High Wages by Dorothy Whipple

I fell in love with High Wages from the first line. “Jane Carter had come to Tidsley on her half-day off to look at the shops, but she looked mostly at the sky” (7). Not only is it such a beautiful image, 17-year-old Jane standing in the middle of the marketplace with her head tilted up to look at the sky, but it also wonderfully sets up our main character. She intends to just look at the shops, but finds herself looking for more. Jane continues to be forward looking throughout this book, and it is her eagerness to be more, to do more, that propels her forward, turning a premise that in another writer’s hands might feel like not much more than a trite fairytale into something perfectly believable. 

Jane gets a job at a draper’s shop in a small town in Lancashire. It’s 1912 and since her father’s death, Jane has been living with her stepmother who has made it perfectly clear that Jane is an unwanted encumbrance. At first she is thrilled with the new job, where she is expected to live-in. She gets to cut fabric, learns about the customers, and finds she has a talent for the work. But soon reality sets in. The low pay, an employer who swindles his employees out of their commissions, too little food, and long hours starts to take the wind out of Jane’s sails. Although, not out of her sales. (Do you see what I did there? Ha!) More and more Lucy is the one who Chadwick’s customers approach when they enter the shop. And if Mr. Chadwick paid his employees honestly, the commissions from Jane’s sales would help to ease her poverty. But the fact that Jane has more of talent for knowing what will suit a customer, and how best to dress the shop windows, doesn’t endear her to Mr. Chadwick like it should. After all, her skill as a salesperson and her ideas, are bringing more money into the shop. In his mind, she should be tamped down so as not to think she is worth more than he pays his other employees.

All the while, Jane spends her off-time with her coworker, Maggie, and her coworker’s boyfriend, Wilfrid. The trio take long walks in the surrounding countryside and Jane finds a friend and fellow dreamer in Wilfrid. From the first there are warning signs that perhaps Jane and Wilfrid have a little too much to talk about, much more than Maggie and Wilfrid have to say to each other, anyway. Although, Maggie and Wilfrid met at the library where Wilfrid works, it was while exchanging books for her employer’s wife. Maggie does not take an interest in reading. But Jane does.

Jane put her hand behind the velveteen shelf and brought out Ann Veronica. She turned the pages eagerly. Her eyes would not move quickly enough along the lines for her. Oh, if only she had some time! Time to read it now; this minute.

Since Wilfrid had introduced her to H. G. Wells, Jane’s life had been different. Her horizons had widened and extended incredibly. H. G. Wells was like wind blowing through her mind. She felt strong and exhilarated after reading him. It didn’t matter whether she agreed with him or not. She wasn’t sure that he ever pointed out any road that she could follow. It didn’t matter. He made her want to get up and fight and go on . . . (54)

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Whipple has Jane reading H.G. Wells’ 1909 novel, Ann Veronica, and finding inspiration from it regardless of whether or not the can find her own path within its pages. I haven’t read Ann Veronica, and have but a vague idea of the plot. What I do know is that it is termed as a New Woman novel. The term “new woman” originates from an 1894 article written by feminist writer Sarah Grand and is used to describe “an independent woman seeking radical change” (thank you, Wikipedia). While High Wages was published in 1930, it begins only years after Ann Veronica was published, so it seems reasonable to assume that we are meant to align Jane with the New Woman who is not only willing to effect radical change in her life, but seeking it out. Readers familiar with Ann Veronica shouldn’t expect Jane to follow Ann’s example too closely. After all, “[Jane] wasn’t sure that [H.G. Wells] ever pointed out any road that she could follow”.

One of the things I particularly enjoyed about this book was getting to see Jane’s growing love of literature. Books are another way of looking at the sky. She memorises a poem Wilfrid has copied out for her, William Blake’s “The Tyger” and says it over to herself on her day off when she is out visiting the park. “She loved it; it shattered the commonplace” (81).

Wilfrid continues to recommend books to Jane, which she borrows from the lending library. And so their relationship grows. Jane doesn’t take a romantic interest in Wilfrid, but it quickly becomes clear that it is Jane who Wilfrid looks forward to seeing on their Sunday walks, not his girlfriend Maggie. The relationships get complicated, Jane meets someone she takes an interest in from afar, but she always has her eye on improving herself and her situation. 

