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The Town House (House, #1)

Norah Lofts

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Apr 08, 2017 Werner rated it really liked it

Shelves: historical-fiction

Note, Oct. 21, 2019: I edited this just now to correct a minor typo.

This book, which I've now reread as an adult, was my first introduction to the work of a writer who soon became a favorite of mine. (1963 is a rough guess now as to the date of my first reading, but it was before I turned 14.) There are novels by Lofts that I've read since which I've liked even better, and some books by her, such as How Far to Bethlehem? and Women in the Old Testament: Twenty Psychological Portraits, that would Note, Oct. 21, 2019: I edited this just now to correct a minor typo.

This book, which I've now reread as an adult, was my first introduction to the work of a writer who soon became a favorite of mine. (1963 is a rough guess now as to the date of my first reading, but it was before I turned 14.) There are novels by Lofts that I've read since which I've liked even better, and some books by her, such as How Far to Bethlehem? and Women in the Old Testament: Twenty Psychological Portraits, that would probably give a better sense of her spiritual thought; but this remains one I'd recommend, and that has a special place in my memory. (When I read it the first time, I had no idea it was as a trilogy opener; but I discovered and read the two sequels, The House at Old Vine and The House at Sunset, within a few years, and would recommend them as well.) I rarely reread books now, but one of my Goodreads groups did a common read of this one last month (I started a bit late), and the discussion there made me aware of how many details I'd forgotten. There was a LOT that I remembered, though, even after more than 50 years, down to exact words, which is a tribute to the vividness of Loft's writing. But the reread was a worthwhile refresher, allowing me to rediscover some things I'd forgotten, and to experience the read with adult psychological, intellectual and spiritual perspectives instead of just bringing those perspectives to bear on my memories of it. (That group discussion can be accessed here: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/... , and offers much insight into the novel, but I'd recommend it it only to those who've read the book already --otherwise, it will contain a good many "spoilers!")

Lofts was a high school history teacher, turned serious and knowledgeable historical novelist, with a profound understanding of both human nature and the forces of changing social history, coupled with enormous literary gifts. Like William Faulkner and Thomas Hardy, she concentrated her fictional talents on her own home geographical area, which in her case was Suffolk in southeastern England, and especially her longtime residence of Bury St. Edmund, which becomes Baildon in this series and many of her other novels. A favorite fictional technique of hers is to take a single building and trace its history through the lives of generations of people who live and work there; she does that, for instance, in Bless This House and A Wayside Tavern. A weakness of that technique, though, can be that covering so large a sweep of history in one novel leaves less than optimum time to fully develop the characters in any one generation. But the tale of the great house founded by Martin Reed is spread over a trilogy, which greatly reduces that problem; and the history here stretches back only to his birth in 1381 (not all the way to the end of Roman times, as in A Wayside Tavern). Our setting here in this novel is mostly the first half of the 15th century, and we follow just three generations of a family.

Lofts was a literary Realist (who realized that Realism doesn't require bad language and explicit sex), and a consummate storyteller. She sometimes wrote historical fiction about major actual personages in history; but more often, as here, she concentrated on (fictional) ordinary people living their ordinary lives. Unlike some historical novelists, she doesn't focus exclusively on the well-to-do and high-born; they appear here, but the other end of the medieval social spectrum is well represented, too, along with all shades in between. And "ordinary" doesn't for a minute mean lacking in intense drama and eventfulness. She also had a very lively awareness both of the frequent tragedy of life in this world, and of its ratchet towards profound unfairness. This gives her writing a pessimistic cast at times, which is very marked here: the reader has to be prepared for bad things (sometimes horribly bad!) to happen to good people, and vice versa. Injustice and selfishness, with other people on the receiving end, can be rampant here, and is seldom if ever brought to account. (No less than three major characters here get away with murder, for instance.) This, and the fact that one character abandons belief in God because he can't reconcile that faith with his own experience of tragic bereavement, led me as a kid (who'd only read this book and none of her others) to assume that Lofts was an atheist or at least a skeptic. That impression was strengthened by the often negative treatment of religious professionals and practices here.

Learning more about where Lofts was coming from, however, greatly changed that impression. She was raised in the Church of England and retained that allegiance as an adult, though she didn't wear it on her sleeve; was, like C. S. Lewis (who was only a few years older than she, though she outlived him by decades), far from ascetic, and tended towards a "high" form of the faith that distrusted both the emotionalism of enthusiastic evangelicalism and the trappings of Roman Catholicism. The kind of medieval religiosity that's negatively portrayed here is its more twisted and superstitious aspects: the hawking and veneration of bogus "relics," the whole idea of "mortifying the flesh" and of bribing God for favors by inflicting privations or sufferings on oneself, a warped view of "purgatory" and of what the living can supposedly do for the souls there, and a religious leadership that could often be mainly concerned with wielding power and raking in money, or kissing up to people with power and money. These are things many people of faith (including Catholics) would deplore. And Lofts' realistic view of the tragedy and unfairness of life in this fallen world is fully consistent with Christianity --it actually points out the reason why the Christian eschatological vision is so essential; our hope for a better world and for an ultimate triumph of justice rests on the act of God at the end of history, not on anything this wretched world will achieve on its own. And it also points up the necessity for faith, and the fact that faith is (humanly speaking) often not easy. It's also important to realize that literary characters' attitudes don't always reflect the author's attitudes --indeed, Lofts realistically portrays a whole gamut of human responses to religious belief. (And characters who lose faith can regain it.)

There's also some very serious social commentary here, even though Lofts is probably more concerned with issues of human character and relationships. The 15th century was a time when the medieval feudal order was in existential crisis, when feudalism and knighthood was being undermined by changing social conditions, when the mercantile and tradesman class was growing in wealth and economic power (and seeking social status and political power commensurate with that new economic power), and when many of the fetters on commercial activity that the guild system had provided were being broken or circumvented. All of this is reflected here, not always with commentary, but with enough naturally inserted commentary to make points. Of course, the social order of the 15th century doesn't perfectly resemble ours. But the social issues then --how important is money? how should people be treated? how does economic organization affect human life and human needs? is concentration of wealth and power in very few hands a good idea?-- are the same questions we need to ask. And the kind of reactions this novel would be apt to elicit from readers are the kind that might steer us towards constructive answers rather than harmful ones.

Much more could be written about this book, but hopefully I've said enough for a reader to assess whether he/she might want to try reading it. (I'll add that if you're intimidated by medieval diction, that's not a factor here. The author avoids obvious anachronisms, but she doesn't try to make her dialogue conform to medieval dialect; it's straightforward, without any flavor of archaism.) IMO, Lofts deserves to stand in the first rank of 2oth-century British novelists --and I've read enough of them, including several that are considered "canonical," to credibly make that assessment. ...more

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