Backlisted - A Compass Error by Sybil Bedford

Episode Date: March 11, 2025

Sybille Bedford's A Compass Error (1968) is a classic coming-of-age novel, a love story, a family saga and a study in psychological suspense rolled into one. Joining us to discuss it are the novelist Francesca Reece and Krista Cowman, Professor of History at the University of Leicester. The late Hilary Mantel described A Compass Error, Bedford's third novel, as 'a powerful and merciless book ... which visits on its heroine a series of humiliations that cut to the quick'. We explore the book in the context of Bedford's remarkable life and body of autobiographical work, which encompassed fiction, travel writing, reportage and memoir. Where does her "Riviera lesbian thriller" - copyright, Francesca Reece - fit into it all?  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm John Mitchinson. And I'm Andy Miller from The Backlisted Podcast. Now people always ask us how we read so many books for this show. It's hard to talk about books if you haven't read them. We spent hours squinting at the pages of the books we have to read for our show. So we know the importance of good light and the serious readers HD light has transformed how we read. It replicates daylight making every word crystal clear and reducing

eye strain so we can read for longer. For £150 off and free UK delivery of a Serious Reader's HD Lite, go to serioureaders.com forward slash backlisted and use the discount code BACK. That's serioureaders.com forward slash backlisted. With the code back, and even better, Now on with the show. Hello and welcome to Backlisted, the podcast which gives new life to old books. The old book featured in today's show is A Compass Era by Sybil Bedford, a dark and brilliant coming of age novel from 1968. I'm John Mitchinson, the publisher at Unbound. And I'm Andy Miller, the author of The Year of Reading Dangerously.

And today we welcome two new guests, both writers. Please welcome Krista Kalman and Francesca Rees. Hello. Hello. Krista is a professor of history at the University of Leicester, where she researches the history of women's politics in 20th century Britain. Her books include Women of the Right Spirit, Paid Organisers in the Women's Social and Political Union, 1904-14.

This is going to seem a really silly question. But given your career as a professor of history, do you like historical fiction or do you prefer to not read historical fiction? I like historical fiction that wasn't written as historical fiction, if that makes sense. So I like reading, if I'm reading about the 1920s, I like reading books about the 20s that were written in the 20s, so that were contemporary literature at the time. I find it's a really good way to actually get a feel of a period. Okay.

As part of your brain thinking, our usefulness, our research, rather than escapism. It's not actual, I'm going to research, I'm going to sit down and read this book. But if I'm reading a book, I will often find something in it and think, oh, that that chimes, I'll just make a note of that. That's actually a useful way into this period. So in terms of your historical period, recommend me a novel written in the era which would give me a flavor of that era. If you're trying to understand Berlin in the 20s and 30s, Christopher Isherwood gets you

more into it than any sort of weighty historical tone would do. Very good. I love Christopher Isherwood, but now you've given me the belt and braces that it's actually- Excellent. It's actually teaching me something as well. It's work. So, but you wouldn't therefore like cabaret. That's a leading question. Well, cabaret is very closely based on the book. So I guess it sort of gives you a bit of a feel.

And I do love the film, but I wouldn't necessarily say I'd use it with students necessarily. Shall we agree then that Cabaret is an excellent document of the 1970s rather than the 1930s? Hooray! With one bound, we're three. We're turning now to you Francesca. Francesca Rees is a writer from North Wales. Her debut novel, Voyeur, was published by Tinder Press in 2021, followed by Glass Houses in 2024. She was the 2019 recipient of the Desperate Literature Prize for short fiction and has had work featured in the London magazine, Banshee, Literary Review, L.U.K. and on BBC Short Works. After several years living in Paris, she is now based in London. Do you, like authors do, divide your time between Paris and London?

I was about to say, of course I don't do that. That would be so pretentious, but I am actually about to move back to Paris for three months. It's what Sybil would want. Is what Sybilain wanted, indeed. And if I were to read a novel about Paris, in any era, so it's not too tricky, do you have a favorite novel? I mean, I have a favorite writer of Paris who is backlisted favorite, Patrick Modiano.

So I'm kind of preaching to the choir here, but I mean, Saint Patrick, he just, he's the best. This is, this is, you can, Nikki can edit this bit if she deems it irrelevant. Is Modiano still with us or is he? He's still going. Yeah, amazing. He is, right?

Amazing. He's still producing books. Wow. The book we're here to discuss is A Compass Era by Sybil Bedford, her third novel, first published in 1968 by William Collins, reissued in 2012 by Daunt Books in the UK and the New York Review of Books in the USA. The Daunt Books blurb runs as follows. As the Second World War looms, Flavia is living in a small village in the south of France.

She studies for her Oxford entrance, swims in the sea, eats at local cafes and lives with all the confidence and relish of youth. Drawn into the demi-monde of artists and writers, Flavia has awoken to the pleasures and complications of adult life. Her world is overturned when she becomes fascinated by Andre, beautiful, sophisticated yet manipulative.

It's caught up in a devastating intrigue. she becomes fascinated by Andre, beautiful, sophisticated yet manipulative, is caught up in a devastating intrigue. In her introduction to the 2000 edition, Sybil Bedford herself writes, "'What do I, the author, make of it? "'Now as I am writing another 30 years on "'from another perspective, I am not Flavia. "'I do not know.'"

