The Millstone [Paperback]

Margaret Drabble (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 15, 1998 | Series: Harvest Book

Margaret Drabble’s affecting novel, set in London during the 1960s, about a casual love affair, an unplanned pregnancy, and one young woman’s decision to become a mother.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"...an old-fashioned comedy in the truest sense of the word. Often as meticulous as Jane Austen and as deadly as Evelyn Waugh, Drabble writes in the tradition of George Meredith...Drabble skewers the egotism of her characters and of the society they inhabit with subtle humor and elegant psychological analysis." -- Los Angeles Times

About the Author

MARGARET DRABBLE is the author of The Sea Lady, The Seven Sisters, The Peppered Moth, and The Needle's Eye, among other novels. For her contributions to contemporary English literature, she was made a Dame of the British Empire in 2008.

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Mariner Books (October 15, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0156006197
• ISBN-13: 978-0156006194
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #789,118 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Margaret Drabble is the author of The Sea Lady, The Seven Sisters, The Peppered Moth, and The Needle's Eye, among other novels. She has written biographies of Arnold Bennett and Angus Wilson, and she is the editor of the fifth and sixth editions of The Oxford Companion to English Literature. For her contributions to contemporary English literature, she was made a Dame of the British Empire in 2008.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is it, and then it's over, November 10, 2001

By 

Duane Simolke "author, The Acorn Stories, Deg... (Lubbock, TX USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Millstone (Paperback)

The Waterfall remains my favorite Margaret Drabble novel, but this one uses a faster pace and even more humor. That humor comes from timing and odd observations, rather than obvious attempts at making readers laugh. For example, just before Rosamund Stacey loses her virginity, her seducer asks, "Is this all right? Are you all right, will this be all right?" Rosamund then tells us "that was it and it was over." You'll hate when this book is over. Rosamund seems like an old friend, and you'll enjoy your visit with her.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Humurous portrait of Londoner sex revolution in the 1960s, February 24, 2004

By 

Ladyce West "Ladyce West" (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Millstone (Paperback)

This was my first Margaret Drabble and I was pleasantly surprised at the cutting but subtle satire of English manners of the 1960s. The theme itself -- a single woman's decision to have a child without a husband -- was rather in keeping with the sexual revolution brought about in the 1960s in Western Europe. The narration is light and engaging, in keeping with the best of the traditional English social satirists from Austen to Pym. For my taste the books loses momentum in the last quarter, but it is still a very intelligent rendition of manners and mores.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lucky in work, unlucky in love, July 23, 2005

By 

Luc REYNAERT (Beernem, Belgium) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Millstone (Paperback)

This moving short novel portraits the rude awakening of a young woman, who after making love with a 'silly bugger' becomes an unmarried mother.

The dreams of youth, 'I used to be so good-natured. I used to see the best in every-one', becomes 'my growing selfishness, this was probably maturity.' 'Life would never be a simple question of self-denial again.'

There is also the chasm between the education's view of mankind and the facts of real life.

Education was the cause of 'my inability to see anything in human terms of like and dislike, love and hate, but only in terms of justice, guilt and innocence', and 'the endurance of privation is a virtue.'

However as an adult, she is confronted with 'resentments breed so near the craddle, that people should have it from birth'; 'facts of inequality, of the heart-breaking uneven hardship of the human lot. These things were as nothing compared with the bond that bind parent and child'.

As another woman in the novel says: 'I haven't the energy to go worrying about other people's children. I only have enough time to worry about myself. If I didn't put myself and mine first, they wouldn't survive.'

And finally, there is the unbearable burden of Victorian religion: 'the thought of sex freightened the life out of me.' 'If Octavia were to die, this would be a vengeance upon my sin.'

In naturally flowing prose, Margaret Drabble paints a most human portrait of innocence and struggle for (emotional) survival, youth and adulthood and the mighty marks of religion (guilt) and 'unselfish' education.

A masterly written short novel.