I read this book immediately after reading ‘Hotel du Lac’ by Anita Brookner. The difference in style hits you quite full in the face and added to my thoughts that Brookner shows great elegance in her writing. I wouldn’t say that the writing here is elegant but the narrative is certainly interesting, the story well paced and much humour lies just under the surface. ‘A far cry from Kensington’ reads almost like social history, being very much of its time. That last phrase is perhaps over used. To me it means that the story describes a particular period of time both in atmosphere and historical detail.
The setting is London in the early 1950s, very much still just after the war. The last rationing not ending until 1954. You are shown the drab greyness and the way in which people are ‘managing’ but maybe not doing so terribly well.
Mrs Hawkins, Nancy to just a few, lives in a rooming house in South Kensington and works in a series of editorial, publishing jobs, none of which are very well paid. The large London house provides a microcosm which Muriel Spark invents and then uses for her own purposes.
Through a series of happy incidents, things look as if they will turn out well for Mrs Hawkins. I kept waiting for a nasty twist near the end but it didn’t happen. Maybe it would have made for a stronger story if it had but I was happy with the way it turned out.
This is not the same quality as ‘The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie’ but it is entertaining and worth a read.