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Daddy's Gone A-Hunting
Daddy’s Gone A-Hunting is about the expectations of women, about a house-bound mother reluctantly (desperately) at home all day, in contrast to her daughter who has escaped, to university and then, we can assume, to a job.
In Ruth Whiting’s commuter-belt village ‘the wives conform to a certain standard of dress, they run their houses along the same lines, bring their children up in the same way; all prefer coffee to tea, all drive cars, play bridge, own at least one valuable piece of jewellery and are moderately good-looking.’ Yet Ruth is on the verge of going mad. A ‘nervous breakdown’ would be a politer phrase, but really she is being driven mad by her life and her madness is exacerbated by everyone’s indifference to her plight.
In Ruth Whiting’s commuter-belt village ‘the wives conform to a certain standard of dress, they run their houses along the same lines, bring their children up in the same way; all prefer coffee to tea, all drive cars, play bridge, own at least one valuable piece of jewellery and are moderately good-looking.’ Yet Ruth is on the verge of going mad. A ‘nervous breakdown’ would be a politer phrase, but really she is being driven mad by her life and her madness is exacerbated by everyone’s indifference to her plight.
240 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1958
43 people are currently reading
2992 people want to read
About the author
Penelope Mortimer
32 books69 followersEarly life
She was born in Rhyl, Flintshire, Wales, the younger child of an Anglican clergyman, who had lost his faith and used the parish magazine to celebrate the Soviet persecution of the Russian church. He also sexually abused her. Her father frequently changed his parish, so, consequently, she attended numerous schools. She left University College, London, after only one year.
Adulthood
She married Charles Dimont, a journalist, in 1937, and they had two daughters, including the actress Caroline Mortimer, and two daughters through extra-marital relationships with Kenneth Harrison and Randall Swingler.
She met barrister and writer John Mortimer while pregnant with the last child and married him in 1949. Together they had a daughter and a son.
She had one novel, Johanna, published under her name, Penelope Dimont, then as Penelope Mortimer, she authored A Villa in Summer (1954; Michael Joseph). It received critical acclaim. More novels followed.
She was also a freelance journalist, whose work appeared regularly in The New Yorker. As an agony aunt for the Daily Mail, she wrote under the nom de plume Ann Temple. In the late 1960s, she replaced Penelope Gilliatt as film critic for The Observer.
Her marriage to John Mortimer was difficult. They both had frequent extramarital affairs. Penelope had six children by four different men. They divorced in 1971. Her relationships with men were the inspiration for the novels, Daddy's Gone A-Hunting (1958; republished in 2008 by Persephone Books) and The Pumpkin Eater (1962; reissued in 2011 by New York Review Books), which was adapted for the screen by Harold Pinter. It starred Peter Finch, James Mason and Anne Bancroft, who won an Oscar nomination for her role.
Mortimer continued in journalism, mainly for The Sunday Times, and also wrote screenplays. Her biography of the Queen Mother was commissioned by Macmillan, but when completed, it was rejected so instead Viking published it in 1986. Her former agent Giles Gordon in his Guardian obituary called it "the most astute biography of a royal since Lytton Strachey was at work. Penelope had approached her subject as somebody in the public eye, whose career might as well be recorded as if she were a normal human being."
She wrote two volumes of autobiography, About Time: An Aspect of Autobiography, covering her life until 1939, appeared in 1979 and won the Whitbread Prize, and About Time Too: 1940–78 in 1993. A third volume, Closing Time, is unpublished.
She died from cancer, aged 81, in Kensington, London, England.
Novels
Johanna (1947) (as Penelope Dimont)
A Villa in Summer (1954)
The Bright Prison (1956)
Daddy's Gone A-Hunting (1958)
The Pumpkin Eater (1962)
My Friend Says It's Bulletproof (1968)
The Home (1971)
Long Distance (1974)
The Handyman (1983)
Short story collections
Saturday Lunch with the Brownings (1977)
Humphrey's Mother
Autobiographies
About Time: An Aspect of Autobiography (1979)
About Time Too: 1940–78 (1993)
Biography
Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother (1986), revised edition published in 1995, subtitled An Alternative Portrait Of Her Life And Times
Travel writing
With Love and Lizards (co-authored with John Mortimer, 1957)
She was born in Rhyl, Flintshire, Wales, the younger child of an Anglican clergyman, who had lost his faith and used the parish magazine to celebrate the Soviet persecution of the Russian church. He also sexually abused her. Her father frequently changed his parish, so, consequently, she attended numerous schools. She left University College, London, after only one year.
Adulthood
She married Charles Dimont, a journalist, in 1937, and they had two daughters, including the actress Caroline Mortimer, and two daughters through extra-marital relationships with Kenneth Harrison and Randall Swingler.
She met barrister and writer John Mortimer while pregnant with the last child and married him in 1949. Together they had a daughter and a son.
She had one novel, Johanna, published under her name, Penelope Dimont, then as Penelope Mortimer, she authored A Villa in Summer (1954; Michael Joseph). It received critical acclaim. More novels followed.
She was also a freelance journalist, whose work appeared regularly in The New Yorker. As an agony aunt for the Daily Mail, she wrote under the nom de plume Ann Temple. In the late 1960s, she replaced Penelope Gilliatt as film critic for The Observer.
Her marriage to John Mortimer was difficult. They both had frequent extramarital affairs. Penelope had six children by four different men. They divorced in 1971. Her relationships with men were the inspiration for the novels, Daddy's Gone A-Hunting (1958; republished in 2008 by Persephone Books) and The Pumpkin Eater (1962; reissued in 2011 by New York Review Books), which was adapted for the screen by Harold Pinter. It starred Peter Finch, James Mason and Anne Bancroft, who won an Oscar nomination for her role.
Mortimer continued in journalism, mainly for The Sunday Times, and also wrote screenplays. Her biography of the Queen Mother was commissioned by Macmillan, but when completed, it was rejected so instead Viking published it in 1986. Her former agent Giles Gordon in his Guardian obituary called it "the most astute biography of a royal since Lytton Strachey was at work. Penelope had approached her subject as somebody in the public eye, whose career might as well be recorded as if she were a normal human being."
She wrote two volumes of autobiography, About Time: An Aspect of Autobiography, covering her life until 1939, appeared in 1979 and won the Whitbread Prize, and About Time Too: 1940–78 in 1993. A third volume, Closing Time, is unpublished.
She died from cancer, aged 81, in Kensington, London, England.
Novels
Johanna (1947) (as Penelope Dimont)
A Villa in Summer (1954)
The Bright Prison (1956)
Daddy's Gone A-Hunting (1958)
The Pumpkin Eater (1962)
My Friend Says It's Bulletproof (1968)
The Home (1971)
Long Distance (1974)
The Handyman (1983)
Short story collections
Saturday Lunch with the Brownings (1977)
Humphrey's Mother
Autobiographies
About Time: An Aspect of Autobiography (1979)
About Time Too: 1940–78 (1993)
Biography
Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother (1986), revised edition published in 1995, subtitled An Alternative Portrait Of Her Life And Times
Travel writing
With Love and Lizards (co-authored with John Mortimer, 1957)
Ratings & Reviews
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 140 reviews
December 20, 2021
Penelope Mortimer takes her readers deep into England’s rural, commuter land of the late 1950s. Her story concerns Ruth, in her mid-thirties, she’s married with three children: two boys dispatched to boarding-school to ensure an appropriately masculine education, and a daughter Angela studying at Oxford. Angela’s appearance forced Ruth to marry her domineering husband Rex, something that has damaged their chances of an intimate mother-daughter bond. Ruth’s now a grass widow, living in the upmarket Commons, she’s part of a group of wives whose husbands work in London, briefly reappearing at weekends only to adjourn to the local golf course. But as Ruth’s increasingly overwhelmed by feelings of isolation and despair, Angela reveals she’s pregnant and she doesn’t want to be. They’re both embedded in a culture bound by rigid social expectations, at a time when women could barely access contraception, let alone an abortion, so the question becomes how are they going to find a way through this?
