I usually have three books on the go at any one time. One will be an audiobook, one something I am reading for review in Shiny New Books - often a non-fiction title, read in fairly small chunks in the afternoon - and the third will be something read for pure pleasure, which generally ends up being reviewed on here. Recently that's included a wonderfully enjoyable foray into Rumer Godden, and a couple of novels by the very great Beryl Bainbridge. Both of these turned out to be re-reads, though scarily I had no recollection of reading this one - the first, the amazing Titanic novel Every Man for Himself, I did recognise and had written a review of way back then. I really loved it the second time around, but thought my original review didn't really need updating.
As you may know if you love Bainbridge (and if you don't, it can only be because you haven't read her yet), she turned to historical fiction in the latter part of her writing life. And, while the Titanic novel is indeed mostly fiction, with a few real people popping in to the narrative, According to Queeney is entirely populated by people who really existed and about whom a great deal is already known. The beautiful Reynolds painting on the front cover features two of them, Hester Thrale and her fifteen-year-old daughter, also called Hester but known by her nickname, Queeney. The nickname was given to her by the family's most famous friend, Dr Samuel Johnson. I think you can tell quite a lot about Queeney by the way she is regarding her mother with an obviously sceptical eye.
Briefly, the historical facts are these. Hester Thrale's husband Henry was a wealthy brewer, with a London house and a grand country home in Streatham (sadly no longer countryside). The couple enjoyed patronising the arts, and were introduced to the great writer Johnson, who quickly came to be more or less part of the family. Rooms were kept for him at both the houses, and he travelled with them on various trips including a memorable one to France. The story of all this is known in some detail because Hester Thrale wrote about it after Johnson's death, and of course there are many existing letters and diaries.
According to Queeney covers this fascinating period, which lasted about fifteen years, and much, though by no means all, of it is told from the point of view of Queeney, who is a small child when the novel begins. A highly intelligent, thoughtful child, she is a great favourite of Johnson. The oldest of the Thrales' twelve children, many of whom died in infancy, she has a difficult relationship with her mother, who she thinks of, with some justification, as heartless and not a lover of children. Indeed, Hester is absorbed most of the time with Johnson, whose every whim she tries to cater to. It has been suggested that she was his mistress, but this is a road Bainbridge does not go down.
There's so much that's amazing about this novel. It provides an extraordinarily vivid picture of late-18th-century life among the wealthy and privileged, in which eating and heavy drinking played a large part; Henry Thrale, indeed, ended by literally eating and drinking himself to death. Although most of the novel takes place at the Thrales', there are also wonderful glimpses of Johnson's own household - his blind housekeeper Mrs Williams, and his companion Mrs Desmoulins, who is deeply in love with him and remembers a time when she was allowed into his bed, though always sent off to her own once he had aroused her but failed to follow through.
Above all, indeed, this is a novel of personalities, all of whom come vividly to life. Hester, unhappy in her marriage and pregnant almost every year, harsh with her clever, scornful eldest daughter, is gentle and adoring with her difficult, strange house guest. Johnson has in fact been brought into the household initially to help him through a period of severe depression, what he calls his 'black dog', which is never far from view. He has a great fear of madness, and keeps a chain and padlock to hand in case Hester feels the need to restrain him if he loses his mind. Immensely moody, he is frequently haunted by guilt over his own sexual urges,which he fights to ignore. He's guilty, too, about his long-dead wife, who he knows he neglected badly when she was alive. He's terrifyingly self-absorbed at times - there's an amazing scene where the household is on a journey in two carriages, one of which is involved in a potentially fatal accident. While other members of the party rush to the aid of the injured passengers, Johnson sits quietly at the edge of the road, deep in philosophical musings and entirely unaware of the drama being played out nearby. Despite all this, he inspires great admiration for his brilliance, and much love in those who are close to him.
And then of course there's Queeney herself, watching the antics of the adults with a puzzled, often judgmental eye. She doesn't always interpret what she sees quite correctly, as Bainbridge a few times allows us to see by playing out the same scene twice from different points of view. There's also another perspective added by some (invented) letters supposedly written by the middle-aged Queeney to her contemporary Laetitia Hawkins, who is working on a book about Johnson, in which Queeney contradicts some of the misapprehensions about the man who she knew so well as a child. The end of the novel takes us up to the end of johnson's life, a sad ending as he had by this time broken off relations with Hester, who, after her husband's death outraged her family and friends by marrying her daughter's Italian music teacher.
This is a novel of tremendous skill and subtlety. Bainbridge has used a great deal of contemporary material, and many of Johnson's words are taken verbatim from their sources. But the whole thing is woven together into a wonderfully evocative and moving document of the lives of these fascinating people.Bainbridge needs to be read with care and attention - she has a habit of slipping in important information in what seems a casual throwaway manner. I've read an interview in which she said her books needed to be read three times to get the full meaning and I think that's almost certainly true.
I'm now reading my third Bainbridge in a row, Master Georgy - which I'm almost certain I haven't read before!
