Lolly Willowes or The Loving Huntsman is a novel written by Sylvia Townsend Warner. The story revolves around a woman named Laura Willowes, who is known as Lolly by her family. She lives a conventional life in London with her brother and sister-in-law, but she longs for something more. After her father's death, Lolly decides to move to the countryside and live on her own. She finds a new sense of freedom and independence, and she begins to explore her own desires and interests.As Lolly settles into her new life, she ...
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Lolly Willowes or The Loving Huntsman is a novel written by Sylvia Townsend Warner. The story revolves around a woman named Laura Willowes, who is known as Lolly by her family. She lives a conventional life in London with her brother and sister-in-law, but she longs for something more. After her father's death, Lolly decides to move to the countryside and live on her own. She finds a new sense of freedom and independence, and she begins to explore her own desires and interests.As Lolly settles into her new life, she discovers that she has a special connection to the natural world. She becomes deeply involved in witchcraft and begins to explore her own powers. She also meets a mysterious man known as the Loving Huntsman, who offers her a different kind of love and companionship than she has ever experienced before.As Lolly's relationship with the Loving Huntsman deepens, she must confront the challenges and consequences of her newfound independence. She must also navigate the expectations and judgments of her family and society, who view her unconventional choices with suspicion and disapproval.Lolly Willowes or The Loving Huntsman is a powerful and thought-provoking novel that explores themes of freedom, independence, and personal fulfillment. It is a timeless classic that continues to resonate with readers today.1926. Sylvia Townsend Warner's first novel is an enduring, subversive, and lyrical portrait of spinsterhood in post-World War I Britain. Lolly is a single woman and after her father dies, she is moved, as a matter of course, to her brother's house, where she meekly obliges to play caregiver to his children and housemaid to his wife. After 20 years of this life she moves to the rural village of Great Mop. She feels an affinity for the town, the countryside, and her new neighbors. She blossoms emotionally and spiritually, and as she does so, she discovers an important secret: She is a witch, as is everybody else who lives in Great Mop. A graceful read in the tradition of women's fiction and magic realism.This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the old original and may contain some imperfections such as library marks and notations. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions, that are true to their original work.
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This novel is many things; some people say it might be a feminist novel because the main character finally realizes her true vocation as a witch, but _Lolly Willowes_ is so much more beautiful and complex than that. This story is also about one woman?s love of the English countryside and how it is the place her heart longs for. The beauty of the land is on every page. The main character, Laura Willowes, ?Aunt Lolly,? gets so much pleasure from walking the hills and meadows and woods and woodland paths that I feel sure author Sylvia Townsend Warner put herself into Lolly. And if being passionate about solitary walks in nature is a sign of witchcraft, then let?s have more of it.
The novel flows beautifully, and has many lines like this: ?The bees droned in the motionless lime trees? (38). Sensitive images like that do many things: they show the passion for the countryside (as I mentioned), and also give the reader a sense of time, and place, and mood, and Lolly?s interior thoughts. These carefully-crafted sentences are not random poetic lines dropped into the text but part and parcel of this novel?s pace and tone of voice. In a pivotal scene, Lolly is in a shop when she goes into a sort of meditative trance; the room falls quiet like she?s alone outdoors: ?No sound, except sometimes the soft thud of a riper plum falling into the grass, to lie there a compact shadow among shadows? (80).
The novel is 220 pages and divided into three parts of almost equal length, each part mapping out Lolly Willowes?s life through her psychological development. Part 1 shows Laura as she goes from birth through childhood in the care of her loving father, whose nurturing of her is truly a touching portrait of parenthood. This first part of the novel shows Laura becoming Aunt Lolly; the author shows the social environment in which Laura/Lolly is embedded; we see the development of her two brothers and their wives and children, how they are well-off--but perhaps not typically middle-class. The social role of the ?spinster aunt? Lolly becomes someone the Willowes family depends upon. The Willowes?s stalwart Englishness is characterized by steadfast values, often predictable--the very quality that created British society, in my view. Though Lolly seems stuck in one position (the maiden Aunt), it is a comfortable prison. This early portrait of Laura Willowes is necessary to show her later development and how her streak of creativity finds expression when she breaks away from her brother and the Willowes?s stable and secure existence.
Also of note is that this novel was originally published in 1926 and now has a kind of sociological or non-fiction quality. I?m not spoiling the novel for you if I suggest that the turning point is in Part 1 around the topic of how the Willowes family holds up during World War I, or the Great War, during which they have been confined to their London house: During the immediate aftermath of the war, Aunt Lolly becomes aware that she is hungry for change in life: ?She saw how admirable it was for Henry and Caroline [ her brother and his wife ] to have stayed where they were [in London].? The narrator continues, ?But she was conscious, more conscious than they were, that the younger members of the family had somehow moved into new positions. And she herself, had she not slightly strained against her moorings, fast and far sunk as they were?? (66). Again, the key to Lolly/Laura?s happiness is the countryside--not as an escape but as a conscious choice--and in an unusual expression of creative energy and self-consciousness, which you?ll find out when you read.
There is an understated sensuality at work all through this novel, one that male readers can appreciate, too, since Warner knew that there were men similar to the Lolly Willowes of Britain, who wanted to break away from their masculine social roles in the 1920s.
