Cheerful weather for the wedding, by J. Strachey

Simon wanted to start the year with a nice Persephone book, Cheerful weather for the wedding, by J. Stachey.  I'm a new convert to the Persephone books, so I immediately jumped at the opportunity and made my first order for these great-quality books.

Before reading the book, however, I reverted to my old tactics, and watched the movie version.  What a delightful, Downton Abbey-ish production, slightly on the romantic side... I was looking forward to see how the written form would be like.

In Cheerful weather, we really intrude on Dolly's wedding day - the whole plot happens during this one day.  We witness the stress, the mess, the laughter and the crying of a family around the preparations for  a wedding.

Of course, it's supposed to be a relatively nice day - whereas I was reading it yesterday, when this was happening in my garden:

Cheerful perhaps, but only from the warm inside...

The weather also prepared me for the atmosphere of the book.  While the film had shone a kind light to all the characters, the book makes no such allowances:  within the first pages already, we get the starkly distressed image of Dolly's mother, Mrs. Thatcham, who tries to find something "cheerful" to describe a good situation - desperately.  Having still the images of the movie, I was suddenly aware that the author did not mean to describe a nice, romantic, aethereal day for the wedding.  

Rather, I believe Strachey wanted to show how an intense day such as this brings, inadvertedly, the true side of the society to the surface and how this is in constrast with what everyone tries to pretend they are. The young generation of Dolly and Joseph (not the man she's marrying) like to 

stir up the wasps' nest a little with a stick and then run away and hide, and then, of course, the wasps run straight upstairs and sting innocent people...

The book has a melancholic feeling throughout the book that I believe it's much more appropriate for the background of the story than the movie version. The doomed relationship of Dolly and Joseph leaves a more intense impact on me after reading and, in the end, I couldn't help but feel sorry for Mrs. Thatcham.  The revelations of the year before give a different aspect to the wedding day and I can understand her wish to have a "cheerful" appearance.  I also felt sorry for both Dolly and Joseph, who, because of the stubborness of their youth, not daring to express their feelings and lying about the depth of love they feel,  destroy what might have been a good relationship.

Now, everyone will go their own way - Dolly will follow her husband as far away from home as possible, Joseph will continue his studies and think who he'll bring along next year, and Mrs. Thatcham will describe all the little details from her daughter's exquisite wedding. We only will have had a look behind the scenes and seen the real faces of all the characters...