A friend for life
Yesterday on a day trip from Sheffield to Oxford the train speed through Solihull. I can never see the sign go flashing past without being profoundly thankful that I am no longer working for the Inland Revenue. It’s many years since I caught the train from Birmingham to Solihull every day to my job at the tax office there. I had to force myself to get off there and not let myself be carried along to Leamington Spa. This was in my early twenties and it was so long ago that smoking was still allowed in the office – though only just. I had been struggling to write my MA thesis and had decided that perhaps I wasn’t cut out for academic life. Time to get a proper job. I took a civil service exam and, despite having only scraping a pass in ‘O’ Level Maths, I was sent to the Tax Office. I lasted four months before deciding that returning to academia and finishing that damn thesis would be preferable. And that is what I did. I should add that for the right person, it could have been an excellent job, but I was not that person. I was the absolute definition of a square peg in a round hole.
It was a difficult time, and reading kept me going. I worked my way through all Trollope’s Palliser novels. They had recently been reprinted as a result of their serialisation on TV with Susan Hampshire as Lady Glencora. I bought them one by one from a Solihull bookshop. I lived a parallel life in the world he had created and I loved his authorial voice, so measured and humane. He was like a wise, older friend. Another book that I lived in for a while was Iris Murdoch’s The Sacred and Profane Love Machine. I was a great fan of hers then and for years afterwards. And yet, what very different writers they are. I have just taken my copy of The Sacred and Profane Love Machine off the shelf, and, reading the first few pages, I’ve realised that I don’t want to read it again. It is no longer a world in which I can lose myself. On the other hand, I know I will always be able to re-read Trollope. Some writers are companions for life, and others, it turns out, are not.
8 Comments
Margot Kinberg
July 28, 2023I know exactly what you mean about professional square pegs in round holes, Christine. I’ve had jobs like that, too, and it doesn’t take long to know that it’s not for you. I think it’s great that you made the choice to get out of that situation and look for something that was a proper fit for you. And thanks for mentioning Trollope; I haven’t read him in a long time, and should…
Christine Poulson
July 29, 2023Thanks, Margot! If you want to read a Trollope with a crime element, I can recommend Orley Farm. Years since I read it, but it has stayed in my memory.
di
July 28, 2023As a young woman I inhaled Iris Murdoch’s novels but have also found I could not go back to them. Gosh you made me remember how I loved those Palliser books of Trollope! I wonder what it is that makes a writer a companion for life? I recently re read all the P D James books and took such pleasure in certain turns of phrase, and words she liked to use and her world view.
Christine Poulson
July 29, 2023Yes, interesting, isn’t it? I am still thinking about that. Sometimes it is those cult books of one’s youth that one couldn’t go back to. I am thinking of Lord of the Rings, for instance.
Mark Green
July 29, 2023I had no idea we shared an enthusiasm for Trollope. I edit the Trollope Society magazine, Trollopiana. It would be lovely if you would consent for me to reproduce this short piece in a future copy of the magazine (perhaps with the slant of vrime author and academic with “secret” love of Trollope).
Christine Poulson
July 29, 2023How nice! I am in the Trollope Facebook group, but I don’t often comment. Yes, please feel free. Trollope was a great comfort and resource after my husband died seven years ago. When I couldn’t sleep I used to listen to the sublime Timothy West reading his novels.You can add that to the piece, if you like.
Moira@Clothes in Books
July 31, 2023What a nice glimpse of your history. We measure out our lives in books…
My Iris Murdochs have survived all books culls so far, but now you’ve got me wondering if I too might have gone off her.
Trollope I always enjoy but never re-read – he wrote so much I am comfortable with the idea that there will always be more for me to choose from.
Christine Poulson
July 31, 2023I’d be very interested to hear what your response to her would be now. I used to love her and I think I have all her books. Now I feel impatient with her characters. I feel they don’t live real, grown-up lives. She is good on clothes, though. Having said this, I think I might be able to read Under the Net again. Not sure why.