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Betsy Canning is dissatisfied with life. She has always taken pains to be healthy, popular and well-treated, but despite her wealth, her comfortable homes and beautiful children, happiness eludes her. The problem must lie, she thinks, in her marriage to Alec, and a neat, civilised divorce seems the perfect solution. But talk of divorce sparks interference from family and friends, and soon public opinion tears into the fragile fabric of family life and private desire. Alec and Betsy's marriage will not be the only casualty, and in this newly complicated world, happiness is more elusive than ever.… (plus d'informations)
Je n’avais jamais entendu parler de Margaret Kennedy avant de voir passer sur les blogs anglophones une semaine dédiée à cette auteure. Apparemment, elle a été traduite en français plutôt dans les années 50-60 et plus rééditée depuis, à une exception près au Mercure de France, en 2006. En effet, cette maison a réédité, sous le titre Tessa, ce qui semble être son œuvre majeure La nymphe au cœur fidèle. Je n’ai bien sûr pas lu ce livre …
Together and Apart, c’est tout simplement l’histoire d’un divorce dans les années 40. Le roman commence par une lettre qui m’a tout de suite fait penser que ce livre me plairait. Lisez plutôt :
[…]
Well now mother, listen. I have something to tell you that you won’t like at all. In fact, I’m afraid that it will be a terrible shock and you will hate it at first. but do try to get used to the idea and bring father round to it.
Alec and I are parting company. We are going to get a divorce.
I know this will horrify you: the more so because I have, perhaps mistakenly, tried very hard to conceal our happiness during these last years I didn’t, naturally, want anybody to know while there was still a chance of keeping things going. But the fact is, we have been quite miserable, both of us. We simply are unsuited to one another and unable to get on. How much of this have you guessed ?
Life is so different from what we expected when we first married. Alec has quite changed, and he needs a different sort of wife. I never wanted all this money and success. I married a very nice but quite undistinguished civil servant. With my money we had quite enough to live on in a comfortable and civilised way. We had plenty of friends, our little circle, people like ourselves, amusing and well bred, not rich, but decently well off. Alec says now that they bored him. But he didn’t say so at the time.
I must say it’s rather hard on me that he took so long to find out what he really wanted. He says it’s all his mother’s fault, and that she bullied him so that he was past thirty before it ever occured to him to call his soul his own. I dare say this is true, but I have to suffer for it.
[…]
We no longer have the same friends. He seems to be completely submerged in the stage world. He is so popular and so genial. Everybody likes him and he likes everybody. Our house is perpetually crammed with people with home I have nothing in common, who simply regard me as « Alec’s wife » if they even know me by sight, which often they don’t, I really believe.
[…]
Reading this over, I feel it sounds rather like a list of grievances, as if I were the only sufferer. But indeed Alec has suffered equally. I’m not the right woman for him any more, and he can’t be happy with me.
[…]
Then why didn’t divorce him before ? Because of the children. I felt they ought to have a home, that we must all stay together as long as any decent appearance of harmony could be kept up. And now, because of the children, I have changed my mind. I now think that they would be happier if Alec and I gave up this miserable attempt. They are getting old enough to feel the stain and the tension, especially Kenneth, who quite realizes that Alec doesn’t always treat me considerately, and resents it violently. A father and son can mean so much to one another ; it would be terrible if they become permanebtly alienated. I don’t want the children to grow up with a distorded idea of marriage, got from the spectacle of parents who can’t get on. I think the time has come to be quite open with them about it.
N’est-ce pas trop moderne ? Bien sûr, aujourd’hui on n’écrirait plus de lettre pour annoncer son divorce à sa mère mais par contre, les raisons sont toujours les mêmes. Tout le roman (400 pages apparemment ; je l’ai lu en électronique) est comme cela. C’est un livre qui n’est absolument pas daté en tout cas en version originale.
Les parents décident de divorcer parce qu’ils ne sont plus aussi bien ensemble, même si à la description du couple, on se rend rapidement compte qu’ils sont fait l’un pour l’autre. Le mari se console avec une jeune demoiselle, éperdument amoureuse de lui depuis toujours (bien évidemment). Cela va « dégénérer » puisqu’elle va tomber enceinte, le mari l’épouse mais n’arrive plus à créer (alors que c’est son métier et ce qui lui permet de vivre). L’ex-femme cède aux avances d’un prétendant de toujours pour montrer qu’elle n’est pas en reste. Là-dessus se greffe des enfants adolescents, qui prennent partie, font de grosse bêtises car ils « ne sont plus surveillés ». Il y a aussi les parents du couple qui essaient de comprendre. Je trouve que c’est exactement ce qu’on pourrait voir aujourd’hui dans un film, que l’on regarderait pour se détendre.
Ce livre est exactement cela. Un moment sympathique de lecture, qui détend, le niveau d’anglais n’étant pas particulièrement difficile en plus. En plus, la narration est rondement menée, avec suffisamment de rebondissements pour que l’attention du lecteur ne faiblisse passe. Je tiens à souligner encore une fois que ce texte devait être assez osé pour l’époque à mon avis. ( )
Informations provenant du Partage des connaissances anglais.Modifiez pour passer à votre langue.
Alas! They had been friends in youth; But whispering tongues can poison truth; And constancy lives in realms above; And life is thorny; and youth is vain; And to be wroth with one we love; Doth work like madness in the brain.
****
Each spake words of high disdain And insult to his heart's best brother: They parted - ne'er to meet again! But never either found another To free the hollow heart from paining- They stood aloof, the scars remaining, Like cliffs which had been rent asunder; A dreary sea now flows between; But neither heat, nor frost, nor thunder, Shall wholly do away, I ween, With marks of that which once hath been.