We'll be digging into this story and the remarkable career of Sybil Bedford over the next hour. But first of all, here's a message from our sponsors. And we're back. And before we start on the main course, it's a good moment to mention that we'll be picking up elements of today's discussion

in next week's Lock Listed, our show for patrons. You can subscribe for that at patreon.com forward slash backlisted and five years worth of superior book, film and music chat plus ad free early versions of the main show will be yours. Right to business, Professor Kalman, when did you first read A Compass Error by Sybil Bedford? I read it in around about 1984 in the Virago Modern Classics edition. I was in my second year at university at the time and was just reading everything that Virago put out. I then lost it. I was a very careless reader in my 20s. I lost it. Somebody borrowed it or it went in a house move or something. And for years, I tried to get this book back. And because it is such a French

book, I was convinced being a careless reader that she'd had a French author. And I spent years sort of working through Virago back catalogs and things thinking, was it Margarita Dural? Was it somebody else? Was it this person? Was it that person? Fast forward 20 years later, well, more than 20 years later, colleague and friend of mine at work, I was working in Leeds at the time said, oh, have you read this book, Quicksand? I think you'd really like it. Didn't really think anything of it except the next day a school gate friend of mine said, have you read this book Quicksand? I think you'd really like it. So I started to read this book Quicksand and in the middle of it, it's like an absolute revelation. This is my book. This is my missing book, not Quicksand, but she when she talks about her life

in front of this is a compass error. I've found it again. After all these years, I've found my missing book. Well, that's really interesting. Partly something we're going to talk about, isn't it? Which is that, um, Sybil Bedford wrote and rewrote, uh, versions of her story or her character's stories or a bit of both throughout her career. So it's fascinating that you that you picked up on the version that was published as memoir rather than fiction

nearly 30 years after the publication of the one that was published as fiction rather than memoir. Francesca, forgive me, this sounds patronizing, but you seem rather young to be interested in the work of civil bedfellas. This is like when my dad says to me, how have you heard of Lou Reed? But you seem rather young to be interested in the work of Sybil Bedford. This is like when my dad says to me, how have you heard of Lou Reed? You're allowed to look into the past.

All right. No, I actually, I have a great skin care routine. I'm 75. Are you okay? Yeah. Okay. Well, okay? Yeah, okay. Well, tell us then, let's kidding aside. When did you first read Sybil Bedford's books or first come into contact with her work?

So funnily enough, I was also in second year of university. It must very much be the era of Sybil in a young woman's life. The year was 2012, I'll set the scene. I was living in a horrible little flat share in Whitechapel and I was in a relationship with the boy I incorrectly believed to be my first love. I was a creature of great passions. And he had organized a holiday abroad, which was a complete novelty to me.

I didn't realize that you could just sort of, you know, go abroad if you felt like it. So it was very important to me that the reading material was perfect for this holiday. So I went to Scoob Books in Bloomsbury. I picked up Justine by Lawrence Darrell, hint, hint, another backlisted episode. And then on the way home, I popped into Dawn's and I am the living embodiment of why it's so important to get interested in the backlist and republish these things because I picked up the Dawn, sort of the new edition of A Compass Arrow, which I think had just come out that year, maybe the year before. I think you're right, yeah.

Yeah, was immediately drawn in because I mean, interwar, south of France, food, wine, all my things. And from that point onwards was just, my love affair with Sylvain Bedford lasted considerably longer than my sweet formative relationship with that boy. What is the percentage likelihood of that suitor listening to this recording? I hope very low. He was reading a book about getting an MBA on the holiday, so I don't think he's into

it. Oh God, please don't let him listen now. It's all right. He's our guest next week. He was a lovely boy. No, he isn't everybody. That wasn't true. I'm going to ask you, John, because Sybil Bedford was alive and writing- Indeed, indeed. ... well-known books when you were a bookseller in the 1980s and then a publisher in the 1990s and I wonder whether you encountered her at any point. Not to my memory although

she was definitely a presence and she was one of those writers I mean I don't lump her but I would I remember I was a bookseller the year that Jigsaw came out. And I remember that book, which was 89. Yeah. Yeah. And if I'm not mistaken, it was shortlisted for the booker, I think in that year. And so she kind of occupied us in my, in my pre-backlisted brain, a similar kind of place like Anita Bruckner, like I'm just disappointed to have to report Elizabeth

Taylor of women's writing that I was aware of but hadn't in fact read. And whereas as that listed listeners will know, I kind of caught up fairly quickly with Bruckner and Elizabeth Taylor, two now of my absolute favourite writers and indeed Muriel Spark, who I think there is maybe some connection to as well. But I hadn't read until we did this, I have to confess, I had not read a single novel or autobiography of Sybil Bedford's and yep, I'm happy to report once again an amazing kind of new world of really, really remarkable writing has been opened up. I want to go back and read all of them now. Some of our listeners will be aware that we had a show recently about memoir and autobiography. And we had a very interesting discussion on

Lock Listed subsequently about what I think are the two most important questions to ask about any memoir or piece of autobiographical writing. Is it true? And does that matter? And Nikki and I have talked about in the past about we seem to keep coming back to this question, especially when we talk about travel the past, about we seem to keep coming back to this question, especially when we talk about travel writing, not the episode we did about Norman Lewis last year, or before that Paul Theroux. I believe I'm absolutely correct in saying

that Sybil Bedford and Norman Lewis knew one another, and I do see some connection there, but also that relationship between is it true, does it matter? I see Sybil Bedford's whole career as an exploration of those two questions, that whatever bit of the bookshop a piece of work lived in, fundamentally it was, and I don't say this in faint praise, but fundamentally it was the same story told in a different way, from a different angle. And she received some criticism of that in her lifetime.

I have to say that I knew little of Sidwell Bedford's life when I read A Compassera and I think I enjoyed it more the less I knew. But for the reason that's not again it's not but that's more because it was easier to see the fictional hand at work. Once you've listened to this episode, everyone, you will then detect the life in every single piece of Sylvester Bedford's work. So what I'm trying to say is, as a novel, A Compassera works as a really interesting novel in its own right. You don't have to be fully up to speed with Sybil Bedford's career in order to extract something really worthwhile from it. Now Sybil Bedford, who seems in so many ways a quintessentially English writer, was born Sybil Alett Elsa von Schönebeck and she was a German

princess, I think that is correct in saying, but she always wrote in English. And we have a little clip of her here from her appearance on Desert Island Discs talking about why she did that. You wrote in English, having been brought up as we heard in Germany and Italy and France. Why do you choose English? I have a men's for the English language. I think the English language is one of the most marvelous instruments there is. It depends on whom it suits, you see.

