Winter Sonata

Reviews / Votes

In Winter Sonata, Dorothy Edwards describes the routines of village life and the changing winter landscape with an eloquent sense of rhythm. Returning to the same hearths at breakfast and supper-time over several months, her writing reshapes ordinary days and nights with a methodical beauty, so that they mimic the recurring melodies of a four-movement sonata. As Dr. Claire Flay points out in her comprehensive introduction to this new edition, Winter Sonata is populated by characters who are almost entirely in a state of 'emotional hibernation'. Edwards carries over the quiet resonance of her short stories into the interaction between the working-class Clark household (in which Mr. Nettle is a lodger) and the Neran family (who are far richer). Mr Nettle's arrival, illness and recovery frame the narrative, and it is Nettle's quiet and largely undisturbed introspection that epitomises the isolated state of all the characters in the novel. The action is very restrained, and the reader is denied the usual landmark plot events of births, marriages and deaths. Instead Edwards offers tableaux in which the Neran sisters, Olivia and Eleanor, search for something 'interesting' to occupy them. Pauline Clark and Nettle have musical talents which provide the Nerans with entertainment, but mostly serve to demonstrate the uncomfortable disparity in class between the two households. Edwards contrasts the stultifying atmosphere at the Nerans' house with the sufferings of the young Pauline, who scurries about searching for human affection 'like a little cat'. Edwards excels in her straightforward observations of Pauline's natural, if limited, hopes and desires and of her relationship with her little brother. Meanwhile, Olivia suffers with a vague depression that prevents her from finding 'imagination and affection' enough to see the world with 'life and depth'. This idea that the world especially the winter landscape may take on meaning according to the view of the observer is what underlies all of Edwards' somewhat detached landscapes. Edwards uses the natural world as a dominant motif, which at times makes her characters fall into the background. Sunrise and sunset, the changing moons and the bare branches of trees are described mostly in sober, measured sentences and with a restrained palette. Colour is used to describe human relationships, too, so that Nettle perceives the pure white of Olivia's dress as something 'different', while 'Pauline and her mother were [...] painted in the dull colours of everything that is too near'. This is typical of Edwards' unobtrusive realism, which captures the role of social class, geography and the tyranny of weather in shaping emotion without explicitly stating the connection. Winter Sonata is one of only two books to survive this authors short and tragic life. It is a delight to see them both back in print, bringing Dorothy Edwards quiet, distinctive voice to a contemporary readership. Grace Egan It is possible to use this review for promotional purposes, but the following acknowledgment should be included: A review from www.gwales.com, with the permission of the Welsh Books Council. Gellir defnyddio'r adolygiad hwn at bwrpas hybu, ond gofynnir i chi gynnwys y gydnabyddiaeth ganlynol: Adolygiad oddi ar www.gwales.com, trwy ganiatd Cyngor Llyfrau Cymru. -- Welsh Books Council