Word: ashley
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...lives in a first-floor room of the big white house and knits delicate white bedspreads for her young relatives. There on a visit may be Joe's married sister, Mrs. Donneita Lampley. At the supper table too will be Joe's mother, pert, determined Thelma Ashley Carver Moore, now 44, who, in addition to her heavy household duties, holds down the job of Jackson County School Supervisor. She still finds time, once a year, to pack her husband into a car and go on a long trip (several years ago Joe quit going along...
...final position in society is to Wouk a triumph, and not a failure. Throughout the novel, Wouk points out the gap between the average American woman's ("Shirley's") conception of herself, and the reality of her possibilities. Every "Shirley", Wouk believes, wants to be Hemingway's Lady Brett Ashley, and is incapable of being such. Since Wouk sides with the "Shirleys" it is plain that he thinks 1.) the average American woman is more admirable, in her beliefs and prejudices than her opposites or her critics; and 2.) that these critics of conventional morality cause only confusion and suffering...
...marriage. All this sympathy we would gladly give if Marjorie were not so remarkably like Richardson's Pamela--if she ever showed any sign of not becoming what she ultimately does. If it seemed that Marjorie had any choice in the matter of whether she would be Lady Brett Ashley or "Shirley," in short, if she were not so awfully dumb, then we would be more likely to share her heart throbs and such. Marjorie's final conventional resting place may very well be morally admirable, but her literary progress there...
...What [Shirley] wants is what a woman should want . . . big diamond engagement ring, house in a good neighborhood, furniture, children, well-made clothes, furs-but she'll never say so. Because in our time those things are supposed to be stuffy and dull . . . She's Lady Brett Ashley,* with witty, devil-may-care whimsey and shocking looseness all over the place. A dismal caricature, you understand, and nothing but talk . . . To simulate Lady Brett, however, as long as she's in fashion, Shirley talks free and necks on a rigidly graduated scale . . . She can find no guidance...
What indeed? For 417 pages, Margie is a virgin on the verge. Then, on the eve of Noel Airman's first Broadway opening, Lady Brett Ashley wins out over Shirley, in a Central Park South hotel room. This may well be the longest to-do over the loss of a girl's virginity since Richardson's Pamela. Says Wouk defensively: "Some people may get impatient and think, 'She's going to sleep with this guy, what's all the fuss?' But it's still a great suspense thing to a girl...