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A review by eddie
Simonetta Perkins by L.P. Hartley, Margaret Drabble
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.