Mortimer tackles stock subjects, social hierarchies, unhappy marriages, desperate housewives, barren existences but with an unusually acute eye. Her portrayal of Ruth’s sense of futility and her treatment when depression takes hold, conveys the underlying horror of the relentless isolation and suffocation, women like her might have endured, her letters, her phone calls everything held up to scrutiny. Although Mortimer’s clearly exposing the consequences for women of living in a misogynistic, male-dominated culture, she doesn’t resort to stereotyping her male characters. Rex, Ruth’s husband, is also floundering, overwhelmed by emotional needs he doesn’t understand and can’t communicate. The people in her novel live parallel lives, that may sometimes physically intersect but never connect on any deeper level, they put on convincing public performances but once off-stage they’re all essentially alone. However, the book’s rescued from utter bleakness by Mortimer’s perspective on the world she’s reconstructing, and the sheer quality of her writing. Her narrative’s beautifully observed, subtle and sensitive, with bursts of wit or lyricism that never gives way to sentimentality.
I read this in a new edition from newly-launched McNally Editions, based in New York, whose range of thoughtfully designed paperbacks will be dedicated to unearthing and reissuing ‘hidden gems’.
Thanks to Edelweiss Plus and publisher McNally Editions for an arc
Mortimer tackles stock subjects, social hierarchies, unhappy marriages, desperate housewives, barren existences but with an unusually acute eye. Her portrayal of Ruth’s sense of futility and her treatment when depression takes hold, conveys the underlying horror of the relentless isolation and suffocation, women like her might have endured, her letters, her phone calls everything held up to scrutiny. Although Mortimer’s clearly exposing the consequences for women of living in a misogynistic, male-dominated culture, she doesn’t resort to stereotyping her male characters. Rex, Ruth’s husband, is also floundering, overwhelmed by emotional needs he doesn’t understand and can’t communicate. The people in her novel live parallel lives, that may sometimes physically intersect but never connect on any deeper level, they put on convincing public performances but once off-stage they’re all essentially alone. However, the book’s rescued from utter bleakness by Mortimer’s perspective on the world she’s reconstructing, and the sheer quality of her writing. Her narrative’s beautifully observed, subtle and sensitive, with bursts of wit or lyricism that never gives way to sentimentality.
I read this in a new edition from newly-launched McNally Editions, based in New York, whose range of thoughtfully designed paperbacks will be dedicated to unearthing and reissuing ‘hidden gems’.
Thanks to Edelweiss Plus and publisher McNally Editions for an arc
February 27, 2020
Ruth Whiting lo tiene todo. Todavía eres una mujer joven. Tienes sentido del humor, una cara bonita, una buena familia. ¿Qué más puedes pedir?
A Ruth la vida se le hace prácticamente insoportable, por mucho que trate de sentirse agradecida. Hace dieciocho años se quedó embarazada sin desearlo. —Y cómo no —dijo—, tuvimos que casarnos. Ah, ¿no lo sabías? —Siguió el dibujo de la mesa de formica con la uña. Su voz sonó tímida, vacilante—: Supongo que, a pesar de ello, podríamos haber sido felices. Pero nunca lo fuimos. Creo que nos odiábamos. —Pronunciar en voz alta estas cosas innombrables no cesaba de horrorizarla. Eran sus secretos, confinados bajo llave durante tanto tiempo que ya casi no los reconocía como verdaderos—. Angela nació a los seis meses de casarnos. Ella no lo sabe, claro. Yo no me quería casar. No deseaba a Angela. Tuvimos que casarnos. No hubo más remedio.
Después vinieron otros dos hijos. Ahora vive aislada, lleva una vida completamente vacía, insatisfactoria, carente de propósito: ¿Qué queda? ¿Qué queda para mañana? En realidad Ruth, sin ningún tipo de ilusión a nivel personal, ya no existe, ha sido anulada por su rol, no es más que eso.
Ella todavía era joven, y su vida aparentemente corriente rebosaba fantasía, estaba repleta de escondrijos, era un laberinto de secretismo y engaño y esperanza excavado bajo los días invariables.
Para Rex y ella ya no quedaba ninguna esperanza o posibilidad de cambio; ya no quedaba ninguna elección que hacer. Se hallaban, en plena madurez, aún capacitados para cometer cualquier crimen y cualquier grandeza, paralizados por la trivialidad.
¿Es que nunca va a pasarnos nada?, se preguntó. ¿De veras vamos a seguir así para siempre? ¿Es posible que nada vaya a cambiar jamás?
Un día Angela llega a casa con la terrible noticia: está embarazada. El mundo de Ruth se tambalea: ha de enfrentarse a su propio dolor, ya no hay opción de seguir en el camino del entumecimiento. Separadas por escasos veinte años, muchas cosas son ahora distintas, pero muchas otras siguen igual, el miedo, la vergüenza, el secreto, la hipocresía de la sociedad, y en especial la de su padre (Las chicas deberían permanecer vírgenes hasta el matrimonio).
Muchas cosas me han gustado de la novela, su amargura, su temática, su final, el mundo interior de estas dos mujeres (¿Cómo soy? Es decir, ¿quién soy yo?... Pero ¿y yo? Es decir, ¿yo misma?… ¿Qué hago conmigo misma durante toda mi vida?... Debes controlarte, disciplinarte, sacrificarte, respetarte. Si fuere necesario, puedes defenderte y rebajarte; y puedes confiar en ti misma a la vez que intentas pasar inadvertida, eso no está del todo mal. Sin embargo, jamás debes amarte, ni compadecerte, ni ensalzarte, ni consentirte voluntad u opinión propias. Nunca caigas en la autoindulgencia, nunca pienses en ti misma, nunca te olvides de ti misma y, sobre todo, nunca te centres en ti misma. ¿Está claro?... Jamás lo conseguiré), las reflexiones sobre la soledad, el aislamiento y la incomunicación dentro de la familia (Te casaste cuando tenías mi edad. Yo diría que no has pasado un día de soledad en toda tu vida), los pequeños intentos de desahogo siempre insuficientes, el punto de encuentro inalcanzable si no se quiere hacer estallar todo por los aires:
—¿Te sientes solo? —preguntó.
—¿Qué? Ella estaba de pie en el umbral, frotándose la mejilla con el periódico doblado.
—¿Te sientes solo alguna vez?
—Sí —dijo él, como hipnotizado—. Algunas veces. Ella asintió y se marchó...
Nada suena irreal o falso, las reflexiones no dejan indiferente, y sin embargo me ha faltado algo, la chispa que te conecta con la historia y los personajes, ese algo que de haber encontrado habría convertido esta novela en una lectura memorable.
A Ruth la vida se le hace prácticamente insoportable, por mucho que trate de sentirse agradecida. Hace dieciocho años se quedó embarazada sin desearlo. —Y cómo no —dijo—, tuvimos que casarnos. Ah, ¿no lo sabías? —Siguió el dibujo de la mesa de formica con la uña. Su voz sonó tímida, vacilante—: Supongo que, a pesar de ello, podríamos haber sido felices. Pero nunca lo fuimos. Creo que nos odiábamos. —Pronunciar en voz alta estas cosas innombrables no cesaba de horrorizarla. Eran sus secretos, confinados bajo llave durante tanto tiempo que ya casi no los reconocía como verdaderos—. Angela nació a los seis meses de casarnos. Ella no lo sabe, claro. Yo no me quería casar. No deseaba a Angela. Tuvimos que casarnos. No hubo más remedio.
Después vinieron otros dos hijos. Ahora vive aislada, lleva una vida completamente vacía, insatisfactoria, carente de propósito: ¿Qué queda? ¿Qué queda para mañana? En realidad Ruth, sin ningún tipo de ilusión a nivel personal, ya no existe, ha sido anulada por su rol, no es más que eso.