When she has the opportunity to open her own dress shop, it could not have come at a better time. I will refrain from discussing how that happens, because I don’t want to give away anymore than I already have. The focus of this book is not in Jane’s romantic relationships, it is about Jane, the running of her shop, how she finds fulfilment in her business, and how that in turn effects the rest of her life, including her relationships both romantic and otherwise.

She was happy. The business enthralled her. Not only the making of money enthralled her, but the actual life of the shop enthralled her. The people who came into the shop. Those women, now, whose sole interest in life was clothes, clothes, more and more clothes. Jane had often an entirely unbusiness-like impulse to beg them to stop buying. (246-47)

After recognising what she enjoys about her work, Jane goes on to wonder what drove certain women to keep dressing up. Whipple could have made Jane insular and selfish, but instead she wrote a character who both has an interior life and continues to look outside herself. 

When I came across this next quotation I had to smile. “She bolstered herself up by visions of the little shop. The walls were being distempered in French grey to-day. She was dying to see how it would look” (185). French grey seems a most fitting colour for the walls of a shop in a Persephone book, doesn’t it?

There are one are two aspects of the ending that missed the mark for me. If I had written this review immediately upon finishing the book I would have complained more about them. But as time has passed I realise the ending I envisioned would have tied everything together into a neat and palatable little bow. Whereas the way Whipple has concluded the book is more true to life in some ways. However, my Jane would have chosen a slightly different path.

This book starts in 1912 and continues through World War I and for some time afterwards. It talks about running a shop, women’s fashion, a love of literature, and contains beautiful descriptions of the countryside. There is a grand ball, a wedding, a financial scandal, the forming of friendship, the complications of romantic love, and the magic of finding friends that become closer than family.

While the lives of the characters in this book are not free of sadness or difficulties, overall, High Wages is a delightful book. It will make you think, but won’t be overtaxing. And if you are anything like me, it will make you cry, but I won’t say how hard. 

This blog post contains affiliate links for Blackwell’s. As a Blackwell’s Affiliate, I may receive a small commission, at no additional cost to you, if you decide to make a purchase through one of the links on my website. I recommend Blackwell’s because I use them myself. This helps support me in sharing—what I hope is—valuable content. Thank you for your support!

Crooked Cross by Sally Carson

Is it too early to claim I have just read a book that will be among my top ten of the year? Don’t bother answering that. It has already been decided. The newest book to be republished by Persephone Books is Sally Carson’s 1934 novel Crooked Cross. It is a powerful account of the rise of Nazism in Germany and how it affects one family in Kranach, a small Bavarian market town in the mountains south of Munich. As of right now, it is my pick for favourite book of the year.

 Christmas 1932. The Klugers are happy and looking forward to the future with optimism for the first time in years. The younger son has joined the Nazi Party and the elder son who has been unable to find work soon joins up too. The daughter Lexa, is engaged to Moritz Weissmann, a surgeon with a bright future. Recently, Lexa has quit her job at the library in preparation for their upcoming wedding and the couple’s excitement is evident during the holidays. Moritz and his father, Professor Weissmann, celebrate Christmas with the Klugers and the two families already feel joined.

But all of that is about to change. In the new year, Hitler is elected Chancellor, and changes quickly occur that on the surface may seem small. Moritz loses his job at the hospital because he is Jewish, and he is unable to find another. Professor Weissmann, who has all but lost his eyesight, had to give up his work at the university some time ago. With no money coming in, Moritz and his father are forced to move to a one-room flat. Soon Lexa’s brothers, Erich and Helmy, are telling Lexa that surely she must see that she has to give Moritz up because he is a Jew. As the Klugers effectively cut ties with the Weissmanns it becomes increasingly difficult for Lexa and Moritz to see each other. 

‘Is it worth it, Lexa?’ he asked. ‘Do you realise all it means?’

She was looking at him directly.

‘To me — everything,’ she answered.

[…]

Moritz said, ‘But it seems hard — too hard on you. I didn’t know you felt like that about it too.’

