Mrs Osmond

‘death, was a fantasy only’ – Isabel

John Banville’s Man Booker nominated novel shows the various expectations of women in society during the 19^th century and their contrasting desires.

‘Mrs Osmond’ starts of rather enjoyable as the free indirect style Banville uses made it easy for me to connect with the titular character, Isabel Osmond, as she reveals her inner most feelings. Her life is still presented as enigmatic though, as the main cause of her problems, her husband, is only alluded to and never directly mentioned by name. I found this to be a good choice on multiple levels as I became intrigued as to what could have happened that would have made Mrs Osmond effectively attempt to eliminate any trace of her husband from her life. Also, it provides a strong indication from the start that she doesn’t fit the mould of a typical 19^th century woman. This is added to by the littered references of a new movement which I deduced to by the suffragette movement based on the setting among other things.

Although it started strong my interested began to falter as I come across many words that were completely new to me. Though they fit in the time period they slowed down my reading as I constantly needed to look up words. After a while I decided no longer to do that and instead used context to figure out the meaning of words. It is clear that the intention of these words was to amplify the setting to the reader but at times they seemed ‘superflous’. The use of Italian words however did well to depict the setting along with the wealth and superior status of each character through words such as signoria- Lord  and gentiluomo – gentlemen, though they aren’t cognates their meaning was clear in context. Additionally, Isabel’s constant questioning of her past actions quickly grew old as they became repetitive and offered no further insight into her thoughts.

The book become revitalised in part two as we are introduced to in infamous figure, Mr Osmond and with him comes another world which Isabel is also out of touch with. The stereotypical male dominance is demonstrated by Osmond as he tries to control the lives of all the women around him; also he endorses views that are traditional in America but not in Italy despite making the country his home for several years. This makes him appear similar to an English painter he enjoys Bonington, who is thought of as merging the old styles England with the new styles of France.

Once I reached the end of novel I was left with many Isabel like questions as each characters’ story was left undone. I was surprised by this mostly as it seemed to me at one point that a happy ending was on the horizon but did not end up happening. Although I wasn’t entirely unsatisfied with the ending, I feel a more coherent one would enable me to rate to book more highly as part two had begun to do.