Eighteen-year-old unmarried mother Scarlet, a lost child recovering from her first abortion, looks at the world with her friends and begins to see the truth. Scarlet, starts as a sort of protagonist but the story, and the characters, soon become multi-faceted and Scarlet is the least of all concerns. Web icon An illustration of a computer application window Wayback Machine Texts icon An illustration of an open book. Respectable wife, unmarried mother, divorcee, femme fatale - these are roles that society demands from Scarlet, Jocelyn, Helen, Susan and Audrey.

Rebelling against the 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘵𝘶𝘴 𝘲𝘶𝘰 that gives them the role not so much of the 'weaker sex', as of the 'accessory sex', functional to the male one, seems inevitable in the course of the story- yet, not all of them have a happy ending after trying. The novel is by now a bit dated, but I think that it stands out as a testament to the way women where perceived and perceived themselves in that era. We’re introduced to this circle of other women in an initial meeting at Scarlet’s bedside, and we follow them over the course of many years as they have affairs, marry, divorce, and sometimes die. The gaudy cover of this particular edition doesn’t do the contents justice in this regard: the pink crepe background and the cheeky snapshots of 50s cliches seem rather lightweight in comparison to the scenes of destruction that lie within. Gradually the plot moves away from Scarlet and through these lives and others, spiralling outwards until certain parallels emerge between all these lives: the sense of male-female relationships as a series of inevitable and painful compromises, both romantic and financial, and the ever-present twin threats of violence and poverty which keep women in their place.If we look upward, it’s not toward the stars or the ineffable, it’s to dust the tops of the windows. The novel also follows the lives of Scarlet’s friends: Sylvia, a born victim; respectable Jocelyn, hopelessly trapped in her dull, bourgeois existence; Audrey, who finally breaks out of her conventional life; and Helen, beautiful, vibrant, and doomed.

These women can only try to survive; and then, look with hope at the new generations, raised differently from how their mothers had raised them, destined to break with many of the patterns that had stifled them - once they all land in the tumultuous 1960s. First American edition printed in United States (there was a previous American edition printed in Britain). It’s a wry, smart, darkly funny book, and there are occasional glimpses of an early 70s hipsterism in the style that I sometimes found grating. Samtliga påverkade av ett samhälle där kvinnans roll var starkt begränsad och förväntningarna var tydliga.Already we have a fairly complex picture emerging, but this is before we have even introduced the other characters in this multi-faceted book. THIS IS A BOOK I READ MANY YEARS AGO AND WAS DELIGHTED TO SEE THAT I HAD THE OPTION TO PURCHASE IT VIA MY KINDLE. The novel follows a group of 'friends' as they grow into women, amidst the patriarchal structure of post-war British society. The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. Scarlet, on the other hand, simply wants to have a nice time in life -- hence her adoption of a constant stream of casual male partners -- but she’s starved for true affection at home.

All of them tried to follow some sort of feminine ideal and great unhappiness resulted from squelching their own desires. In the meantime, just feed us, keep us, fetch the coal and say something nice while you’re about it.The part that was the most interesting to me was how cruel the women could be (especially to each other) when they were unhappy and bitter because of it.