Barbara Vine slowly, surely, effortlessly turning up the tension knob
I seemed to see Bell as she was almost the first time I ever saw her, walking into the hall at Thornham to tell us that her husband had shot himself
From the first chapter of The House of Stairs……..and yes, it’s a great hookline!
I read this many years ago, and a review I stumbled upon reminded me of its excellence, hence my re-read, and because I know the outcome/conclusion could settle back and enjoy the journey Vine takes us on.
It was originally published in 1988, and was I think the third book Ruth Rendell wrote as ‘Barbara Vine’, where her interest is more in dark and complex psychology and a more literary style of writing than her crime and detective fiction ‘Ruth Rendell’ books. Detectives rarely figure in Vine, but the complex central characters twist and unfold often dark deeds, dark motivations, dark histories
This is firstly a splendid evocation of loose, permissive, vibrant and sexy 60s London.
Elizabeth, the central character and narrator, now a woman on the edge of her 40’s, is looking back from the 1980s to that earlier period of her life. She is a writer of beach read historical fiction, fairly famous, fairly well off. However, she hankered to be a more serious writer, due to her love of Henry James, and really also wished to write a biography of James. Echoes of the plot of James’ Wings of The Dove are a kind of parallel or subtext to this.
Elizabeth, as a passenger in a taxi spots a woman heading towards a tube station who she has not seen for nearly 20 years. ‘Bell’ Sanger has a murky past, and there is also a relationship from that past of some obsession, on Elizabeth’s part, with Bell.
The first person story is told by Elizabeth partly in present time (that is its 80s setting) and partly back to the time when she first encountered Bell, in the 60s, and their lives connected, in a dark and destructive way. The narrator is trying to unravel her own past, her own complicity, her own history, and understand her own damaged life. Much of this damage occurred in `The House of Stairs’, a large house in West London, owned by Elizabeth’s recently widowed aunt, Cosette, who is wealthy, generous, and middle-aged . Cosette is determined to recapture the youth and romance she never had by filling her house with the trendy, free-loading, experimental bright (and not so bright) bohemian young things of swinging London.
Bronzino’s Portrait of Lucrezia Panciatichi
Bell has a dark past which we learn all the way back to childhood. She is extraordinarily beautiful, bearing a strong resemblance to Bronzino’s portrait of Lucrezia Panciatichi. She appears to be passive and indifferent to sex, but is passionately determined never to work. In fact, for Bell, a life of drudging poverty is preferable to working. But free-loading, though not in an obvious way, is something she has a skill for.
Elizabeth too has a potentially dark secret – as an inheritor of a degenerative, rare condition, Huntington’s chorea, her family ‘curse’ which may or may not lie dormant within her. At the time of the book’s earlier setting, predictive genetic testing for the disease was unknown, as was the statistical mapping of its inheritance. As the condition tended to stay dormant till adulthood inheritors might have already had children before they realised what they might have passed on to them. Elizabeth’s own body feels like a ticking time bomb; though symptom free, she is not yet old enough to know she is ‘out of the woods’ and free from that inheritance.
So, with her aunt Cosette, desperately seeking to rediscover youth, Elizabeth 
unknowing whether she will succumb to a terrible condition or not, and Bell, charismatic in some unostentatious way, amorally in search of a way to enable her to suck the money out of anyone she can, and indifferent towards the methods she might use to achieve her ends, Vine assembles a wonderfully drawn collection of individuals from across the classes, painting a portrait of a society moving from the more rigid mores of the 50s to a period of change, shake up and anything goes sex.
And the twists, turns and plot intricacies, though slowly unfurled, are inexorable and keep the reader glued to ‘just another chapter’
The House of Stairs Amazon UK
The House of Stairs Amazon USA
Lady Fancifull 
D’you know, I’ve never read a Barbara Vine book? It’s ‘cos I was never a huge fan of her writing as Ruth Rendell, but MiddleSister spent years trying to persuade me that the Vine books are quite different. Sounds intriguing…perhaps…perhaps…perhaps…
Ah, it sounds as if I have more in common with your siblings reading habits than you do! Middle sis is absolutely right. I’ve always preferred Rendell writing as Vine. I think I may even have found her Vine persona FIRST – probably because it took me a long while (despite that wonderful Sherlock Holmes) to get interested in detective/police procedural novels. They mostly are excellent psychological thrillers, with often several different twisting strands. Hmm I’m always keener to get inside twisted psychology than be confronted with the details of what they DO with their nastiness (if any sort of hacking and bludgeoning is one of the things they do.
Go, go GO for it. I have a feeling that Cleopatra may also be a Vine fan. i have several on my shelves AND have even re-read all the ones I have.
Anyway, I should go, I’m afraid I have some rather terrible investigations to be involved with, in the company of a sixteenth century lawyer, and a stinking barrel of intrigue in high places, religious intolerance and rather a lot of curtailment of freedom of thought and expression, with meeting a violent end for those freedoms, a distinct possibility. Hummmmm. It’s making me very anxious indeed. If I had mullioned windows and a printing press I would probably have fainted with terror
You are right Lady Fancifull I am a huge Vine fan and have lots on my shelf although not this one!
