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Prisoner's Base
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Prisoner's Base by Celia Fremlin (December 2022)
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I won't say anything for now just that Claudia is probably Fremlin's best worst character that I've read so far - and that's saying something ;)
Looking forward to discussing this next month.
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Still hoping to track down a modestly priced copy of this, although now I have two Netgalley books to read and a real world book group choice, I'm feeling under pressure
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Nigeyb wrote: "Fremlin rules 🤩Still hoping to track down a modestly priced copy of this, although now I have two Netgalley books to read and a real world book group choice, I'm feeling under pressure"
If you don't mind reading online, there's a copy to borrow at archive.org it's a free library site so just need an account, no fees.
Finished this today, and agree another great book from this author, although it is not as good as some of the others I have read. It certainly caused me to feel the frustration Claudia causes, and the utter dislike of her.
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I’m going to start tonight, but I’ll avoid this thread so I don’t see any spoilers.
Celia Fremlin should win the Nobel. This book was so, so good! Claudia and Margaret are knowable characters and Claudia is a strangleable character! I just made up that word, but I’m sure we all wanted to reach through the page and choke the smugness out of her! My heart was in my throat the last several pages. This might be favorite Fremlin yet.
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I thought this was less a critique of the drudgery of the life of a housewife and put upon mother than her other novels and that Fremlin showed through Helen and Margaret that there is value in a caring mother who through her daily routines creates a sense of security and comfort for her family. The hapless husband in this book was replaced with the clueless Claudia.There was still mounting tension, but not until almost the end.
My review:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
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WndyJW wrote: "... and Claudia is a strangleable character! "
Haha, exactly the word we need, Wendy!
Claudia is an absolute stand-out character, so vile, so self-satisfied, so wrong, so lacking in any kind of self-awareness. And yet, she's not one-dimensional because her intentions are genuinely good: she really does want to help the needy, even if it is a form of narcissism and a way of feeding her own ego.
For all the good stuff, this was only 3 stars for me because I felt like Fremlin was trying to artificially insert a spookiness that wasn't really there: the nightmares, for example, which go nowhere and the almost comic story of Maurice. Even the end fizzles out as he's so hapless and Helen so sensible that there's no real sense of jeopardy.
But that was a shock about poor Margaret at the end :((
I thought the ending was good as she left it so you could please yourself
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What do you mean, Jill?
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It was Mavis who gave Helen the news, but that was followed by the fact she was an hysterical woman
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Susan wrote: "Me neither, Jill :) I used to be able to, but I've forgotten. Yes, Mavis just blurted out the news, but I was also unsure whether to believe her."Yes I think she gave us a choice
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To do spoilers: <*spoiler>blah blah blah<*/spoiler> - but remove the asterisks.
There was less tension and spookiness in this book, and the nightmares were pointless in the end, but what made it a 5 star read for me was Claudia, she was a deliciously outrageous character. (view spoiler)I didn’t find the ending ambiguous, I thought it was clear what happened and every Fremlin book ends with a murder.
Jill, your dog is gorgeous! I assume your profile pic is your dog.
WndyJW wrote: "Jill, your dog is gorgeous! I assume your profile pic is your dog."Thank you. That was our previous dog who died two years ago. We now have another German Shepherd, Two years old now but is still very much a pup in her attitude.
German Shepherds are beautiful.
I was really enjoying the end portion of the book .... until I wasn't. I guess I'm far less edgy and more conventional than I thought I was. Maybe the last two pages ending will grow on me over time.
Maybe not.
Here's my review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Yes, Fremlin adds a shade of ambiguity to the ending by having Mavis be the prime relayer of information. I think Fremlin's just playing around with us and that its actually clear what happened, a conclusion that is reinforced by the tone of the last sentence. Poor Helen.
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I think one of my issues is that Fremlin tries a bit over-hard to force this into a domestic noir mould which doesn't quite fit the story.
What did everyone think about Maurice? I was amused when we found out the truth about him and especially that he went to stay with his mother every weekend but it did all feel a bit silly at the same time.
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I wondered how Margaret raised such a daft daughter. She seemed so lovely and sensible.
Susan wrote: "I wondered how Margaret raised such a daft daughter. She seemed so lovely and sensible..."While my wife thinks that in her experience "the apple doesn't fall far from the tree" I have found that is often not true. Sometimes, nature wins the battle with nurture and it's often a nature that must have been recessive in previous generations.
My kids have sometimes exhibited some strange head-scratching personality traits that cause my wife and I to wonder "where'd they get that from?" When that occurs, we comfort ourselves with the assurance that "it couldn't be from me. Nobody in my family ever behaved like that."
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Yes, that was amusing - and was enough to make me question Maurice. Not to mention his 1000 sonnets ;)
On Claudia, I thought that Fremlin was exploring generational and cultural differences. She mentions a couple of times that Claudia is a child of the 1960s, with all her nonsense about Freudian repression and how 'reactionary' i.e. sensible Margaret is.
It's interesting because usually I would be on the side of the younger generation but Claudia is so obnoxious that I'm not. It's interesting too that Helen is a throwback to sensible Margaret with none of her mother's silliness.
It reminded me slightly of Agatha Christie's grumpy 1960s books only here Fremlin makes us reject the new for the 'traditional' as well.
I wondered how Margaret had done such a good job bringing up Helen, but failed badly with Claudia.
Very good review, Brian. Do we all agree that as good as most Fremlin books are her endings seem rather abrupt and sometimes anticlimactic or is that just me? I don’t read them for the mystery, although for one brief moment I wondered if Margaret was the psychopath and Fremlin was getting one over on us, I read them for the characters and the lives of housewives.
Regarding Margaret, raising the insufferable Claudia and the delightful Helen, some kids are just bad eggs.
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Celia Fremlin's sixth novel Prisoner's Base (1967) served further proof of her mastery at uncovering anxieties and even terrors in the domestic sphere. It tells of grandmother Margaret, her daughter Claudia, and Claudia's daughter Helen, who share a home from which Claudia's husband is frequently absent. Claudia has a penchant for taking strangers under her wing and into the house, the danger being that they never leave. But a different danger is proposed by Maurice, a self-styled poet who boasts that he has served seven years in prison for manslaughter.