'The Tortoise and the Hare'

The Tortoise and the Hare by Elizabeth Jenkins

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I love being surprised by books. And by book recommendations. 'The Tortoise and the Hare' was thrown at me as an out-of-the-blue recommendation on Twitter, the trigger being my enthusiastic post about Dorothy Whipple's 'Someone At A Distance'. If you like Whipple you will like Jenkins, my tweeter told me. And how right he was. Thank you Stuart Anderson.

The similarities between the two novelists are indeed striking. Like Whipple, Elizabeth Jenkins sets her story in the still stifling social world of post-war England, delivering acute observations on the undercurrents of human relationships - the frantic paddling below the mill pond - at times funny, but more often piercingly true to the point of pain. Even the plot of 'The Tortoise and the Hare' is similar to Whipple's 'From A Distance', taking the reader through the torturous journey of a 'good' woman gradually losing her husband to another 'predatory' female. Yet Jenkins treatment of the theme could not be more different, or more brilliant.

When I like the way an author has written something I (very discreetly, and quite guiltily)turn down the top corner of the relevant page. My copy of 'The Tortoise and the Hare' has too many corners turned down to count. Here is one small example, on the blindness of falling in love:

"...dazzled by freshness, delicacy and youth..he gave her credit not only for qualities which she did not possess, but for ones which could scarcely have been found in anybody."

And another,describing a sad, timid shrimp of a twelve year old boy:

"...so frail and light, so hesitant and unhappy that his method of getting himself into the room resembled the wind-blown progress of a dead leaf."

Such precision of thought, such succinctness - it made me think of a miniaturist with a finely pointed pen.

Just as crucially, Jenkins' novel works to great effect from a broader perspective too. Like most serious writers, it is clear that she sets out to 'say' something through her tale. The plot, which shows the beautiful, husband-pleasing Imogen having her charismatic, controlling husband, Evelyn, stolen from under her nose by their neighbour,the redoubtable, much older, and interestingly 'masculine' Blanche Silcox, positively reverberates with wider implications and Big Questions. Yet never once does the writing feel manipulative or bullying. Jenkins simply lets the complexities of the situation speak for themselves. Imogen seems powerless. The gradual whittling away of her self-confidence is agonising to witness. She appears to lose so much. Yet as the story unfolds it also becomes clear that she is making gains too - subtle, vital ones, that the reader can recognise long before Imogen herself.

An emotional page-turner. I read it in one gulp and was left wanting more.



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