Are you reading CJ Sansom now??! I love the Barbara Vine books, and though I rarely re-read books, these are ones that I think I’d definitely like to revisit as I barely remember some of them. The whole genetic/disease issue is also used in The Blood Doctor (horrific idea! Have you read it?) which I do remember better. I laughed at the idea of “beach read historical fiction” – some people think they’re a more intelligent read than a lot of fiction, due to the historical setting. Not the case, imho. I thought I’d like them, as I love history, but most are, well, not very good! I think you’d enjoy Barbara Vine FF, they can be very dark and intriguing, and generally I prefer to see a Barbara Vine title than a Ruth Rendell standalone (I don’t read Wexford any more – too many series out there) In fact, I do hope we get one soon.
Yes to both – I AM reading Sansom (you clearly recognised the scenario. Isn’t Shardlake a great companion. I do love unreliable narrators, but, my, when you keep company with a narrator who is blazingly honest about his hopes, fears, shortcomings etc and shows the reader his wonderful heart, you just surrender and go along for the anxious ride.
Yes the Blood Doctor rings bells, though I can’t remember much about it. It may be another to be re-read. I particularly liked Asta’s book and No Night Is too Long. And The Chimney Sweeper’s Boy. All of which I think are still on my shelves.
But of course, before any re-reads I must find out what dire things are happening whilst a horrible Henry stalks the land!
Unfortunately I’ve done some blog hopping in the past few days and somehow my new Voyage has acquired more books than it was meant too.
My aim was to reduce NetGalley to manageable levels before I got seduced into parting with cash! That didn’t work.
I remember loving Asta’s Book, although I don’t remember much about it tbh…The Blood Doctor is the one about the Victorian royal surgeon investigating haemophilia to help Victoria and try and investigate how it came to be passed on in families, and he used his own family to do that…a sort of reverse eugenics, if you will, which were of course quite a popular idea at the time. I didn’t think the last Barbara Vine was very Vine-ish, The Child’s Child, although I still enjoyed it, it just wasn’t as dark as I expect them to be! I like Shardlake too, I think Sansom captures the utter grottiness of the period perfectly! (That doesn’t sound like a compliment but it is!) I’ve got a couple of the early Shardlakes to get to, and I’ll get the latest when it’s a paperback. I really fancied Dominion, but I’ve read a few on the blogosphere say they gave up on it – although being a modern history geek I should maybe try it for myself. I’m doing well(ish) on the Double Dog Dare – did buy one book yesterday, an Australian true crime by Helen Garner called Joe Cinque’s Consolation (shhh!) which is great; true crime has tons of trash but some really thoughtful, interesting books, and you just need to look at the covers to differentiate, I think.
Now I was one who DID like Dominion I might have reviewed it, not sure. I think I four starred it. ( not that I’m trying to weaken your resolve) I must investigate the Blood Doctor. And I agree with you about The Child’s Child too!
Having found my Dominion review which didn’t ever get on here, I think I might only have been doing the ones I 5 starred from any reviews which I’d written before I started blogging – I do note that I held back from 5 star as there were a couple of plot driven mistakes and coincidences too incredible to accept. And I also noted that he might anger some with his depiction of the SNP
The start of 2015 is not going well for my TBR pile. Please, turn off the fire hose of new, potentially fabulous new reads. I need to take a breather.
It can’t be done. I’m in a golden start to the year. Another corker scheduled for tomorrow and of course as I am currently deep and utterly admiringly submerged in the Sansom am assuming that will be the next new review I write and post next week. Your only chance is if the Sansom hoes horribly wrong. It’s a 600 pager, so that is quite a reading time if it does go belly up
It’s a huge commitment – but I’m pretty sure you’re in safe hands! I’ve been averaging a book a day at the moment as I’ve not been too well and haven’t done anything bar read. I need to get back into my reviewing though; I’ve written one for The Paying Guests but it seems terribly short for a book I loved! Maybe it’s simply because I had nothing critical to say about it? But I’m not really satisfied with it, so I’m going to look at it again. If I don’t write about all the different books soon they’ll all fuse in my brain in a hideous mish-mash of plots and characters….great weather for staying in and reading though isn’t it?!
I keep trying to tell myself not to dare even dream of starting a new fiction book till I have done the review of the one finished, in order to properly separate from it. Wish I could take my own advice!
I’m also so sorry you haven’t been that well., crimeworm,
The further I get into Lamentations the more anxious and upset I’m getting for Shardlake and those he cares for. I was on the bus this morning and something happened (in the book) that had me vocalising ‘Oh NO!’ I know one reviewer (was it you?) talked about feeling as if Shardlake was a friend, and I do agree, so you really feel for him and his friends. For all sorts of reasons I’m so glad not to be living in Henry’s England>
I red this a long time ago and I remember being taken with it and with other early Vines. The later ones less so. I think there’s a copy in the house somewhere and I am tempted to go and look.for it.
Ooh i’m glad to be bringing the Viners out searching their bookshelves. I certainly wasn’t as taken by her latest one.
A great review that has prompted me to go and seek out this one. I don’t have a copy here although I think I probably read it years ago. My favourite is Asta’s Book although I’ve read The Brimstone Wedding so often I could probably quote whole chunks of it. I also bought the DVD trilogy for when I fancy Vine as a visual drama.
I lived Asta’s too, and putting this one with my other Vines on the organised bookshelves makes we want to do a huge re-read. (I had some major decorating and structural done last October – my dwelling, that is, not, thankfully, ME! – and everything got taken into storage. I took the rare opportunity, almost like moving house, to organise the bookshelves so I knew where to find books! It’s beginning to fracture, but the thought through pattern is still largely holding.
Was just reading that Ruth Rendell has suffered a major stroke; I know we all hope that she makes a full recovery. Such sad news.
Yes, it is.