THE
PUMPKIN EATER by Penelope Mortimer (1962)
Encapsulate
the book in one sentence?
Obnoxious
serial shagger and screenwriter mucks his relentlessly fecund and bored wife
about and builds a big tower in the middle of the countryside as a kind of monument
to himself while she goes off her head.
When
did I buy it? Where and why did I buy it?
About
two years ago I was collecting up all the Penguins I could find, when we had a
week’s trip to the Lake District. I realized how many post-war novels I knew by
title I hadn’t actually read.
Why
is it something you stashed away and hoarded?
I
think, having bought it, I decided it looked a bit glum.
What
year or edition?
It’s
a mid-60s edition with Anne Bancroft on the cover, in a still from the movie
with a script by Harold Pinter. (Actually, it’d be interesting to see what the
film’s like, with so much of the novel being interiorized and so visceral. Oh
hang on. Maybe he just has lots of pregnant pauses.)
What’s
your verdict?
I
loathed the characters at first. What a dreary, privileged, terrible bunch! The
narrator is undergoing therapy for depression and she looks back on a married
life of endless children and a philandering husband. The husband is unspeakably
revolting.
Did
you finish it? Did it work for you?
I
came close to being exasperated by the whole lot of them. But, a bit like
reading Elizabeth Taylor the other week, I thought the writing was ravishing.
Her dialogue is wonderful, and when the narrator starts going off her head
towards the end, the prose becomes luminous and almost surreal. I ended up
loving it. Also, it’s short. I love shorter novels these days.
What
genre would you say it is?
This
is Domestic Gothic. It also feels a little like roman-a-clef.
What
surprises did it hold – if any?
Lots
of surprises here, in terms of looking back on a different era of sexual and marital
mores. The things that the husband Jake thinks he can get away with are
astonishing. The emotional violence between husband and wife is quite shocking,
too. (Spoilers) The abortion and hysterectomy that Jake more or less forces her
to undergo is a very shocking, alarming bit – as are the revelations to do with
what Jake’s been up to in the meantime.
What
scene will stay with you? What character will stay with you?
An
early flashback, when obnoxious school friend Ireen comes to visit the narrator’s
family and (presumably) seduces her father, is very memorable, and quite funny.
There aren’t that many funny scenes in this, on the whole. It takes itself very
seriously.
What
will you do with this copy now?
I
think it’s one to pass on to someone else. I’m wondering who might like it. It’s
one of those books I’m glad I’ve read, but it’s not one I’ll return to for fun.
Is
it available today?
It
seems that the New York Review Classics series has brought it back into print
in the past couple of years. (That’s a very good and cleverly-chosen reprint
list. Also, the similarly canny Persephone has republished at least one other
P. Mortimer novel.)
Give
me a good quote:
“’…I
was just saying the other night, how fond he was of you, Jake. He was very
proud of you, too, you know. Only last week, I can’t believe it now, but only
last week he said, ‘Mame, we must go and see that film of Jake’s at the Odeon.’
Of course he hadn’t been out for three months, but that seemed such a sign of
hope. And now…’
‘Is
there a drink?’ Jake asked, not looking at me.”
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