Cousin Rosamund

I finished reading Rebecca West's Cousin Rosamund the other day. It is the sequel to The Fountain Overflows and This Real Night. Both This Real Night and Cousin Rosamund were unfinished at the time of West's death. This Real Night was published from a typed manuscript, but Cousin Rosamund needed a bit of help from West secretary, Diana Stainforth, herself a novelist. Stainforth was able to put together the final third of Cousin Rosamund using West's notes. Because of this the book ends rather abruptly, though satisfactorily for this reader. However, I would only recommend This Real Night and Cousin Rosamund to the people who, like me, fell in love with the Aubrey family. Interestingly, in the afterword by Victoria Glendinning it is revealed West intended the series to be a quartet. A synopsis of the final unwritten book, written by West, is included. I would urge all fans to track that down. It tells what West wanted to say about the role of art and also what she intended the characters of Rosamund and Richard Quin to mean, as well as summing up what happens to many of the characters. Though I wish the four books had been completed by West during her lifetime, I am grateful for what exists. These are novels I will return to, the characters within them added to my list of fictional friends.

Aren't fictional friendships wonderful? Only true book lovers understand them. For only true book lovers know the comfort of these friendships which are steady, dependable and unchanging, as real life friendships rarely are.