“For me writing is an act of the will.” (Elizabeth Jolley)

/ madamebibilophile

I’ve been meaning to read Elizabeth Jolley for ages so I’m pleased to be finishing AusReading Month 2023 hosted by Brona at This Reading Life with one of her novellas.

Milk and Honey (1984) has quite a Gothic feel to it, so it’s worked out well with Hallowe’en too…

The story is narrated by Jacob, who at the beginning of the novella is an unhappy, unfulfilled door-to-door salesman with an injured hand.

“Sometimes, after my cup of real coffee in the Beach Hotel, I sat outside on the small, sandy cliffs, looking down onto the sea as it came up in long, slow waves to the rocks and sunk sighing back down the beach, and I felt the profound melancholy that all my life has come over me from time to time. It was the melancholy of dark trees standing alone and the quiet sadness of the colours of the land, dark greens and browns and the sand subdued. As I sat, the colours deepened, tawny, dun coloured blending beneath the low grey sky. And from somewhere hidden, the sun lit up the sea.”

We then go back in time to when Jacob was a teenager and sent by his father to live with the Heimbachs so he can be tutored in the cello by Leopold.  The widowed tutor adores Jacob, calling him ‘Prince’, but his sisters Tante Rosa and Aunt Heloise may be more ambivalent. Certainly Jacob’s lauded genius may not be as evident as Leopold proclaims. But Jacob does play with feeling:

“When I played the cello and the cello hesitated, poised on a single note so pure and restrained and lovely, I closed my eyes with an exquisite love of the cello. I was in love with the cello.”

Also in the house are Leopold’s children. His daughter Louise is a romantic interest for Jacob, and there is his son Waldemar who has unspecified disabilities. The household is insular and claustrophobic, but Jacob willingly relinquishes external experiences:

“I had no wish to be free. I preferred not to go to school, and, though the house and garden were open to the street, I never went out into the street. I read and studied and lived in the household which seemed to contain all in the way of books and musical instruments and teachers I could ever need.”

For the reader though, the household is deeply unsettling. We never really know what anyone’s motivations, views or plans are. Jacob is self-focussed and so as a narrator he doesn’t tell us. We piece together certain aspects of the wider life of the household – I guessed an unpleasant twist towards the end – but so much is left unspecified.

Conspiracies abound in this small household. A major decision is taken early in the novel that is traumatising for Jacob but we’re not completely sure why such action is taken. Jacob is having an affair but it seems entirely likely that everyone knows about it. A wedding ceremony is sprung on him, and yet everyone seems to think this is completely acceptable:

“But even after the surprise celebration of our engagement, on the day of my inheritance, the idea of marriage had seemed remote, something vague, talked about in laughter while eating apples and trying on rings made from human hair, something looked forward to from childhood but, like a disease experienced by adults, never reached.”

Milk and Honey is an odd novel and at times I wasn’t sure it was for me. There was so much that was unexplained that it could be entirely discombobulating, and Jacob was so oblivious and callow I wasn’t sure he could carry me through. I’m glad I persevered though, and I would definitely be interested to read more by Jolley. From this, I would say she writes about nature beautifully and is expert in creating an unsettling, memorable atmosphere.

You can read Lisa’s excellent review of Milk and Honey here.

To end, a bit of a departure from my usual 80s cheese – I always find Elgar’s cello concerto in E minor so moving (and this is with the City of Birmingham symphony orchestra, which was Elizabeth Jolley’s place of birth before she emigrated to Australia – see what I did there? 😀 ):

23 thoughts on ““For me writing is an act of the will.” (Elizabeth Jolley)”

  1. Pingback: AusReading Month Masterpost 2023

  2. First up thank you for your Jolley response – I tend to be a bit like you, wondering if “at times I wasn’t sure it was for me”.
    Secondly thank you for the cello concerto, I’ve been listenign to it as I visit other blogs/read reviews/make comments. A delightful way to spend a Tuesday evening 🙂

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    • From what little I know I think this probably not the best place to start – I chose it because it was a novella and so it seemed a good way to dip a reading toe, but I think her longer novels maybe give her voice and approach a bit more space.

      It’s always a good day when I can use the word discombobulating 😀

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  6. Thanks for this review. I have had Jolley on my radar for a little while. I enjoyed the quotes you cited. I’m not sure if this one really appeals based on your summary. I love the word discombobulating too! Thanks for the music once again.

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    • Thanks Sarah! There’s a lot of great writing here but I do wonder if I should have started elsewhere with Jolley. I’d be interested to read more.

      Discombobulating is a great word!

      Glad you enjoyed the music 🙂

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  7. It’s so interesting to read your response to this book as I tried reading an Elizabeth Jolley a few years ago without much success – the name of the book escapes me right now. Maybe she’s an acquired taste, to some extent at least?

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  10. Well that cover is certainly fairly gothic looking. The think I read an Elizabeth Jolley short story in an anthology sometime, but it can’t remember which collection it was. This does sound odd and unsettling, I don’t think I’m quite up to discombobulating at the moment.

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  11. I’m so glad to see Jolley’s work reviewed. My favorite Jolley is also Miss Peabody’s Inheritance and I have also liked everything I’ve read. Thanks for the appealing review. Grier

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