And it's the possibility of concession, of taking liberties, of this wonderful double thing, you know, very, very simple. Facts and origins are very complicated given their styles. You can do all kinds of things. I'm simply English pros, I find immensely exciting. Krista, does Sybil Bedford read like somebody for whom English is not their first language? I don't think a compass Sarah reads like that at all. I think it's incredibly fluid in the writing. Very light in a way, she has a very, very light touch. Lightly is a word that she uses a lot adjectively in all of her works actually. I never read it as someone that wasn't writing in English and if I had thought about it I would possibly have thought this is a French author. It certainly doesn't

seem Germanic in its style. There's nothing heavy about it or convoluted. Yes. Francesca, I detect there a kind of Nabokovian interest in the right word, the right phrase, that perhaps a non-English speaker, her style is nothing like Nabokov, clearly, but still there's a kind of contemplation of each word, the weight of each word before it's chosen. What are the aspects of her style that spoke to you? I think that that's definitely true. You can really see the care with which she chooses, sort of the agonizing care with which she chooses every word. But when you read it, it feels so effortless. I find she's every word. But when you read it, it feels

so effortless. I find she's very sensual, but she manages to… there's this sort of lightness of touch. Krista was talking about the French aspect of it. There is a kind of like… it's quite… not at all sparse, but it's not heavy. It is, again, it's this lightness, as you were saying. It just kind of… it's effortless. All the effort, all the laborious effort that went into it is completely absent when you read it, which I love. John, I have two quotes here I'm going to ask you to comment on regarding Sybil Bedford. Catherine Hughes writing in The Guardian described her as the patron saint of writers who hate writing.

The reviewer in The Spectator, reviewing Selena Hastings' recent biography of Sybil Bedford, described her as a gifted writer but a monstrous snob. Yes. Now, I would like you to address those two aspects of Sybil Bedford's life and work, please. Well, I mean, we love, obviously, we love a writer who hates writing on the show. And Thomas Mann onwards, I think. The thing that's really curious about Sybil Bedford, which I didn't know, is that she

was a very, very good journalist, very, in know, in the kind of kind of New Yorker, New York Times, Life Magazine. She wrote amazing account of the trial of Jack Ruby, the alleged assassin of Lee Harvey Oswald. She wrote a really powerful moving piece about the Auschwitz trial as well. So her account of the Profumo trial for those of us- And Lady Chatterley as well. Her account of the Profumo trial, for those of you who've seen such things.

And Lady Chatterley as well. And the Lady Chatterley trial, they are vital historical documents, in fact. So you have this idea that she's a pro, right? She writes to word counts, to deadlines, or, you know, and we all know what that's like. But then in her own writing, there are these sort of four novels and memoir, but as you say, they're so the life and the fiction is so deeply kind of knotted together.

And you've already heard she obviously cares immensely about the rhythm and the weight of each sentence that she's writing in. It's almost like the writing that she wanted to do for herself. There's a little tiny bit in this book, which is just one paragraph, which gives you, I think, a brilliant sense of her own approach. It's Flavia who is obviously cramming for her Oxford entrance exam and she's trying to write essays, but she says, the essay took all Wednesday, was all effort, anguish, agony. It meant writing the real thing. And she experienced an almost physical impediment to commit a sentence to a blank page. The choice scared her. Nothing seemed good enough. Nothing that could not be made clearer, better, richer. Thoughts, words, arrows strong, flew in all directions.

They did not flow into sentences and paragraphs." Isn't that, I think that's brilliant description of what it actually feels like. You know what, it is brilliant description, but it all simultaneously brings to my mind the old Twitter account, which was based on a plumber talking about plumbing, like writers talk about writing. Picking up the Thomas Mann thing, you know, a plumber is a man for whom plumbing is more difficult than of other people. It's balls, isn't it? It's balls. But anyway, it's lovely. It's lovely for those of us gathered around It's balls, isn't it? It's balls. But anyway, it's lovely. It's lovely for those of us gathered around this virtual table, all of whom struggle with

it. I'm going to read you a paragraph from a brilliant essay, which you can probably find online in the New York Review of Books by Hilary Mantel, which was written in 2001. I'm going to read you a paragraph and then Krista, you respond to this paragraph from Hilarie Mantel about those two sides of Bedford's personality as we see them in her fiction, her anguish over writing and her snubbery. Hilarie Mantel wrote, Bedford's world is unashamedly elitist.

Her most admired characters are aristocrats, sometimes aristocrats of beauty or wit rather than birth, but she prefers them if they are also the offspring of a distinguished family. The lower classes contribute much prized servants, treated sympathetically by both characters and author. It is the middle classes who are not quite human. They are gossips, often malicious and faintly ludicrous in their manners and morals. Her female

protagonists are both beautiful and clever, with an economic freedom that allows them to escape the circumstances that generally constrict women's lives. But, like Jane Austen heroines, they are looking for men who will instruct them as well as amuse them, men whom they can look up to. A favourite of the gods, which is the novel that precedes A Compass Error, is, as designed, a comedy of manners, but of the manners of people for whom we don't care quite enough. Yet its sequel, A Compass Error, with its compacted dramatic action

is a powerful and merciless book, a classic coming of age novel, which visits on its heroine, a series of humiliations that cut to the quick. Krista, I feel the reason why The Compass Error is so strong is because we the readers slightly feel our heroine is getting her comeuppance. I think maybe we the readers feel that now.

I think one of the really interesting things about this book to me is that it really changes for you the point in your life in which you read it. And it's very interesting the way she positions it as a writer because she begins with Flavia, the older Flavia, looking back on her life and thinking, did I make a mistake? Maybe I didn't make a mistake. When I first read it, more or less the same age as Flavia, I just felt for her so much. I thought it was excruciating. When I read it 20 years later,

I then thought she did get her comeuppance. When I reread it 20 years later again to come on this show, I thought, what are the adults doing here? Where's the safeguarding? Where's the responsibility? It's like the catcher in the rye, right? Who's looking after Holden Gawfield? No one. Who's looking after this child? Francesca, what do you think? Do you think the elitism, I think, is, you know, these are weighted words and snobbery is certainly a less kind word than elitism, though even elitism isn't a particularly nice one, is it? But nevertheless, the elitism of

