The Weather In The Streets (Virago Modern Classics)

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Then,’ she said, ‘there are the pleasures of the intellect. They’re said to be lasting. We must cultivate our intellects.’ The gender imbalance is obvious, but not emphasised. Rollo can do what he wants. He’s a nice enough chap. Doesn’t want to hurt anyone. But he can’t sustain the relationship with Olivia. She ultimately needs more than he is prepared to give.

To wait, to be waiting always between the moments of aliveness, to give way with grace, to always look over your shoulder, to exercise discretion when you want to shout about it. This is what I recognised in this novel so long ago and what I recognised again. Rosamond Lehmann keeps our attention on Olivia and our sympathies with her conflicting emotions as the affair progresses. The impossibility of making a life around a doomed love affair, the million and one slights, offences, disappointments, as well as the ecstasy and belief that no-body else had loved as we did.This comes across, at first read, like some Bronte-Woolf hybrid. I see that she came slightly later than Woolf. We know from the start that there can be no happy ending to this story, and the fact that we already know the journey that the characters are to take, works brilliantly. Lehmann plays with the well-worn tropes of an affair between an independent-minded woman and her married lover, yet avoids writing in terms of clichés herself. Pervading the whole story of the affair is Olivia’s love for Rollo; even in the face of traumatic experiences and his frequently caddish behaviour, she relishes the ‘happiness of loving’ and longs to be with him. But Lehmann’s representation of love is shrewd and complex. It is shown to be all-encompassing, overwhelming and deeply distressing: far more powerful than any social mores. Book Genre: 20th Century, British Literature, Classics, European Literature, Female Authors, Fiction, Historical, Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction, Literature, Love, Modern Classics, Romance

The story is a kind of sequel to Invitation to the Waltz, in which Olivia Curtis was poised on the brink of adulthood, socially awkward at a ball, and rescued by Rollo Spencer. Ten years later she is now married but has separated from Ivor. This novel is the story of her affair with Rollo. So Olivia thinks she knows what she knows about the futility of staying with a married man. Wife or no, it's about not having to leave the in between of the lines he finds he can draw around wife and lover. Call it an air of unreality when you don't have to be with who you're with 'cause you can recall the face of your most recent kiss goodbye. Despite her apparently new appealing, Olivia is still the insecure and fearful creature who seeks approval and reassurance and, seeing Rollo after so many years arouse forgotten feelings in her, making her blunt and blind to the consequences of starting an affair with him.The average age of someone who dies while homeless is in their 40s, rather than their 70s. You might see somebody sleeping on the streets who looks quite young, but is actually very fragile and vulnerable.” Homeless people are more likely to already suffer from poor health (Photo: Paul Bradbury, Getty Images) This novel is set ten years after, “The Invitation to the Waltz,” in which Olivia first met Rollo Spencer, the son and heir of the house where the dance was held. Ten years later and Olivia is separated from her husband and living in London, with her cousin, Etty. She is returning home, as her father is seriously ill, when she runs into Rollo on the train. Rollo is married too; his wife referred to as a little fragile, seen as something of an invalid, and very beautiful. An affair with a married man: the secrecy, the acceptance of half-a-life, the cutting off from one's friends - how can you settle for that?