Marrying It All
Diana Button
Radio
Review
£12.99 in
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$14.95
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€13,44
in
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€13,63
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Germany
(approx)
October 25th 2003 – Radio 100,7 Luxembourg for the programme,
‘Rendez-vous mam Buch’
Introduction:
For
almost a decade in Luxembourg, a number of English, American and other
writers who work in the English language have given each other support. A
few years back, these English writers in Luxembourg started a
Creative-Writing Club. Now, one of these writers who writes in English has
published her own first novel. The writer is Diana Button. The novel is
titled, Marrying it All. The novel tells how a young British wife
whose husband works for the European Community in Luxembourg, overcomes
unhappiness and develops her own potentials as a creative human being. It
is an important step forward for ‘Luxembourgish literature’ because
the setting in Marrying it All is Luxembourg but the truth told is
not that of a Luxembourger’s who has roots going back for centuries in
the country. Rather, it is the truth of the new residents of Luxembourg:
the expatriates who have come, usually with their families, to work for
international corporations, banks, or the European Union and who are very
well remunerated for their work. Up to now, these New Luxembourgers have
been a silent population, seen but not recognized, greeted for their
money, but not heard. Thanks to Diana Button, this is about to change.
Review
All Rights Reserved © October 2003 by Dana Rufolo
Marrying it All, by Diana Button. A true first novel. A coming out. An awakening. A novel set in the New Luxembourg, the Luxembourg that we are collectively living in, this 999 square mile bit of turf, this small precious nation, all of us – native and foreigner alike – are only now waking up to. Yes, Diana Button’s Marrying it All is a wake-up call. The novel leaves an afterglow; I am reminded of those lines from the poet Theodore Roethke, that go:
We wake to sleep and take our waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.
The central character in Marrying it All is
Sabina Waldsmere, housewife, who is waking up to her own inner creativity,
discovering her own inner resources. By the end of the novel, she feels
her fate lies in writing. She faces that fate without fear, for she must
go where she has to go. This journey of self-discovery is set against a
backdrop of Luxembourg, and that backdrop aids her to discover herself.
The forests, the Petrusse Valley, the jagged cliffs, the Casemates and
their underground tunnels, and especially the suicide-provoking Red Bridge
of Luxembourg are all faithfully described. We recognize these landmarks.
Furthermore, these landmarks are props in Sabina’s journey of
self-enlightenment that, in fact, do more than just point her way. These
landmarks direct and facilitate her transformation from an unhappy to a
fulfilled human being. Without the
red bridge tempting me, shouting out warnings to me, where and who would I
be? I can almost hear what I imagine to be Sabina Waldsmere’s
subconscious thoughts if they were shouted out loud. By the end of the
novel, she and her family have earned the title of True Luxembourgers, but
at what a price. The great shock for these fictional characters as well as
for the real ones whom they represent who work here for international or
European institutions is that, despite their comparative wealth and ease
of lifestyle, despite the bushels of money they earn and their
state-of-the-art architectured houses and their CD license plate numbers,
they still have had to develop a new persona, a new sense of self, that,
like expensive, handcrafted furniture, matches their surroundings. To
return again to dear Theodore Roethke, these New Luxembourgers have had to
learn by going where they have to
go.
But all is not serious in Button’s novel. Far from
it. Perhaps a little more philosophy would have added to the novel in
fact, but Button has preferred to reflect the healthy British fear of
philosophy. This is a humorous novel, a tongue in cheek novel, there is a
smile in the sun in the sky of this story. Sabina’s husband is caught in
the structure of his work, he can hardly change, but maybe he will, we can
only hope so. Her children too are caught in the buzz of their hormones,
they are school kids and students are universal aren’t they? But she
sees and understands them all, and it makes her laugh. It makes us laugh.
Take this example:
Sabina’s husband Adrian has noticed that Sabina is
changing, she’s behaving differently. He asks himself questions. This is
what he is thinking: “What if she is having an affair? It was possible
of course … Adrian feels woozy and has a strange dryness in his mouth.
(He thinks) She could walk out on me
and then what would I do? He instantly thinks of the huge pile of
crumpled clothes that has been mounting up on the chest of drawers in
their bedroom. It’s unusual for her to neglect the ironing … (Adrian
thinks:) Is she planning to leave me
with all that ironing to do? (pp 90, 91)
We just have to laugh at the image of the troublesome
pile of wrinkled, clean clothes and also we have to laugh at the concrete
thinking of Sabina’s husband Adrian. He seems unable to think
symbolically, so pressed into the grown-up adult structure of
‘important’ work as he is. But Sabina the child figure sees his
limitations and plays on them; we get to join in the fun.
Sabina also laughs at herself. The story plot describes
her experience with a mysterious dressmaker, Madame Anastasia, who serves
in the role of fairy godmother. Anastasia is sewing a wondrous Cinderella
gown, a magical dress, for Sabina to wear when presiding over a fancy 40th
birthday party. The dress symbolizes a new look on life, the awakening you
have been hearing about throughout this review. It also gets Sabina away
from her mirror where every feature on her face, every curvature of her
body, is scrutinized, exaggerated, mythologised. Diana Button seems to be
definitely laughing at a woman’s absurd preoccupation with her looks
until she throws these funny lines in our face, lines that make us laugh
but that also reveal Sabina’s initial low self-esteem:
Sabina daydreams about how she will present herself to
her husband’s work colleagues at the annual work function to which wives
are duly invited. Sabina pretends she is Superwoman. This is what she
thinks:
Superwoman (will introduce) herself to her husband’s
colleagues with a debonair, 'Good evening, I’m Sabina Waldsmere,
Research Manager in the field of Child Development and Human Relations,’
or ‘Pleased to meet you. I’m in the Domestic Management Business. What
do you do?’ (p.17)
Sabina goes on to reveal self-mockery as she confesses
to herself that when her husband’s work function actually took place
last time, she said to all and sundry, “I’m just a housewife!” No
wonder her face and body are so important to her, she feels they are all
she has got. In this instance, Diana Button’s humour is tinged with
bitterness, but it is funny all the same, to see how she lets our own
images reflect back at us in the mirror of her story. It may be a
gold-backed mirror, a gilt – g-i-l-t, mirror, but it is our universal
tendency to feel guilt, g-u-I-l-t, and confusion that is reflected back to
us in the name of Sabina and all of her clan and all of her brood. And in
the name of Luxembourg, a place where she has been infected with the
disease of Luxusitis. And now I will say no more. To find out how Sabina
cures herself of Luxusitis, read the book!
To conclude, Diana Button’s Marrying it All is a splendid first novel full of wit and promise. Buy it.
Back to Marrying It All main page
About the author
Born
in Great Britain, Diana Button’s career began in the world of
translation and computing but changed course when she began writing.
Writing is now an integral part of her life together with painting,
teaching creativity and free-style jazz dance. She currently lives in
Luxembourg with her husband and two children.
Available from the following on-line bookstores:
Original oil painting
entitled ‘Flying on Joy’ by Diana Button, 60cm X 80cm
which was used in the cover design for Marrying It All
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0595291562