katiegreally's review against another edition
3.0
*CW: Spoilers*
Three words I would use to describe Emily Hourican’s The Guinness Girls: A Hint of Scandal are: torpid, elaborate and disenchanting.
Hourican’s sequel to The Glorious Guinness Girls picks up shortly after where the first in the series ended, looking fictitiously at the early married lives of Aileen, Oonagh, and Maureen Guinness. The Guinness Girls: A Hint of Scandal takes its reader from the early to the mid 1930’s, beginning with the lead up to Maureen’s wedding to Duff, the Fourth Marquess of Dufferin and Ava. As Maureen is the last of the Guinness girls to be married, it embarks at a transitional period for the sisters, Oonagh expecting her first child and Aileen brimming with feelings of antipathy towards her own marriage. From here, Hourican details how the sisters navigate the transition from being ‘bright, young things’ to being mothers and wives, and how this lifestyle change differs from what they expected. Hourican also includes the perspective of the sisters ladies maid and companion, Kathleen, a working class girl from Dublin who having previously been in the employment of the family, has taken up her position once more after finishing up her training as a teacher, under slightly disappointing circumstances. As well as this, Hourican parallels this transitional period for the sisters with precarious political background of the 1930’s, often alluding to the rise of fascism and communism in both England and Europe, building up tensions in the shape of an imminent war in Europe.
Whilst every attempt at historical fiction is an ambitious one, I did feel as though Hourican missed the mark slightly when trying to amass all the intricate details of the lives of these three women, and exactly what it was that influenced them. She bestows each of the sisters with very distinct characteristics, particularly in relation to their attitudes towards femininity and motherhood, and the perception of the society they live in. However, this is where Hourican’s skill for character development seems to stop, as, due to the quantity of other characters who revolve around the lives of the Golden Guinness Girls, every other character seems to be very two-dimensional, including Kathleen, whose purpose in the book is more of a commentary on the sister’s behaviours and the vast differences between the upper and lower classes, rather than as her own distinct character. She’s a very passive character compared to the sisters, which I found slightly disappointing as she could have had a much more forceful impact over the atmosphere of the book. Most other characters included by Hourican also seem to be very underwritten, especially those who would have had a rather large impact on each of the sisters’ lives, including their husbands. Only Maureen’s husband, Duff, seems to have any sort of character trajectory throughout the novel, as we do get more of a personality from him during the chapters surrounding his and Maureen’s new life at Clandeboyne, where we see him go from esteemed ‘Lord Dufferin’, to concerned father new to his position, to dejected politician hiding in his own home, drinking heavily and ‘smoking a cigar – not his first judging by the thick blue haze that filled the room’ (438) Only Duff seems in any way to have an active role as a husband in the life of his wife, and his impact on her decisions and emotions are far more expressive throughout the novel in comparison to Oonagh and Aileen’s husbands, Philip and Brinny. This character treatment also extends to the sisters’ contemporaries, such as the Mitfords, Stephen Tennant, Elizabeth Ponsonby and so on, who all feature again as friends and acquaintances of the Guinness girls, popping up throughout without having much purpose towards the plot, and exiting again so quickly that it’s difficult to retain who is who and whether what they say is pertinent.
