The Sea Lady

The Sea Lady: a Novel / Margaret Drabble, 345 p.

I've enjoyed everything I've read by Margaret Drabble, but this novel felt a little limp to me.  As children, Ailsa and Humphrey play by the sea in the north of England.  They meet as young adults and become deeply connected, only to definitively separate soon after.  Some forty years later they reconnect near the same seaside spot, this time to accept honorary degrees from a nearby university.  As always, Drabble draws interesting characters who are very much products of their acutely analyzed time, and it's always interesting to read about them.  Much of the energy of the novel is directed at the anticipation of Ailsa and Humphrey's reunion rather than their actual interaction, which is perhaps what was missing for me.

The Red Queen / Margaret Drabble, 334 pp.

I've enjoyed other Margaret Drabble novels recently, such as The Millstone and The Witch of Exmoor. The Red Queen is unusual, based on the real-life memoir of an eighteenth-century Korean princess. Drabble writes her own version of the memoir, then puts it in the hands of a contemporary English academic. Barbara, whose life bears some resemblance to the tragic story of the princess, travels to Seoul for a conference, where she becomes obsessed with the memoir. She forms a connection with two very different men while in Korea, and explores the old haunts of the princess. In the final portion, Barbara is back in England, where her personal story loops in more closely with that of the princess through her connection to a baby Chinese girl waiting for adoption.

I enjoyed the story of the Princess but found most of Barbara's tale slow and flat. The two women are meant to serve as counterpoints but somehow I couldn't find resonance in their mutual stories. The brief conclusion, on the other hand, was lovely. I don't want to give too much away, but as Barbara meets the orphan baby Chen Jianyi I felt that I was finally reading the author I had begun to like in her earlier novels. Very psychologically acute - almost enough for tears.