Ella todavía era joven, y su vida aparentemente corriente rebosaba fantasía, estaba repleta de escondrijos, era un laberinto de secretismo y engaño y esperanza excavado bajo los días invariables.
Para Rex y ella ya no quedaba ninguna esperanza o posibilidad de cambio; ya no quedaba ninguna elección que hacer. Se hallaban, en plena madurez, aún capacitados para cometer cualquier crimen y cualquier grandeza, paralizados por la trivialidad.
¿Es que nunca va a pasarnos nada?, se preguntó. ¿De veras vamos a seguir así para siempre? ¿Es posible que nada vaya a cambiar jamás?
Un día Angela llega a casa con la terrible noticia: está embarazada. El mundo de Ruth se tambalea: ha de enfrentarse a su propio dolor, ya no hay opción de seguir en el camino del entumecimiento. Separadas por escasos veinte años, muchas cosas son ahora distintas, pero muchas otras siguen igual, el miedo, la vergüenza, el secreto, la hipocresía de la sociedad, y en especial la de su padre (Las chicas deberían permanecer vírgenes hasta el matrimonio).
Muchas cosas me han gustado de la novela, su amargura, su temática, su final, el mundo interior de estas dos mujeres (¿Cómo soy? Es decir, ¿quién soy yo?... Pero ¿y yo? Es decir, ¿yo misma?… ¿Qué hago conmigo misma durante toda mi vida?... Debes controlarte, disciplinarte, sacrificarte, respetarte. Si fuere necesario, puedes defenderte y rebajarte; y puedes confiar en ti misma a la vez que intentas pasar inadvertida, eso no está del todo mal. Sin embargo, jamás debes amarte, ni compadecerte, ni ensalzarte, ni consentirte voluntad u opinión propias. Nunca caigas en la autoindulgencia, nunca pienses en ti misma, nunca te olvides de ti misma y, sobre todo, nunca te centres en ti misma. ¿Está claro?... Jamás lo conseguiré), las reflexiones sobre la soledad, el aislamiento y la incomunicación dentro de la familia (Te casaste cuando tenías mi edad. Yo diría que no has pasado un día de soledad en toda tu vida), los pequeños intentos de desahogo siempre insuficientes, el punto de encuentro inalcanzable si no se quiere hacer estallar todo por los aires:
—¿Te sientes solo? —preguntó.
—¿Qué? Ella estaba de pie en el umbral, frotándose la mejilla con el periódico doblado.
—¿Te sientes solo alguna vez?
—Sí —dijo él, como hipnotizado—. Algunas veces. Ella asintió y se marchó...
Nada suena irreal o falso, las reflexiones no dejan indiferente, y sin embargo me ha faltado algo, la chispa que te conecta con la historia y los personajes, ese algo que de haber encontrado habría convertido esta novela en una lectura memorable.
December 30, 2024
Very depressing. Mortimer's work is not pleasurable to read, so it took longer than usual for me to read this. A horrible portrait of a 1950s woman who has no life or identity beyond being a wife and mother.
April 12, 2024
While much might be made of this as an “abortion” novel,
Daddy’s Gone A-Hunting
is equally concerned with the plight of a well-to-to-woman in an unhappy late-1950s marriage. Ruth Whiting is at loose ends now that her boys have returned to their prestigious private school. Her eldest child, 18-year-old Angela (the reason teenage Ruth had been compelled by her father to marry Rex Whiting) will soon return to Oxford, but the mother-daughter relationship is strained. Angela feels her mother has no interest in her, while Ruth retains a degree of resentment towards the child who set her life on a seemingly irrevocable course. Over the summer holiday, Ruth’s children have noticed she’s become a little barmy. They joke about it, but they are on to something. Underneath her conventional, gracious-hostess exterior, she’s fragmenting.
After seeing her sons off in London and before catching the train back to her well-appointed home in a quaint village on the outskirts of London, Ruth goes shopping. Among her purchases is a small cradle-shaped music box which plays the traditional English lullaby Goodbye Baby Bunting. Ruth tells herself that it’s for a neighbour’s young child, but she is unable to part with it. the music box is a potent symbol of her experience of empty-nest syndrome as well as of the abandonment she feels in the vulnerable-child part of her own psyche. Her husband, Rex Whiting, is a high-end dentist to celebrities, who stays in his London flat during the work week, ostensibly out of convenience, but actually because adultery is a whole lot easier to manage at a distance.
Ruth is just descending into nervous collapse when her daughter suddenly returns home from Oxford to announce she’s pregnant. The “boyfriend” (if you can call him that) is cut from the same boorish cloth as Rex, and Angela certainly does not want to marry him. She also doesn’t want her father to know anything about her situation, believing he’d yell up a righteously indignant storm and likely force her into marriage. Ruth and Angela tentatively bond as they try to obtain abortion services for Angela. Abortion is illegal in 1958.
I have no idea how well Ruth and Angela’s experience seeking abortion reflects that of actual English women in the mid-twentieth century, but the novel made me interested in finding out more.
To her credit, Mortimer provides a realistic conclusion. Mother and daughter have not become kindred spirits, but they share a secret, and Ruth has gained some confidence by competently helping her daughter to steer her life in a different direction from her own. Angela moves on.
An absorbing novel. Recommended.
After seeing her sons off in London and before catching the train back to her well-appointed home in a quaint village on the outskirts of London, Ruth goes shopping. Among her purchases is a small cradle-shaped music box which plays the traditional English lullaby Goodbye Baby Bunting. Ruth tells herself that it’s for a neighbour’s young child, but she is unable to part with it. the music box is a potent symbol of her experience of empty-nest syndrome as well as of the abandonment she feels in the vulnerable-child part of her own psyche. Her husband, Rex Whiting, is a high-end dentist to celebrities, who stays in his London flat during the work week, ostensibly out of convenience, but actually because adultery is a whole lot easier to manage at a distance.
Ruth is just descending into nervous collapse when her daughter suddenly returns home from Oxford to announce she’s pregnant. The “boyfriend” (if you can call him that) is cut from the same boorish cloth as Rex, and Angela certainly does not want to marry him. She also doesn’t want her father to know anything about her situation, believing he’d yell up a righteously indignant storm and likely force her into marriage. Ruth and Angela tentatively bond as they try to obtain abortion services for Angela. Abortion is illegal in 1958.
I have no idea how well Ruth and Angela’s experience seeking abortion reflects that of actual English women in the mid-twentieth century, but the novel made me interested in finding out more.
To her credit, Mortimer provides a realistic conclusion. Mother and daughter have not become kindred spirits, but they share a secret, and Ruth has gained some confidence by competently helping her daughter to steer her life in a different direction from her own. Angela moves on.
An absorbing novel. Recommended.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 26, 2022
A woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown, and whose husband is having an affair, finds a sense of purpose in helping her eighteen-year-old daughter arrange an abortion. This is handled so brilliantly by Penelope Mortimer and my heart broke for Ruth, the wife and mother.
March 29, 2011
One of those books on my 'to read' shelf for close to 20 years, this is absolutely absorbing and in many ways totally shocking in the 21st century. In many ways I'm glad I waited this long to get to it, because now I'm middle aged myself, and a mother and wife, I view it differently--definitely than I viewed Mortimer the first time I read The Pumpkin Eater. Mortimer was clearly brilliant, perhaps too much so, and her obvious psychological and emotional dysfunction is recorded everywhere. But she also saw right through to the skeleton of women's existence in this, our patriarchal society, and her voice is thrilling.
This novel records, as most of Mortimer's writing did, the descent into mental hell of a woman too clever to be caught in the trap of her gender, time, social class and country's culture. She needs people around her, for example, but her sons, following one of the most grotesque of British upper class traditions, are in boarding school. And she needs something to occupy her mind, but due to the constraints placed on her gender by time and class, she really can't. The true hell as depicted by Mortimer is the relationship of women to men--those who are captors and yet also lovers. Thw hatred inherent in sexual desire, as very likely it was lived then, is incredible. Yet when you know that Mortimer herself was abused by her own father, maybe not so surprising?
