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sathyasekar's review
3.0
A beautiful novelette recounting the inner conflicts of a young lady who discovers herself falling in love with a gondolier in Venice.
Through most of the book, the author lets us explore the lead character through her thoughts and emotions as she chooses to divulge them to herself. The prose is outstanding. I have much admired Mr Hartley in my earlier readings - Go Between, the Eustace and Hilda trilogy, The Hireling.. All brilliant. But it has been a while since I read him and this book brought back to mind why I so admired him. The way he seems to pluck the innermost thoughts and then dress them up in beautiful words is sheer genius. Human mind and human emotions are rather complex things and Hartley appears to be on a journey to unravel their mysteries.
I think this deserved a bigger canvas. I felt it too short and was disappointed when it ended in a most understated way, quite typically.
Through most of the book, the author lets us explore the lead character through her thoughts and emotions as she chooses to divulge them to herself. The prose is outstanding. I have much admired Mr Hartley in my earlier readings - Go Between, the Eustace and Hilda trilogy, The Hireling.. All brilliant. But it has been a while since I read him and this book brought back to mind why I so admired him. The way he seems to pluck the innermost thoughts and then dress them up in beautiful words is sheer genius. Human mind and human emotions are rather complex things and Hartley appears to be on a journey to unravel their mysteries.
I think this deserved a bigger canvas. I felt it too short and was disappointed when it ended in a most understated way, quite typically.
eddie's review
3.0
Simonetta Perkins is doubly fictional; in this story she is the friend as in “asking for a friend”.
Sexual obsession and self-thwarted desire whilst holidaying in Venice are the themes here, as in Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice. One may assume Hartley disguises himself as his heroine Lavinia Johnstone and Death in Venice’s homosexual obsession becomes transmuted into Hartley’s characteristic sex-across-social-classes theme. American aristocrat Lavinia has the hots for a hunky gondolier.
Unlike DiV, the upshot is comical rather than tragic. I loved Hartley’s indirect characterisation - Lavinia’s naive longings are noticed and reflected back at her by others - and her ’Simonetta Perkins’ ploy is rumbled by her best friend, who writes a highly amusing reply to her request for assistance. There’s lots to enjoy here but I found the ending a little too abrupt and a little too quickly deflating of the sexual tension. A far too easy escape for both character Lavinia and her author Lesley Poles Hartley. He sets up the tension really well though.
This is his first novel - his last, The Harness Room, published just before he died, reprises the sexual longings theme in an authentically homosexual form. The Lavinia character there is sexually fulfilled - yay! - but the book ends tragically.
Sexual obsession and self-thwarted desire whilst holidaying in Venice are the themes here, as in Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice. One may assume Hartley disguises himself as his heroine Lavinia Johnstone and Death in Venice’s homosexual obsession becomes transmuted into Hartley’s characteristic sex-across-social-classes theme. American aristocrat Lavinia has the hots for a hunky gondolier.
Unlike DiV, the upshot is comical rather than tragic. I loved Hartley’s indirect characterisation - Lavinia’s naive longings are noticed and reflected back at her by others - and her ’Simonetta Perkins’ ploy is rumbled by her best friend, who writes a highly amusing reply to her request for assistance. There’s lots to enjoy here but I found the ending a little too abrupt and a little too quickly deflating of the sexual tension. A far too easy escape for both character Lavinia and her author Lesley Poles Hartley. He sets up the tension really well though.
This is his first novel - his last, The Harness Room, published just before he died, reprises the sexual longings theme in an authentically homosexual form. The Lavinia character there is sexually fulfilled - yay! - but the book ends tragically.
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