A Father and his Fate by Ivy Compton-Burnett - 1957

A Father and his Fate by Ivy Compton-Burnett - 1957 - with an Introduction by Penelope Lively

“The purest and most original of contemporary English artists."
— Rosamond Lehmann

Opening question

From “Notes on Camp” by Susan Sontag - From Against Interpretation and other Essays - 1963

Do you agree with Sontag, are the novels of Ivy Compton-Burnett Camp?  I see Ronald Firbank but I am not so far seeing Ivy Compton-Burnett’s novels as camp.

“Random examples of items which are part of the canon of Camp: Zuleika Dobson Tiffany lamps Scopitone films LA The Enquirer, headlines and stories Aubrey Beardsley drawings Swan Lake Bellini’s operas Visconti’s direction of Salomé and ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore certain turn-of-the-century picture postcards Schoedsack’s King Kong the Cuban pop singer La Lupe Lynd Ward’s novel in woodcuts, Gods’ Man the old Flash Gordon comics women’s clothes of the twenties (feather boas, fringed and beaded dresses, etc.) the novels of Ronald Firbank and Ivy Compton-Burnett stag movies seen without lust”



Almost ten years ago I read my first Ivy-Compton-Burnett novel, Manservant and Maidservant.  At long last I have now read a second of her 19 novels, A Father and his Fate.


Ivy Compton-Burnett (1884 to 1969-London) wrote her first novel in 1911 and her last was published (after her death)  in 1971.   Her most famous and most still read work, Manservant and Maidservant was published after WWII in 1947.   To me she should be classified as  a "between the wars" British writer even though she her work extends well beyond that era  because her sensibilities are really quite Edwardian..    This puts her in the company of Katherine Mansfield , Virginia Woolf, and Ford Madox Ford.   The consensus is to see her as a writer of the second order behind the truly great writers of  the era.     She came from what seems to have been a very troubled family.    One of her brothers was killed in WWI and two of her sisters died together in a suicide pact.   Of her and her 12 siblings no one had child.

After doing a bit of post read research, reading articles by Francine Prose, Hilary Spurling and others, Father and his Fate centering around a late Edwardian Family, three unmarried living at home daughters, a wife, and ruling it as a despot the paterfamilias, Miles Mowbray is very much a prototypical  Compton-Burnett novel.The novel is almost entirely in dialogue.  Not everyone likes her work, some see her world as narrow, the same thing once being sad about Jane Austen, others say they do not find the conversations at all reflective of how real people speak. Some complain they cannot follow the plot or tell who is speaking.  Others adore her work and love the exquisite conversations.  I am in this category.

Words are weapons in A Father and his Fate, the weapons of the weak.

““I wonder if there is anyone in the world who cares for me,” said Miles, leaning back in his chair. “I often ask myself that question.” “Then you should answer it,” said Ursula. “It is less safe to put it to other people.”

 The three adult unmarried daughters live at home.  Penelope Lively in her introduction tells us

“To be young, in an Ivy Compton-Burnett world, is to be the lowest of the low: dependent, powerless, biding one’s time.”

Many a character in a 19th century novel has been largely occupied with waiting for a parent to die.

The opening lines of the novel set a stage for a dark drama

““MY DEAR, GOOD girls!” said Miles Mowbray. “My three dear daughters! To think I have ever felt dissatisfied with you and wished I had a son! I blush for the lack in me, that led me to such a feeling. I feel the blood mount to my face, as I think of it. I would not change one of you for all the sons in the world. I would not barter you for all its gold. And I am not much of a person for wealth and ease. I am happy as a countryman, husbanding the land his fathers held before him.”

We see how Miles views his place in the world, soon we will learn how the daughters and his wife feel about him and their lives.  There is a very dramatic turn of events I will leave untold.

A Father and his fate is available in the Kindle Unlimited Program.

I will soon read, I hope, her Darkness and Day.

Mel u