I've been keeping an eye on Emily Woof for some years. Not in a creepy way, I hasten to say, but because she's been kind of known to me, though presumably not vice versa, since my previous life as an academic, when I knew her distinguished Wordsworthian parents. So I was very pleased to have a chance to read her second novel, The Lightning Tree, described in the blurb as 'a compelling story across generations about love in all its forms'.
The two main protagonists here are Ursula and Jerry, who first meet each other as teenagers. Their families and backgrounds could not be more different. Ursula comes from a middle-class family -- her mother is an activist, heavily involved with CND, but Ursula is more of a dreamer, wanting to explore new lives and new worlds. Jerry comes from the wrong side of the tracks -- this is taking place in Newcastle, by the way -- and is extraordinarily intellectually gifted and ambitious. The two of them fall into an intense love affair in which everything seems to merge -- bodies, minds and souls. But once school finishes, choices lie ahead, and the ones they make are completely at variance. Jerry is offered a place at Oxford, where he hopes to fulfill his dreams of a powerful political career, while Ursula heads for India where, after a series of adventures, she experiences a powerful spiritual awakening which appears as if it will change her life forever. Their promises to keep in touch, to pick up where they left off on her return, all fall by the wayside, and they go their separate ways, both sad, but feeling a parting is inevitable.
All this happens in Part I of the novel. Part II follows their separate lives over the following years. Ursula becomes a successful actress, Jerry at least partly fulfils his dreams of political activism. Sometimes they meet, but anything more than friendship now seems an impossibility. Or is it?....
I loved the first half of this novel, which seemed to capture perfectly these young people, the intensity of their feelings and desires, their efforts to find themselves in the adult world. But I'm afraid my interest and admiration diminished somewhat in the second half, where everything got rather fractured, and not really in a good way. After the delicate observations of the opening section, we suddenly seemed to be hurtling through many years of disparate lives, not always fully worked out or even fully credible. I'm sorry to be saying this, as there's no doubt that Emily Woof really can write, and I'm most curious now to read her much-praised first novel, The Whole Wide Beauty.
I'm still recommending The Lightning Tree, as it gave me so much enjoyment, and I'd like others to share that, despite my quibbles, which might, after all, be purely me being unduly picky. And many thanks to Faber for sending me a review copy.
