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Summary
Summary
This is the story of Humphrey Clark and Ailsa Kelman, who spent a summer together as children in Ornemouth, a town by the gray North Sea. As they journey back to Ornemouth to receive honorary degrees from a new university there--Humphrey on the train, Ailsa flying--they take stock of their lives over the past thirty years, their careers, and their shared personal entanglements. Humphrey is a successful marine biologist, happiest under water, but now retired; Ailsa, scholar and feminist, is celebrated for her pioneering studies of gender and for her gift for lucid and dramatic exposition. The memories of their lives unfold as Margaret Drabble exquisitely details the social life in England in the second half of the last century.
Author Notes
Margaret Drabble was born on June 5, 1939 in Sheffield, England. She attended The Mount School in York and Newnham College, Cambridge University. After graduation, she joined the Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford during which time she understudied for Vanessa Redgrave.
She is a novelist, critic, and the editor of the fifth edition of The Oxford Companion to English Literature. Her works include A Summer Bird Cage; The Millstone, which won the John Llewelyn Rhys Prize in 1966; Jerusalem the Golden, which won James Tait Black Prize in 1967; and The Witch of Exmoor. She also received the E. M. Forster award and was awarded a Society of Authors Travelling Fellowship in the 1960s and the Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1980.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (6)
Publisher's Weekly Review
The bold latest from by the ever-inventive Drabble (The Red Queen, etc.) tells the tale of two aging academics-Ailsa Kelman, flamboyant feminist activist and TV talking head, and marine biologist Humphrey Clark-who are traveling separately to the North Sea coastal town of Ornemouth: she's presenting a book award that he, unknowingly, will receive. The two met at Ornemouth as children one summer toward the end of WWII; they lost track of one another and haven't seen each other since their brief, disastrous marriage in 1960s London. A cocky narrator reveals the charged memories, of childhood and beyond, that the trip triggers for both-and occasionally breaks free to fill in narrative gaps and pose destiny-altering scenarios. Neither is content: Humphrey is lonely and dissatisfied by his scholarship's mere competence; Ailsa, twice divorced, is uncertain if she's a success or a caricature of success (her cervix has been on TV). Secondaries include red-headed local boy Sandy Clegg, and Ailsa's rich, unscrupulous brother Tommy, in thick with the royals. Nothing as simple as a love story, this prismatic novel shines as a faceted portrait of England's changing mores, as an ode on childhood's joys and injustices, and a primer for marine biology, complete with hermaphrodite crayfish and fossils of sea lilies. Seductive as the tides, it pulls the reader in. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
There are few pleasures more mentally invigorating than astringently witty and wise satirical fiction. Drabble is a master of the form, creating audacious women characters of withering insight and triumphant sensuality. Her latest, Ailsa Kelman, is the most reviled of celebrities: an outspoken, sexy, shrewd, and exhibitionist feminist scholar. In her sixties and still indomitable, she is, however, haunted by her past, and is now heading back to the place where she met the great love of her life, a modest city on the cold yet fertile North Sea. As a child she spent an indelible summer there, as did Humphrey Clark, who was so smitten with the sea that he became a notable marine biologist. Now, he, too, is returning to the source of his life's passion. The sea, the crucible of life, infuses every aspect of this blissfully commanding performance, and Drabble goes all out in an orgy of marine imagery, from mermaid-inspired attire, to oceanic decor, tsunamis of emotion, and salty sex, powering a steady current of exhilarating metaphors involving tides, fish, seashells, reefs, and sharks. And this is no idle wordplay. As in The Peppered Moth (2001), Drabble uses a character's scientific quest to delve into humankind's abuse of the natural world, here portraying a man full of reverence for the sea in a time of rampant marine devastation. But for all its dark knowledge, oceanic psychology, and spiny social critique, Drabble's novel is as scintillating as a sunny day onboard a fast-moving sailboat on the life-sustaining sea. --Donna Seaman Copyright 2006 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
