Book Review: "Mrs Miniver" by Jan Struther

The used bookstore is getting full near Christmas and so I thought I would treat myself to a few books. There's also a lot out on the Kindle Store and other places that I want to have a look at. I tend to read books on my phone as well as paperback, but I think you'll be happy to know I not only had this book in paperback, but it was also my free book in a deal of 'buy three get one free'. Mrs Miniver is about an upper-class English woman and well, there's no reason as to why I have been told to read this over the years. I can't believe I just got around to it.

A gentle humour and a series of thoughtful introspections, Mrs Miniver deals with the title lady who navigates her domestic tasks in a series of newspaper vignettes. She's sensitive and all we think of when we think about a domestic goddess. Mrs Miniver finds quiet joy in seasonal routines: buying a new engagement book, preparing the family for the school term, and organising holidays. It is a great start and honestly, I loved her dedication to stability and organisation. It is a nice quiet book that seems to whisper and take you away into her life. Each small detail lets the reader know more about her - she respects order and ritual, she likes her own way of doing things and yet, we can't think of a better way to do it. Something that feels like a deep, satisfying sigh.

Mrs Miniver comments on the anxieties of the late 1930s: rising political tensions, technological changes, and social shifts. She is perfectly aware of the political landscape and yet, still maintains herself as this woman in perfect control. She has curiosity, but not enough to break her routines, she is hopeful and yet again, she is gentle. We learn that she deals with issues such as: hiring (and losing) servants, children’s dramas, dinner parties gone astray, and the slight chaos of country-house weekends. It turns the book into a kind of comedy, something where we still respect Mrs Miniver, but we also find it kind of funny because she is still part of the upper-class. What she believes to be a horrific thing to have happened would be pretty unimaginable as a concept to the majority. And it's written so well. We get completely immersed into this character and her life. The more we read about her, the more we want to know.

Mrs Miniver reflects on each of her children who are named: Vin, Judy, and Toby. and their individual personalities. She covers small incidents that have happened in their lives growing up such as: tooth-loss, school anxieties, or personal milestones. One thing that she does whilst this is happening is comment on them in a deeply personal, kind of profound and quite philosophical way. There's more to Mrs Miniver than we first thought - she isn't simply the domestic goddess of this novel, but a woman with this deep inner-life, aware of politics and philosophies and transcience. It is a wonderful thought that we get to learn more and more about her as we learn more and more about other people in her life. One thing this made me believe is that she shares her views of things through other people because she tends to see those beliefs either through them or because of them. I'm still unpacking that idea though.

She moves between London and the countryside, observing various things about English society. These include: neighbours, shopkeepers, dinner guests, and strangers on trains. Again, she shares her views through and because of others. It's a strangely provincial and yet, cultured English life pre-war and as we know today, it is going to be lost pretty soon. That realisation might make the reader more upset than the comedic stints that fill the various changes of employment in the novel.

I'm not going to lie, I wasn't expecting much from this novel but I was pleasantly surprised. It's a great exploration of women's lives at a time when they perhaps didn't have their own voice, or people weren't particularly listening to them. But then again, we know that Mrs Miniver's lifestyle won't last very long at all as the threat of war looms large on the horizon - things have to change. The book finishes around the start of World War 2, but I won't tell you what happens exactly.