Invitation to the Waltz
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Invitation to the Waltz
Narrated by:
Joanna Lumley
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Narrated by:
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Joanna Lumley
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By:
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Rosamond Lehmann
About this listen
Olivia Curtis wakes to her seventeenth birthday and her presents: a roll of flame-coloured silk for her first evening dress, a diary for her innermost thoughts, a china ornament, and a ten shilling note. Safe within the bosom of a family at once lovingly familiar yet curiously remote, she stands poised on the brink of womanhood, anticipating her first dance with tremulous uncertainty and excitement - the greatest, yet most terrifying, event in her restricted social life.
For her pretty, poised elder sister, Kate, the dance will be a triumph, but for Olivia, shy and awkward, what will it be?
©1932 Rosamond Lehmann (P)2014 Audible, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
Exceptional writing and narration!
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Fabulous narration, but...
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First I will warn you that this novel, especially the scenes at the waltz, consists almost entirely of tedious dialogue that does nothing to create any semblance of story—psychological or otherwise. There is no character development. It’s inane conversation after inane conversation, followed by the insecure and frankly bigoted ramblings of an idiotic 17 year old girl.
The point of view is extremely close to the 17 year old, with no narratorial distance, such that her prejudiced, classist and even sexist ideas are presented without any mediating maturity or judgement. There are numerous offensive passages throughout the book, including one where the protagonist meets a group of poor children whom she describes like dirty animals. “They weren’t like other people’s children,” she says. But that is just one example of the constant class snobbery that goes unchallenged in this novel.
The protagonist is one of the worst female characters I have ever read. She is ridiculously sympathetic to everyone. Admittedly, teenagers can be tender-hearted, but it goes well beyond that. The author seems to be saying the girl’s preposterous over abundance sympathy is somehow a strength that will blossom as the girl ages. It isn’t. I wouldn’t want my daughter looking up to a female character like this. I was infuriated by a particular scene at the waltz. An elderly man holds the teenage girl hostage, so to speak. For several dances he presses her body close to his, murmurs lines of racy Romantic poetry, and hints about sex and marriage. The girl is remarkably uncomfortable, but sympathy makes her keep dancing with him until her cousin comes and abruptly pulls her away. The worst part comes after the girl js pulled away. She looks back at the old man, FEELS SORRY FOR HIM, and wishes she could comfort him!! This entirely, alarmingly backwards. Most modern readers would agree that a perverted old man who makes a teenage girl uncomfortable by touching her too much and hinting around about sex has earned whatever humiliation he might feel. Sympathy is entirely out of place in this scene, but no one points it out. In this novel, it is charmingly “maiden-like” and feminine to be sympathetic and loving to everyone, even to the point of being trodden upon.
Some narratorial distance and perhaps an actual storyline or character growth might have helped, but instead it’s tedious conversation after tedious conversation, punctuated by prejudiced, childish ramblings that are never countered by anything more intelligent and wise. Honestly one of the worst books I have read in a long, long time.
Tedious, inane, classist, sexist, absolutely awful
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