Taking Chances

by M.J. Farrell, Molly Keane

Those who suffered because of her might think of Mary that she hurt others, herself she could not hurt; but Jer, knowing her better...knew she hurt herself perhaps most deeply. Since the death of her parents, Roguey, Maeve and Jer have cared for one another and for Sorristown, their elegant home. Together they have fished and hunted, unravelled secrets by bedroom fires and sipped gin cocktails. But this pattern of intimacy is about to be broken by Maeve's marriage to Rowley. A week before the wedding, her bridesmaid Mary arrives. Meeting her for the first time Rowley describes Mary as a 'factor for disturbance', little realising the extent to which his prophecy will prove true for each of them.

Genres: Irish Literature, Ireland, Literature, Classics, Literary Fiction, Fiction, Novels

288 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 1929

About the author

M.J. Farrell is a pseudonym used by Molly Keane for her earlier published novels and plays.

Reviews

[Justine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maeve and Roguey are sister and brother. Maeve is newly wed to Rowley; she loves him very much. Roguey is newly wed to Mary; he loves her very much, But the fiercest love of all is that between Mary and Rowley, who of course are not married to each other. The plot of this 1929 novel about Anglo-Irish aristocratic society follows the tangled threads of sexual passion into the great houses and across the hunting fields; horses, dogs, guns are the only other obsessions.

At the centre of the web we find Jer, Maeve and Roguey’s younger brother. Asthmatic, stammering, shunning equestrian activities, he is both a part of and separate from his siblings’ world, appears more mature than either of them, and is certainly far more observant. He harbours an intense but ambiguous love for both Maeve and Mary, accompanied by an exceptional understanding and sympathy with their separate plights; he foresees, long before anyone else, the impossibility of the situation that pits the two women he most cares for against each other.

Taking Chances is a simple tale told with a sophisticated and non-judgemental intelligence, embellished by the interiors, landscapes and frocks of late-1920s upper-class Ireland. Molly Keane takes obvious pleasure in detailed descriptions of horses and rituals of the hunt comprehensible only to the initiated, but never loses sight of her human characters - and thus managed never to lose this reader.

[Ali · Rating 4 out of 5]

It seems as if Molly Keane’s novels all follow similar themes; the dubious fortunes of a large Irish estate, the complexities of the family relationships of its inhabitants, some hunting and fishing thrown in. That at least is what I have been given to understand, this being only the third Molly Keane novel I have read.
In Taking Chances, the estate is Sorristown, the family in question; Roguery, Maeve and Jer, who since the death of their parents have lived together quite happily, hunting and fishing and caring for the family home. There are also a couple of peculiar Aunts who pop up from time to time. A host of dogs, horses and faceless servants help to set the tone of this novel about Anglo-Irish aristocracy, and their easy existence, which is taken so much for granted. As the novel opens, Maeve is preparing for her wedding to Rowley, another local aristocrat, an event destined to change the comfortable domestic arrangements that the siblings have got used to. Jer the youngest, is devoted to Maeve who in turn favours her elder brother Roguery, Roguery (Sir Ralph) quite obviously loves himself best of all. Thus the scene is set for the upset that only an outsider can bring. Days before Maeve’s wedding, her bridesmaid Mary Fuller arrives. Rather beautiful, unconventional and slightly pagan Mary immediately fascinates Rowley, to whom she too feels inevitably drawn. Little do either realise what their initial meeting will lead to.
“She was exciting. Things, one felt would happen round her. Like the lady who rode to Banbury Cross ‘rings on her fingers and bells on her toes,’ Mary was a factor for disturbance. She was, Rowley felt sure, a person to be distinctly loved or disliked, never a person to be just tolerated.”
Naturally Maeve and Rowley’s wedding goes ahead, however Rowley’s feelings have been turned on their head in just a few days, and Mary is quite used to getting what she wants. The consequences of Mary and Rowley’s dalliance are of course far reaching. Watching from the side lines the slightly malevolent Aunt Edythe, and poor stuttering Jer seem only too aware of what has been going on. However Jer is just as devoted to Mary as he is to his sister, aware of how Mary is likely to hurt herself most of all.
“Those who suffered because of her might think of Mary that she hurt others, herself she could hurt; but Jer, knowing her better… knew she hurt herself perhaps most deeply”
Taking Chances beautifully captures the times and the class of people that Molly Keane herself hailed from. Full of both humour and atmosphere, Molly Keane’s world is one I enjoy spending time in. The Irish mists raise up around the reader, and one can almost hear the thud of horse’s hooves giving chase to a poor fox, hounds barking excitedly. Taking Chances is a romance, and it is also the story of desperate chances taken in the pursuit of happiness, the allegiances between people impacting on the outcome of those chances.