A worthwhile novel to read at a time like ours, when the word 'feminist' is considered a bad word!
This novel records, as most of Mortimer's writing did, the descent into mental hell of a woman too clever to be caught in the trap of her gender, time, social class and country's culture. She needs people around her, for example, but her sons, following one of the most grotesque of British upper class traditions, are in boarding school. And she needs something to occupy her mind, but due to the constraints placed on her gender by time and class, she really can't. The true hell as depicted by Mortimer is the relationship of women to men--those who are captors and yet also lovers. Thw hatred inherent in sexual desire, as very likely it was lived then, is incredible. Yet when you know that Mortimer herself was abused by her own father, maybe not so surprising?
A worthwhile novel to read at a time like ours, when the word 'feminist' is considered a bad word!
February 13, 2010
This is the best book I've read in years. Not what I'd call uplifting, but it is beautiful in its coldness. It is written from the perspective of a housewife in the late 50's/early 60's. Her children are most often away from home and you have the sense that she is frozen away in a cave of loneliness. Her heart still beats, but only with a vague hope that there may be some possibility of escape. She is fully cognizant of the futility of her situation. The experience of reading this book was like watching a heart break under glass. But after all, she is a woman, and so she goes on living.
This is a quick read, but it delves with chilling honesty into conflicted feelings about motherhood, gender inequality, social hypocrisy and the paralysis of depression.
This is a quick read, but it delves with chilling honesty into conflicted feelings about motherhood, gender inequality, social hypocrisy and the paralysis of depression.
December 31, 2018
This is a terrific book on an important subject, and I can't begin to understand why it isn't a set text in Women Studies everywhere. Published in 1958, the story revolves around an eighteen-year old girl, Angela, and her mother, Ruth. At the beginning of the book, Ruth, who leads a boring life in the London commuter belt, is having a nervous breakdown when Angela announces that she is pregnant and doesn't want to keep the baby. Angela herself is the reason why Rex felt obliged to marry Ruth in the first place, and he has never quite forgiven either his wife or his daughter for his entrapment. Angela doesn't know until the end of the story that she was conceived before her parents got married, but she is well aware that her sexist father if a lot more affectionate towards her younger brothers. Having intuited at first sight that Angela's boyfriend Tony is just as selfish and hypocritical as Rex, Ruth does everything she can to help Angela have a safe abortion, even though abortion is viscerally abhorrent to her. During the countdown towards Christmas, Ruth scrambles to find a psychiatrist who will write an assessment of Angela that will enable Dr Fickstein to perform the abortion legally, so that Angela be spared the dinginess and dangers of a backstreet abortion. As soon as the curetage is behind her, Angela forgets how much she owes her mother and moves on with her life, leaving Ruth to sink back into her loveless marriage and narrowly circumscribed existence. Everything in this novel is brilliant: the characters, the dialogues, and the unflinching look at the realities of abortion when it was barely legal and carried a huge stigma. The great thing about it is that you never feel that Mortimer has an axe to grind, which makes it so much better than more famous "feminist" novels.
November 21, 2022
I really didn't expect to like this as much as I did. I caught myself thinking toward the end of this novella that the subtext of the tale - while in no way a mystery per se - somehow receded into the background but paid off in an unexpected way in the final few chapters. This sleight of hand, coupled with the beautiful dialogue between mother and daughter, made this a five-star read for me. A must-read in a post-Roe v. Wade world.
October 20, 2022
4.5⭐️
There’s something about the 1950’s and its depictions in movies and books that I am drawn to recently. Daddy’s Gone A-Hunting felt like a twisted Douglas Sirk novel. Swap America for England. The slow yet methodical pace of the book was riveting. I couldn’t stop reading. Ruth and Angela are two of my favorite characters in a book I’ve read this year. Could’ve been 500 pages and I would have been all in. Highly recommended!
There’s something about the 1950’s and its depictions in movies and books that I am drawn to recently. Daddy’s Gone A-Hunting felt like a twisted Douglas Sirk novel. Swap America for England. The slow yet methodical pace of the book was riveting. I couldn’t stop reading. Ruth and Angela are two of my favorite characters in a book I’ve read this year. Could’ve been 500 pages and I would have been all in. Highly recommended!
January 30, 2010
First published in 1958 this is a novel about a very depressed woman. Her husband is not very nice (at least I didn't think so) her daughter is almost grown up, at Oxford, and her two boys away at boarding school most of the year. She has a dull, boring life, and feels useless. she suffers a breakdown, and upon her almost recovery - still feeling very fragile, she has to contend with her daughter's terrible secret. The situation leads her to think a lot about her own life, and reflect on marriage, and her role as a mother. This is so well written and almost unputdownable, I found Ruth a brilliant sympathetic character, I really engaged with her. There is also a lovely touch of humor in this novel, which is never actually depressing to read.
August 17, 2018
En primer lugar dejadme destacar la preciosa edición que Impedimenta ha hecho de este libro. Desde la magnífica portada con sobrecubierta, pasando por una calidad de papel impecable y terminando por los detalles que acompañan el libro.
Vamos con la obra:
Decir que este libro incomoda es quedarse corta. Que un libro escrito en los años 50 del siglo XX aborde el tema de estas mujeres de clase media alta de este modo, sería en su día una apuesta muy arriesgada. Hoy estamos acostumbradas a leer y ver libros y series sobre este tema (Mujeres desesperadas y similares) pero en esos años hablar de que una mujer era infeliz a pesar de que su vida es un escaparate de vida perfecta, prácticamente debió ser un escándalo.
En este libro veremos el desconcierto que sienten en esas vidas de opereta que les toca representar... Deben ser amas de casa excepcionales, esposas amantes y sumisas, madres amantísimas... Para todo ello las han educado y les han dicho que esa será su felicidad ¿y qué ocurre cuando descubres que no sólo no eres feliz, que incluso vives amargada?
Como veis, no es un libro amable para leer. La autora escribe de una manera tan sublime que su prosa nos parece ligera pero nada más lejos de la realidad. Hace que sus frases, sus personajes, sus escenas nos resulten tan conocidos que llegan a doler.
¿Recomendaría este libro? Sí, sin duda alguna. Lo recomiendo por la magnífica calidad literaria, lo recomiendo por ser una obra muy arriesgada dentro del contexto de su época de escritura... Pero no os voy a engañar, es un libro que, de tan coherente, deja amargura hasta el final de sus páginas, mucha. Es un libro donde esas mujeres tratan de gritar tras sus collares de perlas y sus casas perfectas.
CITAS:
"Las mujeres (...) como pequeños icebergs, mantienen su cara despierta y rutilante por encima del agua; bajo la superficie, sumergida a muchas brazas de ociosa profundidad, retienen su propia personalidad»
"Unas son felices, otras están emponzoñadas de aburrimiento; unas beben demasiado y otras, por debajo de la línea de demarcación, están un poco desequilibradas; unas aman a sus maridos y otras agonizan por la ausencia de amor; unas pocas tienen talento, que les es tan inservible como una extremidad paralizada"
VALORACIÓN:🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 ⭐
SINOPSIS:
En el suburbio donde vive Ruth Whiting, las esposas se ajustan a un código de vestimenta, dirigen sus casas de una forma aburrida y prosaica, crían a sus hijos de la misma manera; todas prefieren el café al té, conducen, juegan al bridge, poseen al menos una joya valiosa y son moderadamente atractivas. Sin embargo, Ruth se está volviendo loca. O, para decirlo de un modo políticamente correcto, acaba de sufrir «un leve ataque de nervios». Aunque la realidad es mucho menos dulce. Ruth se está volviendo loca porque su vida la está matando y su enajenación se ve agravada por la indiferencia de todos los que la rodean. Y es entonces cuando ocurre lo inesperado: su hija universitaria se queda embarazada de un compañero que resulta ser un estúpido, y Ruth se ve obligada a enfrentarse a sus peores miedos.
