Word: spinsterly
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...TRANQUIL SURFACE of early married life for Stephanie, the narrator of Lovers and Tyrants, is disturbed by a recurring dream in which she is a middleaged spinster, alone and unloved. The dream is a result of her disappointment, not only with marriage, but with all her close relationships from childhood on. None of the people she has loved, from her nanny, her father and her high school girlfriends to her adult lovers, has provided her with a real sense of comfort and belonging. Instead, each of the loved ones has stunted her emotional growth in some profound...
...novel is a wicked parody. It mocks the genre of relentless felicity and refined sensibility, the kind of writing in which nothing happens but much is felt. "Her heart pressed up weakly against her ribs," the reader learns of Clara, a young working woman of the kind once called "spinster." Or "Clara felt slightly breathless as though the feebleness of the light was a sign of an ever-diminishing supply of oxygen." And (Clara, in perfect health, leaving a hotel) "Clara's ankles felt weak. There seemed no way she would ever get through the revolving doors ahead...
...Miss Marple once told her friend Elspeth McGillicuddy during a horticultural discussion, "Peonies are unaccountable. Either they do- or they don't do. But if they do establish themselves, they are with you for life." The old spinster apparently became like the peonies in her garden...
When Townsend realizes that the girl will be disinherited if she marries, he jilts her. After the doctor dies, Townsend renews his suit, and Catherine, now grown into a confirmed, cynical spinster, pretends to accede in order to have the revenge of a woman scorned and to jilt him in turn...
...Dolphin", "Sheepdog" or just "Nessa"; her brother Thoby was "Gribbs", "Grim", "Herbert", or "Thobs"; and she signed herself just about anything: "Billy Goat", "Goat", "Goatus Esq.", "Wallaby", "Kangaroo", "Apes", and so forth. Over half the letters in this volume are addressed to Violet Dickinson, a six foot two spinster aunt who seems to have served as Virginia's foster mother. In these, Virginia's childishness reaches its pack...