[Lili Kathey · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read up until page 91 of this. Honestly, I liked it, and the scenery, and wow was I curious as to what's going to happen in the end... but the pace of it was SO SLOW. The environment? Interesting. The plot? Readable. The society? Fab. The characters? Deep. The pace? UGH NO.

[Brian · Rating 2 out of 5]

Good information about fox hunting in 1920's Ireland. The rest of the book was poor; like watching a slow motion train-wreck.

[Mary Durrant · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved it!
A book of it's time of house parties and grand estates.
Will be looking out for more of her wonderful books!

[lucy black · Rating 1 out of 5]

Taking Chances is boring. It’s the story of three rich siblings on an estate in Ireland. A horrible jock, a doormat and a coward. When the doormat is getting married her aristocratic slutty bridesmaid causes chaos. There’s long descriptions of fox hunts, good clothes and rooms and meals. Everyone is yuck, the language is over the top and hard to follow and the plot is obvious .

[Sophie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the second book written by Molly Keane I've read, and I really liked it.
I like the way the writer introduces the readers to the main characters at the beginning of her novel: Maeve, blond, beautiful and sure of her love for her fiancé Rowley, her two brother, Roguey, whom she love without seeing his many faults (boring,spendthrift, knocking up a poor country girl) and Jer, her younger brother who is the most sensible and clever of the family, but widely shrugged off.
And then Rowley, the fiancé, and above all Mary, the young bridesmaid who comes to the three sibling's home to attend the wedding.

Both the groom to be and Maeve's brother fell in love with Mary.
And then, chaos arrived.

Mary is the most interesting character: She is extremely beautiful, acts as if she was free, funny and frivolous, whereas she is mainly ruined and must marry well.And only Jer understands it
Rowley do get married to Maeve as predicted, even if he is in love with Mary, so Mary must choose...

They are quite a lot of memorable chapters and events in this book: the fox's hunt with all the characters, the brief passion between Rowley and Mary, the sadness of Maeve when she realizes, far too late, that she is not loved by her husband etc..
The utter blindness of Maeve and Roguey toward Mary and Rowley is well written.
I didn't expect the ending.

The only irritating thing is the name of the characters.
It can't be unintentional that the two girls's names and the man's names are so similar.
I find the choosing of the names Rowley and Roguey very tiresome, and quite childish from the author.

[Amy Gentry · Rating 2 out of 5]

Early Keane, far more melodramatic and earnest than anything I expected from her, but not without interest. The writing is almost unbelievably mannered in places, with a girlish-yet-world-weary 1920s gaiety that's a bit hard to take. It's all cloying cocktails and clinging dresses and morning-after hangovers, which is fun while the sexy slow-burn romance is amping up, but gets exhausting in the second half of the book. I think Keane had her own affairs, sometimes with married men, and there is genuine pathos here; but the carefree flapper who's constantly lisping, "Say that again, I'm jus' a little bit deaf," to be cute just couldn't win me over for a tragic heroine, sorry.

There is a lot of interesting stuff about desperate women (both upper and lower class) trying to induce abortion at home and nearly dying, which was probably daring for the time, especially in a protagonist. But on the whole this was the rare Molly Keane that felt too claustrophobic, airlessly focused on a single love affair, to really say anything, even about the social milieu.

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an astonishing little novel published in 1929 about the upper-crust of Irish society. It was written by a young woman who was a part of this world- she writes openly, unflinchingly and without irony. These are ruthless, self-absorbed, sinister, impossibly wealthy and maddeningly idle people. The characters, settings and dialogue are so vivid, you can almost hear the author's pen scratching as she scribbled notes on paper hidden in the folds of her evening gown while her family and guests sipped G&Ts in the drawing room before the maid announced dinner...

[Loretta Malakie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not her *absolute* best, but still GRAND!

Posh star-crossed lovers, lots of hunting and beautiful passages of description. As always, set against a historical backdrop of unspoken decline.

[JimZ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Molly Keane and her damn horses and the hunt!!! A number of the books I have read by her involve fox hunts and horses jumping over fences...long-winded descriptions ad nauseum (if you ask me). Plus I don’t like the concept of the hunt...rich people and their horses and the hounds chasing a fox and tearing it to shreds and that is sport and jolly good fun?

