Westwood, or The Gentle Powers, by Stella Gibbons

Stella Gibbons’ 1946 war time novel Westwood contrasts life’s disappointments against our over optimistic expectations, providing an entertaining story with much wry humour and deep humanity. Gibbons’ poetic sensibility and keen powers of observation ensure Westwood is both moving and delightfully entertaining.

Stella Gibbons is best known for her 1932 debut novel, Cold Comfort Farm (1932), but what is lesser known is her prodigious literary output following that initial success. Vintage Classics, to their great credit, have taken it upon themselves to revive some of Gibbons’ long forgotten titles, one of these re-issues being the wartime novel Westwood (1946).

Gibbons gave Westwood the subtitle ‘The Gentle Powers’, which describes the novel’s mood and general feel. This notion is introduced in the very last pages, where Margaret Steggles, the main character and focus of the novel, is told by the fairy godmother like Lady Challis that she needs ‘the Gentle Powers’, which are described as ‘Beauty, and Time, and the Past and Pity’. While much of Westwood is a sprawling canvas of London life during the blackouts of the Second World War, thronged with a cast of superbly drawn, fully fleshed character portraits - foreigners, refugees, artists and soldiers - the novel has a poetic heart that beats passionately with desire, love and longing, giving it a lingering bitter-sweet taste.

Gibbons was also a published poet, her first book being the collection The Mountain Beast (1930), and this poetic sensibility informs much of Westwood’s ripe atmosphere of brooding and longing. There is an abundance of gorgeous descriptions of the seasons, of fragrant flowers and succulent fruit, of cold winds and the death of autumn. Where human relationships may fall short of giving us all we desire, Gibbons often rejoices in what simple pleasures nature can guarantee. If life’s circumstances and fortunes are often bitter, a consoling sweetness can be found in solitude, the beauties of nature, and even the silly company of the drunk but well meaning.

Much of Westwood (or The Gentle Powers, if you prefer) is driven by its personalities rather than dramatic twists and turns; climaxes in the plot occur when true character is revealed after its glossy, charismatic façade has been dismantled.

Margaret Steggles, a young woman in her early twenties, moves with her family to London after she is recommended for a teaching post (her father also finds new work in London, and so they all move). Settling into a new house in a new area also means making new friends, and this change in circumstance and outlook brings on a mild estrangement from Margaret's long friendship with the good looking and vivacious Hilda Wilson.

When Margaret comes across a ration book in Hampstead Heath, it sets in train a whole series of new relationships, along with their complicated dynamics. The ration book belongs to Hebe Niland, the too easy-going wife of the famous painter Alexander Niland. When Margaret belatedly hands back the ration book after a one month delay, she abruptly finds herself covering for Hebe’s babysitter, Grantey.

Margaret is starry eyed about famous artists and writers, but finds Hebe’s casual attitude, almost taking her for granted, a bit off putting. Despite being used in this way, Margaret is soon back for more, and discreetly finds a way into the Niland family by helping Hebe with her children. Margaret offers up her free time in this way because at heart her life is empty, devoid of romance and interest. This is not a gloomy emptiness, for you never feel sorry for Margaret; Gibbons’ skill is to evoke those feelings of emptiness and isolation that come to all of us, without a note of self pity or even melancholy. If anything, Margaret is robustly capable, and while she is cautious of offending in her social dealings, her no-nonsense intellect allows her to slowly but surely evaluate those around her. At last the people she once put on a pedestal are eventually brought down to street level.

The French novelist Gustave Flaubert famously observed ‘Touch our idols and the gilt comes off on our hands’. This is one of the central themes of Westwood, and is personified in the ridiculously pompous playwright Gerard Challis. Through Margaret’s meeting with the Nilands, she discovers that Gerard Challis is Hebe Niland’s father. The Challises live at the huge house called Westwood, high on the hill which Margaret has a perfect view of from her bedroom window. She makes a vow to get into Westwood and meet the famed writer.

Gibbons’ portrait of Gerard Challis also carries with it gentle feminist themes, as it provides a critique of the male view of women in literature. Challis writes absurdly tragic dramas in which the women, naturally enough, come to unhappy ends. His portraits of women are also completely unrealistic and the product more of the playwright’s fevered and unnatural imagination, rather than based on any observations of real life. Margaret, despite her adulation, must admit that Challis’s play Katte is plagued with fundamental problems, in the way it views both reality and women. Gerard Challis, however, is not content with merely bringing these views of women to the stage, he does so in real life, by secretly dating Margaret’s friend, Hilda. Hilda cheerfully obliges Challis, thinking him more a harmless middle aged man than anything else, but grows increasingly weary with his romantic declarations until he is finally found out as a married man.

It’s clear that Margaret’s romantic view of the world, and her worship of everyone at Westwood, has thrown her critical faculties off kilter, whereas the cheerful Hilda has Gerard Challis sized up pretty much from the get-go as a self-indulgent yet pretty much harmless old geezer. By the novel’s end Margaret has had to learn to re-balance her romantic expectations of life against its often disappointing realities. It’s this fine line that Gibbons expertly walks through her story, steering the reader through an array of familiar social situations. Margaret is often finding herself by turns disappointed and delighted with the people she befriends and the family members she must endure, especially her downtrodden, awkward and depressed mother.

Her romantic view of the world also means she is excessively glum about her own looks and demeanour. Looking in the mirror one day, she gives this gruelling assessment:

“I look distinguished, she thought sadly, but what’s the use of that? I look hopelessly serious, so earnest and thoughtful. I look as if I sat on committees all day or made pendants with a hammer. I should like to look like a kitten.”

The end result is a true to life novel that resonates deeply. Its mixture of sadness, longing and optimism captures the whole gamut of the human experience in a prose that is uncannily perfect, hitting the nail on the head every time with perfect ease. It’s amazing to think that a writer so accomplished has been allowed to have her work sit ignored for so long.

Westwood, or The Gentle Powers, by Stella Gibbons. Published by Vintage Classics. ISBN: 978-0-0999-52872-2