The Return of the Soldier - Rebecca West

I don't know if you saw it, but on Saturday there was an excellent piece in the Guardian by Carmen Callil, who started Virago back in the 70s. It explained the motivation behind setting up this publishing company that championed women ('How often I remember sitting at dinner tables in the 1960s, the men talking to each other about serious matters, the women sitting quietly like decorated lumps of sugar. I remember one such occasion when I raised my fist, banged the table and shouted: "I have views on Bangladesh too!"'), and it was a wonderful article that made me feel really quite inspired.

And so today, I return to my First Ever Virago Modern Classic, The Return of the Soldier by  Rebecca West. For such a short book, it really does pack quite a punch, and I find myself thinking of it surprisingly often. It sort of slots into my head with Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf because two of the main themes are more or less the same: the passage of time (public and private), and The Great War.

Chris Ellis returns from fighting in the war a shell-shocked man. Via hospital, he eventually returns to the marital home (or mansion, rather) and his beautiful wife Kitty. However, the shell-shock has destroyed his memory, and because of that we discover that Kitty wasn't his first love. Five years previously he had been in love with - and planned to marry - the considerably more humble Margaret Allingham. He had had a huge argument with her, which was what put paid to their marriage plans. In his amnesia, though, he believes himself to be still in love with Margaret, and has no idea who Kitty is. Narrated by Kitty's sister Jenny - who lives with them - we watch as Kitty allows Chris to meet with Margaret, but only deep in the grounds of the marital estate - never in the house.

Kitty's disgust with the situation is not just about jealousy. Kitty is a wealthy, beautiful woman, who thinks constantly about social position, while Margaret is of a more meagre income and ordinary looking. Thus, the house becomes representative of the public: public (i.e. linear) time, the show we put on for the neighbours, social position, outward gestures, while the garden becomes a forest of the past, of the private time scale in Chris's head, of the breakdown of Edwardian social structure that the war caused. As the novel moves forward (and West is different to Woolf in that she tells the story simply in a straightforward fashion) and Chris begins to regain his memory, we watch the struggle between very different feelings for two very different women, and therefore two very different lives.

I won't spoil the ending for those of you who haven't read the book, but I do beg and implore you to go and read it. It's only short (less than 200 pages), and its simplicity of language makes the story incredibly moving.   

Comments

[Sarah]

The article by Carmen Calill was wonderful, it put a smile on my face when I read it on Saturday.

I haven't read anything by Rebecca West but have meaning to ever since I read her excellent Paris Review interview. This sounds like a good place to start.

[Ann Norton]

Please check out the International Rebecca West Society at www.rebeccawestsociety.org. There you will find more information on this extraordinary writer and her work.