The Three Sisters by May Sinclair aka Mary Amelia St Clair – one of her novels was highly praised by critics, including George Orwell, while Agatha Christie considered it one of the greatest English novels of its time -10 out of 10

 

The Three Sisters by May Sinclair aka Mary Amelia St Clair – one of her novels was highly praised by critics, including George Orwell, while Agatha Christie considered it one of the greatest English novels of its time

10 out of 10

 

 

This wonderful novel was published in 1914, it is included on the list of 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read, and makes one wonder about how standards have changed, or they haven’t, at least in parts of the world, where women are still struggling to gain equal rights, and their having extramarital affairs is punishable, at times by death, which is called ‘honor killing’, because in this manner, the reputation of the males is ‘restored’

 

This is a very complex, rewarding novel, which you can get for free, either in eBook format, with the Gutenberg Project, or as an audiobook, at https://librivox.org/ where you can also volunteer, if you have the gift (alas, there have been some instances, one that comes to mind is The Home and The World by Tagore, where we have someone kind enough to offer his skill, only he does not have it) and help with generous proposals

The favorite in all the book might well be Gwenda Carteret, one of The Three Sisters – but she is the incentive to place the needed spoiler alert, warning, disclaimer – these lines are biased, they express a subjective point of view, and furthermore, they lack substance, authority and so much (everything possibly) else besides…

 

There are two other sisters, Mary and Alice, daughters of the vicar who has had to move to a remote parish, where only Gwenda seems to be enjoying the countryside, the walks, which she would at one point take with doctor Steven Rowcliffe (remember you have had your spoiler, warning) but alas, she might become the Lost Lady

Alice thinks she loves the doctor, but she could just prove how elusive the feeling is, this reader always thinks of Thomas Mann http://realini.blogspot.com/2023/06/little-herr-friedmann-by-thomas-mann.html and a short story read in adolescence, in which the Magician speaks of love – there are so many who boast that their love is beyond words, but when it comes to the test, that is just infatuation

 

Alice tries to impress upon the doctor, she gets ill, in that she pretends to be, so that she gets the attention, but her condition is also serious, to the point where Steven Rowcliffe talks to the vicar and Gwenda about the alternatives, either the young woman gets mad, or she dies if she is not married soon, or immediately

Gwenda and the doctor had been going out on walks and the man was sure he loves her – but looking at the paragraph above, we could question this, especially with the hindsight obtained at the end of the narrative – and tries to enlighten the subject of his desire, without much success, until the crisis

 

The generous, altruistic woman decides to sacrifice her wellbeing for her sister, sure that if she departs, then the ‘coast will be clear’, Alice will be able to get married to the only suitable, indeed, available man in those remote parts, and thus she writes to her step mother, the third wife of the vicar…

This is the spouse that had left him, making the clergy, a morose, often unbearable man, oppressive to his three daughters, stubborn and determined to prevent his daughter from going to London, another to marry, all concerned with his own felicity, but all will prove impervious, rejecting his bullying

 

Nevertheless, Gwenda talks to Mary about the reason for her departure, the need to save Alice, give her a surviving chance by eliminating the only competition for the attention of the doctor, only the latter, after some disillusionment, the doctor becomes aware of the attractiveness of…Mary, and the latter surprises everyone

She knew of the reason why Gwenda left the ‘battlefield’, and yet, she will be the beneficiary, soon becoming Mrs. Rowcliffe, and worse, she will confront Alice in a memorable scene (well, there are many, not just this one) after she is a married, ‘respectable’ woman, they find that Alice was consorting with the wrong sort

 

It was a time of separation between classes, the rich versus the poor, educated and the lower groups, mainly aligned along the wealth barriers – as Hernan Diaz says in his Pulitzer Prize Winner for Literature Trust ‘money is, potentially, everything’- and the fact that Alice becomes the girlfriend of a man from a lower class is anathema

When the family finds out, they have what today would be called ‘an intervention’, the man in question had had an affair with the girl who worked as servant in the vicar’s household, until the latter, in his pernicious fury, send the pregnant woman out, with disregard to her condition, and the request to stay through Christmas, which was more concerned with the service she would provide to the sisters

 

This is another instance when the ‘man of God’ shows such abominable lack of charity, in the name of defending the church, morals, honor, standing against fornication and all that, but the clergy will soon have a heart attack, just after Alice comes to the conclusion that she will marry the man that had left her pregnant, not before having a clash with Mary, the former telling the latter that she has stolen the doctor from Gwenda

Gwenda has returned, she is the one to nurse the vicar, who has lost his memory and much else, and the only solace might be…the same doctor, who walks out at nights, with his sister-in-law, making the village talk about it…

 

Now for a question, and invitation – maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/unique-in-world.html?q=unique+in+the+world  – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the befits from it, other than the exercise per se

 

As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/realini-in-newsweek-participant-in.html

Some favorite quotes from To The Heritage and other works

‘Fiction is infinitely preferable to real life...As long as you avoid the books of Kafka or Beckett, the everlasting plot of fiction has fewer futile experiences than the careless plot of reality...Fiction's people are fuller, deeper, cleverer, more moving than those in real life…Its actions are more intricate, illuminating, noble, profound…There are many more dramas, climaxes, romantic fulfillment, twists, turns, gratified resolutions…Unlike reality, all of this you can experience without leaving the house or even getting out of bed…What's more, books are a form of intelligent human greatness, as stories are a higher order of sense…As random life is to destiny, so stories are to great authors, who provided us with some of the highest pleasures and the most wonderful mystifications we can find…Few stories are greater than Anna Karenina, that wise epic by an often foolish author…’

‚parturiunt montes, nascetur ridiculus mus’

“From Monty Python - The Meaning of Life...Well, it's nothing very special...Try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations.”