The Circle of Chaos

If Candida, who is typing her journal into “this modern laptop machine”, isn’t sure what a Walkman is, then she’s really out of touch. And that is something new for a Drabble woman. Drabble’s Sarahs and Claras and Kates have never been perfect — they have been pushy, headstrong, insensitive, exhaustingly intelligent — but never out of touch with the world around.

“Out of my depth, that’s what I am,” types Candida sadly into her laptop. Her journal reads like a petulant rant. Candida is divorced from her husband (the headmaster of a swanky country school for the blind) and alienated from her daughters. She, who has never been independent in her life (even at the school, she only taught as a substitute teacher), is suddenly faced with a life of solitude.

Candida moves to London, to a walk-up flat in seedy Ladbroke Grove, and joins an adult education class to read Virgil’s Aeneid. Except that the class soon closes down and the building becomes a health club. Like a cat haunting a familiar place, Candida haunts the building, becoming a regular at the health club.

Suddenly, somewhere after the first rounds of complaints, things begin to happen. Candida comes into a large sum of money; she begins to make friends; and then she organises a trip to retrace the journey of Aeneas. Six sisters set off, and the seventh — their tour guide — meets them at the airport.

So far, not so good. Suddenly it gets worse. The point of view changes. First we get a tedious author intrusion about the journey; then we get another, postmodern voice — the voice of Candida’s daughter — telling us Candida has been lying to us all along, that she has killed herself. And then, again, just as we are beginning to wonder if we really need this, Candida’s voice returns, telling us that she is indeed alive, and that she wrote the previous passage herself. I mean, how funny is that?

Drabble’s other heroines have been colourful. When they arrive in London, whether it is from Oxford or from the dismal grey northern towns, everyone sits up and takes notice. The chaos, clutter and cheery buzz of their lives have all been part of the entire experience of the Drabble novel, and a part of how wonderfully, all these years, she has written the story of London.

But the problem in The Seven Sisters is not with Candida’s London. It is with Candida, who has cut herself off from her world, and who can’t make us care.