Novels

The Seven Sisters

Candida Wilton, recently divorced, is starting her life over again. Instead of staying in sheltered, comfortable Suffolk where her husband, dean of a girls’ school, continues to enjoy respect and good-standing despite his affair and remarriage, she moves to a colorful and slightly dangerous neighborhood in London. She enrolls in a Virgil class, joins a health club, signs up to visit someone in prison, and then unexpectedly comes into a pile of money. She embarks on a voyage with some of her classmates, retracing Aeneas’ footsteps and piecing together her own personal epic. (One of the reviews at Amazon points out that a plot summary sounds dull, but the novel is anything but!)

I’m ashamed to say that I haven’t read The Aeneid, so I’m sure there are many classical allusions and parallels that I missed beyond the connection between Candida and Dido. The title describes the friends on their trip to Tunis and Sicily, but it alludes as well to the Seven Sisters of the Pleiades and their associated mythology — which is also not my strong suit.  Nevertheless, I thoroughly enjoyed The Seven Sisters and want to read more of Margaret Drabble’s fiction in the near future.

Part of the enjoyment I felt had to do with a camaraderie I felt with Candida. I haven’t been divorced, and I’m at an earlier phase of life than she is. But I remember moving into a neighborhood with similar expectations when I was around 25 and living in Lexington. It was a little grungier than I had lived in before, and I had that same feeling that I was going to see another side of life.

Personal associations aside, the novel is simply well-written and drew me in quickly. The way the story is told is a marvel of point of view. Candida writes the first section in the first person as a diary. The second section is written in the third person; the third from her daughter’s perspective; and the final section I won’t give away. It leaves all the right questions unanswered till just the right time, so it’s a page-turner even though it’s not a high-action novel.

This was available at our library, but the one I’ve seen recommended more than once recently is The Needle’s Eye, and there are several other titles that receive high marks too. I look forward to exploring them.

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