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Recently, I’ve been on a bit of a Dodie Smith reading binge. Smith, for those of you who haven’t heard of her, is probably best known as the author of the very excellent I Capture The Castle and, perhaps, the book that Disney’s 101 Dalmatians was based on. (A lot of people know that movie, obviously, but I’m not certain that people know she wrote the book.) I only discovered I Capture The Castle after J.K. Rowling mentioned it as an influential book for her, and for that, I will be forever grateful.
(Please expect spoilers – not a lot, probably, but they may be big ones.)
At any rate, Smith wrote a lot more books than just the two mentioned, although they’re generally difficult to find. She also wrote a four-volume autobiography, and, prior to her writing books, she was an accomplished playwright (and before that, a not-terribly-successful actress). At some point a few months ago, I realized that I now had access to a big university library, and perhaps they might have more Dodie Smith to read, so I wandered over on my lunch break and ended up checking out the last two volumes of her autobiography, Look Back In Astonishment and Look Back With Gratitude, along with one of her novels, A Tale of Two Families. Alas, the library doesn’t have the first two volumes of the autobiography. Smith’s writing remains very “thirties” to me in feel, even though most of the books I’ve read of hers were written much later. This works for me, since I’m a Sayers buff. Perhaps because of her career as a playwright, she was able to hone a talent for creating interesting, extremely well realized characters very quickly. Judging from the two novels I’ve now read of hers, her plots seem to not contain a lot of physical action, but a great deal of mental action, if that makes sense. The action happens internally, in the characters’ thoughts and emotions, and also between characters in conversations. External circumstances – a move to the country, for example, or new faces appearing in the neighborhood, may trigger things, but that’s not where Smith focuses most of her attention – it’s in the responses to these situations where she finds her drama.
With all that said, I didn’t actually enjoy A Tale of Two Families all that much. The story is about two sisters who have married two brothers, as well as the various children of both families. Lots of things keep the story bubbling - one of the families is significantly better-off financially than the other, one of the women is determined to put the best face on her husband’s frequent affairs, the other sister is in love with her sister’s husband (the philanderer), two of the cousins are planning to marry although their parents are very displeased by it, there’s an interesting girl living at the manor house, there’s a dog that wants to be carried everywhere, and several visits by other relations, both pleasant and unpleasant, occur. However, most of the characters are not all that likable. I don’t think I’m meant to dislike the philanderer as much as I do, or get as irritated as I was with the wife being very distressed by his adulteries but also determined to not do or say anything to change things – she’s very passive about it all and it drove me absolutely batty. The idea of it being bad form to object to your husband tomcatting around most of London is just...not one I cam comprehend. I think there are a lot of assumptions about sexual relationships and how they work that are so of this time that I have difficulties with them as they're depicted. For example, when one of the children, a young woman who is determined to succeed as an actress, winds up breaking off her marriage plans to have an affair with an older, married man who is a power in the theater, it’s seen mostly as a good step on her part and, perhaps, the only way she’ll get the seasoning to break her out of the “good girl” roles and into “real acting.” And, of course, she's sleeping with a powerful man - even if she's not all that great an actress, she'll be a success now. And I didn't buy the reaction of her former fiance to all of this.
Emotionally, it all feels a bit superficial. And perhaps this is a relic of a playwright who has now moved into books, but it felt to me like something that would have more impact on me if I could see actors working through it – see pain or grief or regret or determination or what have you – as opposed to what I’m reading actually on the page, which just makes me vaguely irritated with everybody. This idea that the story would work better acted out on stage is a wild assumption on my part, and certainly nothing that I feel when I read I Capture The Castle, so I may be speculating from too few examples. But it’s not a book I’ll ever need to read again.
The two autobiographical volumes I read were much more interesting. Smith’s voice is so clear and vibrant, and she has a knack of drawing quick little scenes that really let you see what she’s talking about. Again, we have the same sort of casual affairs – is it just the theater world, or was everybody in the 1930s so unconcerned about long-term affairs at this point? Where you’re involved in an intimate relationship with people who may have to rush off because their wife needs them? Morality and ethical stuff aside, this is a personal bias talking – it would be so difficult for me to be happy in a relationship if I had to be squeezed into a schedule somehow, and there was always somebody else whose needs had to come before mine that it’s hard for me to understand other people choosing that. But Smith was fiercely independent, and perhaps it was how she preferred to live at that time. Even after she married, she and Alec kept separate bedrooms. Perhaps for her, it was actually a relief to not have somebody clinging on to her and disrupting her writing time.
But anyway, the story of her life makes for pretty fascinating reading. Look Back in Astonishment is the better of the two volumes, dealing as it does with her job at a major department store (seriously, it’s so cool to read about) as well as her time in the theater as a playwright (and I wish, wish WISH I could know if she and Dorothy L. Sayers crossed paths, because they were both moving in that small world). But Look Back With Gratitude does have a lot of great stuff, although as somebody pointed out to me, you really have to read through a lot of Dalmatian information. Dodie and Alec move to America, primarily because Alec is a conscientious objector and doesn't want to fight in WWII, and there’s a lot of interesting reading about his efforts in that regard in America as well. There are also some interesting tidbits about Hollywood and the film industry that I was very intrigued by. The movie biz didn't do very well by Smith, and I've read speculation that it really ended her career as a playwright.
