"We Are All But A Part Of A Whole Which Has Its Own, Its Distinct, Its Other Meaning: We Are Not Ourselves, We Are Crossroads, Meeting Places, Points On A Curve, We Cannot Exist Independently For We Are Nothing But Signs, Conjunctions, Aggregations"

I would like to call The Radiant Way the novel of the backstory. Because everyone has a tremendously detailed backstory. The 3 main female characters, the husbands of the 2 who are married, the ex-husbands, the sister, the sister's husband, all of the women's children, the mother, the army buddy of one of the husbands. I'm talkin' everyone got their own, very detailed story about who they were and where they came from. I was waiting for the backstory of the father's brother's nephew's cousin's former roommate a la Spaceballs, but I must have missed that part (although there was a backstory of a former quasi-roommate that all the girls knew in college, so I'll chalk that up to a win). But given that half to two-thirds of the book was character backstory, I was still very impressed with the intertwining the storylines of the characters set in their current time, against the political and social climate of the early 1980s in England.  

The novel begins on New Year's Eve of 1980 and focuses on 3 very different, but all very intelligent, scholarly women: Liz, a successful psychiatrist who finds out during her high class NYE party that her husband is divorcing her and leaving her for another woman; Alix, a literature instructor at a women's prison who develops a friendship with one of the inmates that causes her trouble later; and Esther, a pre-eminent Italian art scholar who seems to march to her own beat and define her own space and way in the world. The women all met at Cambridge when they were there interviewing for their schools (of course you learn this part of their backstory!) in the early 1950s and manage to maintain their friendships for 25+ years. I loved how unique and interesting the women were; they felt as though they were very real women that you could actually meet, and ones that I would probably be happy to be friends with. They weren't written as caricatures or clichés of divorced women or career-driven feminists even though these were facets of (some of) their personalities. It was nice to read about contemporary women's lives where the focus was simply letting the characters and their stories shine without any gimmicks. In a way, it reminded me a bit of The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood, but I suspect the similarity of 3 female main characters makes them feel familiar. 

I admittedly don't know a lot about the political climate of England in the early 1980s as I was just a wee babe then, but even without knowing much (other than Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister), the descriptions of the events in the book and their impacts on the different characters made it clear enough: Conservative vs Labour parties, steelworker and mining strikes, government cuts that affected the prison that Alix taught in and where her husband was teaching, changes in television broadcasting, etc. How these events interplayed with the characters and storyline really made the novel much more of a social commentary than I was anticipating it to be. 

One of the other interesting backdrops of the novel includes a serial killer known as the Harrow Road killer who murdered and dismembered women in areas close to where the women lived. The murders come up multiple different times and in multiple different ways in the book, from more oblique descriptions and comparisons of the murders to direct impact on the female characters; circling back to these type of macabre, deadly incidents gives a much more serious, darker tone to the events going on in the women's lives.

I was pleased to have enjoyed this book as much as I did. While I may sound a little snarky about the backstory, I actually really enjoyed reading all about the characters. It made everyone feel like so much more a part of a distinct circle of individuals with shared stories, where you could see their connections and disparities more clearly (and sometimes, not so clearly). It really gave the novel its strength. I would have been pleased if I had another Margaret Drabble book on my list because I would be curious to see how another book from her would be. But alas, not to be. 

Onward we go. Next up is The Wings of the Dove by Henry James. I have 6 books by Henry James on my lists, so it only seems reasonable to get started on at least some of them. After that, I'll probably take a break to read one of the non-list books I have set aside. But so far, so good on progress in 2018. 

225 more books to go. Happy Tuesday!