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Square Haunting: Five Women, Freedom and London Between the Wars by Francesca Wade
Dashed off a quick review for GoodReads, so I'm putting it here too. I will probably go back and edit it considerably since I just wrote very stream-of-consciousness and I don't think I said everything I wanted to say clearly.
This book is so close to getting five stars, and yet I can't quite bring myself to do it! I'm conflicted! On the one hand: Wade is a wonderful writer who provides some lovely insight, and the five women she’s writing about--"modernist poet H. D., detective novelist Dorothy L. Sayers, classicist Jane Harrison, economic historian Eileen Power, and writer and publisher Virginia Woolf"--are absolutely fascinating. I loved spending time with them through Wade’s writing.
On the other hand: I remain unsure of whether this book actually works. I’m not sure its central conceit--all of these women lived in the same neighbourhood, though not at the same time, and Wade is focusing on each one’s time there, her feelings about her place in the world as a woman, and her relationship with London--completely comes together. Perhaps the scope is too ambitious, but at the same time, you could sometimes see Wade contorting things so that they’ll fit. I found the parallels she drew kind of a stretch at times, and even while I was appreciating her profound appreciation for trailblazing women.
Still, the most frustrating thing about the book was what I wanted more about these women’s lives before/after Mecklenburg Square. Honestly, I would have preferred if she’d written five full biographies (they could even be on the short side!) and called the the Mecklenburg Square Quintet or something like that. Choosing to focus just on their lives when they lived in a particular area (and most of them lived there for only a few years or even less) meant that so much gets left out.
That need can be filled by reading dedicated biographies of each woman (which I intend to do), so another part of me almost wishes that Wade had dedicated less of her book to biographical information and more to the women's inner lives, their feelings about their gender and their relationship to the world, their dreams of a better future--because those are the places where Wade really shines. I know that the biographical stuff is necessary to give context to everything else, but in having to include it, Wade is stuck in a too-much or too-little situation. As five biographies, this book does not satisfy. As an exploration of what it was like to be a talented and ambitious female writer in pre-WWII London, it does a much better job and yet I wanted more.
I was also struck again and again by the ways that relationships with other women were so central to the survival and professional flourishing of the five. Some of these women had good, positive relationships with men (some of them even had happy marriages!), but all of them were betrayed by men at one point or another. But all of them have some profound need that is met by women or groups of women: some of them fell in love with women, some of them were mentored by or mentored other women, some of them had the wonderful opportunity to live and work in the environment of women’s colleges, others were rescued by other women or encouraged by other women in a time of great need. This is beautiful to me, and reminds me of the importance of female relationships and solidarity.
The book gave me loads to think about and I enjoyed it all. There are so many people and things that I was tantalizingly introduced to in this book, and now I want to research and find out more about them all. I would definitely recommend the book to anyone interested in women's history, female writers, pre-WWII London, and interesting people in general. The wonderful things about this book (and there are many) are what make my conflicted feelings so frustrating: this book is so close to being truly great.
If anything about this book sounds interesting to you READ IT. And then come tell me what you thought.
This book is so close to getting five stars, and yet I can't quite bring myself to do it! I'm conflicted! On the one hand: Wade is a wonderful writer who provides some lovely insight, and the five women she’s writing about--"modernist poet H. D., detective novelist Dorothy L. Sayers, classicist Jane Harrison, economic historian Eileen Power, and writer and publisher Virginia Woolf"--are absolutely fascinating. I loved spending time with them through Wade’s writing.
On the other hand: I remain unsure of whether this book actually works. I’m not sure its central conceit--all of these women lived in the same neighbourhood, though not at the same time, and Wade is focusing on each one’s time there, her feelings about her place in the world as a woman, and her relationship with London--completely comes together. Perhaps the scope is too ambitious, but at the same time, you could sometimes see Wade contorting things so that they’ll fit. I found the parallels she drew kind of a stretch at times, and even while I was appreciating her profound appreciation for trailblazing women.
Still, the most frustrating thing about the book was what I wanted more about these women’s lives before/after Mecklenburg Square. Honestly, I would have preferred if she’d written five full biographies (they could even be on the short side!) and called the the Mecklenburg Square Quintet or something like that. Choosing to focus just on their lives when they lived in a particular area (and most of them lived there for only a few years or even less) meant that so much gets left out.
That need can be filled by reading dedicated biographies of each woman (which I intend to do), so another part of me almost wishes that Wade had dedicated less of her book to biographical information and more to the women's inner lives, their feelings about their gender and their relationship to the world, their dreams of a better future--because those are the places where Wade really shines. I know that the biographical stuff is necessary to give context to everything else, but in having to include it, Wade is stuck in a too-much or too-little situation. As five biographies, this book does not satisfy. As an exploration of what it was like to be a talented and ambitious female writer in pre-WWII London, it does a much better job and yet I wanted more.
I was also struck again and again by the ways that relationships with other women were so central to the survival and professional flourishing of the five. Some of these women had good, positive relationships with men (some of them even had happy marriages!), but all of them were betrayed by men at one point or another. But all of them have some profound need that is met by women or groups of women: some of them fell in love with women, some of them were mentored by or mentored other women, some of them had the wonderful opportunity to live and work in the environment of women’s colleges, others were rescued by other women or encouraged by other women in a time of great need. This is beautiful to me, and reminds me of the importance of female relationships and solidarity.
The book gave me loads to think about and I enjoyed it all. There are so many people and things that I was tantalizingly introduced to in this book, and now I want to research and find out more about them all. I would definitely recommend the book to anyone interested in women's history, female writers, pre-WWII London, and interesting people in general. The wonderful things about this book (and there are many) are what make my conflicted feelings so frustrating: this book is so close to being truly great.
If anything about this book sounds interesting to you READ IT. And then come tell me what you thought.