Dorothy Richardson (2)

At the start of Deadlock we're a year or two further on from where we left Miriam at the end of Interim — judging from some passing references to "Chamberlain" and "the war" it's probably 1899 — but she is still lodging with Mrs Bailey and working for the Wimpole Street dentists. Most of this book is about her growing friendship with her Russian fellow-lodger, Michael Shatov. She starts off by giving him some English lessons, at Mrs Bailey's suggestion, but they soon progress to long discussions of philosophy and literature (he gets her to read "Tourgainyeff and Tolstoi"), walks around London, and visits to lectures and meetings. Inevitably there is a sexual attraction that catches them unawares, but Shatov tells her his Zionist principles won't allow him to marry a non-Jew, and Miriam soon realises that her feminist principles won't allow her to embrace any variety of Judaism that would be Jewish enough for Shatov. For once we don't have to puzzle too much to work out where she got the title of this part from!

Revolving Lights sees Miriam invited to join a prestigious socialist group, the Lycurgans (=Fabians) and getting more deeply involved with Hypo Wilson (=H.G. Wells), as she makes some tentative steps into literary journalism herself. It starts to become obvious to the reader (if not necessarily to Miriam herself yet) that Hypo means rather more to her than a respected writer and the husband of her friend Alma. When another woman writer comes to stay with the Wilsons, the knives are out...

In The Trap, Miriam leaves the pleasantly bohemian world of the Baileys behind at last, joins a women's club, and moves into a flat with a fellow-member, Selina Holland, who turns out to be alarmingly respectable and spinsterish. Miriam's not altogether sure if she's made the right move, or how she can resolve the different worlds she moves in, but she does seem to be growing up.… (plus d'informations)