Bedford's view of the role of the writer, the view of herself within society, do you think that adds a particular kind of energy to a compass era? Do you think that adds a particular kind of energy to a compassera? Yeah, definitely. I mean, I think without wanting to come out in favor of elitism, obviously I'm not. I think her hatred of the bourgeoisie is played to great comic effect in this novel. I mean, you know, the Fournier are like particularly repulsive creatures and it's a delight to read sort of Rosette Fournier's kind of supercilious, gossopy, she's horrible. And obviously it's also a delight to take a holiday in the world of Sybil Bedford, this world of opera in Italy and hock and seltzer, I think that's one of the lines that I liked. In the long run, I think her elitism was a great hindrance to her because, you know, we're talking about elitism in terms of this kind of godly role of the writer in society. I think

that was what stopped her from producing more. You know, she was the anti-Muriel Spark in so many ways. Muriel Spark would sit down at her typewriter and write and, you know, produce thousands of brilliant novels or whatever, whereas Sybil would agonize for years and spend too much time loving and dithering and eating. I mean, good for her. She liked, yes, we will come onto her love of food, which I'm sure Mitch could relate to. And wine. I think the elitism comes through much more in her other books and in her memoirs. But I think in a compass era, apart from the way that the faunias are treated, which is, as Francesca says, is comedic and is very successfully so. I think

Flavia is less dazzled by money, that sort of elite, but she has her own idea of the artistic world. That's what she's really, really drawn into because there's a lot of depiction of Lulu and Therese's initial poverty and how they get out of that. They're not elite in the traditional sense, but they're this new interwar elite in a way, which is to do with being Bohemian, being artistic, being fated and taken up. And that's what the Fournieres can't stand because they're not in this world and they don't understand how these people got there when they've not got there with their respectability and their solid marriages. Francesca, you mentioned Lawrence Dorrell there and God knows the lesson we learn from Dorrell's

work and also the successful ITV show The Dorals is that is that poverty is so much worse for the upper classes than it is for the little people. There's a bit of that in Bedford isn't there? I mean you know the the inconvien- no one knows how ghastly it is living in living in this pal. You know, okay, yeah, my heart bleeds. Having to sell your jewelry so you can go on holiday. Yeah. It's, anyway, I'm showing my, I'm revealing the chip on my shoulder yet again there,

I apologize. She's good on money though, she's good on money. She's good on money. We haven't actually read much from a compass era yet. And Francesca, I wonder if you could share with us a section that you particularly like or you feel is particularly revealing of Bedford's style. very short word count it kind of sums up what the whole book is about. The rest, the personal life, I shall never marry. The emotions, a delusion, wasteful indulgence, a futile cross. Emotions can be disregarded, surely the personal life also is not necessary. So Flavia, 17, told herself at Chesugust, eating slowly, refilling her glass. Domination, jealousy, possessive love. In

the world they lead to war, in private to confusion, misery, embarrassment. One can be civilised, one can be free. One will have friends, one will have lovers. These were part of Flavia's vision of the sensual life. Disembodied future apparitions, urbane, agreeable, vague. What the sensual lives felt out for her most vividly were picnics, lobster salad, Hork and seltzer, and going to the opera in Italy in summer. Brilliant. Okay, so I immediately want to ask Krista, when you were a youth, did you read that and think that's the life for me? Lobster in a in Hockenselter? Yes. Yes.

Who wouldn't? And you know what? It never happened. There's still time. There's still time for lobster. Unless you don't need lobster. Literature elect our guys. Yeah, you know, we use, you know, seduced by the lifestyle described in that book.

I was seduced by Fabia's confidence, I think more than anything, but she has great control of herself. And that's why it's so devastating when it all comes crashing down. And that's why she can seem insufferable as well, because there is this amazing self-confidence that there's the wonderful scene at the party when she meets the mysterious Andre for the first time and goes on about the brandy and then a little aside, it's flavor, had never drank brandy before, but the confidence that she has in carrying these things off. And on a first reading, you're so taken up by it. And I think that's why when it all comes crashing down, it is so devastating. And it's a lovely life that she has. And it's

so simple the way that she compartmentalizes it. This is her idea of the sensual life. And then about 10 pages later on, she begins her first love affair with Therese. And then she basically says, oh, and that's the sensual life sorted out. She's got that bit ticked off. She does her swimming. She's doing her reading. She's doing her lovely eating and drinking and being meticulous about it. It's very seductive. Yes, I think for me the transition from youth to experience here is one from she's capable of sustaining the illusions of what her life will be like

and maturity is when you realize that that illusion is not sustainable after all. And in terms of the writing, the depiction of the adolescent as someone who creates their own world, their own destiny believes that to be a self-fulfilling prophecy, if they live it, they'll be it. I thought that was rather brilliant. Francesca, you are closer to adolescence than I am, arguably. My counselor would say differently. Do you recognize that kind of,

I've described it elsewhere as the will to be right. I think youngsters have a brilliant thing that they believe they must be right. I don't recognize from my adolescence at all. I was ball of anxiety who was convinced I was always wrong about everything. I think what I do recognize is this idea that you do have some kind of control over, that you can kind of plan the style of life that you're going to live. She's so naive thinking that she's going to be able to turn off emotions. That bit where she says emotions are unnecessary, it's this conviction that you have some kind of control over your life, which obviously, as she will soon discover,

you really don't. Also, that thing of it's brilliant, maybe high risk strategy to put a very, very long monologue where she tells her family story in the book, in I think it's chapter three presumably, you know, her first sexual encounter and she tells the story of her life and turns around and teresas fast asleep, which is that kind of idea of not getting it right as a teenager, you know. We're going to return to that second half of this show because that was something of a barrier to enjoyment for readers when the book was published. But there's a 50 page recap of the previous book which was presumed to have been written in bad

faith. I feel sorry for her reading the reviews, whereas she was trying for an effect, which it's debatable whether she succeeded, but that wasn't what she's trying to do. She's trying to retell, exactly as we've said before, a set of events from a different perspective. Anyway, before we go for our break, let's hear the, this is the dust jacket copy for the American first edition of A Composera, which was published by Knopf. North. And I will ask both our guests to rate it as a sales. Would you had you been in a bookshop in New York in 1968, and you've idly picked this up, would you would this have been for you? Flavia Herbert, on her own in the south of France during a golden summer in the 1930s, lives with the supreme

