The Fountain Overflows
is Rebecca West's semi-autobiographical novel about a family whose
eccentricity and poverty incongruously make childhood magical for three
of the four children. Narrator Rose, her twin Mary, and their younger
brother Richard Quin treasure idiosyncrasy as a badge of distinction.
Mamma explains to the
others how they differ from their older sister, Cordelia: "You
have had a dreadful childhood, but you three
. . . I think you have quite enjoyed it. . . . But
it has all been a torment to Cordelia. . . . It is not she who is odd
in hating poverty and eccentricity. It is you who are odd in not hating
them. Be thankful for this oddity, which has brought you safe through
the years."
Papa,
a brilliant writer and political pamphleteer, is an unreliable
provider. Having lost one job after another, and gambled away what
little he earned, he settles the family into a house in a London
suburb, where an admirer has hired him to edit a local newspaper.
Despite his remarkable qualities, Papa doesn't redeem himself as a
husband and father, and it is the less lustrous Mamma who holds the
family together and whose foresight saves them from starvation.
But Mamma, a former concert pianist who gave up her career for her husband, is also
eccentric, leaving people unsure of how to take her and putting all
hope for her children's future on their becoming renowned musicians.
The three
youngest children have musical talent, but Cordelia does not. Much to
the chagrin of her family, Cordelia not only will not won't admit
the fact but is trying to use performing as an escape
from home.
Rose makes some realizations about her own musical abilities that hint that her future lies
elsewhere. Indeed, Rebecca West (whose real name was Cicily Isabel
Fairfield) came to fame as a writer. She wrote novels, literary
criticism, and nonfiction and is admired as one of the foremost prose
stylists of the 20th century.
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