AILSA KELMAN, the heroine of Margaret Drabble's 17th novel, first appears in a dress in which she "gleamed and rippled with smooth muscle, like a fish." This costume choice is "a happy accident" because Ailsa has been asked to announce, in front of a large London gathering and an even larger television audience, the winner of the Plunkett Prize "for a general science book with a vaguely defined ecological or environmental message" - which turns out to be "Hermaphrodite: Sea Change and Sex Change," a study of gender-bending in diverse marine species. While she reads the citation in the hall of a natural history museum, beneath a giant fiberglass manta ray, "the jaws of sharks, fixed in the gape of their everlasting grins," display "their triple rows of teeth." Ailsa searches the crowd for Humphrey Clark, a marine biologist, but this man, whom "she most keenly sought and avoided and hoped and feared to see," is absent. Instead he is presented to the reader as he rides a train to the seaside town of Ornemouth to receive an honorary degree from the local university. Given his occupation, his musings naturally assume an ichthyological cast: "One could spend one of many lifetimes studying the optics of fish. Happily studying the optics of fish. Or the limbs of lobsters. Or the spawning of lampreys. Or the sex changes of wrasse. Or the cleaning symbioses of sharks." Just when it seems time either to towel off and abandon the book or grab an imaginary aqualung and flippers and go with the narrative flow, a third character appears, someone Drabble identifies as the Public Orator, who comments on the action: "Two of the principal characters have been presented, in some detail, and we suspect that they are soon to meet." Who is this guy? Not, he quickly assures us, the sort of gabby, omniscient narrator you might find in 19th-century novels: "The Orator is not a puppet master, and on principle dislikes artificial arrangements, narrative devices, false dawns and false epiphanies." Nor is he, as he later admits, a metafictional device designed to display, with a wink and a nod, the artificiality of all he conveys: "The Public Orator is trying to work out yet another story, and is both frustrated and encouraged by the lack of an ending, and by what appears (can it be?) to be the free will of the protagonists." "The Sea Lady" is a waterlogged, ramshackle contraption that fascinates even as it annoys. Drabble's longtime readers won't be surprised by the novel's tactics. After all, the most important entry in her long bibliography may be her sympathetic biography of Arnold Bennett, one of the Edwardian novelists - along with John Galsworthy and H. G. Wells - denounced by Virginia Woolf. ("They have given us a house," Woolf declared, arguing that their concentration on external description, on the workings of society, failed to convey the inner lives of their characters, "in the hope that we may be able to deduce the human beings who live there.") It took nerve for Drabble, then chiefly known as the author of sensitive books about frustrated young women, to quarrel with modernism's most exalted heroine, and she extended her challenge by hauling a lot of Edwardian luggage into novels like "The Realms of Gold," "The Ice Age," "The Middle Ground" and "The Radiant Way." These books confronted Drabble's favored cast of characters - hyper-educated, chattering solipsists - with the blunt economic and class realities of the Thatcher years. In "The Sea Lady," Drabble has stuck to this regimen. Ailsa Kelman and Humphrey Clark share a long history, known only to themselves and each other. And fate, or possibly that unexplained Public Orator, has arranged for them to meet again as recipients of honorary degrees at Ornemouth, the place where their relationship began, more than half a century earlier. Humphrey spent his early childhood in the village of Finsterness, on the edge of Ornemouth, living with his mother and aunt while his father served in the British Navy during World War II. His memories of these days, roaming the edge of the beach with his friend, Sandy Clegg, are memorably, elegiacally recorded: "Nobody bothered to nag them not to go near the edge and not to swim out of their depth. They swam, and scrambled together along the cliffs, and waded in the river, and fished, and dug holes in the mud, and stared at the degenerate sea squirts, and collected buckets full of mermaid's purses, and captured razorfish and cockles." During one crucial summer, the Kelman family vacations nearby, and Ailsa and her older brother, Tommy, join Humphrey and Sandy in their adventures, Ailsa as the tagalong who refuses to be ignored or excluded. Years later, Humphrey and Ailsa will meet again and