On that same note, the book is titled A Hint of Scandal, and a hint is certainly all that the readers get. For a novel on which the basis of the plot lies heavily on the expected hedonism and debauchery of the society in which the sisters occupy, all notions of scandal are indeed mostly only alluded to. In fact, the most scandalous element of the novel was the numerous allusions to absolute excess and exuberance of the materialistic upper-class society of the 1930’s, such as Brinny and Aileen’s consumerism, ‘“…he’s determined to buy a new motor-car before we leave. I’ve tried to tell him they aren’t like dresses, he doesn’t need one in every colour, but he assures me they’re exactly the same and that a man in his position cannot be seen in the same car twice.”’ (81) Somehow, Hourican has offered her readers an insight into six of the most compelling years of the sister’s lives in terms of their marriages, and makes it feel tedious and stuffy. Again, I feel this has come from trying to contain as much as possible of the context of these scandals in such a limited capacity, so that none of the supposed scandals truly feels like they come to a head within the novel. All the events which lead up to the breakdown of the respective marriages come about in a very slow and subtle fashion, in which the transfer of character perspectives from chapter to chapter leads the reader to almost forget exactly what has happened in one particular sister’s marriage from their previous encounter with it. When each of the sister’s respective ‘scandals’ do come to a head, they occur so quickly that it barely feels like they have happened. Aileen’s mind regarding her marriage and whether or not to leave it changes back and forth within the space of four chapters (of which there are fifty-six), and when Oonagh’s marriage is officially ended after five or so years of adultery, it is simply summarised in a single sentence; ‘She and Philip had been divorced nearly a year now, on the same day and in the same court as Dominick and Mildred.’ (500), and Oonagh develops a very quick romantic relationship with her next husband in a matter of pages. As well as this, each of the scandals directly relating to the sisters and their marriages is completely overshadowed by the relationship that develops between Diana Mitford and fascist Oswald Mosely, which takes over the plot towards the novels ending. Overall, the ending felt very rushed in comparison to the novel’s length, with a series of striking occurrences happening in very quick succession, feeling quite jarring to the reader after such an elongated narrative.
Essentially, I do feel as though Hourican promises much more than she can deliver on with the concept of this novel, as understandably it is a near impossible mission to attempt to assemble the lives of three fascinating women who lived very rich, intricate lives and to fit a significant part of those lives into a very contained space. I would, however, recommend this book to lovers of light historical fiction and slow burners, with the warning of a little less scandal than an episode of Downton Abbey.
Three words I would use to describe Emily Hourican’s The Guinness Girls: A Hint of Scandal are: torpid, elaborate and disenchanting.
Hourican’s sequel to The Glorious Guinness Girls picks up shortly after where the first in the series ended, looking fictitiously at the early married lives of Aileen, Oonagh, and Maureen Guinness. The Guinness Girls: A Hint of Scandal takes its reader from the early to the mid 1930’s, beginning with the lead up to Maureen’s wedding to Duff, the Fourth Marquess of Dufferin and Ava. As Maureen is the last of the Guinness girls to be married, it embarks at a transitional period for the sisters, Oonagh expecting her first child and Aileen brimming with feelings of antipathy towards her own marriage. From here, Hourican details how the sisters navigate the transition from being ‘bright, young things’ to being mothers and wives, and how this lifestyle change differs from what they expected. Hourican also includes the perspective of the sisters ladies maid and companion, Kathleen, a working class girl from Dublin who having previously been in the employment of the family, has taken up her position once more after finishing up her training as a teacher, under slightly disappointing circumstances. As well as this, Hourican parallels this transitional period for the sisters with precarious political background of the 1930’s, often alluding to the rise of fascism and communism in both England and Europe, building up tensions in the shape of an imminent war in Europe.
Whilst every attempt at historical fiction is an ambitious one, I did feel as though Hourican missed the mark slightly when trying to amass all the intricate details of the lives of these three women, and exactly what it was that influenced them. She bestows each of the sisters with very distinct characteristics, particularly in relation to their attitudes towards femininity and motherhood, and the perception of the society they live in. However, this is where Hourican’s skill for character development seems to stop, as, due to the quantity of other characters who revolve around the lives of the Golden Guinness Girls, every other character seems to be very two-dimensional, including Kathleen, whose purpose in the book is more of a commentary on the sister’s behaviours and the vast differences between the upper and lower classes, rather than as her own distinct character. She’s a very passive character compared to the sisters, which I found slightly disappointing as she could have had a much more forceful impact over the atmosphere of the book. Most other characters included by Hourican also seem to be very underwritten, especially those who would have had a rather large impact on each of the sisters’ lives, including their husbands. Only Maureen’s husband, Duff, seems to have any sort of character trajectory throughout the novel, as we do get more of a personality from him during the chapters surrounding his and Maureen’s new life at Clandeboyne, where we see him go from esteemed ‘Lord Dufferin’, to concerned father new to his position, to dejected politician hiding in his own home, drinking heavily and ‘smoking a cigar – not his first judging by the thick blue haze that filled the room’ (438) Only Duff seems in any way to have an active role as a husband in the life of his wife, and his impact on her decisions and emotions are far more expressive throughout the novel in comparison to Oonagh and Aileen’s husbands, Philip and Brinny. This character treatment also extends to the sisters’ contemporaries, such as the Mitfords, Stephen Tennant, Elizabeth Ponsonby and so on, who all feature again as friends and acquaintances of the Guinness girls, popping up throughout without having much purpose towards the plot, and exiting again so quickly that it’s difficult to retain who is who and whether what they say is pertinent.
