The Matchmaker by Stella Gibbons

The Matchmaker by Stella Gibbons

published 1949 or 1950

“Oh, I suddenly couldn’t bear [the furniture] another minute, so I moved it into the woodshed,” said Alda cheerfully.

“Into the woodshed? …Quite nice pieces, as I remember them,” said Mr. Waite, reprovingly.

“Oh no, definitely nasty,” said Alda, who was beginning to feel slightly hysterical.

“‘Something nasty in the woodshed,’” said Jean. “Alda darling, shall I go and make the tea? The children will be in any minute.”

 

Well, get you. Stella Gibbons the one person entitled to make this joke. (for those not in the know: the phrase something nasty in the woodshed originates in her earlier book Cold Comfort Farm, and became common currency)

Later someone does the washing up ‘vigorously yet carefully… with a little mop’ – clettering the dishes! Though sadly this turns into a ‘miserable little dishcloth’ a few pages later.

This book came up in the comments when we were discussing poultry farming – a miserable way to lose all your money, much featured in the fiction and lives of the 1930s. So then I found this excellent Punch cartoon, for another mention.

I did not like The Matchmaker very much, but somehow am finding a lot to say about it – there is an earlier post here:

A Matchmaking Christmas

--I think I just kept finding good illos.

The plot: Alda is the heroine, mother of three girls, husband still away most of the time, house bombed. She moves into a fairly horrible cottage in the country while she waits for new accommodation and to get her husband back.

An old friend, Jean, comes to stay with them, helping out practically and financially. Alda determines that Jean – unlucky in love – must find a husband. Meanwhile, at the nearby farm there are two Italian POWs coming every day to work, and then a landgirl, Sylvia.

She is the focus of much of Gibbons’ apparent dislike. As I said recently about a quite different book,

she appears to create a lot of characters whom she actively dislikes, pouring scorn on their clothes, décor, weight, life choices. Is it naïve to say it seems slightly unfair to give people these attributes and then lay into them for exactly those features?… but this is widespread among many people writing about British provincial life.

It happens a lot, and it annoys me. Martin Amis (in a wider discussion) talks about authors putting a ‘thumb on the scales’, ie pushing readers into opinions on the characters the author has created, and that’s a good description.

Alda strikes the modern reader as complacent, stupid, unthinking and rather ridiculous. Very occasionally the author gently mocks her, but I think it’s clear that she is the wise woman Mary Sue – even though her attempts at matchmaking are about as successful as those of JaneAusten’s Emma (and if Emma annoys you, as some of my readers revealed, then I wouldn’t try this book). In the comments mentioned above, and in other reviews, there is a common reaction of people wanting to slap her, and that seems about right.

Another trope that annoys me is feisty quirky character who are very critical of other people as being ill-mannered, difficult or boring, while sounding exactly like that themselves. (Mary Wesley was the queen of this feature. Christianna Brand does it all the time but somehow gets away with it)

This is typical:

Alda slightly despised her, of course, for her lack of education and her wrong values…

Education has got Alda nowhere, and her values are not admirable.

So – anything good? I believe the country and weather descriptions are well-written  for people who like that kind of thing. The description of harvesting took me back to a childhood family memory, I even realized via the book how little help we children actually must have been with the stooking, which was an entertaining revelation all these years later. I think we were convinced we were vital to the production.

The odd funny moment: “….of course, I’m a Communist——” Here Mr. Waite gave a sardonic nod. I knew it, said the nod; I was expecting it. Necromancy and the Black Mass to follow.

Occasional scenes overcame her prejudices, and that’s the best I can say.

Sylvia the landgirl, reminiscing about VE night in fact, says

I had an awful old Lana Turner, too, miles too tight it was, it looked simply awful, so I pinched one of the boys’ coats…

-I am going to tentatively suggest that she means a sweater? That is the garment Lana Turner is most famous for (‘The Sweater Girl’) and I can’t find any slang reference to any other clothes associated with her name.

I like to notice items to show attitudes to children don’t change:

“Children aren’t brought up nowadays to be respectful to grown-ups. It’s an old-fashioned idea, and so long as they aren’t rude it doesn’t matter.”

The book that provoked all this – Ember Lane – is forgotten now, but I would say was a better book. I would never want to read The Matchmaker again, that’s for sure. It is snobbish, racist, & the Italians talk in a ludicrous way in English

“Yes. Good-a. You-a bambina?”

And a parallel ludicrous way when they are said to be talking in Italian:

“thou canst imagine!... Thou knowest!

Top picture shows Italian POWs working the land, IWM, an oil painting by Michael Ford

Gorgeous harvest photo from the Imperial War Museum, taken during WW2 by Wildman Shaw –colour photos still not common then. And the harvest scenes in the book is notable for being full of people.