First story of this author I have read, on recommendation of some of the story club writers. Seems to go on at first way too long about the situation, the fussy people, the perfectly in love couple, first cousins no less, who marry for love and love to make love. Etc. Seems so sappy at first.
Then characters start arriving in the story for apparently unknown reasons. The three little “Maraharja” sisters who appear are of much interest, as this is the first of any other than European cultural straight people arrive in the story. There are no Moslems, nor Muslims, nor Islamic people of any sort in this story, although there is one Iranian journalist who shows up as the husband of one of the three little girls who are dressed all in white, so they can survive. Lots of plot items and events going on behind and in front of the scenes with all the characters, the mothers and fathers of main characters, people’s pets, first wives, in-laws, relatives, hangers-on and at least one set of twins. Servants, hotel owners, guests for the view, guests for the summer, little affairs and larger would-be affairs stirring in the early to middle pages of this longish short story. Way too long, seems to me. In fact, I did not read every word, got bored mid-story with all the dottering parents and so forth, hard to keep track and who would want to, anyway? Hard to care about that many characters at once.
Of course, the story is about Netta and her younger husband Jack, the little cousin she decides to take care of and does for so long, until its time for him to leave, before the war gets going, before things get hard, and then much harder. Jack goes to America, Netta stays on at the hotel throughout the war. She endures, he parties and plays around. She learns, she grows, he does not.
There is more than you might think at first going on in this story of English ex-pats living in France, in the flush years of the twenties, then the thirties and on into the war-torn nineteen-forties.
Actually, nothing about the 1920s here, is there. Starts when Netta is eleven years old, and a one-hundred year lease on a hotel is signed by her father, for her benefit. The joke then is that it will last her for her lifetime and then some, so she should never have to worry or want.
lots more to say about this story
Just got my first book of Mavis Gallant from the library. Stories that make sense to me.