Vamos con la obra:
Decir que este libro incomoda es quedarse corta. Que un libro escrito en los años 50 del siglo XX aborde el tema de estas mujeres de clase media alta de este modo, sería en su día una apuesta muy arriesgada. Hoy estamos acostumbradas a leer y ver libros y series sobre este tema (Mujeres desesperadas y similares) pero en esos años hablar de que una mujer era infeliz a pesar de que su vida es un escaparate de vida perfecta, prácticamente debió ser un escándalo.
En este libro veremos el desconcierto que sienten en esas vidas de opereta que les toca representar... Deben ser amas de casa excepcionales, esposas amantes y sumisas, madres amantísimas... Para todo ello las han educado y les han dicho que esa será su felicidad ¿y qué ocurre cuando descubres que no sólo no eres feliz, que incluso vives amargada?
Como veis, no es un libro amable para leer. La autora escribe de una manera tan sublime que su prosa nos parece ligera pero nada más lejos de la realidad. Hace que sus frases, sus personajes, sus escenas nos resulten tan conocidos que llegan a doler.
¿Recomendaría este libro? Sí, sin duda alguna. Lo recomiendo por la magnífica calidad literaria, lo recomiendo por ser una obra muy arriesgada dentro del contexto de su época de escritura... Pero no os voy a engañar, es un libro que, de tan coherente, deja amargura hasta el final de sus páginas, mucha. Es un libro donde esas mujeres tratan de gritar tras sus collares de perlas y sus casas perfectas.
CITAS:
"Las mujeres (...) como pequeños icebergs, mantienen su cara despierta y rutilante por encima del agua; bajo la superficie, sumergida a muchas brazas de ociosa profundidad, retienen su propia personalidad»
"Unas son felices, otras están emponzoñadas de aburrimiento; unas beben demasiado y otras, por debajo de la línea de demarcación, están un poco desequilibradas; unas aman a sus maridos y otras agonizan por la ausencia de amor; unas pocas tienen talento, que les es tan inservible como una extremidad paralizada"
VALORACIÓN:🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 ⭐
SINOPSIS:
En el suburbio donde vive Ruth Whiting, las esposas se ajustan a un código de vestimenta, dirigen sus casas de una forma aburrida y prosaica, crían a sus hijos de la misma manera; todas prefieren el café al té, conducen, juegan al bridge, poseen al menos una joya valiosa y son moderadamente atractivas. Sin embargo, Ruth se está volviendo loca. O, para decirlo de un modo políticamente correcto, acaba de sufrir «un leve ataque de nervios». Aunque la realidad es mucho menos dulce. Ruth se está volviendo loca porque su vida la está matando y su enajenación se ve agravada por la indiferencia de todos los que la rodean. Y es entonces cuando ocurre lo inesperado: su hija universitaria se queda embarazada de un compañero que resulta ser un estúpido, y Ruth se ve obligada a enfrentarse a sus peores miedos.
August 1, 2018
💜La protagonista Ruth parece tener una vida idílica con su familia en un entorno de vecinos que dirigen su vida de forma tranquila y monótona.
💜Tras lo cotidiano,una mujer que va despertando y viendo que su vida se marca por la rutina y los intereses de sus tres hijos y su marido.
📌El punto de inflexión lo pone el embarazo de su hija Ángela,una situación a la que se enfrentan juntas y que le hace recordar como ella se vio empujada a su matrimonio por un embarazo no esperado.
💜Se trata de forma muy directa temas fundamentales que marcan la vida de una mujer:la perdida de la virginidad,el matrimonio,los embarazos,el aborto,la vida doméstica,las infidelidades.
🖋La autora tiene una pluma precisa ,y una lectura ligera.
Me he quedado con más ganas de leer a Mortimer,por lo directa que es en temas poco tratados,así que anotó a la lista de futuras lecturas “El devorador de calabazas “ del que dicen es:un clásico del feminismo inglés .
💜Totalmente de acuerdo con una frase de Edna O,brien “Todas las mujeres que conozco deberían leer a Mortimer al menos una vez en la vida”a lo que añado y todos los hombres ,es una forma estupenda de entender sensaciones y sentimientos femeninos.
🎵 Adiós conejito/Papa se ha ido de caza/A conseguir una piel de conejo /Con la que arropar a su conejito/Adiós,conejito...”🎵
💜Tras lo cotidiano,una mujer que va despertando y viendo que su vida se marca por la rutina y los intereses de sus tres hijos y su marido.
📌El punto de inflexión lo pone el embarazo de su hija Ángela,una situación a la que se enfrentan juntas y que le hace recordar como ella se vio empujada a su matrimonio por un embarazo no esperado.
💜Se trata de forma muy directa temas fundamentales que marcan la vida de una mujer:la perdida de la virginidad,el matrimonio,los embarazos,el aborto,la vida doméstica,las infidelidades.
🖋La autora tiene una pluma precisa ,y una lectura ligera.
Me he quedado con más ganas de leer a Mortimer,por lo directa que es en temas poco tratados,así que anotó a la lista de futuras lecturas “El devorador de calabazas “ del que dicen es:un clásico del feminismo inglés .
💜Totalmente de acuerdo con una frase de Edna O,brien “Todas las mujeres que conozco deberían leer a Mortimer al menos una vez en la vida”a lo que añado y todos los hombres ,es una forma estupenda de entender sensaciones y sentimientos femeninos.
🎵 Adiós conejito/Papa se ha ido de caza/A conseguir una piel de conejo /Con la que arropar a su conejito/Adiós,conejito...”🎵
November 2, 2022
This book surprised me by how contemporary it read. If you told me it was written last year instead of 1958 I would believe you. It’s not just the topic that makes it relevant to today (A mother, Ruth, trying to help her teenage daughter, Angela, get access to an illegal abortion) but, more impressively, it’s the precise, sharp language that elevates the whole book from simply being polemic.
Mortimer is witty, observant, cold as ice, and, still, compassionate. She’s unafraid to point out the social hypocrisies and banalities of this middle-class suburban world. Through her cool,clear prose she’s able to create the visceral feeling of being trapped. You feel these character’s depression and dissatisfaction through so many awkward interactions, inane conversations, and constant miscommunication. It isn’t just Ruth who’s stuck, the other wives are just as trapped but pretend it’s nothing. Even the husbands, who can’t express themselves, are miserable.
I hope I’m not making this book sound dramatic or overwrought, because there are so many funny moments in the writing. Mortimer will just cut you. She also created a propulsive story with a sense of urgency (for obvious reasons).
Mortimer is witty, observant, cold as ice, and, still, compassionate. She’s unafraid to point out the social hypocrisies and banalities of this middle-class suburban world. Through her cool,clear prose she’s able to create the visceral feeling of being trapped. You feel these character’s depression and dissatisfaction through so many awkward interactions, inane conversations, and constant miscommunication. It isn’t just Ruth who’s stuck, the other wives are just as trapped but pretend it’s nothing. Even the husbands, who can’t express themselves, are miserable.
I hope I’m not making this book sound dramatic or overwrought, because there are so many funny moments in the writing. Mortimer will just cut you. She also created a propulsive story with a sense of urgency (for obvious reasons).
June 28, 2018
No está mal
October 11, 2023
“The long, painful, frustrating summer was over: the summer of wet socks, of plimsolls fossilized by salt and sand; the summer of Wellington boots and Monopoly, bicycles left out in the rain and the steady, pungent smell of bubble gum; the summer of inadequacy. It had begun with strawberries pried out like jewels from under the wet leaves and covering of straw; it had ended with bitter quarrels about who should shred the runner beans, hard and brown as old leather. And now it was over. The children, the summer, gone.”