Nor had Lexa known until that moment. All her muddled ideas and thoughts, her worries and anxieties for Moritz had a reason, a point, an ending now. This was her loyalty; this was where she had to act. This was her moment, the moment for which she must have been waiting. (109)

At the risk of sounding trite, this is a beautiful love story set from Christmas 1932 to the summer of 1933. This book is poignant, moving, and powerful. And oh, so devastating. All while I was reading I kept marvelling at the fact that Crooked Cross was published so close to the time it is set, just a year later. Without the benefit of hindsight this book is a warning to the world of what was happening in Germany at the time, and written by an English woman who spent holidays in Munich in the early 1930s.

The whole way through I felt like I was waiting for something to happen. Of course, we know the history, we know what is about to happen, but it is nonetheless shocking. I have never read a book that was set in Germany at this time, and from a German perspective. One of the things I have never been able to wrap my head around was how someone like Hitler came into power. I did not understand the effect that losing World War I had on the German economy and how that must have in turn affected the citizens. The desperation of people who are hungry, out of work, and feeling a loss of identity is fully captured in this book. 

Allow me to quote from Laura Freeman’s preface, as she sums up this book so much better than I can.

The ‘crooked cross’ of the title refers to a swastika. Hitler called it a ‘hooked cross.’ The Nazi party may pretend that they offer stability and peace, but, as one character observes, ‘the price these people paid for their songs, their uniforms and their promises was a strange feeling of unrest and uncertainty.’ This is a book in which everything is crooked and in which people are hooked. If you have ever wondered how a nation was mesmerised by the lies of an authoritarian regime, Crooked Cross explains it with chilling force. (viii)

I hesitate to call this an important book, because if you are anything like me you read that and think, ‘ugh, sounds a lot like work’. But I assure you this book is the easiest time you will have broadening your mind and exposing yourself to a unique perspective.

As far as I am concerned this is a must read. If you are not ‘into’ politics, that’s fine. You don’t need to be. The love between Lexa and Moritz is like a bright light that gives these characters hope—that gives them something to fight for even when the chips are down and all is against them. So enjoy the rare treat of reading about a young couple whose feelings for each other go far beyond that of infatuation under the guise of love. 

The one thing about this book that I was not sure worked for me is so small a thing that I’m not even sure I need mention it. But, of course, I am going to because for better or worse, I do like to have a bit of a complain. For the most part, this book is written in third person past tense. However, scattered throughout the book the narration slips into second person. Sometimes it is just a sentence or two. Other times it is a few paragraphs. Second person narration is so uncommon in novels that I found it jarring each time I came across it. As I was reading I thought that the point might be to get the reader to better imagine themselves in a character’s shoes in moments of high emotion. But now that I’m not sure that its intended purpose was not to be jarring. It grabbed my attention every single time, causing me to pay special attention to those moments. Perhaps, that was Sally Carson’s intention. After he loses his job, Moritz asks of Lexa, “I wonder how much courage you’ve got, Lexa” (54), because he anticipates that things are going to get much harder for them. As Laura Freeman points out in the preface, the reader keeps asking themselves the same thing throughout the book. I think using the second person forces the reader to do this in specific places in the narrative, but without it, we would still be asking ourselves how much courage we have.

Sally Carson wrote two sequels to this book, The Prisoner (1936) and A Traveller Came By (1938). While Crooked Cross does have a definitive conclusion, it does end in the summer of 1933 when something momentous happens to the Klugers, and the second book is said to pick up in August of the same year. I am very much hoping Persephone will republish the other two books in this trilogy. 

I had a hard time figuring out how to approach reviewing this book. I can’t tell you this book is cosy, or lovely, or will make you feel good. But if you want to read an important book that will make you think, that presents a perspective to which you might not otherwise be exposed, that is terrifically well-written, then you should read this one. Book of the year material, this is.

This blog post contains affiliate links for Blackwell’s. As a Blackwell’s Affiliate, I may receive a small commission, at no additional cost to you, if you decide to make a purchase through one of the links on my website. I recommend Blackwell’s because I use them myself. This helps support me in sharing—what I hope is—valuable content. Thank you for your support!