directness and ardour of youth. She knows with a fierce certainty what her future is to be. It lies at Oxford, where she will train her intellect to be of service to man. Triggering, very triggering. I've put the book down and wandered off by the way. But this view of herself is at odds with the reality. It springs from the ideas she has of her dead and idolized father, of her beautiful mother Constanza, the favorite of the gods. Flavia does not know herself as she is. When she is caught up in the crucial turning of her life,

the drama, the intrigue, that is to determine the fate of those she most loves, her actions are as mysterious to herself as they are to others. Is she the victim of a mere compass error, this serious vulnerable girl moving among her manipulative and seductive elders, or is she indeed working out the pattern of her essential nature? That is the substance and suspense of this novel, in which elegance and a true worldly-ness overlie the strongest moral concern. to try and sell it as a Riviera lesbian thriller. Now, listen, I'm going to make you up on Riviera, OK, lesbian, absolutely thriller.

It's thrilling. Well, you've been up the hock and seltzer, I would suggest, but OK. As a blur, I think that's a good blur, Francesca. You think that's a good jacket? I mean, there's a mistake in it. Isn't the book set in the 20s? It is set in the 20s. Yeah. I mean, that's the biggest clanger for me.

I think that was the moment where I kind of... You lost me in the 30s, yeah. It's like, don. What do you think? I think the second bit of the blurb is kind of nails it. The first bit, I agree, I'd have wandered off with you at that point, Andy, I wouldn't have been gripped. But we're in New York in 1968,

not standing around reading this. Oxford, Oxford, not another Oxford. Exactly. But I like the idea, John, that that jacket copy was not afraid to present the pleasures of the book as fundamentally intellectual. Yes, there is a lot of intellectual stuff in it. There's a passage I might read later about the pessimism of Costanza, Flavia's mother, which I think is really powerful. But it's very good on all the sensual details. I mean, I think that's the thing that probably having listened to Krista and Francesca, it's the sensual details that kind of live with you. And also that kind of the Rebecca moment, you know, where you have that, oh my god,

let's stop there. When we come back, we'll be hearing from our old pal Cyril Connolly. Where would we be without Cyril? And we'll be talking about that Oh my god moment. But first of all, let's hear from our sponsors. And we're back. We're talking about Cyril Bedford's 1968 novel, Composera, her third novel. I have here a review, contemporary review from the Times Literary Supplement.

This was written by Cyril Connolly, the great Cyril Connolly, and I'll just read you the first and last paragraphs of this. This is sort of indicative of the book's reception, which was mixed at the time. I could have found better reviews and I could have found significantly unkinder reviews, but this seemed to me to be a good representative of them all. He writes, a dozen years or so ago, when Mrs. Bedford's first novel, A Legacy, was published, it met with the kind of distinguished approval,

which meant that the literary establishment, even if not the general public, had taken her to its bosom. Evelyn Waugh, Nancy Mitford, and others who spoke rather than wrote their enthusiasm, acclaimed a new classical talent and spoke of Proust, Thomas Mann, Henry James, the elegant, cool, witty sparkle of Mrs. Bedford's prose, the controlled intricacy of her plot.

Her only subsequent work, a fiction, to which A Compass Error is a sequel, appeared in 1963. The praise, if less unanimous, was still keen. But five years is a long time nowadays in the checkered fashions of fiction, and however much one tries to preserve some sort of constant long-term judgment for novelists who do not choose to work in the current mainstream, Mrs Bedford's new novel does seem curiously irrelevant, dated and mannered. A book to please the author's own generation certainly, but not alas likely to provoke either the new literary establishment or the younger reading public to great enthusiasm, nor one to reaffirm those high-flown hopes, which a legacy inspired.

Were it not for the fact that Mrs Bedford, between her rare novels, writes excellent documentary books largely concerned with the moral intricacies of the law, it would be tempting to think she was not aware of the ironies behind this cool, vanished world. It is perhaps a pity that in Flavia's story, one feels too little sympathy with any of the characters to care deeply about their moral intricacies. And despite the very real and skillful pleasures offered by the author's sophisticated style

and background descriptions, it is fair to conclude that none of it has much relevance for most of us more humdrum human beings. Now that is an absolute stiletto in the guts isn't it that review. What an unkind but Damning with faint praise isn't it of the Francesca, you probably sold more copies of the Compass era in your time as a bookseller than it sold on publication. Because we talk a lot about this, don't we? The right book at the wrong moment. That's got to be an example of it, has it? And we were making a joke about it there, about being in New York in 1968, to the generation

of 1968 who perceived that they had lived through a revolution already, what couldn't they see in this novel, do you think? On the surface, it's kind of prissy and posh or, you know, sort of like, you know, interwar twenties, posh people, but it's actually, it's quite a radical novel, I think. I mean, not just in terms of its theme, but also sort of in style and form. I think it's quite radical. I mean, I'm sure at one point we're going to talk about the controversial soliloquy in the middle of the book. You know, that's the climax to which we're building in this show. So let's not go too early. No spoilers. But yes, I think it's certainly

a nastier book and a good way than that review of Connolly's would suggest. Yeah. I also think it was a bit rich that Connolly was talking about the more humdrum among us. I mean, he was hardly, you know, Joe Bloggs living in suburbia, was he? I love it. Even in 1968 though, Cyril Connolly understood the need to present yourself as a man of the people, right? Absolutely. He was code switching. Oh yes, that's good. Oh, that's good. Cyril Connolly was code switching. That's a phrase

that's never been uttered by any human ever. He was supposed to be her friend as well that's the that's the rule. Well literary friendships are treacherous as John Mitchinson and I are known. Krista, you I know wanted to read from a section near the end of the book which this seems like a good moment because of the civilized savagery that's on display here is relevant to what we're talking about, I think. AC Yeah. This is from a passage that she's begun a relationship with Andre, and then she's discovered that Andre has a purely ulterior motive, which is to disrupt Flavia's mother's relationship with her new boyfriend, soon to be husband, except not to be husband

because it transpires that Andre is actually the boyfriend's wife who refuses to divorce him. Obviously when Flavia discovers this, she's devastated, but then she still finds Andre incredibly seductive. This comes after several chapters where Andre has been taking her out, asking her questions, hanging on the answers, really seeming to enjoy her company. And then she turns on her and it's devastating. You look disapproving. Tyrone, you were told a few facts of life, you slobbering little moralist.