I think my next project is to go read the plays available (ooh, and a check of the library catalogue says that they have another novel – I didn’t see it on the shelves). If there’s interest, I’ll report back on them.
(Please expect spoilers – not a lot, probably, but they may be big ones.)
At any rate, Smith wrote a lot more books than just the two mentioned, although they’re generally difficult to find. She also wrote a four-volume autobiography, and, prior to her writing books, she was an accomplished playwright (and before that, a not-terribly-successful actress). At some point a few months ago, I realized that I now had access to a big university library, and perhaps they might have more Dodie Smith to read, so I wandered over on my lunch break and ended up checking out the last two volumes of her autobiography, Look Back In Astonishment and Look Back With Gratitude, along with one of her novels, A Tale of Two Families. Alas, the library doesn’t have the first two volumes of the autobiography. Smith’s writing remains very “thirties” to me in feel, even though most of the books I’ve read of hers were written much later. This works for me, since I’m a Sayers buff. Perhaps because of her career as a playwright, she was able to hone a talent for creating interesting, extremely well realized characters very quickly. Judging from the two novels I’ve now read of hers, her plots seem to not contain a lot of physical action, but a great deal of mental action, if that makes sense. The action happens internally, in the characters’ thoughts and emotions, and also between characters in conversations. External circumstances – a move to the country, for example, or new faces appearing in the neighborhood, may trigger things, but that’s not where Smith focuses most of her attention – it’s in the responses to these situations where she finds her drama.
With all that said, I didn’t actually enjoy A Tale of Two Families all that much. The story is about two sisters who have married two brothers, as well as the various children of both families. Lots of things keep the story bubbling - one of the families is significantly better-off financially than the other, one of the women is determined to put the best face on her husband’s frequent affairs, the other sister is in love with her sister’s husband (the philanderer), two of the cousins are planning to marry although their parents are very displeased by it, there’s an interesting girl living at the manor house, there’s a dog that wants to be carried everywhere, and several visits by other relations, both pleasant and unpleasant, occur. However, most of the characters are not all that likable. I don’t think I’m meant to dislike the philanderer as much as I do, or get as irritated as I was with the wife being very distressed by his adulteries but also determined to not do or say anything to change things – she’s very passive about it all and it drove me absolutely batty. The idea of it being bad form to object to your husband tomcatting around most of London is just...not one I cam comprehend. I think there are a lot of assumptions about sexual relationships and how they work that are so of this time that I have difficulties with them as they're depicted. For example, when one of the children, a young woman who is determined to succeed as an actress, winds up breaking off her marriage plans to have an affair with an older, married man who is a power in the theater, it’s seen mostly as a good step on her part and, perhaps, the only way she’ll get the seasoning to break her out of the “good girl” roles and into “real acting.” And, of course, she's sleeping with a powerful man - even if she's not all that great an actress, she'll be a success now. And I didn't buy the reaction of her former fiance to all of this.
Emotionally, it all feels a bit superficial. And perhaps this is a relic of a playwright who has now moved into books, but it felt to me like something that would have more impact on me if I could see actors working through it – see pain or grief or regret or determination or what have you – as opposed to what I’m reading actually on the page, which just makes me vaguely irritated with everybody. This idea that the story would work better acted out on stage is a wild assumption on my part, and certainly nothing that I feel when I read I Capture The Castle, so I may be speculating from too few examples. But it’s not a book I’ll ever need to read again.
The two autobiographical volumes I read were much more interesting. Smith’s voice is so clear and vibrant, and she has a knack of drawing quick little scenes that really let you see what she’s talking about. Again, we have the same sort of casual affairs – is it just the theater world, or was everybody in the 1930s so unconcerned about long-term affairs at this point? Where you’re involved in an intimate relationship with people who may have to rush off because their wife needs them? Morality and ethical stuff aside, this is a personal bias talking – it would be so difficult for me to be happy in a relationship if I had to be squeezed into a schedule somehow, and there was always somebody else whose needs had to come before mine that it’s hard for me to understand other people choosing that. But Smith was fiercely independent, and perhaps it was how she preferred to live at that time. Even after she married, she and Alec kept separate bedrooms. Perhaps for her, it was actually a relief to not have somebody clinging on to her and disrupting her writing time.
But anyway, the story of her life makes for pretty fascinating reading. Look Back in Astonishment is the better of the two volumes, dealing as it does with her job at a major department store (seriously, it’s so cool to read about) as well as her time in the theater as a playwright (and I wish, wish WISH I could know if she and Dorothy L. Sayers crossed paths, because they were both moving in that small world). But Look Back With Gratitude does have a lot of great stuff, although as somebody pointed out to me, you really have to read through a lot of Dalmatian information. Dodie and Alec move to America, primarily because Alec is a conscientious objector and doesn't want to fight in WWII, and there’s a lot of interesting reading about his efforts in that regard in America as well. There are also some interesting tidbits about Hollywood and the film industry that I was very intrigued by. The movie biz didn't do very well by Smith, and I've read speculation that it really ended her career as a playwright.
I think my next project is to go read the plays available (ooh, and a check of the library catalogue says that they have another novel – I didn’t see it on the shelves). If there’s interest, I’ll report back on them.
