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lelia_t's review
4.0
Denham, accustomed to solitary rambles in the countryside and adept in the arts of social evasion, moves to London with the Greshams, a sociable, garrulous, book-loving family of busy-minded, well-intentioned urbanites. You might expect Crewe Train to be the story of a girl who’s rough edges are softened, who’s literal-mindedness is educated into social acceptability and ultimately marriage. But Denham is stubbornly unresponsive to the social whirl and “the world’s favorite game,” talking. And she’s absolutely immune to guilt, the most effective weapon culture and families have found to get us to do what it/they want. She hews to her philosophy, “It’s such rot, doing things we don’t like doing because someone else does them.” Her stubbornness creates tension aplenty because she has indeed fallen in love and gotten married, to a man who - like most of the rest of us - enjoys talking, thinking, talking about what he’s thinking about, sharing jokes, writing, reading, talking about what he’s writing and reading. But he also loves Denham.
Macaulay is really quite artful at making us sympathize with both the literal-minded, introverted Denham (“Denham sometimes dreamed of a life in which one took practically no trouble at all. One would be alone; one would have no standards; there would be a warm climate and few clothes, and all the food off the same plate, if a plate at all.”) and the voluble Greshams (“Besides looking well, they were artistic, literary, political, musical and cultured. So, as families go, they were all right.”). And they certainly are generous to take Denham into their lives - Aunt Evelyn is no cruel Aunt Reed. The tension of the story - and I found it tense enough to skip to the end and begin reading backwards - is in Denham’s unwillingness to be absorbed into the powerful social fabric which is fueled and sustained by words, words, words and more words.
“Talking is one of the creative arts, for by it you build up things that have, until talked about, no existence, such as scandals, secrets, quarrels, literary and artistic standards, all kinds of points of view about persons and things. Let us talk, we say, meaning, let us see what we can create, or in what way we can transmute the facts that are into facts that are not yet. It is one of the magic arts.”
Of course it’s the magic art of the fiction writer, too, and MaCaulay does poke fun at the proliferation of books (Denham “said ‘Why?’ when her Uncle Peter took her to his office, and she saw rooms stacked from floor to ceiling with books.”), and at us, readers of books, and at herself, the author of 23 books.
Macaulay is really quite artful at making us sympathize with both the literal-minded, introverted Denham (“Denham sometimes dreamed of a life in which one took practically no trouble at all. One would be alone; one would have no standards; there would be a warm climate and few clothes, and all the food off the same plate, if a plate at all.”) and the voluble Greshams (“Besides looking well, they were artistic, literary, political, musical and cultured. So, as families go, they were all right.”). And they certainly are generous to take Denham into their lives - Aunt Evelyn is no cruel Aunt Reed. The tension of the story - and I found it tense enough to skip to the end and begin reading backwards - is in Denham’s unwillingness to be absorbed into the powerful social fabric which is fueled and sustained by words, words, words and more words.
“Talking is one of the creative arts, for by it you build up things that have, until talked about, no existence, such as scandals, secrets, quarrels, literary and artistic standards, all kinds of points of view about persons and things. Let us talk, we say, meaning, let us see what we can create, or in what way we can transmute the facts that are into facts that are not yet. It is one of the magic arts.”
Of course it’s the magic art of the fiction writer, too, and MaCaulay does poke fun at the proliferation of books (Denham “said ‘Why?’ when her Uncle Peter took her to his office, and she saw rooms stacked from floor to ceiling with books.”), and at us, readers of books, and at herself, the author of 23 books.
welkinvault's review
lighthearted
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.5
I bought this becuase it was a Virago book - and I loved the cover - and Virago books have never let me down - but this novel was not for me. Denham is on the autism spectrum (IMO) and the comedy of manners she is thrust into makes her uncomfortable and there is no progression for her.
It was satirical, but I feel I am reading it 90 years too late.
It was satirical, but I feel I am reading it 90 years too late.
schnauzermum's review against another edition
4.0
A satire of the London literary scene in the 1920s, their novel opens in Andorra to which the widowed Rev. Mr Dobie has fled with his young daughter, Denham. It begins:
‘A Mr Dobie, a clergyman, wearying of his job, relinquished it, ostensibly on the grounds that he did not care to bury dissenters or to baptise illegitimate infants, but in reality because he was tired of being so busy, so sociable, and so conversational, of attending parish meetings, sitting on committees, calling on parishioners and asking them how they did - an inquiry the answer to which he was wholly indifferent.’
Denham is no more socially adept than her father. When he dies, though, her maternal relatives - who simply love to talk - bring her back to England and try to school her in the ways of ‘the higher life’.
Macaulay lightly pokes fun at the literary life of the time and the constraints of polite society. The prose sparkles.
This was my first Macaulay and I chose it because it’s not easy to find an Andorran book for a reading-the-world project. I’m going to read more of her work.
‘A Mr Dobie, a clergyman, wearying of his job, relinquished it, ostensibly on the grounds that he did not care to bury dissenters or to baptise illegitimate infants, but in reality because he was tired of being so busy, so sociable, and so conversational, of attending parish meetings, sitting on committees, calling on parishioners and asking them how they did - an inquiry the answer to which he was wholly indifferent.’
Denham is no more socially adept than her father. When he dies, though, her maternal relatives - who simply love to talk - bring her back to England and try to school her in the ways of ‘the higher life’.
Macaulay lightly pokes fun at the literary life of the time and the constraints of polite society. The prose sparkles.
This was my first Macaulay and I chose it because it’s not easy to find an Andorran book for a reading-the-world project. I’m going to read more of her work.
serendipitysbooks's review
Picked it up for a book set in Andorra for a read the world challenge. It seems very little of the book actually takes place there and the story isn’t holding my interest. Time to find something else.
susannam's review against another edition
3.0
In Crewe Train, author Rose Macauley is wickedly funny, skewering the conventions of genteel English society through an unlikely character, Denham Dobie. Denham is a wonderful heroine, an odd duck, who, because of a combination of nature and nurture, has no truck with meaningless chatter and the many rules of polite society. She'd much rather be out on her own, climbing a mountain or rowing a boat, as far from people as she can get. I was not completely engaged in the book, but there were many times when I laughed out loud or would shake my head in wonder at the many conventions we take for granted but which really deserve Denham's question: "Why?" It was refreshing.
absolutive's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
informative
reflective
fast-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
librarylucy's review against another edition
3.0
NB. Train nerds. No trains to Crewe appear in this novel.
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