While in her teens, Ruth discovers that she was pregnant and soon marries the father of the baby. Now with three grown children off to school, Ruth lives a life of quiet desperation and loneliness in a small community.
“The relationships between the men are based on an understanding of success. Admiration in general, affection not uncommon. Even pity is known. The women have no such understanding. Like little icebergs, each keeps a bright and shiny face above the water; below the water, submerged in fathoms of leisure, each keeps her own isolated personality. Some are happy, some poisoned with boredom….Their friendships, appearing frank and sunny, are febrile and short-lived….Combined, their energy could start a revolution…drive an atomic plant.”
While at university her oldest child, Angela, finds out she is pregnant and comes home to ask her mother for help. Because of her difficult relationship with her husband, Rex, Ruth and Angela chose not to tell him about the pregnancy and decides to find a solution to the problem themselves.
“The flow of cruelty, which he called reason, would run, a thin, poisonous stream, into every hole and pocket of the day. There would be no time or place left to think in.”
Rallying herself, Ruth finds a doctor to perform the abortion for Angela, illegal at the time, and soon Angela returns to her studies. All along Ruth considers her choice to keep her first born, Angela’s decision to terminate her pregnancy and the consequences of each choice.
“Finally she sat up. She smoothed her hair. She gathered up her parcels one by one, her hat and gloves, her trivial armor. Avoiding the carelessly abandoned bicycles, the gum-boots, she went into the house.”
I knew this 1958 novel by Penelope Mortimer dealt with abortion. The doubts and then the ambivalence Ruth feels about the termination of a pregnancy was far more nuanced than I was expecting from a novel from this time. I felt the intensity of the desperation that Ruth and Angela felt trying to find a solution. Also rendered with great sensitivity was Ruth’s depression, not referred to by that name in the novel. Her resigning herself to her current life at the end of the novel felt true to her character though unbelievably sad.
While in her teens, Ruth discovers that she was pregnant and soon marries the father of the baby. Now with three grown children off to school, Ruth lives a life of quiet desperation and loneliness in a small community.
“The relationships between the men are based on an understanding of success. Admiration in general, affection not uncommon. Even pity is known. The women have no such understanding. Like little icebergs, each keeps a bright and shiny face above the water; below the water, submerged in fathoms of leisure, each keeps her own isolated personality. Some are happy, some poisoned with boredom….Their friendships, appearing frank and sunny, are febrile and short-lived….Combined, their energy could start a revolution…drive an atomic plant.”
While at university her oldest child, Angela, finds out she is pregnant and comes home to ask her mother for help. Because of her difficult relationship with her husband, Rex, Ruth and Angela chose not to tell him about the pregnancy and decides to find a solution to the problem themselves.
“The flow of cruelty, which he called reason, would run, a thin, poisonous stream, into every hole and pocket of the day. There would be no time or place left to think in.”
Rallying herself, Ruth finds a doctor to perform the abortion for Angela, illegal at the time, and soon Angela returns to her studies. All along Ruth considers her choice to keep her first born, Angela’s decision to terminate her pregnancy and the consequences of each choice.
“Finally she sat up. She smoothed her hair. She gathered up her parcels one by one, her hat and gloves, her trivial armor. Avoiding the carelessly abandoned bicycles, the gum-boots, she went into the house.”
I knew this 1958 novel by Penelope Mortimer dealt with abortion. The doubts and then the ambivalence Ruth feels about the termination of a pregnancy was far more nuanced than I was expecting from a novel from this time. I felt the intensity of the desperation that Ruth and Angela felt trying to find a solution. Also rendered with great sensitivity was Ruth’s depression, not referred to by that name in the novel. Her resigning herself to her current life at the end of the novel felt true to her character though unbelievably sad.
September 23, 2022
Terrific. Written in 1958, I might describe this novel as acid etched British social comedy. It is not particularly funny, but then neither were the lives of affluent middle class families, with wives penned at home, husbands at work in London where they could safely pursue their mistresses, and children sent off to boarding school. Mortimer nails the patriarchal privilege that ruled. The story revolves around a daughter of 17 becoming pregnant and her mother overcoming her own misery to see that her daughter does not fall into the same trap.
I loved the writing. It has something about it slightly off-kilter that is perfectly suited to the prevailing bourgeois misery and desperation. You can just see second wave feminism getting ready to raise its furious head to refuse the script.
Here is a sample paragraph, setting the scene for a party: « When Ralph Rackworth’s father was a baby—looking much the same as he did now, and always suffering from croup—these rooms had often blazed for parties. Oh, the fires in the bedrooms, the hair and the corseting, violins sawing till dawn; truffles and champagne, no very nice people reeling under the chandeliers, to be sure, but memorable. So memorable that even to this day the old man, in his deepest sleep, sometimes clapped his hands to his ears and whimpered. »
I can’t help but give my gloss: This lovely balanced paragraph, between the baby as old man and the old man whimpering, contains all the disequilibrium (blazing rooms, sawing violins, not very nice people reeling) of the forthcoming social set piece. It will go on to illustrate how unhappy, how haplessly caught up in, how helplessly inadequate the characters are to respond to the misery and falsity of a life that promises them everything.
I loved the writing. It has something about it slightly off-kilter that is perfectly suited to the prevailing bourgeois misery and desperation. You can just see second wave feminism getting ready to raise its furious head to refuse the script.
Here is a sample paragraph, setting the scene for a party: « When Ralph Rackworth’s father was a baby—looking much the same as he did now, and always suffering from croup—these rooms had often blazed for parties. Oh, the fires in the bedrooms, the hair and the corseting, violins sawing till dawn; truffles and champagne, no very nice people reeling under the chandeliers, to be sure, but memorable. So memorable that even to this day the old man, in his deepest sleep, sometimes clapped his hands to his ears and whimpered. »
I can’t help but give my gloss: This lovely balanced paragraph, between the baby as old man and the old man whimpering, contains all the disequilibrium (blazing rooms, sawing violins, not very nice people reeling) of the forthcoming social set piece. It will go on to illustrate how unhappy, how haplessly caught up in, how helplessly inadequate the characters are to respond to the misery and falsity of a life that promises them everything.
February 27, 2022
This is a feminist novel written with a great deal of honesty. Not only do the men let their wives and daughters down, but the women betray each other as well.
Ruth sees her daughter making the same mistakes she made at the same age. She tries to support her, thinking it will repair their relationship. She helps her get an abortion, even though she knows in her heart that it is wrong and irrevocable. She doesn't want her daughter to be forced into a loveless marriage like her own.
Ruth's story broke my heart. This is such a sad book about trying to do the right thing for your children while erasing yourself in the process, and realizing that giving them what they want might not be what is best for them in the long run.
Ruth sees her daughter making the same mistakes she made at the same age. She tries to support her, thinking it will repair their relationship. She helps her get an abortion, even though she knows in her heart that it is wrong and irrevocable. She doesn't want her daughter to be forced into a loveless marriage like her own.
Ruth's story broke my heart. This is such a sad book about trying to do the right thing for your children while erasing yourself in the process, and realizing that giving them what they want might not be what is best for them in the long run.
March 30, 2023
Penelope Mortimer. Papá se va de caza. traducción de Alicia Frieyro.
«Las mujeres (...) como pequeños icebergs, mantienen su cara despierta y rutilante por encima del agua; bajo la superficie, sumergida a muchas brazas de ociosa profundidad, retienen su propia personalidad»
°
Te casas embarazada. Tu marido se traslada a otra ciudad a trabajar y sólo viene los fines de semana y mientras, tus días transcurren en una bonita casa en un suburbio rodeada de mujeres en sus bonitas casas y con sus maridos trabajando fuera....
"- Angela nació a los seis meses de casarnos. Ella no lo sabe, claro. Yo no me quería casar. No deseaba a Angela. Tuvimos que casarnos. No hubo más remedio".
