Bank Holiday Read: The Flint Anchor by Sylvia Townsend Warner

The Flint Anchor by Sylvia Townsend Warner

published 1954

 

We are in the season of UK Bank Holidays: those extra days off we get at Easter, and then two more separate days in May. I have a small personal tradition that if the time is relatively free, I like to read a certain kind of book over a Bank Holiday weekend. I wrote about this in a post here on Daphne du Maurier’s The Parasites – where I list many suitable choices. I stress in the post how much I enjoy books about theatrical families, but other kinds of family books are acceptable. Susan Howatch’s Wheel of Fortune is a tour de force in the area.

This year I decided to reread The Flint Anchor, my favourite of Sylvia Townsend Warner’s works, and one of my favourite books of all time (the list and placings on it are never fixed, but this book would always be top 20 I think). Many people are bowled over by her The Corner that Held Them: set over 200 years in the life of a mediaeval convent. Mmm I hear you say. Well, it’s better than it sounds, but I will always say to fans ‘Yes but have you read The Flint Anchor?’

It couldn’t be further from a theatrical setting, I should make clear, no exciting first nights or audition panics, no beautiful velvet and sequin gowns, not much in the way of luxurious furs.

In fact it is much more in a category which I once described as Spinster Miserylit – this post here – and whose ruling spirit is a poem by Charlotte Mew.

The Quiet House, 1916

…Since Ted and Janey and then Mother died
And Tom crossed Father and was sent away.
After the lawsuit he could not hold up his head,
Poor Father, and he does not care
For people here, or to go anywhere.

[You can read the poem in full here: Poem: The Quiet House by Charlotte Mew (poetrynook.com]

It’s a bleak and mysterious poem – you never know what’s really going on. I love the hints and the phrases. And it absolutely sums up a certain kind of book – such as this one.

The Flint Anchor tells the story of the Barnards, a trading family in a small Norfolk port town in the first half of the 19^th century. They live in Anchor House, a severe, large brick building in the middle of town, surrounded by a high dark flint wall topped with spikes (strong metaphor work by Warner here). Patriarch John marries Julia, they have a lot of children, many of whom die. Then the story really gets going: Julia takes to drink, the oldest son is disgraced, there are three sisters – Euphemia, Mary and Ellen, and a younger boy Wilberforce. The book meanders round taking in one or another of them apparently casually, though I am quite sure it is very carefully planned. Nobody has much of a good time. John Barnard is a dreadful old man who sets his dead hand on everyone: though at the same time he is a very moral person, he is generous and kind and occasionally does surprising good deeds. Warner’s huge magic talent is to be able to draw these contrasting features, that he really is all these things. This time round, he reminded me of Thomas Hardy’s The Mayor of Casterbridge (which I’m shocked to see I have never blogged on) – Michael Henchard is to me one of the great fictional creations, and John Barnard is right there beside him, in terms of complexity and full characterisation.

Barnard favours one of his children over the others – Mary – and this is at the root of the awful fates that await most of the people in the book. (I do not think this is a spoiler. I also do not think that there is meant to be any incestuous side to the relationship).

The reader gazes at the family, knowing that no good will come of anyone’s attempts to get away, to get on, to become happy, to have a loving marriage or friendship. Yet somehow this is not a lowering or miserable book: and it is very very funny, and full of surprises.

There is a description of someone visiting the benighted house when only Julia (the drunken mother) is at home -

as uncomfortable a visit as though he had paid it to a she-bear moodily dozing away the hours before its next meal

- a description that makes me laugh out loud again and again.

Julia has lost too many children, had too many pregnancies, and becomes close to immobile as well as drinking too much. She is no real use to her children, but she sees what is going on, and then just occasionally she speaks uncomfortable truths to the horror of her husband.

There is a young man, Thomas, who finds himself responsible for an awful old aunt who is ‘flustering after him like a featherbed in a nightmare’.

And there is this very minor character:

Hartley was now 78, stone deaf, and a military Munchhausen. He talked incessantly about his experiences in the Peninsular War, the nuns who fled to him for succour, the advice he had given to Wellington. John Barnard chafed with embarrassment, and presently with rage, remembering that during the years when Hartley represented himself as storming Badajoz and rescuing whole convents from worse than death, he was in fact living comfortably at Anchor House.

Something STW has in common with Hilary Mantel – lavishing luxurious words and thoughts on minor moments.

Euphemia almost gets away early on – there is a young man who likes her. Elaborate and complex goings-on ensue, including a staged attack by a bulldog which is delightfully knockabout and belongs in a farce.

You feel that Warner must have known and loved the area she writes about:

As they drove northward by the coast road, views of the sea were often before their eyes, and the sails of the windmills twirled easily on a light sea-breeze

This put me in mind of the top picture,which is from my very own art collection, ahem.

And there is an astonishing description of John Barnard skating, too long to quote: He skated daily in a solemn solitary joy….

It is just about the only time we ever see him happy and calm – on the ice ‘he travelled a stage deeper into a region that was partly the kingdom of heaven…’ (it’s no wonder my edition has for its cover that legendary picture by Raeburn of the Reverend Walker Skating…)

Every so often John Barnard realizes what a worthless person his beloved daughter Mary really is – of course it isn’t the same relationship, but it reminds me of Swann in Proust, who says “To think that I wasted years of my life, that I wanted to die, that I felt my deepest love, for a women who did not even appeal to me, who was not my type!” (Lydia Davis transl). But there is another layer here: because it is overtly stated that John is at least partially responsible: his treatment of his daughter did her no good at all.

It is so hard to analyze how Warner creates her effects – it can seem casual but it plainly isn’t. I take extensive notes when I’m reading books for the blog, and very very occasionally I read a book where I don’t need to - I feel I could find a quote on every page to portray the book’s magic. This is such a case – and yet I still can’t explain why I love it so much.

And, I have so much to say that there will be another post…

Skating picture: Tyne and Wear archives on Flickr