{"id":8424,"date":"2020-08-17T11:29:12","date_gmt":"2020-08-17T11:29:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/?p=8424"},"modified":"2020-12-10T12:28:15","modified_gmt":"2020-12-10T12:28:15","slug":"miss-mole-by-e-h-young","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/?p=8424","title":{"rendered":"Miss Mole by E.H. Young"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Published by Dean St Press 2 August 2020<\/strong><\/p>\n

250pp, paperback, \u00a310.99<\/strong><\/p>\n

Reviewed by Lesley Glaister<\/strong><\/p>\n

Click here to buy this book<\/a><\/p>\n

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E.H. Young\u2019s novel, Miss Mole<\/em>, written in 1930, features one of the \u2018nicest\u2019 literary characters I\u2019ve ever encountered.\u00a0 By \u2018nice\u2019 I mean anything but bland. Rather, Hannah Mole is brave, well-meaning, optimistic and warm-hearted as well as being gloriously, humanely and realistically flawed. Hannah is nearing forty and hardly a beauty, having sallow skin, \u2018a satirical nose\u2019 and a questionable wardrobe. She\u2019s one of the class of women, who, having no husband or home of her own, is forced to move from situation to situation, the predicament of so many women of her class: \u2018A sad multitude \u2026 with carefully pleasant faces, hiding their ailments, lowering their ages and thankfully accepting less than they earned.\u2019<\/p>\n

An extra pleasurable aspect of the novel comes with Hannah Mole\u2019s quality of observation and the delight she takes in her surroundings and particularly in nature, so that her world, so drab and narrow in some respects, is vibrant with detail and colour: \u2018The fall of a chestnut sounded stealthy, as though its descent was a little shameful in the general glory. It lay among the leaves, a glossy roan, bursting from its green spiked shell \u2026\u2019<\/p>\n

Early in the novel we see Hannah accept, with trepidation, the role of housekeeper in the home of the recently widowed minister Robert Corder and his two fractious daughters.\u00a0 There\u2019s very little plot, and the most understated, almost subliminal of romances. The interest comes from the interactions between the small cast of characters all of whom are lovingly detailed and complex creations, all quite ordinary and quite extraordinarily rendered, so that the reader becomes fascinated in the smallest and pettiest of their reactions and transactions.<\/p>\n

Much of the dialogue is very funny as the characters conceal and reveal their sometimes questionable motivations. It\u2019s a comedy of manners \u2013 propriety needs to be respected all times \u2013 though part of the comedy comes from Miss Mole\u2019s sense of the absurd and the way she\u2019ll unexpectedly cut through the nonsense to the consternation of her friends. She rehearses and tells jokes, she picks over conversations finding things she wishes she\u2019d said \u2013 she\u2019s so human and recognizable she almost makes me wince.<\/p>\n

Feeling the lack of children of her own as well as sympathy for the girls, Hannah sets out to win round the tricky Corder daughters\u2019 affection and trust, though once she does she feels the weight of responsibility. This is an admirably subtle reaction, a collision of Hannah Mole\u2019s characteristic optimism and realism: she tells herself that \u2018the things she wanted, if she had them, would soon turn into those she wanted no longer \u2013 here was God\u2019s happy idea of compensation.\u2019 It is this freshness of thought, this determination not to feel hard done by along with her mischievous sense of humour, that wins over almost everyone Hanna encounters \u2013 as well as the reader \u2013 so that we really care.\u00a0 When she hits a low point and her sunny nature is temporarily dimmed it feels quite tragic and the mutedly happy ending gives great satisfaction and pleasure.<\/p>\n

This is a gentle, slow-moving and compelling novel, which I was sorry to finish. I\u2019m looking forward to reading everything else I can find by E.H. Young.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Lesley Glaister<\/p>\n

Hannah Mole is brave, well-meaning, optimistic and warm-hearted as well as being gloriously, humanely and realistically flawed. Hannah is nearing forty and hardly a beauty, having sallow skin, \u2018a satirical nose\u2019 and a questionable wardrobe. She\u2019s one of the class of women, who, having no husband or home of her own, is forced to move from situation to situation, the predicament of so many women of her class: \u2018A sad multitude \u2026 with carefully pleasant faces, hiding their ailments, lowering their ages and thankfully accepting less than they earned’ […] in Reviews<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,19,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-fiction-and-non-fiction","category-notable-books","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8424"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8424\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8426,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8424\/revisions\/8426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}