This book came recommended to me by another lover of reading. It is so good to be offered something you might not pick up yourself. A quick skim through the introduction and a word with a couple of other book-loving friends (I have several) suggested that I am yet again behind the times, but isn’t that the wonderful thing about books – they last, and when they are new to you, they are just that, a new adventure. So here goes…

The opening line is in a contemplative tone and reminded me rather of Brontë’s Jane Eyre where the author shares her thoughts with the reader in quite an intimate way.

The setting is somewhat unusual: a somewhat dry conference about the problems faced by those who create indexes and bibliographies and those who edit books. On the face of it, the cast seemed rather dull but as we all know, human nature runs deep and emotions can be intense even among dry, middle-aged academics.

Maybe it’s not Love Island or even Rivals but there is matchmaking (Dolly Levi eat your heart out) and rivalry and intrigue – all in the best possible taste, of course.

The narrative centres around ‘the blond leonine’ Aylwin Forbes, a middle aged man who is recently separated; Viola (so much nicer than Vi or Violet which is her actual name) Dace, who fancies the pants off Aylwin; and Dulcie Mainwearing, herself getting over a broken engagement, who ‘love[s] finding out about people’. In their way, all three are lonely despite being surrounded by people. There is a gentility to the novel; polite everyday conversation belies the turbulence of feelings which exist beneath the surface.

Maybe it’s not Love Island or even Rivals but there is matchmaking (Dolly Levi eat your heart out) and rivalry and intrigue – all in the best possible taste, of course.

Of course, complications arise. Dulcie’s house fills up fast as first her niece, Laurel, comes to stay and then Viola, who has had ‘a row with her landlady’. Dulcie realises she also has feelings for Aylwin and finds herself competing with Viola but Aylwin has other thoughts, attracted (most unsuitably) as he is, to the much younger Laurel. He sees himself as an ‘impetuous romantic’ and remains so to the end. Dulcie is playing a sort of game, on the one hand superficial, and on the other, quietly intense (she does stalk Aylwin, after all). She felt it was ‘so much safer and more comfortable to live in the lives of other people’ yet her infatuation with Aylwin grows and her determination to find out so much more about him and his family becomes almost ludicrous – yet is presented as being perfectly natural.

Towards the end, there is a convening of most of the cast in Tavistock, with a sense of impending doom – or at least embarrassment. The Eagle House Hotel is not quite Fawlty Towers but there is the potential for a Brian Rix farce – at least in one’s mind – and a little straight talking – before everyone goes home again and love dominates.

There is no murder, no crime passionnel, no search for the grail and no grand tour; there’s just life and interaction between a group of ordinary people - except we all know that nobody is ordinary and life is a perpetual drama, mesmerizing in its perpetuity. This novel, with its understated wit, honesty and keen eye, sympathetically portrays the gentle tide of life with all its undercurrents. The novel is full of ‘trivial detail…the things that make up life’ and is a delightful comedy of manners.

Dulcie says ‘a subject like English Literature can give one a good deal of pleasure’ and I, for one, couldn’t agree more, as this novel abundantly shows.



No Fond Return of Love is published by Virago Modern Classics