part again. Ailsa will go on to win renown and notoriety as a crusading feminist: "She has worn an aborted fetus on a chain around her neck, and submitted to a cervical examination on television." Humphrey will become a respected academic but, by his own estimate, a failure. What will happen when these two are back together, after shunning each other for more than 30 years? Before coming to that point, Drabble spoons out large dollops of erudition and research. The price of bread in postwar Ornemouth: "Twopence halfpenny, in old money, in 1947, for a large white loaf." A summary of British higher education over the past several decades: "The resisted rise of sociobiology, the waning of belles-lettres and of literary criticism, the rise of deconstruction, the rise of literary theory, the decline of the Germanic languages, the spread of the Hispanic languages, the death of easel art." The upheavals in marine biology: "The greylag goose and the stickleback were superseded by the fruit fly and the nematode worm and the laboratory mouse, and they in turn by the eukaryotic microbe and the selfish gene and the spiteful gene." Nearly all this information is interesting, but it tends to stall Ailsa's and Humphrey's journeys back to that promised, fateful reunion. When this moment arrives, so do other distractions - chiefly in the person of the Public Orator, who turns out to be none other than. ... No, that surprise should be earned only by reading the novel. The greater amazement is that "The Sea Lady," despite all its cumbersome digressions and interjections, achieves a clear, convincing, transcendent moment at the end. It's possible, upon closing the book, both to wonder what Virginia Woolf would have made of the eukaryotic microbe and how Margaret Drabble managed to pull a touch of magic out of such a prosaic old hat. Drabble's two main characters have shunned each other for 30 years. Now they're about to meet again. Paul Gray is a regular contributor to the Book Review.
Guardian Review
Each of Margaret Drabble's novels has been an accurate, honest record of its time in the idiom of its time, and yet she has never been truly fashionable. A sharp critical intellect keeps her keenly aware of trend, and she's never bucked it; but the qualities for which I value her fiction could not be satisfactorily called modernist, nor are they postmodern now. Of course I'm trying to avoid the word old-fashioned, because I fear Drabble herself thinks it the kiss of death; and yet what is one to say? A compelling narrative impetus, essentially straightforward though entertainingly subtle; a moral burden, clear though mostly unstated; acute and amusing observation of society, gender, manners, fashions; strongly individual characters, whose character is probably their destiny. Lord, am I talking about Jane Austen? A while back, Drabble seemed to be going a bit astray, fascinated by some pseudo-issues such as the attraction that serial murderers are supposed to have for all of us; I thought her novels suffered accordingly. It is a pleasure to read The Sea Lady and find again the canny, cagey, unfooled, intransigent author of The Needle's Eye To get the cavilling over with, I'll register my objection to one character (or voice, or persona, or whatever) in The Sea Lady - a Public Orator, male, who appears sporadically in a self-conscious pose to comment on the story, combining the metafictional interfering author, the Thackerayan aside to the reader, and a faint whiff of Bunyan. Some of the passages about him are eloquent: ". . . the powers of the Orator are limited. They have been limited to the forethought, to the planning, to the invitation, to the setting of the stage, to the choice of the venue, to the public confrontation. After that, the actors have this terrible freedom. They can write their own script. The Orator's formal script is already written, but they can write their own informal interchanges, as they meet in a crowded room, and as they climb the painful cobbled steps. This is risky, this is terrible." So it is. It is also revealing. But I'm not certain that the revelation is relevant. It serves to emphasise the characters' artificiality while claiming their autonomy, and thus to protect the author from critical accusations of soft-heartedness; but having fearlessly subtitled her story "A Late Romance", she might as well have braved it out without the Orator. He is, incidentally, related to but cannot be identified with one of the actual characters, to whom I also have some objections; he resurfaces far too late, and unconvincingly. Ockham's razor might spare him, but would shave the Orator quite away. There is no need to multiply entities when you've got