A Source of Embarrassment by A. L. Barker

Hogarth Press, 1974

 

Another fascinating book by this interesting and idiosyncratic writer; I think that I  liked this best of the three I have read.  There is something antiseptically bracing about A Source of Embarrassment that makes reading it both disturbing and delightful.

The source of embarrassment is a middle-aged Englishwoman, Edith Trembath, who lives with her husband and two children in some provincial city or town in England.  She is a difficult character to describe, partly because she is so unusual and partly because Baker doesn't strive to reveal her characters: she observes them dispassionately from a distance. 

At the beginning of the book Edith is diagnosed with a brain tumor and told she has three months to live, and the book explores how both she and her family and friends respond to this tragic situation.  Complicating matters is the fact that Edith is a pathetic figure of fun to everyone she knows.  They all mistake her clumsiness and her inability to detect sarcasm or irony or scorn as proof that she is some sort of imbecile -- even her children and husband, though fond of her, patronize and marginalize her.  It is only the reader, who observes her at a slightly different angle, who can discern her integrity and true worth.

This book is also inclusive of its characters' varied sexual lives.  Attention is paid to everyone of them, and there is frank and candid mention of incest, impotence, and adultery.  In this way, the book seems very adult and ahead of its time.

Barker's writing is, as always, funny and brilliant.  Her tone is unique, although at moments this book made me think of both James Schuyler's What's For Dinner and any number of Iris Murdoch novels.  I'd  like to read this book again, for Barker's writing isn't always easy to comprehend or appreciate, and I feel that a second reading would reveal many additional delights and satisfactions.