Behave better, she mocked Flavia's voice. Isn't that all to the good? Tyrone, you learned a thing or two about your own behavior. I've been longing to tell you some home truths. God, how fed up I was with having to flatter you. I knew you have more rough than smooth. It wasn't what everybody would call flattery. I did it in my style,

but wasn't my attention flattering enough? Pretending to take you seriously, listening to you, throwing you scraps about politics and San Simon. Do come and talk to me. She mocked her own voice. listening to you, throwing you scraps about politics and Saint-Simon. Do come and talk to me. She mocked her own voice. Don't underrate yourself. You fell for it, didn't you, you conceited little fool?

You thought that I chose to talk to you, chose to spend evening after evening with you, the pretensions you have. I imagine you got those from your precious mother. What a pair you must make." Andre laughed. But I suppose you can't see yourself as others see you. The adventurous, the divorcee. I hear your father couldn't wait to kick her out without house or home or country. Flavia said, I'm going to hit you. I'd hit you if you weren't a woman. You mean, Andre said, if you weren't a woman.

You really must get these things straight. Society may accept women going to bed together, but not fistfights, dear, ever. Brilliant. Queen, as I believe we say these days. Yeah, positively 4th Street, isn't it? Krista, I like to think that you and your daughter go through similar conversations. We do, every day.

Good, that speaks to a different generation. It does. John, did you, I found that, did you find when you reached that section that Christus just read for us, I wanted to, my insides were clenching with, with, not embarrassment for Flavia, but the awful truth telling going on there. Yeah. And it was really gripping, you know, talking about it as a thriller. Did you find that?

It reminds me of that, you know, the great Rebecca moment, you know, loved her, loved her, I hated her. And then you suddenly realize that what Andre has been doing has been incredibly calculated and she has drawn She's drawn out all of that kind of youthful splurging which we already know because we've had the soliloquy in bed With the snoring teres It's why I really like this book is it's going back to your talking about adolescence before it really catches that sense of um of joyousness, of wanting to tell your life story

and wanting everybody. We've all had it, you know, that annoying thing if you ask somebody, tell me about your family and then half an hour later they're going and then of course then it wasn't quite like that because then actually my dad wasn't really my dad. And then you think, yeah, I just really, I was just being polite, to be honest. I think there's a thing here, which is not to be underestimated in this book, is the shadow of war. I found reading it right now incredibly interesting and moving because the sense of people kind of just having lives while this shadow is growing and creeping over them, I think is brilliantly realized. I would just remind listeners of the future, if indeed there is one, that we're recording this in early March 2025 while the world is going up in flames.

There's a little passage in the book talking about compass errors, which perhaps if I could read, it's in the soliloquy, but it's the bit that really jumped out for me, which was Costanza explaining her pessimism. And this is the pessimism of the late 20s. This is the pessimism to put alongside the positivism of Miss Jean Brodie teaching in Edinburgh and admiring Mussolini. Her mother is half Italian and is reflecting. Costanza is also a socialist. She's half American, half Italian. The future of human society, had it made an irrevocably false start, the compass error that gets harder to correct

with every mile you go. How simple and shining it had all looked when she was young and mama was preaching democracy and she went one better with her faith in Fabian socialism. The influence of private individuals on events was negligible and yet they must keep on. One thing I learned in England, this is the mother, public opinion, the sum of private opinions does matter,

can matter often for good. How do we get into the situation of today? Economic bewilderment in the United States, uninspired government in Britain, unemployment gloom, insuperable problems everywhere, unspeakable things happening to men and women inside half the countries in the world.

In our poor Italy, on a comparatively petty scale, she said, think of Soviet Russia, yet never make the mistake, Flavia, never take lightly the one man in the prison cell. She believed that there would be changes, a new cycle of prosperity. Mussolini will fall. But when, how? What about the people to whom it will have cost perhaps a third of their lifetime? What about our tendency to slide into the next trap? Do we know our true needs? She asked herself. Are we inescapably the products of our habits and environments? Are we

not already too many, simply too many, to be able to change the patterns deliberately? Who should begin? the patterns deliberately. Who should begin? Queers custodiate, it is hopeless. Constance, some things have become better. What do you think are good, entirely good? The rule of law, yes, she said, where it obtains. What else? The Kellogg pact, she said.

The invention of anesthetics, the abolition of dual digital torture, where it obtains. And that would get us back to Castor Oil and the secret police, Lenin's Kool-Ax and the cattle trains, Devil's Island, English prisons, Oscar Wilde, crime, ends and means, free will, character, what makes it, what destroys it, conduct. She would speak of the necessity of holding onto a framework of belief, a reasonable percentage of belief. One thing she often came back to was what she called the great divide in all individuals' lives. Youth, when death has no reality, she doesn't mean fear of death. Children can have that. And our actions and pleasures are for their own

sake, for what they are now and new. Middle age, when the fact of death impermanence and our own slackening of impetus is the dominant, the chief changing the notations, the chef changing the notation. What we do, we do for the nth time. What will it add up to? We are concerned then with the sum, not the parts. What is achievement? Art, undoubtedly, religious experience outside her range, science for what ends, increasing human happiness, another chancey one that, and for the 99 without a vocation, pessimism, she affirmed, is to her the most rational view, the long-term view. In the present, she mostly enjoyed herself or had so far.

I've been sad so often yet from day to day, I've enjoyed everything that was going. Mummy, I said, in your whole life, what have you enjoyed most? Hunting, I suppose. They're an extract from the Riviera lesbian thriller, A Compass Era. I just think it feels very, very, very contemporary,

that worldview pessimism. That's depressingly wonderful, thanks very much. We talked a little bit earlier about Sybil Bedford as the patron saint of writers who hate writing. Here's another clip from her appearance on Desert Island Discs where she addresses that. I don't write at all freely. I write with enormous difficulty and it's almost a physical labor because I write every sentence over and over and over again. It's more like picking up stones, paving stones and fitting them together. Well, let's see if the landscape gardener feels the same way about that.