On that same note, the book is titled A Hint of Scandal, and a hint is certainly all that the readers get. For a novel on which the basis of the plot lies heavily on the expected hedonism and debauchery of the society in which the sisters occupy, all notions of scandal are indeed mostly only alluded to. In fact, the most scandalous element of the novel was the numerous allusions to absolute excess and exuberance of the materialistic upper-class society of the 1930’s, such as Brinny and Aileen’s consumerism, ‘“…he’s determined to buy a new motor-car before we leave. I’ve tried to tell him they aren’t like dresses, he doesn’t need one in every colour, but he assures me they’re exactly the same and that a man in his position cannot be seen in the same car twice.”’ (81) Somehow, Hourican has offered her readers an insight into six of the most compelling years of the sister’s lives in terms of their marriages, and makes it feel tedious and stuffy. Again, I feel this has come from trying to contain as much as possible of the context of these scandals in such a limited capacity, so that none of the supposed scandals truly feels like they come to a head within the novel. All the events which lead up to the breakdown of the respective marriages come about in a very slow and subtle fashion, in which the transfer of character perspectives from chapter to chapter leads the reader to almost forget exactly what has happened in one particular sister’s marriage from their previous encounter with it. When each of the sister’s respective ‘scandals’ do come to a head, they occur so quickly that it barely feels like they have happened. Aileen’s mind regarding her marriage and whether or not to leave it changes back and forth within the space of four chapters (of which there are fifty-six), and when Oonagh’s marriage is officially ended after five or so years of adultery, it is simply summarised in a single sentence; ‘She and Philip had been divorced nearly a year now, on the same day and in the same court as Dominick and Mildred.’ (500), and Oonagh develops a very quick romantic relationship with her next husband in a matter of pages. As well as this, each of the scandals directly relating to the sisters and their marriages is completely overshadowed by the relationship that develops between Diana Mitford and fascist Oswald Mosely, which takes over the plot towards the novels ending. Overall, the ending felt very rushed in comparison to the novel’s length, with a series of striking occurrences happening in very quick succession, feeling quite jarring to the reader after such an elongated narrative.
Essentially, I do feel as though Hourican promises much more than she can deliver on with the concept of this novel, as understandably it is a near impossible mission to attempt to assemble the lives of three fascinating women who lived very rich, intricate lives and to fit a significant part of those lives into a very contained space. I would, however, recommend this book to lovers of light historical fiction and slow burners, with the warning of a little less scandal than an episode of Downton Abbey.
readsbyross's review against another edition
4.0
I really enjoyed this, what a gorgeous slice of Irish history with excellent, dramatic writing.
prncss1204's review against another edition
informative
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
rebuiltbybooks's review
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
mia_48419's review against another edition
emotional
informative
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
apb519's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
informative
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
annemariewhelehan's review against another edition
lighthearted
medium-paced
4.0
Not as fast paced as the first book. The enjoyment of the first book was the frivolity involved. There is less of this in this book as characters have grown up and married. They have children. It still involves a privileged life of not having to work, plenty of servants and houses in town and the country. It was an enjoyable read and i was delighted to catch back up on the girls. Not sure I’d like a third book, I think it ended at the right time.
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