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Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead Virago Modern Classic No 238 Barbara Comyns 9780860686774 Books

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Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead Virago Modern Classic No 238 Barbara Comyns 9780860686774 Books

Brief summary and review, no spoilers.

This novel is in most part about the Willoweed family who live in a rural English village. The time period is the late 1800's. The Willoweed household is ruled by their malevolent old matriarch referred to as Grandmother Willoweed. She is rude, loud, and incredibly mean-spirited. But she is in control of the money and thus rules the roost. Her son Ebin, a "slothful man", once held a job as a journalist but lost it due to his own malfeasance and incompetence. He is now dependent on his mother for everything and as such he must defer to her and follow her wishes. Also in the household are his three children, Emma (who dreams of courtship and romance), Dennis (a shy young boy, often ridiculed by Ebin), and Hattie, the youngest, who is obviously half-black although no one wishes to comment on that and the fact that this meant Ebin's deceased wife must have cheated on him. Hattie is Ebin's favorite, not the least because she seems the most fond of him.

Although the story centers around the Willoweeds and their two abused maids, Eunice and Norah, we are also introduced to a very typical village full of eccentrics and oddballs. But when a mysterious illness starts attacking many of the villagers, the story takes a darker turn when the investigation begins as to what is causing it and what must be done to make it go away.

I just adored this book. It is a very quick read - easily read in one sitting. It's quick not only because of its size (under 200 pages with large print), but also because it is a page-turner. What I loved most is that the story would go back and forth between the comedic and the tragic - sometimes in the same paragraph. The characters are all so quirky and yet so real and we see the story from different points of view. If you are a fan of quirky British novels, this book is for you.

If you haven't read Barbara Comyns before, I really recommend you give her a try. She is a terrific writer and you just can't go wrong reading her books. The Vet's Daughter (New York Review Books Classics)s another winner from her..


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Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead Virago Modern Classic No 238 Barbara Comyns 9780860686774 Books Reviews

Absolutely wonderful, somewhat fantastical story.
This is an older story but still wonderful to read today.
Light read.
Surreal, magical, fabulous -- one of this great writer's best. And why is she forgotten?
In a small village a flood causes some death for animals and humans. The bizarre nature of a small English village flames out as the first deaths are followed by more and more of an increasingly disturbed and shocking nature. The realistic depictions of death and violence make the few acts of love and humor stand out in the novel. The novel challenges our respect for death, showing us how the thrust for life and a person's deep immersion in their own living enables us to resist horror and death. Is this hypocritical, practical, heartbreaking, or admirable? We are challenged, amused, shocked, and disgusted in this short but transforming read.
Ms. Comyns was a great minor talent, but the word minor is misleading. She didn't write large, like Lear on the Heath, but she wrote intensely, not without humor, and with a particular vision rather like focusing a small telescope, and intensely! Her book takes place in a village after an unexpected flood, and is so arresting it's like being swept up in a strong current and carried away. It can't really be a film, but if Walt Disney was alive, and still daring, he would do it as an animated cartoon and it would be a classic forever. If you aren't hooked after 2 pages, you probably hate "The Wind In The Willows". Possibly not for very young children, certainly for adults, or any 10 year old with imagination and an inquiring mind.
Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead begins with a flood, a sort of harbinger to the dread that fills the town in the weeks that follow. A madness spreads which inflicts the townspeople with hallucinations and a want to self-terminate.

Meanwhile in the Willoweed household, Grandmother Willoweed rules terror over her home. She is a nasty old woman with a phobia of walking over property that is not hers, so only her son, grandchildren, and maids are prone to her fits of terror. This book is about escaping from Grandmother whilst the rest of the town is caught up in the spreading sickness.

This book was once banned in Ireland because it was "held to wallow in repulsiveness." It's true, there are horrifying images of suicide, murder, and dead things. However, the narration is in a childlike, simplistic style that lightens the darkness of this novel. The grotesqueries were laughable at times due to the author's voice. For instance, the self-inflicted gash cut across the butcher's neck "resembled a smile."

One complaint of Who Was Changed is that something pretty major happens in the last chapter of this book and is summed up in just two or three paragraphs. It was like watching an amazing movie that ends non-climatically with text blurbs explaining, "so and so has since done this and that."

Though the ending was trite, the in-between makes this book worthy of a good summer read.
Brief summary and review, no spoilers.

This novel is in most part about the Willoweed family who live in a rural English village. The time period is the late 1800's. The Willoweed household is ruled by their malevolent old matriarch referred to as Grandmother Willoweed. She is rude, loud, and incredibly mean-spirited. But she is in control of the money and thus rules the roost. Her son Ebin, a "slothful man", once held a job as a journalist but lost it due to his own malfeasance and incompetence. He is now dependent on his mother for everything and as such he must defer to her and follow her wishes. Also in the household are his three children, Emma (who dreams of courtship and romance), Dennis (a shy young boy, often ridiculed by Ebin), and Hattie, the youngest, who is obviously half-black although no one wishes to comment on that and the fact that this meant Ebin's deceased wife must have cheated on him. Hattie is Ebin's favorite, not the least because she seems the most fond of him.

Although the story centers around the Willoweeds and their two abused maids, Eunice and Norah, we are also introduced to a very typical village full of eccentrics and oddballs. But when a mysterious illness starts attacking many of the villagers, the story takes a darker turn when the investigation begins as to what is causing it and what must be done to make it go away.

I just adored this book. It is a very quick read - easily read in one sitting. It's quick not only because of its size (under 200 pages with large print), but also because it is a page-turner. What I loved most is that the story would go back and forth between the comedic and the tragic - sometimes in the same paragraph. The characters are all so quirky and yet so real and we see the story from different points of view. If you are a fan of quirky British novels, this book is for you.

If you haven't read Barbara Comyns before, I really recommend you give her a try. She is a terrific writer and you just can't go wrong reading her books. The Vet's Daughter (New York Review Books Classics)s another winner from her..