Customer Reviews

Good Behaviour Pb (Abacus Books)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

An aristocratic family living in poverty in a huge, crumbling mansion...A fat woman terribly disappointed in love...How could this story be funny? Only through the wit and skill of a great undiscovered writer like Molly Keane--how truly sad that this book is Hard To Find. She creates Ireland in the 30's for us in tones so rich and vivid that you'll never want it to end.

...In "Good Behavior", Keane has captured this world, depicting with sharply witty and bitter accuracy the passe rituals, the claims of class superiority, the tyranny of families disguised under the label of love. Yet she maintains the poignancy of the human need for acceptance and love.

I am looking forward to reading her other novels. And I've heard that there is a BBC production of "Good Behavior", so I'll be watching for it as well.

Molly Keane sticks to her chosen niche in this book, the story of an Anglo-Irish family whose members are dedicated to mutual assured destruction, even as they slide into genteel poverty. Nobody in the St Charles household would dream of treating the dogs or horses badly; servants and local tradesmen don't fare so well. But the brunt of their vituperation is saved for one another, with each family member nursing a store of petty grievances, both real and imaginary. Our guide for this particular version of hell is the unlovely, delusional daughter of the house, Aroon. Neglected by her philandering father, despised by her icy mother, used by her charming brother, she pines for love and approval. Her transformation to bitter, vengeful, old maid is inevitable and heartbreaking to watch.

Nobody captures the claustrophobic world of the decaying Anglo-Irish aristocracy better than Molly Keane. While parts of "Good Behaviour" are very funny indeed, it is considerably darker and more complex than the rest of her books, all of which cover similar ground. The writing is exceptional; Keane nails the idiosyncrasies of her characters vividly, with wit and affection.

An engaging, if ultimately depressing, account of a not so well-behaved family.

I'm belatedly writing this review because I feel it's owed, since I dinged another of Keane's novels, "Queen Lear," rather badly years ago. Excerpts from the QL review:

"I bought [Queen Lear] because I was stunned by the perfection of "Good Behavior" which I expect to read again and again over the years. . . [In Queen Lear] Molly Keane seems to attempt a repeat of the magnificent knockout punch she delivered in "Good Behavior" (an ending which perfectly and shockingly fulfills and transforms the beginning, built logically and inevitably on everything in between). . . [In Good Behavior] Molly Keane made me sympathize with and finally, grudgingly admire a truly fascinating heroine, Iris Aroon. She's warped, stunted, horrifyingly self-deluded, and her unquestioning acceptance of the shallow values of her tormentors is rather disgusting. Still, there's the hidden audacity and sly creative stubbornness with which she copes."

Almost 6 years after writing the QL review, my re-readings of "Good Behavior" are beyond count and the pleasure they've given me immeasurable. This book is simply outstanding.

I would not compare Keane to Austen though. As in Austen's novels, "Good Behavior" presents a meticulously structured and seamlessly controlled plot progression, featuring masterful character development and telling social detail. But Keane's story has little positive emotional appeal, which though often understated was never lacking in Austen - even her nasty little novelette, "Lady Susan," does not have the nihilistic undertones of "Good Behavior."

As a rule I abhor nihilism in all of its trifling, self-important manifestations, but it's bearable in Good Behavior because Keane has the good sense and the skill to deliver a double-whammy payoff to reward the reader's generous bestowal of attention and time.

First, there's the massive intellectual thrill the moment we "get" the significance of the first scene as the last concludes, and secondly, there's the deeply rooted satisfaction of witnessing proof that indeed, "what goes around, comes around." The universe is just, and our choices significant. HOOOAH. Big time.

I deeply admire Austen and generally prefer reading her to reading Keane, but still must say that in "Good Behavior" Keane delivers her one-two knockout with a power and precision unequalled in any other novel I've read, including Austen's best.

Aroon St Charles, aged 57, tells us of the first thirty years or so of her life. She was born before the first World War into an Anglo-Irish Protestant landed family living near Limerick. She had a cold, unkind, selfish and unresponsive mother. Her father was inarticulately fond of his daughter, but his life was otherwise wrapped up with horses and dogs, even when, later, he lost one leg in the war. As a child Aroon (a surprisingly unconventional name for such a convention-bound family) loved Mrs Brock, the governess, a lovely character who had come to teach her and her younger brother Hubert. She had previously worked for the Massingham family, friends of the St Charles family, and the children are fascinated by the stories she told of the Massinghams, whose three boys - Richard, Sholto and Raymond - Mrs Brock had tutored previously. She had loved it there, but had had to leave them because her philistine employers thought she was making the boys sensitive to poetry instead of taking a manly interest in horses and other vigorous pursuits. For the first sixty pages she dominates the book, so that we think she will be its central character. She won't be - though memories of turn up occasionally to haunt her former charges. Instead, the tougher character of Rose, the cook, will play an increasingly important part.

Aroon and Hubert grow up, best friends: he good-looking, she too tall for most men; but he makes sure she is part of the social life of the country gentry centred around Horse Show balls. The Massingham-St Charles family friendship is carried on into the next generation, when Richard Massingham, as glamorous as Hubert, becomes the latter's most intimate friend. Hubert encourages a threesome; Richard comes to stay during the Cambridge vacation; and shy, awkward, too-big-bosomed Aroon falls in love with him. There will be bliss and pain in these relationships - all exquisitely described.

I must not reveal how now one blow falls after another - upon the family and upon Aroon in particular. She does her best to cope; she has a need to help and to be needed, to love and to be loved; but, as before, she often feels hurtfully excluded. She suffers one humiliation after another - and again good behaviour means that she must not show it.

Molly Keane's prose is superb; her period details (clothes, households) are excellent; her characterizations a wonderful blend of subtlety and caricature. She shows us the life of families where "good behaviour" was a carapace behind which its characters stifled or were made to stifle the expression of all feelings, where deep emotions must not be shown at - or, in family privacy - after funerals. At the very end Aroon's psychological burdens are unexpectedly lifted; but until then the suffering in this book is almost too painful to read.

Excellent though Marian Keyes' introduction is, I would advise readers not to read it until after they have read the book: it contains too many spoilers.

I found this book at a used book store for 48 cents - what a wonderful discovery! Entertaining, touching and very funny.

there are no complaints, everything is fine. Ora Brooks

Boring, boring, and more boring (if that can be said). I kept waiting for something to happen. The main character was weak, nothing inspired her. She was always looked upon as being fat and ugly with no brain. Very demeaning to women. Would not recommend it to anyone who really enjoys reading.