Nevertheless, I think you can see the benefits of that approach in A Compass Error. I'm going to read a little bit in a minute, but that struck me as a magnificent piece of writing. But first, let's turn to the much-trailed soliloquy. Quite early in this novel, as John has said, Flavia delivers a 50 page recap while lying in bed with Therese, which struck reviewers at the time as clumsy at best. And indeed Bedford many years later said, well, I knew what I was trying to do was to this effect, but I didn't quite pull it off. It didn't bother me at all.

In fact, I rather liked the boldness of it. Krista, what do you think is happening in the flow of the novel when you deliberately seemingly pause it to recap? What's she actually doing there, do you think? I think for the reader, it's actually quite useful on a first reading. I have to say, particularly for the Virago edition, because they didn't republish A Favourite of the Gods, which was the pre-Cor. And it does leave you with so many, if you don't have this bit, you have so many questions in here. Why is Flavia there? Why is she on her own? Why is her mother so important to her? Where's her mother gone? Why are they

even in France? Why aren't they still in Italy? Where does she come from? So to me, it fills in a lot of the gaps and I think it's really useful. What you were saying about Bedford's writing and what she says herself about pushing it down and taking it up and pushing it down and taking it up, when you've read the whole volume of work, both the fictionalized and then the two memoirs, you see that actually a lot of what she's doing is retelling and retelling and retelling and maybe in the retelling, telling it differently, maybe making it better. And the thing that's really sad about it when you've read the other things, of course, is that you realize that Costanza, the mother figure, is actually not this bright glittering favorite

of the gods at the point at which they're in sanary. She is a rather tragic drug addict sending her much younger boyfriend and her daughter off in cars all over the Riviera to find chemists where they're not known so they can score heroin for her. And so then it becomes really, really sad because Constanza, as she's written here, is this glittering heroin and this amazing relationship she has with Flavia. Flavia is trying to tell Therese that she is important as well.

She is exotic in the way that Teresa's family are exotic. She has this wonderful backstory. There's a moment at the very end when Flavia can't bear it. She discovers that Teresa slept through all of this and she flings herself out of the room, bursts into tears, and then goes and has a bath and then thinks, oh, poor Teresa, it doesn't matter actually. And I shouldn't have said it in English anyway, because she doesn't really speak English very well. So she kind of comes. Almost self-realization, but Flavia doesn't do self-realization, does she? It's the closest she gets. I love that idea, Krista, what you were saying about as a reader approaching Bedford's work over a number of years, including this book.

You know, I've said this before, but she does strike me as a classic example of an author who when you've read all of her books, you've read one of them, rather than the other way around. But that's the point, isn't it? It's like a multi-part word written at different life points in different ways from different perspectives. Francesca, could we just go back to the pesky soliloquy in a compass era? Did you feel the... Sarah. Did you feel the, it's important we hear, even if Therese doesn't, Flavia's account,

Flavia's version, the effect on Flavia of events that have taken place in the previous novel, so we can then better understand how she responds to what's going to happen to her in the rest of a compass era. Yeah, I think it's funny without wanting to sound fickle, I've actually been very converted in favour of the soliloquy in this brief exchange. The first time I read the novel, like you, I kind of, I didn't, I thought it was great. I mean, I didn't feel particularly negative about it. It was only when I reread it that I just thought, oh God, she's just rehashing favor of the gods. Because by that point I'd read it. But I think what Krista said about it's so important because it's Xavier desperately trying to signal that she's of the same kind of ilk as Therese and Lulu and all that kind of gang. So I think that is actually really what it's for. And yeah, you're right. If anything, it's actually quite French. We were saying before about how she's quite a French writer. It's kind of like Annie Ernaud is constantly writing

the same novel again and again and again. So maybe I've actually been a bit harsh on this illiqui. I also think it's interesting. It's odd and it's jarring, but it makes the novel richer because so many great novels have odd, jarring, 75 page protracted moments. I think that's what you said though, Andy. I think what she's done is she sort of knows that she has to have that material in the book. So she's got a technical problem, speaking as a plumber now again.

So you got- A really hard technical problem, right? Yeah. But she's trying to turn that technical problem into something that is important in this book, in the development of the self-awareness of the character of Flavia. She realises that she's over-splurged in the wrong language and she's up, you know, to her, and then she has a moment and then, and you know, she is preparing for the, I mean, yeah, I think Andre is, I mean, one of the most dramatic reality arrivals of the reality principle that I've read in fiction in recent years. I mean, it's, you know, the Flavia after she has been torn apart really by both, is not quite the same. She's, you know, she is, as they say,

immediately a little older and a little wiser and a little less trusting and a little less self-obsessed. Well, as eagle-eared listeners of the, eagle-eared, no, bat-eared listeners of this podcast will have spotted, I wouldn't really like to go for a drink with civil Bedford, but to be fair, she wouldn't definitely not like to go for a drink with me dreadful little middle-class Oik that I am. But nevertheless, um, there was a section of writing in here, which I

think is staggeringly good. And my writer's brain tells me this must have been worked and reworked and reworked but it proves it was worth it. The novel starts with a section called Prologues in which a 50 year old Flavia who has gone on to be a writer, is asked questions and she muses in a very civil Bedford-like way about what happened. In fact, what she is musing about is, was it true and does it matter? That's how the novel starts, asking the reader and the author's proxy. My version of telling this story, was it true, does it matter? The version I'm about to tell, was it true, does it matter? She's circling those two questions all the time.

She then cuts to the young Flavia herself. And what I'm going to read you, just it's a very short passage, but I would like you to think about the idea of Sybil Bedford doing something terribly clever here, in my opinion, which is dramatizing in three short paragraphs the birth of consciousness of a writer. The process of understanding that choosing words in a particular combination, as opposed to another combination, creates a wildly different set of effects. And to do that while simultaneously introducing you

to the character of young Flavia seems to me incredibly clever and a really accomplished and sophisticated piece of writing. Anyway, here it is. Chapter one, a day. The clarity of those mornings of spring and early summer, the second year at St. John, the sense of peace, slow time, the long day to come, the summer, the year, the years.

