by Turns out constitutional theatre and Edwardian fiction have more in common than anyone wanted to admit
I made the genuine mistake this week of comparing the recent Downing Street leadership handover to a minor Forster novel at book club, all understated exteriors concealing genuinely significant internal upheaval, and was met with the specific, weary silence of a room that had gathered to discuss an actual assigned text rather than my own political theories.
Why I Could Not Actually Help Myself
There really is something genuinely Edwardian about the whole choreography, a resignation delivered with careful restraint, a successor received with equally careful warmth, everyone behaving exactly as convention demands while presumably feeling something considerably messier underneath, exactly the tension good novels of that period specialise in rendering properly.
What The Actual Book Club Discussion Was Meant To Cover
We were, in fairness, supposed to be discussing an entirely different early twentieth century novel that evening, one dealing with considerably more personal matters of class and repressed feeling, and I do accept, in hindsight, that dragging contemporary Westminster into a discussion of Edwardian domestic fiction was not my most disciplined contribution to the group.
A Small Defence Of My Tangent
I do think, properly considered, that literature from this specific period remains genuinely useful for understanding exactly this kind of controlled public performance concealing private turmoil, a skill British public life has apparently never quite abandoned regardless of which century we happen to currently be in.
How The Evening Actually Ended
Eventually returned properly to the assigned text, though not before one member, more generous than the rest, admitted my comparison had at least made her look at the novel’s own restrained diplomatic scenes rather differently by the end of the discussion.
Further Reading
For more of my own literary tangents into current events, I have written previously at my author page.
Closing Thought
Some comparisons are simply too good not to make, book club forgiveness be damned. More reading and unwanted political tangents at my author page on The London Prat.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com
