A review by poachedeggs
The Fountain Overflows by Rebecca West
5.0
This is such a wonderful book - completely unexpected and charming in a way that a book about precocious children and music is, but also heartbreaking in a way that a book about the relentless threat of poverty can be.
Choice quotes:
"'Then Rose got into one of her states,' she said. I heard the announcement with surprise. Had I got into a state at the party? I had felt very cross, but I did not think that I had got into a state. Indeed I was unaware that I ever got into 'states', yet the expression had evoked sounds of recognition from both Mamma and Constance." (pg 208)
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"To us [such a girl:] had passed into the world of Shakespearean tragedy, and we wanted to help her to exercise the functions she would find it necessary to discharge now that she had suffered this abrupt translation from the ordinary. We had imagined that unless she were allowed to walk up and down a room, shedding tremendous tears and uttering cries which would purge her heart of its grief, there would be just such a hole in the universe as would have been left had Lady Macbeth been deprived of her sleep-walking scene." (pg 227)
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The family, while speaking of another family that has no idea how to keep themselves occupied in their spare time, whether it be with reading, work, play or music:
"'What did they do all day, sitting in that house?' I heard Mamma asking Papa one evening at this time, horror in her voice, as if she spoke of naked savages, pent in their darkened huts while filth and tropical disease and fear of jungle gods consumed them.
'God knows, God knows,' he answered. 'This is the new barbarism.'" (pg 235)
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Of Mamma's old sealskin jacket:
"'Mamma,' said Richard Quin, 'that jacket is not sealskin any more, it is just a bit of a dead seal. There is a difference.'
'Nonsense,' said Mamma testily. 'Of course the seal died. Otherwise I would not be wearing its skin.'
'No, Mamma,' said Richard Quin, 'there have been two deaths. First the seal died, and then its skin went to the funeral and heard the will read, and of course it had been left everything, and then it sold the house and chose to make its home with you. But now in the fullness of time it too has died.'" (pg 358-9)
Choice quotes:
"'Then Rose got into one of her states,' she said. I heard the announcement with surprise. Had I got into a state at the party? I had felt very cross, but I did not think that I had got into a state. Indeed I was unaware that I ever got into 'states', yet the expression had evoked sounds of recognition from both Mamma and Constance." (pg 208)
-
"To us [such a girl:] had passed into the world of Shakespearean tragedy, and we wanted to help her to exercise the functions she would find it necessary to discharge now that she had suffered this abrupt translation from the ordinary. We had imagined that unless she were allowed to walk up and down a room, shedding tremendous tears and uttering cries which would purge her heart of its grief, there would be just such a hole in the universe as would have been left had Lady Macbeth been deprived of her sleep-walking scene." (pg 227)
-
The family, while speaking of another family that has no idea how to keep themselves occupied in their spare time, whether it be with reading, work, play or music:
"'What did they do all day, sitting in that house?' I heard Mamma asking Papa one evening at this time, horror in her voice, as if she spoke of naked savages, pent in their darkened huts while filth and tropical disease and fear of jungle gods consumed them.
'God knows, God knows,' he answered. 'This is the new barbarism.'" (pg 235)
-
Of Mamma's old sealskin jacket:
"'Mamma,' said Richard Quin, 'that jacket is not sealskin any more, it is just a bit of a dead seal. There is a difference.'
'Nonsense,' said Mamma testily. 'Of course the seal died. Otherwise I would not be wearing its skin.'
'No, Mamma,' said Richard Quin, 'there have been two deaths. First the seal died, and then its skin went to the funeral and heard the will read, and of course it had been left everything, and then it sold the house and chose to make its home with you. But now in the fullness of time it too has died.'" (pg 358-9)