is a successful middle aged barrister whose young and beautiful wife Imogen dotes on him and their son Gavin. Then their neighbour Blanche Silcox begins to intrude into their life - driving Evelyn to and from London, advising him on country matters, even helping Gavin learn to ride. Imogen begins to realise with horror and dismay that her marriage is at risk - but will she be prepared or able to fight to save it?
Beautifully written with a languorous style, Jenkins takes the reader deep into the psychology of love and marriage, and of two very different women. Other friends and relations circle around Imogen and Evelyn, offering their support or advice, and this serves to reveal the contrasting motivations and personalities of Blanche and Imogen, and importantly Imogen’s mistaken assumptions about her husband and their marriage, in a sad but convincing and authentic way.
This is a gem of a novel that forensically examines aspects of middle class domestic life under a cover of politeness and respectability. It also leaves the reader thinking deeply about the title - who is the tortoise and who the hare, who wins the race, and is the race worth winning at all?
Beautifully written with a languorous style, Jenkins takes the reader deep into the psychology of love and marriage, and of two very different women. Other friends and relations circle around Imogen and Evelyn, offering their support or advice, and this serves to reveal the contrasting motivations and personalities of Blanche and Imogen, and importantly Imogen’s mistaken assumptions about her husband and their marriage, in a sad but convincing and authentic way.
This is a gem of a novel that forensically examines aspects of middle class domestic life under a cover of politeness and respectability. It also leaves the reader thinking deeply about the title - who is the tortoise and who the hare, who wins the race, and is the race worth winning at all?
January 18, 2024
Whilst accepting this is a period novel, my overwhelming opinion was that it was abrasive and melodramatic!
The "right" marriage with a decorative and charming woman is wearing thin and husband Evelyn casts his eye to tweedy, outdoor, sturdy Blanche. Wife Imogen has obviously adopted society norms and is a fawning, agreeable wife basically servile to Evelyn. She has raised a son, Gavin, who is a junior version of his bull-ish father.
Imogen conforms to type so well that it demonstrates what an unfulfilling life this creates. The contrast with Blanche, a woman, Imogen assumes men do not fall in love with is her polar opposite. She takes charge of the driving Evelyn back and forth to London, enjoys tramping around the countryside and, I assumed, would be of the blood sport lobby.
The interleaving of Tim, Gavin's friend invades the backdrop. For me he represents the fallout of a different contemporary lifestyle, the son of bohemian parents. I found him to be the eponymous tortoise rather than the more obvious Blanche.
I struggled between acknowledging a writing tradition about a small period and its social mores and how tedious I found this and a fascination with the endless riff on still waters running deep and merely scratching the surface of material comfort demonstrates how much is really going on. There is no charm in this portrayal of the bourgeoisie.
The "right" marriage with a decorative and charming woman is wearing thin and husband Evelyn casts his eye to tweedy, outdoor, sturdy Blanche. Wife Imogen has obviously adopted society norms and is a fawning, agreeable wife basically servile to Evelyn. She has raised a son, Gavin, who is a junior version of his bull-ish father.
Imogen conforms to type so well that it demonstrates what an unfulfilling life this creates. The contrast with Blanche, a woman, Imogen assumes men do not fall in love with is her polar opposite. She takes charge of the driving Evelyn back and forth to London, enjoys tramping around the countryside and, I assumed, would be of the blood sport lobby.
The interleaving of Tim, Gavin's friend invades the backdrop. For me he represents the fallout of a different contemporary lifestyle, the son of bohemian parents. I found him to be the eponymous tortoise rather than the more obvious Blanche.
I struggled between acknowledging a writing tradition about a small period and its social mores and how tedious I found this and a fascination with the endless riff on still waters running deep and merely scratching the surface of material comfort demonstrates how much is really going on. There is no charm in this portrayal of the bourgeoisie.
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