Fiction – paperback; Daunt Books; 201 pages; 2021.
I have long wanted to read something by Barbara Comyns (1907-1992), an English novelist widely respected and often championed by book bloggers but her work is hard to come by in Australia — unless you want to place a special order.
So when I saw Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead, her third novel, sitting on the shelves at Readings Emporium store on a recent trip to Melbourne, I snapped it up.
First published in 1954, the novel is set about 20 years earlier in the small English village of Warwickshire at around the time of King George VI’s coronation.
It tells the story of the Willoweed family — widower Ebin; his three children, Emma, Dennis and Hattie; his 71-year-old mother; their live-in maids, Norah and Eunice; and the gardener known as Old Ives — and charts their experiences during a series of bizarre and tragic events, which begins with a flood that foreshadows more disaster to come.
Strange objects of pitiful aspect floated past: the bloated body of a drowned sheep, the wool withering about in the water, a white beehive with the perplexed bees still around; a newborn pig, all pink and dead; and the mournful bodies of the peacocks. […] Now a tabby cat with a distended belly passed, its little paws showing above the water, its small head hanging low. [page 8]
That gruesome scene establishes the book’s mood, which is quite dark and oppressive, tinged with just the barest dusting of humour and laced with much cruelty.
Badly behaved grandmother
That cruelty comes in the form of a domineering matriarch — Ebin’s mother, who is called Grandmother Willoweed throughout — who conducts herself with a ruthless disregard for the feelings and well-being of those around her. She terrorises her family by subjecting them to her vile jibes, violent rages and rude behaviour, forcing everyone to tread on metaphorical eggshells.
On one occasion she hurls a brass candlestick down the stairs, repeatedly puts down her son (in front of others) and calls him a fool, and later develops a “pathetic whine” which embarrasses those around her. The word “witch” comes to mind:
She looked like a dreadful old black bird, enormous and horrifying, all weighed down by jet and black plumes and smelling, not of camphor, but chlorodyne. [page 57]
The novel isn’t just about Grandmother Willoweed and her long-suffering family; it also explores a mysterious contagion that infects many of the villagers, causing strange behaviour and fatalities. And with any unexplained pandemic, there are instances of panic, victim-blaming, finger pointing and paranoia. There are many deaths, including those of children.
Eccentric tale
It’s an odd story, morbid and often ghoulish, a mixture of the domestic with the surreal. I didn’t like it very much, nor the distant, almost off-hand style in which it was written, and I struggled to pick it up again whenever I put it down.
Perhaps I just wasn’t in the mood for reading about eccentric behaviour and dysfunctional families, but either way, I’m wondering if Barbara Comyns is really for me or whether I just started with the wrong book.
For more favourable reviews, please see those by Jacqui at JacquiWine’s Journal, Simon at Stuck in a Book, and Radz at Radhika’s Reading Retreat.
Reading Matters 
I haven’t read her either but can’t help thinking you might have had a better experience choosing which one to begin with. I don’t get on with these kinds of depictions of nasty characters, I think they perpetuate an unhealthy effect.
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I think the issue with it, now that I’ve thought more about it, is that the cruelty was a clear case of domestic abuse but it was presented as a behavioural eccentricity. Maybe at the time it was written you could get away with behaviour like that, but not any more. Either that or I have had a sense of humour bypass 😆 but it just left an icky feeling
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Yesterday I was listening to a folk rock playlist while house-cleaning. And Donovan’s “Sunshine Superman” came up with the line “’Cause I made my mind up, you’re going to be mine”. It was supposed to be romantic but these days it makes you think about all those songs and their messages of male ownership of women.
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That’s so cringy. I heard Tom Jones’ She’s a Lady on the radio the other day and thought pretty much the same thing. Mind you, the songs of today aren’t much better – rap, in particular, is full of misogynstic lyrics.
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I don’t listen to much modern popular music kimbofo , but I have heard that said about rap. What to say?!
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Hmm. You definitely haven’t tempted me. Which is a relief. I’m far more often prone to TBR the books you review, with disastrous results on the height of said TBR!
