More Ivy Compton-Burnett
More Woman Than Men: Murder in a girl's school
Ivy Compton-Burnett isn’t entirely new to me, as I attempted to read her at university (but, I will freely admit, found her all but impossible to penetrate). After attending a talk on her, I went back to her books, and I’m so glad I did. I’ve written here about A House and its Head.
More Women Than Men features a similar domestic tyrant, in the person of Josephine Napier, who runs a girls’ school. Her appearance is benign, but in reality she is cruel and manipulative. Her brother, Jonathan, has a very gay relationship with a much younger, effete man, called Felix, who likes to sit on his lap and talk about their intimacy. Yet Jonathan, in his youth, sired a son called Gabriel, whom Josephine has brought up as her own.
Though set in a girls’ school, we see nothing of the appartus of education. There is a hilarious scene at a party, where Felix defends his position as drawing master to parents who think that teaching girls is beneath a man. The plot hinges around two weddings: one ends in tragedy.
It would not be giving away too much to say that there are many secrets in the book: that to do with Gabriel’s parentage is the most pertinent to the plot. There are also, as you would expect from a Compton-Burnett novel, two deaths: one absolutely farcical; the other absolutely sinister, and perhaps the most inventive murder I’ve ever read about.
The characters speak elusively, elliptically and insinuatingly. It can sometimes be hard to make out what it is that they are - or aren’t - saying. Like A House and its Head, they try to escape tyranny, and some manage it: but Josephine retains her position, and it’s clear, at the end, that she’s willing to continue her manipulations and power plays all her life.
Reading an Ivy Compton-Burnett novel can be an odd experience. If you are distracted by a knock on the door, or similar, you may find that you’ve missed something crucial. But it remains strangely satisfying, and her understanding of human psychology and emotion is absolutely pinpoint. They are snapshots of life, even if they seem artificial: somehow, the artificiality is what renders the characters human. I’m certainly looking forward to reading more.