I disliked all of the protagonists in this novel, and I guess that was the point of Keane. To show them as stuffed shirts, selfish, born into wealth and not doing much for society except to breed and continue on their lifestyles and traditions of the aristocracy who lived in country houses in Ireland and England in the early 20th century. Except I guess she wanted us to cheer on the semi-villain in the novel, Mary, who was to be bridesmaid to Maeve’s wedding. She bedded down the bridegroom (the bride's husband-to-be) the night before Maeve’s wedding. She married the brother of Maeve whom she did not love only because he was rich and would pay off her gambling debts (and that he did not know of). She got pregnant from her one-night stand with the bridegroom, and at novel’s end she and Maeve’s husband who no longer loved Maeve (and probably never did and why he married her is beyond me) ran off together (although by him doing so he had to give up all the privileges given to him because of this ancestry and lineage. Divorce was verboten back then).

Synopsis from the back of the Virago Modern Classics re-issue:
• Since the death of their parents, Roguey, Maeve and Jer have cared for one another and for Sorristown, their elegant home. Here the companionable trio have fished and hunted, unravelled secrets by bedroom fires and sipped gin cocktails—a pattern of intimacy about to be broken by Mave’s marriage to Rowley. A week before the wedding, her bridesmaid Mary arrives. In contrast to acquiescent Maeve, Mary is faintly pagan, elusive. Meeting her for the first time, Rowley describes Mary as a “factor for disturbance”, little realizing the extent to which his prophecy will prove true for each of them. First published in 1929, this novel perfectly captures the leisured Anglo-Irish lives of that era, but most of all it explores allegiances and love—and taking changes of a desperate kind.

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[Litote · Rating 4 out of 5]

 Dans "Un beau mariage", Molly Keane raconte avec une sophistication sans jugement une histoire simple, magnifiée par les décors somptueux et les costumes de la haute société irlandaise des années 1920. Keane excelle dans la description minutieuse des chevaux et des rituels de chasse au renard, des pratiques réservées aux initiés, tout en maintenant ses personnages humains au centre de son récit. Les protagonistes, Roguey, Maeve et Jer, sont orphelins et vivent heureux dans le domaine familial de Sorristown, entre chasse, pêche et gestion de la propriété. Maeve, une belle blonde, est convaincue de son amour pour son fiancé Rowley. Elle est attachée à ses deux frères : Roguey, qu'elle aime malgré ses défauts (il est ennuyeux, dépensier et a mis enceinte une jeune fille de la campagne), et Jer, le plus sensé et intelligent de la famille, mais souvent ignoré en raison de sa sensibilité et de son asthme. La tante Edythe, légèrement  malveillante, complète le tableau familial. Les choses se compliquent avec l'arrivée de Rowley, le fiancé de Maeve, et Mary, la jeune demoiselle d'honneur. Rowley et Roguey tombent tous deux amoureux de Mary, ce qui entraîne le chaos. Ce qui rend cette histoire, qui pourrait sembler banale et légèrement mélodramatique, si plaisante à lire, ce sont les descriptions détaillées de Keane sur le mode de vie de ces personnages. Ils se préoccupent davantage de leurs chiens et de leurs chevaux que de leurs relations humaines, jusqu'à ce que les questions de sexe viennent perturber cet équilibre apparent. L'univers de Molly Keane, empreint d'humour et d'une atmosphère envoûtante, invite le lecteur à s'immerger dans les brumes irlandaises, où l'on peut presque entendre le martèlement des sabots des chevaux et les aboiements des chiens lors des chasses au renard. Bonne lecture !

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[Iulia · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an early Molly Keane, and it shows. Still plenty to enjoy.

[Pascale · Rating 3 out of 5]

What can I say? It's a lovely book for those who like this sort of a book. The story revolves around 3 siblings from the Irish landed gentry, Sir Ralph, known as Roguey, Maeve and the runt of the litter, the sensitive and asthmatic Jer (Gerald). Maeve is engaged to Rowley, a charming neighbor from exactly the same milieu. Oddly enough, for chief bridesmaid she has chosen Mary, whom Jer worships but who is not at all a close friend of hers. A few days before the wedding, Rowley meets Mary for the first time, and succumbs to her charm. After a night of love, Rowley and Mary try to put their mutual attraction behind them, and Mary, who has almost no money left, accepts to marry Roguey, who has fallen for her as hard as Rowley. A little wrinkle is that Roguey is being blackmailed by one of his tenant farmers, whose sister he has seduced and made pregnant. Mary too is pregnant, from Rowley. Eventually they throw all caution to the wind and elope together, with Jer's assistance. Ironically, Roguey dies in a riding accident that same evening. What makes this banal and rather melodramatic story a pleasure to read is Keane's sharp and detailed descriptions of the way of life of these people who actually care a lot more about their dogs and horses than about each other - until sex interferes.