My Brother has the Best Sister in the World

Brothers and Sisters - Ivy Compton-Burnett

The novel opens with ancient Andrew Stace, family head and hypocrite, fading fast and thus discussing his will with his daughter, Sophia, and his adopted son, Christian.  Christian hints to his father that he and Sophia plan to marry, a notion old Andrew rebukes, arguing that they should find new people to settle down with.

That night Andrew writes a new will with the conditions that the would-be lovebirds are penniless if they marry. But the next morning he burns the will (it is noticed that he burnt something) and replaces it with a letter in the envelope, on which he addresses to Christian and writes, “To be opened upon my death.”

In the bustle and confusion of the arrangements, however, the letter is not found until 25 years go by, a period of time when Sophia and Christian get married and have kids and lead solid upright lives.

But before the letter is discovered and read – you knew already it had to be, right? – and all its consequences kick in, Compton-Burnett introduces us to numerous pairs of siblings: besides Sophia and Christian’s Andrew, Dinah, and Robin, we meet the Wakes, the Drydens, the Langs, and the Latimers. The well-off Wakes, Julian and Sarah, are renting a cottage, with the interior decoration and gardening and womanly touches all due to Julian, hint hint. The Drydens, Edward and Judith, are rather a moral center with him a pastor and her a bluestocking and so condemned to spinsterhood. The Langs, Gilbert and Caroline, live in a rented place with their widowed mother who is French. Cousins to the Staces, the Latimers, Tilly and Peter, are poor relations whose father Peter is a doctor who talks way too much.

The household of the Staces is dominated by their mother Sophia. She is a tyrant over the emotions of her children and their companion Miss Patmore. Sophia is forever posing, as if she felt deep love for her children. Yet after paragraphs of her relentless monologues  it is clear she doesn’t feel they are quite up to the mark set by her sterling example. Her kids are quite underwhelmed by all the theatricality and humbug. Andrew, Dinah, and Robin are sympathetic characters, however, as they are not totally ground down and can envision a future with Sophia firmly in the background. In their three unique ways, they can also protect themselves from Sophia’s emotional coercion.

Also sympathetic is unmarried and gay and cheery Julian Wake. ICB has Pastor Edward’s sister Judith ask Edward if he likes Julian. Rational and fair-minded Edwards replies, “Oh – well, Julian is the sort of man who is always thinking of the effect of what he says. But he is not a bad fellow. He is really a good-hearted man.” Julian is intelligent enough to imagine what the lives of other people are like and empathizes sincerely. Presenting an openly gay character in 1929, ICB displays none of the shaky nervousness of, say, E.F. Forster or Somerset Maugham (who, granted, saw with their own eyes what happened to Oscar Wilde).

Once a bewildered reader gets used to ICB's prose, this is a hypnotic novel. It is made up almost entirely of dialogue in a claustrophobic atmosphere, from which both are hard to break away. The little parties and close conversations are all marked by a consistent tone, by the same apparent glib tossing off of deep observations in everyday vocabulary woven in intricate grammar. Words and syntax mask what people think, posturing and attitudinizing obscure what one is or indeed if a character has a self.

The strength – and frank challenge - of the book lies in the reader’s perception ICB will seldom intrude to tell us anything. There are almost never comments or interpretations by the narrator. And when there are interventions, we readers don’t quite know what to make of them. I can’t in good conscience quote, for fear of giving anything away.

I don’t read many modernists or post-modernists so I don’t know how to compare ICB with any other 20th century writer. All I know is that the row she works is narrow – unhappy families, in not easily accessible prose – but she hoes perfectly.