Reviews
A Notable Woman: The Romantic Journals of Jean Lucey Pratt by Jean Lucey Pratt, Simon Garfield
erikaa135's review against another edition
5.0
My absolute favourite book. Follows a lady from the age of 15 until she passes. She speaks about finding love, losing love, her family, the war and much more. Highly recommend!
schopflin's review against another edition
4.0
I loved this book: I loved her writing style and it was fascinating insight into the private thoughts of a middle class woman of the twentieth century.
ecbennett's review against another edition
4.0
I love teenage diaries, think My Mad Fat Diary or Mortified podcast, so that is what initially drew me to this title.
Jean is smart, funny and refreshingly candid in an era where women's voices weren't as widely heard. She is extremely likeable, although I did want to grab her by the shoulders and give her a good shake fairly regularly.
The book follows her from her teenage years up to old age, and what surprised me was how little her character changed throughout the decades. When her age flashed up in brackets at regular intervals, I was always surprised by how she'd aged. As with people you spend a lot of time with, you don't notice them grow older in front of you. I found it interesting to see WW2 from Jean's perspective, a bit-part player in her more personal story, and as a cat lover, I also felt Jean's delight and despair over the fate of her feline friends.
There's no momentous twists, turns or happy endings in this book; but her ordinary life turns out to be riveting in its own quiet way, as Jean sneaks into your heart like a mysterious cat rubbing around your ankles.
I won this title in a Goodreads giveaway.
Jean is smart, funny and refreshingly candid in an era where women's voices weren't as widely heard. She is extremely likeable, although I did want to grab her by the shoulders and give her a good shake fairly regularly.
The book follows her from her teenage years up to old age, and what surprised me was how little her character changed throughout the decades. When her age flashed up in brackets at regular intervals, I was always surprised by how she'd aged. As with people you spend a lot of time with, you don't notice them grow older in front of you. I found it interesting to see WW2 from Jean's perspective, a bit-part player in her more personal story, and as a cat lover, I also felt Jean's delight and despair over the fate of her feline friends.
There's no momentous twists, turns or happy endings in this book; but her ordinary life turns out to be riveting in its own quiet way, as Jean sneaks into your heart like a mysterious cat rubbing around your ankles.
I won this title in a Goodreads giveaway.
ankerrr's review against another edition
5.0
As an avid fan of everything that has to do with journal writing, this book captured me from the very first page. Although it's pretty long, it never felt tedious or slow. It felt like a privilege to look into Jean Lucey Pratt's thoughts, and I am glad that her dream of being published posthumously became truth.
komet2020's review against another edition
5.0
"A NOTABLE WOMAN: The Romantic Journals of Jean Lucey Pratt" traces out the arc of an Englishwoman whose life spanned most of the 20th century. Jean Lucey Pratt began writing a journal in the spring of 1925 (when she was 15) and, in varying degrees, kept at it for the next 61 years, when Death intervened.
As someone who has kept diaries for years, I would like to cite the following passages from Jean's journals that impressed me ---
From Sunday, 25 August 1940:
"Yesterday, I received a telegram from brother Pooh [his real name is Leslie, an engineer who was employed by Cable & Wireless for years; he's 8 years Jean's senior] in the Suez to say that he and his family were well but mails were badly delayed and he wanted news. i cabled a message back and have today sent a letter. I parted with it with a pang of fear. What is to be its route, its adventures, and will it ever arrive at its destination?
"It is sometimes difficult to believe in this war. ... From the sultry sky came the sound of one far-off plane. Churchill has made another impressive speech this week. He is undoubtedly a figure in our history. Trotsky has been murdered in Mexico. Our belated account of recent air battles has impressed America who had been given the impression by swift German reports of a shattered and demoralised Britain.
"Animals must be suffering more than we are in this war. Proper food for them is difficult to get. Ginger Tom has been looking wretched for weeks, and in desperation at the sores around his head and his thinness I took him to the vet yesterday. I was told he was not being fed adequately. He needs quantities of raw, red meat. Raw, red meat. I wheedled some pieces from the butcher but he told me we were liable to two years' imprisonment!..."
On Monday, 28 June 1948, Jean speaks to the future when she states ---
"I wish I could capture everything, everything and imprison it here. But then it would die of its own weight, and I want this journal to live. ..."
What is remarkable about this book is that the reader gets full access to a shy, sensitive, self-effacing woman who nurtured ambitions to be a writer, embarked on one career path after completing her formal education (i.e. working in her father's architecture company in the early 1930s) and later took on a couple of somewhat divergent career journeys, before becoming the owner of a small bookstore in a village community near London where she lived for almost 50 years.
Jean also sheds considerable light on what proved to be for her a rather frustrated love life with a number of men, many of whom tended to take her for granted. Her frankness on this subject - which was elaborated upon by her at considerable length during the late 1930s and the 1940s --- comes across as so utterly modern. In particular, her feelings about sex
I enjoyed reading this book (which contains photos of Jean and her family, and friends) and seeing through it how it is that all our individual lives -- whether any of us chooses to write about them --- form an integral part of life on this planet Earth.
As someone who has kept diaries for years, I would like to cite the following passages from Jean's journals that impressed me ---
From Sunday, 25 August 1940:
"Yesterday, I received a telegram from brother Pooh [his real name is Leslie, an engineer who was employed by Cable & Wireless for years; he's 8 years Jean's senior] in the Suez to say that he and his family were well but mails were badly delayed and he wanted news. i cabled a message back and have today sent a letter. I parted with it with a pang of fear. What is to be its route, its adventures, and will it ever arrive at its destination?
"It is sometimes difficult to believe in this war. ... From the sultry sky came the sound of one far-off plane. Churchill has made another impressive speech this week. He is undoubtedly a figure in our history. Trotsky has been murdered in Mexico. Our belated account of recent air battles has impressed America who had been given the impression by swift German reports of a shattered and demoralised Britain.
"Animals must be suffering more than we are in this war. Proper food for them is difficult to get. Ginger Tom has been looking wretched for weeks, and in desperation at the sores around his head and his thinness I took him to the vet yesterday. I was told he was not being fed adequately. He needs quantities of raw, red meat. Raw, red meat. I wheedled some pieces from the butcher but he told me we were liable to two years' imprisonment!..."
On Monday, 28 June 1948, Jean speaks to the future when she states ---
"I wish I could capture everything, everything and imprison it here. But then it would die of its own weight, and I want this journal to live. ..."
What is remarkable about this book is that the reader gets full access to a shy, sensitive, self-effacing woman who nurtured ambitions to be a writer, embarked on one career path after completing her formal education (i.e. working in her father's architecture company in the early 1930s) and later took on a couple of somewhat divergent career journeys, before becoming the owner of a small bookstore in a village community near London where she lived for almost 50 years.
Jean also sheds considerable light on what proved to be for her a rather frustrated love life with a number of men, many of whom tended to take her for granted. Her frankness on this subject - which was elaborated upon by her at considerable length during the late 1930s and the 1940s --- comes across as so utterly modern. In particular, her feelings about sex
I enjoyed reading this book (which contains photos of Jean and her family, and friends) and seeing through it how it is that all our individual lives -- whether any of us chooses to write about them --- form an integral part of life on this planet Earth.
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