°
Tienes dos hijos más a los que llevas a un internado y Angela se va a la universidad. De repente la casa está vacia y comienzas a hablar sola
"-¿Y si me sirvo otra copa? Oh, solo es la tercera, los vasos son terriblemente pequeños. Rex ya no es como antes. ¿Sabías que antes tocaba la guitarra?..."
°
Entonces un acontecimiento vendrá a despertar el letargo de Ruth y a cuestionarse su relación con Rex, con sus hijos y con ella misma...
°
"Se acabó, se dijo a si misma. Se han marchado todos. Conduces hasta casa, es invierno y eres más vieja."
°
Papá se ha ido de caza es una historia sencilla a primera vista pero donde rascar y pensar bastante. La vida Ruth es el reflejo de muchas mujeres.
He sentido la narración de Mortimer muy cercana, muy actual.
«Las mujeres (...) como pequeños icebergs, mantienen su cara despierta y rutilante por encima del agua; bajo la superficie, sumergida a muchas brazas de ociosa profundidad, retienen su propia personalidad»
°
Te casas embarazada. Tu marido se traslada a otra ciudad a trabajar y sólo viene los fines de semana y mientras, tus días transcurren en una bonita casa en un suburbio rodeada de mujeres en sus bonitas casas y con sus maridos trabajando fuera....
"- Angela nació a los seis meses de casarnos. Ella no lo sabe, claro. Yo no me quería casar. No deseaba a Angela. Tuvimos que casarnos. No hubo más remedio".
°
Tienes dos hijos más a los que llevas a un internado y Angela se va a la universidad. De repente la casa está vacia y comienzas a hablar sola
"-¿Y si me sirvo otra copa? Oh, solo es la tercera, los vasos son terriblemente pequeños. Rex ya no es como antes. ¿Sabías que antes tocaba la guitarra?..."
°
Entonces un acontecimiento vendrá a despertar el letargo de Ruth y a cuestionarse su relación con Rex, con sus hijos y con ella misma...
°
"Se acabó, se dijo a si misma. Se han marchado todos. Conduces hasta casa, es invierno y eres más vieja."
°
Papá se ha ido de caza es una historia sencilla a primera vista pero donde rascar y pensar bastante. La vida Ruth es el reflejo de muchas mujeres.
He sentido la narración de Mortimer muy cercana, muy actual.
March 9, 2024
So well written but soul crushing. I wish I was a drinking person. Tea just doesn’t cut it with this book.
“I dreaded him. I dreaded my life with him. I dreaded him being home.”
“I dreaded him. I dreaded my life with him. I dreaded him being home.”
September 9, 2018
A quiet little book, Daddy's Gone A-Hunting discussed so many pressing and taboo issues that I was quite taken aback with how much it touched on. I deeply felt for the main character, a mother struggling to cope with keeping her daughter's secret, and it ended in such a gut wrenching way that I did feel a little numb when I finished it. Mortimer is an author I will explore more in the future.
Read
March 18, 2023Bleak and desolate, but vigorously written and sharply observed. Ang hirap maging babae.
March 10, 2024
Razor sharp and keen-eyed as any book I’ve ever read, it’s hard to believe Penelope Mortimer’s ‘Daddy’s Gone A-Hunting’ would ever go out of style.
In the sparsity of her prose and absolute accuracy of her observation, Mortimer impossibly paints a picture of an entire societal system of social hierarchy through the portrait of just a few lives. Her criticisms always feel like an inevitable consequence of the lives the characters are forced to lead, whose very actions feel like an inevitable consequence of the things she necessarily criticises. This impressively circular arrangement helps to make this one of the most convincing books I’ve read in some time.
Boiling the amount of subjects Mortimer manages to take aim at (and so exceedingly well) to so few feels crude, but there are two in particular that struck me most. First, the relationship between Ruth and Angela is so excruciatingly authentic. She perfectly captures both the well meaning mother crippled by her own pain, inevitably misunderstood by the daughter too wrapped up in the selfishness and self indulgence of youth to see their commonality. They play off against each other painfully and realistically throughout, never quite coming to blows but never quite able to embrace each other either.
The other thing Mortimer inevitably takes aim at is the vast patriarchal structure that traps all of the characters, including the men. She maintains just the right level of sympathy buried within her otherwise absolutely scathing critique of their actions and expressions. But in the end no one is safe from Mortimer’s brutal truths, and she absolutely eviscerates character Tony, with one of my favourite moments from the novel:
“She recognised them as the eyes of a man who felt nothing. Posturing for other people, for the countless mirrors, he would assume attitudes of outrage, love, friendship, even physical need. He would probably go through his entire life imaging that he was real; but not one person would owe him gratitude, remember his comfort.”
If someone had so throughly and masterfully destroyed me in fiction in this way, I might simply drop dead.
In the end, it’s hard to find words that don’t feel inadequate in the face of Mortimer’s sheer skill with the medium to describe this novel. Even the complexities of the characters and their unbelievably complete situations render any attempt at blurb or further flattery feel entirely inept. So I’ll just say this: this novel was simply wonderful.
In the sparsity of her prose and absolute accuracy of her observation, Mortimer impossibly paints a picture of an entire societal system of social hierarchy through the portrait of just a few lives. Her criticisms always feel like an inevitable consequence of the lives the characters are forced to lead, whose very actions feel like an inevitable consequence of the things she necessarily criticises. This impressively circular arrangement helps to make this one of the most convincing books I’ve read in some time.
Boiling the amount of subjects Mortimer manages to take aim at (and so exceedingly well) to so few feels crude, but there are two in particular that struck me most. First, the relationship between Ruth and Angela is so excruciatingly authentic. She perfectly captures both the well meaning mother crippled by her own pain, inevitably misunderstood by the daughter too wrapped up in the selfishness and self indulgence of youth to see their commonality. They play off against each other painfully and realistically throughout, never quite coming to blows but never quite able to embrace each other either.
The other thing Mortimer inevitably takes aim at is the vast patriarchal structure that traps all of the characters, including the men. She maintains just the right level of sympathy buried within her otherwise absolutely scathing critique of their actions and expressions. But in the end no one is safe from Mortimer’s brutal truths, and she absolutely eviscerates character Tony, with one of my favourite moments from the novel:
“She recognised them as the eyes of a man who felt nothing. Posturing for other people, for the countless mirrors, he would assume attitudes of outrage, love, friendship, even physical need. He would probably go through his entire life imaging that he was real; but not one person would owe him gratitude, remember his comfort.”
If someone had so throughly and masterfully destroyed me in fiction in this way, I might simply drop dead.
In the end, it’s hard to find words that don’t feel inadequate in the face of Mortimer’s sheer skill with the medium to describe this novel. Even the complexities of the characters and their unbelievably complete situations render any attempt at blurb or further flattery feel entirely inept. So I’ll just say this: this novel was simply wonderful.
June 13, 2025
Papá se ha ido de caza es una novela que te atraviesa con una sensación de incomodidad constante. Mortimer obliga al lector a mirar de frente aquello que la cultura patriarcal lleva décadas barriendo bajo la alfombra doméstica: la angustia existencial y silenciosa de la mujer que ha sido domesticada.
La novela se articula en una unidad de tiempo breve, en apenas unos días en los que la casa familiar funciona como escenario, cárcel y metáfora. Es una obra contenida, con una economía narrativa admirable, donde cada palabra parece estar al borde del colapso emocional. Mortimer escribe como si no le quedara tiempo ni energía para la floritura; su estilo recuerda al realismo psicológico británico, pero con una sequedad más cercana a Jean Rhys que a Virginia Woolf. No hay lirismo, sino desesperación.
La estructura fragmentaria, a través de los pensamientos dispersos y erráticos de Ruth, su protagonista, recrea con fidelidad la conciencia de una mujer al borde del abismo. Esta fragmentación no es solo formal: es también ideológica. Ruth está rota, no como una heroína trágica, sino como tantas mujeres invisibles en la historia de la literatura, desdibujadas entre la cuna, la cocina y el teléfono que no suena.