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LOL. It pleases me that I have saved your bank balance 😆
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I haven’t read her either… She’s on my list but not up the top I have to say. She’ll probably stay where she was!
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If all her books are like this, I don’t think I’ll be reading any more by her but am willing to be convinced otherwise.
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Hmmmm I have this on my TBR, sounds like I need to save it for when I’m in the right mood…although I wonder what that mood might be?
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A mood in which you’re happy to read about an old woman being horrible to members of her family !
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Do we (the reader) at least find out why she has become an old woman who is horrible to her family?
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Not that i can recall.
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Oh, I love Comyns. I especially like that innocent, almost childlike style she has for telling terrible events.
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Oh, that’s interesting. Do you have a favourite Comyns? I’m scared I might just have started with the wrong one, but if it’s indicative of her style, then I think it’s safe to say Comyns is not for me 🤷🏻♀️
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I don’t know if I have a favorite, but Sisters on a River was the first one I read, and its events are not as bad, as I recall.
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Thank you. I’ll keep that one in mind if I ever see it on a bookstore shelf!
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Well, this is interesting.
Comyns is one of those authors I’ve been meaning to chase up, but I think you’ve saved me the trouble!
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I suspect it’s a novel of its time and perhaps not the one to read first if you haven’t tried Comyns before. I just felt it was a bit mean spirited and the grandmother’s behaviour abhorrent but maybe I just didn’t get the joke… so many people seem to love her work.
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One comment that has stuck in my mind from the Sorrento festival was Tony Birch saying that while his book Women and Children involves domestic violence, there isn’t a scene depicting it, there’s a scene where the grandchild tends the wounds of her grandmother afterwards. He wanted his book to be about love, and he wants to write about men who are ok. That resonated with me.
I don’t want Pollyanna books, and I like flawed characters, but I’m sick of relentless negativity about people being cruel to each other.
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I used to love BC and I had all her books but they’re so dark and macabre I found I couldn’t cope with her any more (do NOT read The Skin Chairs) and I’ve given them all away apart from Our Spoons Came From Woolworths, which does still have dead puppies. I loved her flat voice and artless narrators but they’re just too horrible for me.
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Oh yes, I remember reading a review of The Skin Chairs and feeling sickened by it!
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I absolutely love Barbara Comyns. I have been thinking of rereading this one lately, and I may do after I have read the new biography. I have read all her books and I will probably just carry on rereading her with pleasure. I love the unexpected bizarrness of this one.
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Interesting to hear you’ve read them all, Ali. Is there one you’d particularly recommend? I didn’t like this one but wondered if maybe I just started with the wrong one 🤷🏻♀️
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Well, this is considered classic Comyns. It may be that she isn’t for you, which is a shame. You could try Our Spoons Came from Woolworths, most people like that, and perhaps The Vet’s Daughter.
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I think it might be that she’s not for me, but if I ever see Our Spoons Came from Woolworths or the Vet’s Daughter in a bookshop here in Australia (which is doubtful) I will give her another go!
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As with you and others in the comments, I have ling meant to read Comyns because she’s well regarded. The book most readers suggest, as Ali has, is Our Spoons Came from Woolworths. Your description of the detached approach to writing about human cruelty in Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead makes me think of J G Ballard, a writer I felt I should read more of after enjoying Empire of the Sun. I read The Unlimited Dream Company and decided he’s not for me.
I’ve a feeling that Comyns is going to remain someone I mean to try but never get round to.
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I’ve only read one Ballard (Hi-Rise, reviewed here), which was an amazing novel of ideas and one I still occasionally think about (my sister lives on the 82nd floor of a 110-story building, for instance), but it didn’t impress me enough to read anything else by him. Admittedly I have tried to read Empire of the Sun multiple times but never get past the few few dozen pages; I’m not sure why.
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I think about reading Hi-Rise because the concept interests me, but I found The Unlimited Dream Company such a horrible read that I can’t bring myself to read more by him. My husband really rates him and tries periodically to get me to try again, but I’m stubbornly resistant!
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