It is breakfast time, c. 1890; we are somewhere in England, and our class is upper middle. The family assembles. Coffee cups are passed; a letter arrives, perhaps from a treacherous lawyer, or a spouse believed seven years dead. A manservant stands by, ready to relish the night's disasters. Has there been a suicide attempt, perhaps? Or a cast-off nightgown (incriminating, monogrammed) found in a room where it should not be?
Assume that for once the night has been uneventful. No uncles have disappeared into a snowstorm; no one has a sudden marriage to announce. Breakfast conversation proceeds: formal, dignified, polite. Between the lines you can hear the sound of knives being sharpened.
...
Ivy Compton-Burnett is one of the most original, artful and elegant writers of our century. To read her for the first time is a singular experience. There is almost no description or scene setting; the writing is pared to the bone, the technique is a gavotte on needles. The story unfolds in page after page of spiked dialogue. It is not always clear who is speaking; the words themselves are unlike any you have come across before.
And this, from the back cover blurb: "To the listening ear, these Ivy Compton-Burnett novels will play a rare music, subtly attuned to the most disturbing notes of the human comedy."
All true, perfectly true. Compton-Burnett does have a unique style, and to read her for the first time is a singular experience - although, in some ways, the oddest thing is how naturally the writing flows despite a solid 90% or so of it being undiluted dialogue. The characters are unfailingly proper in their addresses to each other, and yet there are so many undercurrents flowing through all that they say, and nearly every phrase is somehow barbed (even if the only person being pricked is the speaker). It's all very genteel, but not gentle at all - and one feels the acuteness of Compton-Burnett's intellect and observations very keenly as she goes about dissecting the mores of these very English upper-middle class types from the turn of the last century, well-off enough but not so much that money isn't the single largest concern in all of their lives. It's really difficult to give a sense of A Family and a Fortune - I don't think I could do better than Mantel (and hence the quotin' above) - and I think it needs to be read. The closest analogue I can come up with is Lurie, but that's really not all that close.