hold of two such good solid ones as Ailsa and Humphrey. Ailsa is the Sea Lady whom we first meet dressed in silver sequinned scales. "She gleamed and rippled with smooth muscle, like a fish. She was boldly dressed, for a woman in her sixties," and she's a bold woman - a brazen hussy of the intellect, a star in the showbiz of the mind. She is wearing her fish-scales to present a literary prize, after which she will drive north to receive an honorary degree at a small university. She is also the Sea Lady who loved and married a man who loved fish and the sea, a marine biologist; they divorced and have not seen each other for decades, but he, as it happens (not by chance), will be travelling north by train to receive an honorary degree at the same ceremony. They are converging. Ailsa is genuinely brilliant and also a fake, maybe a bit of a monster, a mermaid on dry land. Humphrey is the real thing, both feet on the ground, an excellent scientist with a strong moral sense, a kind, responsible man. She is all performer, driven by competition; he has forfeited top honours in his field by refusing to treat science as a competition for recognition. Both have had success and yet have had to settle for somewhat dubious rewards. But the two of them have a history, and not a simple one. Long before they were married they knew each other as children, in that same small northern city by the sea, just after the end of the second world war. The depth and weight of the story, its ballast, its bottom, are in the pages that relate Humphrey's two summers as a child in Ornemouth and Finsterness. The flexible, steady accuracy of the narration in these chapters is marvellous; the story is utterly engrossing. Identification with the child's point of view all too often leads to the whining falsities seen, for example, in The Catcher in the Rye , but Drabble has always been able to write as an adult about children. Her generous and unsentimental truthfulness to the condition of childhood is very rare. Hump is a nice boy, and he has one wonderfully happy summer - not an easy thing to write about, happiness. The betrayal, anxiety and dubious gains of the second summer are more predictable, yet ring equally true. So satisfying are these hundred pages that the rest of the book has a problem matching them, particularly as the direction of the narrative is trickier, moving back and forth. Humphrey grows up into a really nice man - again, not an easy thing to write about - but when he and Ailsa, who is not a very nice woman, although an entertaining one, first meet again as adults and fall in love, the episode fails to engage on the deep level of the Ornemouth summers. It's all right, as lust goes. But novelistically, it isn't much more than an interlude between the dense, brilliant reality of the beginning - children on the beach - and the guarded ambiguity of the end: the 60-year-old smiling public man and woman, receiving their accolades. And, perhaps, finally, their true rewards. Ursula K Le Guin's City of Illusions will be published in paperback by Gollancz later this year. To order The Sea Lady for pounds 17.99 with free UK p&p call 0870 836 0875. Caption: article-drabble.1 So it is. It is also revealing. But I'm not certain that the revelation is relevant. It serves to emphasise the characters' artificiality while claiming their autonomy, and thus to protect the author from critical accusations of soft-heartedness; but having fearlessly subtitled her story "A Late Romance", she might as well have braved it out without the Orator. He is, incidentally, related to but cannot be identified with one of the actual characters, to whom I also have some objections; he resurfaces far too late, and unconvincingly. Ockham's razor might spare him, but would shave the Orator quite away. There is no need to multiply entities when you've got hold of two such good solid ones as Ailsa and Humphrey. The depth and weight of the story, its ballast, its bottom, are in the pages that relate Humphrey's two summers as a child in Ornemouth and Finsterness. The flexible, steady accuracy of the narration in these chapters is marvellous; the story is utterly engrossing. Identification with the child's point of view all too often leads to the whining falsities seen, for example, in The Catcher in the Rye , but [Margaret Drabble] has always been able to write as an adult about children. Her generous and unsentimental truthfulness to the condition of childhood is very rare. Hump is a nice boy, and he has one wonderfully happy summer - not an easy thing to write about, happiness. The betrayal, anxiety and dubious gains of the second summer are more predictable, yet ring equally true. - Ursula K Le Guin.
