THE ULTIMATE
Jerusalem the Golden's less than shining start with critics
Jerusalem the Golden hasn’t been out of print since its publication in 1967. Today, it is a Penguin Classic and feels as safely established as they come. But it wasn’t always like that. If the reviews I’ve found from 1967 are at all representative, it seems that when this book first came out, plenty of people didn’t like it.
The New York Times complained that the London section of the novel is “less interesting”, that Clara’s lover Gabriel is “not well drawn” – and his wife Philippa is “inexplicable”. Kirkus Reviews, meanwhile, called Clara “totally ignorant, particularly in social and sexual spheres”. This ignorance, we are told, is “explained, if not overexplained … by the fact that Clara comes from an economically and emotionally penurious home – in Yorkshire”. More stinging still, the review ended: “Miss Drabble, in casting a cold eye on the world she knows so well, has forgotten to make a balancing bid for the reader’s sympathy.”
Yet more damning was the Guardian. Although the paper ran a favourable profile of “the Drabble sisters” that praised the novel around publication, the review was a stinker. It derided the “very simple story” as a “modern girl’s fairy story, a colour-supplement daydream”. The reviewer, Martin Green, had none of today’s absurd squeamishness about spoilers, and recounted the entire plot (along with plenty of his objections) in his first paragraph:
The heroine, Clara, is born into a mean, narrow, life-hating family in the industrial North, but goes to university in London and makes friends with the Denhams, a glamorous, eccentric, life-loving family there; becomes the mistress of one of the married sons, called Gabriel. The novel ends with the discovery that her mother, the worst of life’s enemies, is dying of cancer. It ends rather than stops because the way Clara accepts this fact (with equanimity even though she was in Paris with Gabriel when sent for) proves that she has broken the moral chains that bound her to childhood. All the author’s sympathies are with Clara.
Yes, everything in the book is dependent on Clara, and coloured accordingly. We only get the lead character’s view of her poor mother – and it is a partial one, obscured by resentment. Early on, Clara is outraged that her mother allows her to go to Paris, making redundant all the fierce arguments that she has prepared while expecting to be refused permission. Later, there’s a moving moment when Clara sees a photo of her mother as a young woman “smiling with hope and intimacy” as well as a journal full of passionate writing; her unhappy parent wasn’t always the dry old stick she has imagined. In this moment, the reader understands that we too have never seen this woman clearly (which makes me question whether “all her sympathy” really is with Clara, as Green argues).
A London flat and no job: Margaret Drabble shows the Golden age of student life
Read moreThe more I consider Jerusalem the Golden, the more it troubles me – and the more I like it. I don’t quite understand why Clara acts as she does, or if she knows either. Her affair with Gabriel sounds like fun for both parties – but is it justifiable to shift the blame for Gabriel’s transgressions on to his wife Philippa, as Clara does? Yes, Clara has reason to find her mother annoying, but doesn’t she imagine her to be worse than she is, in order to license her own behaviour?
Clara isn’t at all simple. She may not elicit sympathy, like the early reviewers demanded, but that’s what makes her so interesting, and what sets this novel apart. Like all the best fairytales, Jerusalem the Golden is full of darkness and complication – and has proven as enduring.
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2017/oct/10/jerusalem-the-goldens-less-than-shining-start-with-critics
The New York Times complained that the London section of the novel is “less interesting”, that Clara’s lover Gabriel is “not well drawn” – and his wife Philippa is “inexplicable”. Kirkus Reviews, meanwhile, called Clara “totally ignorant, particularly in social and sexual spheres”. This ignorance, we are told, is “explained, if not overexplained … by the fact that Clara comes from an economically and emotionally penurious home – in Yorkshire”. More stinging still, the review ended: “Miss Drabble, in casting a cold eye on the world she knows so well, has forgotten to make a balancing bid for the reader’s sympathy.”
Yet more damning was the Guardian. Although the paper ran a favourable profile of “the Drabble sisters” that praised the novel around publication, the review was a stinker. It derided the “very simple story” as a “modern girl’s fairy story, a colour-supplement daydream”. The reviewer, Martin Green, had none of today’s absurd squeamishness about spoilers, and recounted the entire plot (along with plenty of his objections) in his first paragraph:
The heroine, Clara, is born into a mean, narrow, life-hating family in the industrial North, but goes to university in London and makes friends with the Denhams, a glamorous, eccentric, life-loving family there; becomes the mistress of one of the married sons, called Gabriel. The novel ends with the discovery that her mother, the worst of life’s enemies, is dying of cancer. It ends rather than stops because the way Clara accepts this fact (with equanimity even though she was in Paris with Gabriel when sent for) proves that she has broken the moral chains that bound her to childhood. All the author’s sympathies are with Clara.
Yes, everything in the book is dependent on Clara, and coloured accordingly. We only get the lead character’s view of her poor mother – and it is a partial one, obscured by resentment. Early on, Clara is outraged that her mother allows her to go to Paris, making redundant all the fierce arguments that she has prepared while expecting to be refused permission. Later, there’s a moving moment when Clara sees a photo of her mother as a young woman “smiling with hope and intimacy” as well as a journal full of passionate writing; her unhappy parent wasn’t always the dry old stick she has imagined. In this moment, the reader understands that we too have never seen this woman clearly (which makes me question whether “all her sympathy” really is with Clara, as Green argues).
A London flat and no job: Margaret Drabble shows the Golden age of student life
Read moreThe more I consider Jerusalem the Golden, the more it troubles me – and the more I like it. I don’t quite understand why Clara acts as she does, or if she knows either. Her affair with Gabriel sounds like fun for both parties – but is it justifiable to shift the blame for Gabriel’s transgressions on to his wife Philippa, as Clara does? Yes, Clara has reason to find her mother annoying, but doesn’t she imagine her to be worse than she is, in order to license her own behaviour?
Clara isn’t at all simple. She may not elicit sympathy, like the early reviewers demanded, but that’s what makes her so interesting, and what sets this novel apart. Like all the best fairytales, Jerusalem the Golden is full of darkness and complication – and has proven as enduring.
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2017/oct/10/jerusalem-the-goldens-less-than-shining-start-with-critics