Wide windows, not yet shuttered at that hour, open from the circular whitewashed room on slopes of olives and the distant shimmering bay. The air, still light and cool, already held the promise of the dry, unwavering heat of noon. Flavia turned 17, alone, entirely alone for the first time in her life, was at the long table stacked and neat with books.

She was working, playing at work, hard at work, immersed, yet alert to hour and place and her own joy. She read, marked a passage, attempted a summary, six key words and a date, handled another book with deliberation and pleasure in pursuit of that magic right across reference. Read on. All was grist. Discovery. If speculation delighted, so did concrete fact. Infinity and bureaucracy. Appearance and reality. The tree or non-tree in the quad,

that's absolutely brilliant, can I just say? The tree or non-tree, my God, have the day off. Brilliant. The supply of drinking water on the road marches of imperial Rome. It's insane. Segway, but brilliant. So how rich the world, how interesting. I am learning.

There is no end to learning. Application, one foot before the other. This is the door of the feast and today is as good as tomorrow. That is exceptionally brilliant writing, in my opinion. It dramatises about three or four things simultaneously, including the manner of its own creation, the picking up and putting down of a specific word,

a phrase, an image. It's so, so, so good. And it's for that that I feel so grateful to you both for suggesting that we read this book. Like I say, you know, she's not on my virtual Christmas card list. But, but again, you know, it's irrelevant, isn't it? It doesn't matter. I mean, when you're faced with something as good as that, it really, really doesn't matter. Okay, so I'm afraid that's where we must end things. Huge thanks to Krista and Francesca for bringing us to Bedfordshire and to our producer, Nicky Burch, for making us all sound like we're in the same room. If you want show notes with clips,

links and suggestions for further reading for this show and the 234 that we've already recorded, please visit our website about backlisted.fm. And if you want to buy the books discussed on this or any of our other shows, visit our shop at bookshop.org and choose backlisted as your bookshop. And do please subscribe to our Patreon at patreon.com forward slash backlisted. Remember, if you subscribe at the lock listener level, you'll get two extra exclusive podcasts every month. The next one will feature Andy, Nicky and I talking about this show and recommending other books, films and music we've enjoyed in the previous fortnight. People who subscribe at this level also get their names read out like this.

Ian Henderson, thank you. Aoife Martin, thank you. Miriam Chotner Gardner of the very excellent Three Lives Bookshop in Granites Village, New York. Thank you, Miriam. Rohan Maitson, thank you. Claire Barrow, thank you. Jennifer Taylor, thank you very much.

Gabrielle Allevi, thank you. Susan Davie, thank you. Wendy Como, thank you. Sonia N. Fair, thank you so much. But before we go, is there anything else, Krista, that you would like to add about this book or the life and work of Sybil Bedford that you feel we haven't covered?

I think we didn't touch a lot on her food writing and her wine writing, which is extraordinary. When we're talking about how carefully she chooses her words, she chooses her wine and her food equally as carefully and describes that that choice in a wonderful, sensual parcel that she serves up for you. So if you're hungry, give it a read. She's also, she was a contemporary and friend of both Elizabeth David and our former backlisted subject MFK Fisher, wasn't she? So, so you know, she's very much in that top tier,

surprise, surprise, of food writing and commissorship of that era. Yes, okay. So there's the food and the drink. Francesca, is there anything else you would like to say about Sybil or her work that we haven't covered? There is indeed. I have two things. The first was that as much as I came to Sybil for the food and the drink and the sensual delight, I do actually think that it's a really dark book. And we touched briefly on Sybil's mother's morphine addiction. And I actually kind of it's a really dark book and we touched briefly on Sybil's mother's morphine addiction. And I actually kind of think in a way this book is sort of about addiction in a kind of very veiled way because Flavia is so powerless to resist the power. She's almost like an addict when it comes to her relationship with Andre. And it did remind me a lot of the way that she writes

about her mother's addiction in Jigsaw, her morphine is prescribed to her by, we also have to mention the name of this guy, Dr. Joyeux, which I think is too good. So that was that, but it's the sort of innate darkness of the book. And then the one final thing is that if we haven't persuaded everyone to go in and read the entire sort of oeuvre of Sybil Bedford and they just want to dip their toe in. There's an excellent and very short essay when she writes about Martha Gellhorn and delivering a car to her in Capri just after the Second World War and how she basically gets so drunk the night before that she manages to crash the car on the way to Capri. And it's an absolute rollicking good fun essay.

So I would recommend that if ever it's a monster to have a little taster, a little, uh, a news boost, as I'm sure Sybil would say. Yes. If you want a glass of plonk, that's the one to, uh, that's the one to sample. Good. Okay. Mitch, do you have anything you would like to add? Yeah, I had a lovely little, little story of Victoria Glenn Dinnings about who was a huge fan of hers, but you get both sides I think of Sybil Bedford here,

the charm and the not so charming. She spoke softly and very fast as if there were no time to say everything she had to say. She was outspoken. Once when she came to our house I'd set out opaque wine glasses, relics of Casa Pupo, a modish 1970s emporium in Pimlico. As I came to pour the wine, she put her hand out and stopped me. Give me a clear glass. I simply cannot drink wine out of this. When she was far into her 80s, I encountered her at a party and asked her conventionally how she was. I'm in love, she love she replied suddenly radiant a girl Translated into her work. It was this discrimination and this fierce appetite for life that made civil Bedford the great writer She was I think that's lovely. I think that's great. Well, listen, um

Thank you so much Francesca and Krista for bringing this to the backlisted table I I I think John I I both really, really enjoyed this in ways we weren't expecting to. So true. That sounds like I'm too much with the backhanded compliments today. Sybil would be proud. Sybil would have approved.

She would have approved. Okay, well listen, if any ex lovers of Frances of Sanchezka or Sibyls or mine are listening to this, we apologize for the inconvenience. We're sorry. We'll see you next time. Thanks ever so much everybody. Thank you so much.