Mortimer despliega una crítica feroz al mito de la feminidad posvictoriana: la mujer esposa, madre, cuidadora, silenciosa. Papá se ha ido de caza es, en este sentido, un texto profundamente feminista, aunque no militante. Queda muy lejos del panfleto. Mortimer insiste en mostrar el coste real de la vida doméstica cuando nadie sostiene al que sostiene: el desgaste, la frustración, la alienación que no se nombra, el vacío.
Ruth no está en busca de una gran revelación. No lee a Simone de Beauvoir ni planea escapar. No se rebela, simplemente no puede más. Y eso, justamente, es lo que vuelve tan poderosa su historia. Porque ¿qué pasa cuando una mujer ya no tiene fuerzas pero tampoco sabe hacia dónde ir? Mortimer habla de ese estado intermedio, invisible, donde la desesperación no grita, pero consume. Eso es lo realmente subversivo.
El aborto ilegal, planteado a través de la historia de la hija de Ruth, convierte a la maternidad en una experiencia cargada de violencia y coerción. El dolor pasa de madre a hija en silencio, sin palabras. El trauma se hereda y repite entre una madre que no puede hablar y una hija que no sabe cómo pedir ayuda. La novela se convierte en un retrato silenciosamente desgarrador de la transmisión de la desolación femenina.
La soledad de las madres, el aburrimiento de la vida doméstica, la infantilización de la mujer casada, la falta total de reciprocidad emocional… todo eso está ahí, retratado con una frialdad quirúrgica. Y el título, casi tierno prestado de una canción infantil es en realidad un gesto cínico: el hombre se va (a cazar, a trabajar, a vivir) y la mujer se queda, atrapada entre las ruinas, barriendo, esperando.
Mortimer no intenta conmover, ni busca la compasión. Lo que hace es mostrar una realidad que, en su banalidad repetida, resulta brutal. En una época donde aún se idealizaba a la madre feliz y la esposa sacrificada, ella escribió una novela que, sin alardes, se anticipa a los debates del feminismo de la segunda ola.
Papá se ha ido de caza es una de esas obras que han quedado medio escondidas en el canon del siglo XX. Pero merece mucho más que eso. Es un retrato feroz y honesto de la domesticidad como campo de batalla emocional. Si Sylvia Plath y Betty Friedan hubieran tenido una hermana británica secreta, sin duda habría sido Penelope Mortimer.
La novela se articula en una unidad de tiempo breve, en apenas unos días en los que la casa familiar funciona como escenario, cárcel y metáfora. Es una obra contenida, con una economía narrativa admirable, donde cada palabra parece estar al borde del colapso emocional. Mortimer escribe como si no le quedara tiempo ni energía para la floritura; su estilo recuerda al realismo psicológico británico, pero con una sequedad más cercana a Jean Rhys que a Virginia Woolf. No hay lirismo, sino desesperación.
La estructura fragmentaria, a través de los pensamientos dispersos y erráticos de Ruth, su protagonista, recrea con fidelidad la conciencia de una mujer al borde del abismo. Esta fragmentación no es solo formal: es también ideológica. Ruth está rota, no como una heroína trágica, sino como tantas mujeres invisibles en la historia de la literatura, desdibujadas entre la cuna, la cocina y el teléfono que no suena.
Mortimer despliega una crítica feroz al mito de la feminidad posvictoriana: la mujer esposa, madre, cuidadora, silenciosa. Papá se ha ido de caza es, en este sentido, un texto profundamente feminista, aunque no militante. Queda muy lejos del panfleto. Mortimer insiste en mostrar el coste real de la vida doméstica cuando nadie sostiene al que sostiene: el desgaste, la frustración, la alienación que no se nombra, el vacío.
Ruth no está en busca de una gran revelación. No lee a Simone de Beauvoir ni planea escapar. No se rebela, simplemente no puede más. Y eso, justamente, es lo que vuelve tan poderosa su historia. Porque ¿qué pasa cuando una mujer ya no tiene fuerzas pero tampoco sabe hacia dónde ir? Mortimer habla de ese estado intermedio, invisible, donde la desesperación no grita, pero consume. Eso es lo realmente subversivo.
El aborto ilegal, planteado a través de la historia de la hija de Ruth, convierte a la maternidad en una experiencia cargada de violencia y coerción. El dolor pasa de madre a hija en silencio, sin palabras. El trauma se hereda y repite entre una madre que no puede hablar y una hija que no sabe cómo pedir ayuda. La novela se convierte en un retrato silenciosamente desgarrador de la transmisión de la desolación femenina.
La soledad de las madres, el aburrimiento de la vida doméstica, la infantilización de la mujer casada, la falta total de reciprocidad emocional… todo eso está ahí, retratado con una frialdad quirúrgica. Y el título, casi tierno prestado de una canción infantil es en realidad un gesto cínico: el hombre se va (a cazar, a trabajar, a vivir) y la mujer se queda, atrapada entre las ruinas, barriendo, esperando.
Mortimer no intenta conmover, ni busca la compasión. Lo que hace es mostrar una realidad que, en su banalidad repetida, resulta brutal. En una época donde aún se idealizaba a la madre feliz y la esposa sacrificada, ella escribió una novela que, sin alardes, se anticipa a los debates del feminismo de la segunda ola.
Papá se ha ido de caza es una de esas obras que han quedado medio escondidas en el canon del siglo XX. Pero merece mucho más que eso. Es un retrato feroz y honesto de la domesticidad como campo de batalla emocional. Si Sylvia Plath y Betty Friedan hubieran tenido una hermana británica secreta, sin duda habría sido Penelope Mortimer.
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January 4, 2024Oh man. Going into 2024 I want to stop rating books within a rigid category of a few stars but this is definitely my new favorite book. It’s devastating how trapped the protagonist is within her bourgeois marriage but also a bit hopeful that she is working to break this cycle by helping her daughter get an abortion. The writing is just perfect too; I love this! I’m glad I found this gem.
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September 17, 2024It’s great that this book exists and everything, but I found it to be super dull. The narrative was very wrapped up in the logistics of how to go about getting an abortion in that time/place, and for how much the quotes on the back of the book suggest a deep dive into the midcentury female psyche, it felt like the author kept matters very surface level.
June 18, 2023
L'exploració del personatge d'una mare que es panseix a causa de la buidor i la infelicitat de la seva vida quotidiana, que té l'oportunitat de mirar-s'ho tot des d'un nou punt de vista quan la seva filla adolescent es queda embarassada i necessita la seva ajuda per avortar.
Una història de trama senzilla, i personatges ben escrits, que salten de la pàgina, preparats perquè el lector se senti frustrat amb ells, ja que són massa misògins, massa adolescents, massa egocèntrics o no es comuniquen amb ningú.
Es tracta d'una finestra al món de les mares [angleses, de classe mitjana, a la perifèria, a finals dels anys 50] amb vides buides, preparades per viure de cara a la família, però desvalgudes davant de la realitat aïlladora d'haver d'esperar que el marit torni durant el cap de setmana de treballar a la ciutat o que els fills tornin de l'internat per les vacances.
Una història de trama senzilla, i personatges ben escrits, que salten de la pàgina, preparats perquè el lector se senti frustrat amb ells, ja que són massa misògins, massa adolescents, massa egocèntrics o no es comuniquen amb ningú.
Es tracta d'una finestra al món de les mares [angleses, de classe mitjana, a la perifèria, a finals dels anys 50] amb vides buides, preparades per viure de cara a la família, però desvalgudes davant de la realitat aïlladora d'haver d'esperar que el marit torni durant el cap de setmana de treballar a la ciutat o que els fills tornin de l'internat per les vacances.
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July 31, 2025Too depressing for words. I loved it!
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