This Real Night

I finished reading This Real Night by Rebecca West the other day. This is the second novel in the trilogy that began with The Fountain Overflows (which I read a few months ago and loved). I was a wee bit apprehensive since This Real Night and the third volume in the series, Cousin Rosamund, were unfinished at the time of West's death. Usually I avoid unfinished novels published posthumously, but I loved the characters in The Fountain Overflows so much I wanted to spend more time with them. And I'm glad I broke my own rule in this case because I really enjoyed This Real Night. And it read to me like a finished, polished novel. The only thing that struck me as odd was the ending, and not because it was a bad ending, but because the story seemed to end rather abruptly. If you are thinking of reading it I would recommend having Cousin Rosamund handy so you can pick it up and keep going with the story.

In The Fountain Overflows we meet Rose Aubrey and her family: sisters, Mary and Cordelia, brother Richard Quin and her parents. Together they form a poor, bohemian household in London, England. Growing up in the years before World War 1 it is a magical life, but made unstable by their father's gambling. In This Real Night the children are coming of age. Rose and her sister Mary are both studying to be concert pianists, Cordelia is struggling to find her place in the world after failing as a violinist and Richard Quin is hoping to get accepted to Oxford. Then war intervenes. Cousin Rosamund (which I have only just started) picks up the story in the 1920s, after the war has ended. Both Rose and Mary are now successful pianists. I'll write more about it when I've finished it. Today is such a warm, sunny day I think I might just sneak out and find myself a park bench to read on for a while.