Kirkus Review
An intense melancholy pervades the latest novel from the prolific and always thoughtful Drabble (The Red Queen, 2004, etc.), as she untangles the twisted strands of a 50-year relationship between a marine biologist and a well-known feminist. Celebrity-scholar Ailsa Kelman makes plans to accept an honorary degree from a university in northern England because she knows it's a chance to see her old love Humphrey Clark, who is also receiving a degree. Although unaware that Ailsa will be there, Humphrey has a foreboding that an unpleasant surprise awaits him. As they travel to Ornemouth from London, Ailsa by plane and rental car, Humphrey by train, they relive their pasts. They first met as children during a summer vacation on the coast near Ornemouth. Humphrey, mainly concerned that his best friend Sandy had fallen under the sway of Ailsa's attractively devilish brother, barely registered Ailsa, who was herself full of longing and resentment as she tagged along with the boys. When they met again in their 20s, Ailsa was an actress, Humphrey at the start of his career in science. They fell passionately in love, but their brief marriage was doomed once their lives took different paths. Each entered unsuccessful second marriages, and each parented a child with whom there developed a degree of estrangement. Ailsa dropped acting to become a scholar and social commentator. Humphrey had a successful career as a marine biologist of some renown. Neither publicly acknowledged their relationship or marriage. Now in their 60s, they both look back on their accomplishments and failures with a certain regret. Ailsa works a little too hard at her high-energy persona while Humphrey has become stodgy and almost timid. Drabble mixes sociology, psychology and philosophy--not to mention marine biology--into what is at heart a bittersweet autumnal romance. Emotionally reflective and intellectually invigorating. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
Two British academics meet after decades and reconstruct their frayed lives; see the review, p. 91. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Excerpts
Excerpts
The PresentationThe winning book was about fish, and to present it, she appeared to have dressed herself as a mermaid, in silver sequinned scales. Her bodice was close-fitting, and the metallic skirt clung to her solid hips before it flared out below the knees, concealing what might once have been her tail. Her bared brown shoulders and womanly bosom rose powerfully, as she drew in her breath and gazed across the heads of the seated diners at the distant autocue. She gleamed and rippled with smooth muscle, like a fish. She was boldly dressed, for a woman in her sixties, but she came of a bold generation, and she seemed confident that the shadowy shoals of her cohort were gathered around her in massed support as she flaunted herself upon the podium. She felt the dominion. It pumped through her, filling her with the adrenalin of exposure. She was ready for her leap.The silver dress must have been a happy accident, for until a few hours earlier in the day nobody knew which book had carried off the trophy. The five judges had met for their final deliberations over a sandwich lunch in a dark anachronistic wood-panelled room off an ill-lit nineteenth-century corridor. The result of their conclave was about to be announced. Most of the guests, including the authors, were as yet ignorant of the judges choice.Ailsa Kelmans wardrobe could hardly have been extensive enough to accommodate all six of the works upon the shortlist, a list which included topics such as genetically modified crops, foetal sentience and eubacteria: subjects which did not easily suggest an elegant theme for a couturier. Would it be suspected that she, as chair of the judges for the shortlist, had favoured a winner to match her sequinned gown, and had pressed for its triumph? Surely not. For although she was derided in sections of the press as an ardent self-publicist, she was also known to be incorruptible. The sea-green, silvery, incorruptible Ailsa. And her fellow-judges were not of a calibre to submit to bullying or to manipulation.The venue of the dinner might also shortly be observed to be something of a happy accident. The diners were seated at elegantly laid little round tables beneath a large grey-blue fibreglass model of a manta ray, which hung suspended above them like a primeval spaceship or an ultra-modern mass-people-carrier. They could look nervously up at its grey-white underbelly, at its wide wings, at its long whip-like tail, as though they were dining on the ocean floor. Like the costume of Ailsa Kelman, this matching of winner and venue could not have been planned. The museum was a suitable venue for a prize for a general science book with a vaguely defined ecological or environmental message, but the diners could as easily have been seated in some other hall of the huge yellow-and-blue-brick Victorian necropolis, surrounded by ferns or beetles or minerals or the poignant bones of dinosaurs. The dominant theme of fish had prevailed by chance.The programme was Excerpted from The Sea Lady by Margaret Drabble, Margaret Drabble All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
