Norah Lofts Message Board
Barbara posts on 3/26/2009 12:29:42 AM
For some totally unknown reason the site wil not let me respond to the Linda thread, in which I listed all the other Lindas and Lindy's NL has .
Same thing happened to Mary a while ago. I emailed several times asking for them to attnd to the technical problems with thid messge board , but I never even get an automated answer so I assume thay are not really interested
Mary posts on 3/25/2009 1:32:54 PM
Yes, I think Afternoon of an Autocrat is one of her absolute best! For one thing, it has one of her most complex plots--several different threads developing simultaneously. For another, for those of us interested in the geography of the Baildon-Layer Wood area, it gives a detailed description of physical layout of the Shelmadines' parish. But I'm a litle curious about her naming a woman of that time Linda.
susan posts on 3/25/2009 9:13:14 AM
Has anyone read Afternoon of an Autocrat by Norah Lofts? One of my favourites of hers. After that I think its The House Trilogy and Bless this House
Mary posts on 3/23/2009 9:25:04 PM
I had forgotten Dave Glenny--one of NL's few characters with no redeeming qualities! Yes, he was definitely Welsh. As for the chapel link, remember that she usually depicted Methodists pretty sympathetically. (Except for Tim Bridges--imagine how differently Deb's marriage might have turned out if she'd been able to tell him why her stepmother really needed her at home!) It was the chapel-reared characters who repudiated their upbringing (except Owen Jenkins) that were the real rotters! Having quite a few Welsh and Welsh-American friends, as well as a Hugh Rice Morris on my family tree, I was rather sorry to detect this prejudice in one of my favorite authors!
Barbara posts on 3/23/2009 7:29:02 PM
I hadn't picked up the anti Welsh strain Mary, though I well remember the awful chapel guy 'pesticided' in his greenhouse! I think I had put it down to chapel rather than Welsh- I'm thinking of Humphrey Shadbolt's father (well, not father actually, was it? ) in 'A Calf For Venus' , aka 'Letty'. And the two terrible Davids , Glenny in Road to Revelation and the murderous David Armstrong in House at Sunset. All from chapel backgrounds . Actually Dave Glenny and his dreadful old uncle may have been Welsh come to think if it!
Thanks for Henry Treece , I haven't read him yet- I'll put him in my neverending To Read List.........
Mary posts on 3/21/2009 9:40:34 AM
Barbara, do you know Henry Treece's Red Queen, White Queen? Then there seem to be several other books, about Boudicca, both fiction and nonfiction, all named Warrior Queen. [New paragraph] I'm trying again to post the rest of the message I origially tried to post almost three weeks ago, about NL's poor opinion of the Welsh: The odious Owen Jenkins in the short story narrated by the little girl who is sent to stay with the family's former maid while her parents are on a archaeological expedition, the passing description of a Welsh choir on the radio in Checkmate, and the comment Walter Rancon makes to Josiana in 'Josiana Greenwood's Tale' in The House at Old Vine about 'Henry ap Yudor.'.
Barbara posts on 3/20/2009 10:08:58 PM
Hi Mary,
Yes Boudicca ( or Boadicea as we called her then) was a wonderful heroine for a young girl wasn't she? I haven't read the falling-on-her-sword version but would have infinitely preferred it, as you did.
I loved Grace Darling too, and the book I had featured great pen-and-ink drawings of this heroic girl, hauling on the oars, her hair lashing about her face in the teeth of mountainous seas and a huge storm.
Mary posts on 3/19/2009 4:26:18 PM
Barbara, I share your admiraton of Boudicca! I first encountered her in Anya Seton's The Mistletoe and Sword, which you probably know, the summer I was thirteen and also discovered NL, vi Eleanor the Queen/Queen in Waiting. My favorite Boudicca novel is Pauline Gedges's The Eagle and the Raven, in which she deals with defeat not by taking poison, as Roman history records, but by throwing herself on her sword. (Do't those last few words create a special thrill when the pronouns are feminine?)
Barbara posts on 3/17/2009 8:49:50 PM
He Elizabeth,
Personally, I don't think there is any one quite like Norah Lofts ( ie as good in her genre) If you like classical times, no one is better than Mary Renault to my mind. For really well researched fiction-enhanced history , Sharon Key Penman. I like Anya Seton quite well too
Mary you made laugh with the idea of Iceni like American Indian tribes - though it not that funny really I guess, the desperately dispossessed adn the superior invader. Did you love Boudicca, ( in her Grand Boedicea guise of course) as a child? I did, though it was years before I understood the 'insult offered' to her daughters, which was how they Bowdlerised rape in my girlhood version
elizabeth meikleham posts on 3/17/2009 6:08:44 PM
Norah Lofts was a brilliant author. I am at present reading her books second and sometimes third time around. However, can anyone recommend an Author who writes along similar lines? I await comments with bated breath - would love to think there is another writer like her.
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