COLERIDGE (from Christabel )
Dédicace
Informations provenant du Partage des connaissances anglais.Modifiez pour passer à votre langue.
To ROSE MACAULAY
Premiers mots
Informations provenant du Partage des connaissances anglais.Modifiez pour passer à votre langue.
Dearest Mother, I'm sorry the Engadine isn't being a success, but I'm not surprised.
Citations
Derniers mots
Informations provenant du Partage des connaissances anglais.Modifiez pour passer à votre langue.
A frog, in the reeds by the river, set up a dry little croaking like an echo.
Références à cette œuvre sur des ressources externes.
Wikipédia en anglais
Aucun
▾Descriptions de livres
Betsy Canning is dissatisfied with life. She has always taken pains to be healthy, popular and well-treated, but despite her wealth, her comfortable homes and beautiful children, happiness eludes her. The problem must lie, she thinks, in her marriage to Alec, and a neat, civilised divorce seems the perfect solution. But talk of divorce sparks interference from family and friends, and soon public opinion tears into the fragile fabric of family life and private desire. Alec and Betsy's marriage will not be the only casualty, and in this newly complicated world, happiness is more elusive than ever.
▾Descriptions provenant de bibliothèques
Aucune description trouvée dans une bibliothèque
▾Description selon les utilisateurs de LibraryThing
Together and Apart, c’est tout simplement l’histoire d’un divorce dans les années 40. Le roman commence par une lettre qui m’a tout de suite fait penser que ce livre me plairait. Lisez plutôt :
[…]
Well now mother, listen. I have something to tell you that you won’t like at all. In fact, I’m afraid that it will be a terrible shock and you will hate it at first. but do try to get used to the idea and bring father round to it.
Alec and I are parting company. We are going to get a divorce.
I know this will horrify you: the more so because I have, perhaps mistakenly, tried very hard to conceal our happiness during these last years I didn’t, naturally, want anybody to know while there was still a chance of keeping things going. But the fact is, we have been quite miserable, both of us. We simply are unsuited to one another and unable to get on. How much of this have you guessed ?
Life is so different from what we expected when we first married. Alec has quite changed, and he needs a different sort of wife. I never wanted all this money and success. I married a very nice but quite undistinguished civil servant. With my money we had quite enough to live on in a comfortable and civilised way. We had plenty of friends, our little circle, people like ourselves, amusing and well bred, not rich, but decently well off. Alec says now that they bored him. But he didn’t say so at the time.
I must say it’s rather hard on me that he took so long to find out what he really wanted. He says it’s all his mother’s fault, and that she bullied him so that he was past thirty before it ever occured to him to call his soul his own. I dare say this is true, but I have to suffer for it.
[…]
We no longer have the same friends. He seems to be completely submerged in the stage world. He is so popular and so genial. Everybody likes him and he likes everybody. Our house is perpetually crammed with people with home I have nothing in common, who simply regard me as « Alec’s wife » if they even know me by sight, which often they don’t, I really believe.
[…]
Reading this over, I feel it sounds rather like a list of grievances, as if I were the only sufferer. But indeed Alec has suffered equally. I’m not the right woman for him any more, and he can’t be happy with me.
[…]
Then why didn’t divorce him before ? Because of the children. I felt they ought to have a home, that we must all stay together as long as any decent appearance of harmony could be kept up. And now, because of the children, I have changed my mind. I now think that they would be happier if Alec and I gave up this miserable attempt. They are getting old enough to feel the stain and the tension, especially Kenneth, who quite realizes that Alec doesn’t always treat me considerately, and resents it violently. A father and son can mean so much to one another ; it would be terrible if they become permanebtly alienated. I don’t want the children to grow up with a distorded idea of marriage, got from the spectacle of parents who can’t get on. I think the time has come to be quite open with them about it.
N’est-ce pas trop moderne ? Bien sûr, aujourd’hui on n’écrirait plus de lettre pour annoncer son divorce à sa mère mais par contre, les raisons sont toujours les mêmes. Tout le roman (400 pages apparemment ; je l’ai lu en électronique) est comme cela. C’est un livre qui n’est absolument pas daté en tout cas en version originale.
Les parents décident de divorcer parce qu’ils ne sont plus aussi bien ensemble, même si à la description du couple, on se rend rapidement compte qu’ils sont fait l’un pour l’autre. Le mari se console avec une jeune demoiselle, éperdument amoureuse de lui depuis toujours (bien évidemment). Cela va « dégénérer » puisqu’elle va tomber enceinte, le mari l’épouse mais n’arrive plus à créer (alors que c’est son métier et ce qui lui permet de vivre). L’ex-femme cède aux avances d’un prétendant de toujours pour montrer qu’elle n’est pas en reste. Là-dessus se greffe des enfants adolescents, qui prennent partie, font de grosse bêtises car ils « ne sont plus surveillés ». Il y a aussi les parents du couple qui essaient de comprendre. Je trouve que c’est exactement ce qu’on pourrait voir aujourd’hui dans un film, que l’on regarderait pour se détendre.
Ce livre est exactement cela. Un moment sympathique de lecture, qui détend, le niveau d’anglais n’étant pas particulièrement difficile en plus. En plus, la narration est rondement menée, avec suffisamment de rebondissements pour que l’attention du lecteur ne faiblisse passe. Je tiens à souligner encore une fois que ce texte devait être assez osé pour l’époque à mon avis. ( )