The Victorian Chaise-Longue

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I have to admit I'm not sure that I fully understood what was supposed to be happening in this book. After thinking about it though, maybe that was the point - the reader isn't supposed to understand because Melanie herself doesn't understand. The book conveys a sense of confusion, panic and disorientation and I could really feel Melanie's helplessness as she lay on the chaise-longue, trapped in Milly's body, desperately trying to work out who she was and how she could escape. A fairly weird novella from the 1950s. Melanie, a young woman in early 50s London, visits an antique shop where she feels strangely drawn to an ugly Victorian chaise-longue. There was a lot of show wood on this Chaise, so the fabric had to be fixed to the indented area just before the show wood. A well-known critic as well as a novelist, she wrote books on Jane Austen and George Eliot. Ecstasy (1962) explored intense experiences, and Everyday Ecstasy (1974) their social effects. Her distinctive voice was often heard on the radio on The Brains Trust and The Critics; and she submitted a large number of illustrative quotations to the Oxford English Dictionary. Méridienne:You’re probably most familiar with the méridienne style of chaise longue. a méridienne has a high head-rest, and a lower foot-rest, joined by a sloping piece. Whether or not they have anything at the foot end, méridiennes are asymmetrical day-beds. They were popular in the grand houses of France in the early 19th century. Its name is from its typical use: rest in the middle of the day, when the sun is near the meridian.

Il tutto contornato da situazioni angoscianti dovute al non sapere gli elementi pregressi rispetto all'arrivo di Melanie in quel corpo del passato.Récamier: a récamier has two raised ends, and nothing on the long sides. It is sometimes associated with French Empire (neo-classical) style. It is named after French society hostess Madame Récamier (1777–1849), who posed elegantly on a couch of this kind for a portrait, painted in 1800 by Jacques-Louis David. The shape of the récamier is similar to a traditional lit bateau (boat bed) but made for the drawing room, not the bedroom. For a much shorter, less mysterious take on a similar situation, see the 1890 classic, The Yellow Wall-Paper. My review, HERE, includes a link to a free version on Project Gutenberg. Wow. What a weird novella. I read this for the first time on June 15, 2001. A GR friend had told me that another book of hers was excellent (To Bed with Grand Music) so I thought I would read this again, and then read the book recommended to me. At the end of this novel, I was actually very relieved to be out of it -- not because it's not good (it's excellent, as a matter of fact) -- but rather because while I was in it, I felt as trapped and as powerless as the narrator of this story. In fact, those two words -- trapped and powerless -- are actually good concepts to use here in thinking about the novel as a whole. Now, when a book can do that to me while I'm reading it, well, it's a good one. It's extremely rare that I find a book that creates a personal reaction that actually mirrors what's happening in the story, but here it was unavoidable. Only the very best writers are able to do that, and it is something I genuinely appreciate.

La letteratura gotica mi è sempre piaciuta ma purtroppo non avevo mai sentito parlare di Marghanita Laski; dopo aver letto questo racconto sono convinta di voler addentrarmi di più nelle parole e libri dell'autrice, perchè Sulla chaise-longue mi ha molto intrigata. Dijo: Quizás Milly Baines murió aquí. Entonces, sin duda Milly Baines está muerta, dijo sin emoción, Milly y Adelaide y Lizzie, todas muertas y podridas hace rato. Este cuerpo que habito debe haberse podrido inmundamente, esta funda de almohada debe de ser un pedazo de trapo, esta colcha debe de estar apolillada, crujiente y pegajosa por los huevos de las polillas, cayéndose a pedazos mugrientos. Todo está muerto y podrido, el jugo de cebada contaminado, el camisón raído y tirado, estas manos, este cuerpo entero pestilente, podrido, muerto. Se estremeció y supo que se estremecía en un cuerpo muerto hacía mucho tiempo. Se le puso la piel de gallina, y era una piel que se había puesto verde y licuefacta y se había convertido en polvo húmedo junto con la húmeda madera pútrida del ataúd.Claire Platten studied Fine Art at University, had a successful career in marketing and graphic design before re-training as an upholsterer. Whilst working on furniture commissions, Claire also works on her own collections. Working with modern and traditional techniques, Claire puts her experience with design, colour and craft to produce unique pieces of furniture.

While I loved the book for its content and delivery, there were a few quibbles I had with the writing, which seemed to jump about a bit (But then, this may have been a way to show the MC's state of mind.) and with one element that left me puzzled - had the treatment of TB in the late 1940s/early 1950s really not moved on from the 1920s?At first the contrast between the two halves, one set in the then-present, one in Victorian times, seems stark: highlighted by the difference in tone, the opening section has a slightly pulpy, fluffy feel, while the section that follows is far more serious and sombre. Melanie lives in a meticulously-restored house in a newly-gentrified part of London, made possible by her husband’s successful career. She’s carefully tended to and, Laski makes it clear, considered deserving of attention because she’s young and pretty. Milly however, who’s resting on the same chaise-longue is confined to a stuffy sitting-room in a dreary, cluttered house, overseen by her stern sister who’s clearly obsessed with the ways in which Milly has somehow transgressed. However, as Laski’s narrative unfolds it’s evident Melanie and Milly are both in cages, it’s just that Melanie’s is more luxurious. there was only her body’s need to lie on the Victorian chaise-longue, that, and an overwhelming assurance, or was it a memory, of another body that painfully crushed hers into the berlin-wool.” The main character Melanie was interesting. Of course the story mostly revolved around her and the rest of the characters just felt like actors in a play. I know everyone else wasn’t dealt with very in depth, but I liked that they just felt like a cast of characters in a play. I feel like that made it interesting.

The presence of an antique chaise adds a touch of luxury and refinement to a space. It offers a comfortable spot for relaxation, reading, or contemplation. An antique chaise serves as a versatile and stylish piece of furniture that elevates the aesthetic and creates a sense of timeless elegance in a living room, bedroom, or any other area of the home. I mean, Laski makes mention of penicillin, yet, no antibiotics seem to be part of the treatment and the MC herself still believes that fresh air, sunlight, and milk will provide a cure - much like prescribed in Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain (1924). Again, this is not a real criticism of the book, just an additional question I derived from it. The premise of this chilling story is a simple yet highly effective one. In the early 1950s, Melanie, a young mother recovering from tuberculosis, falls asleep, only to wake up in the body of her alter ego, Milly, some ninety years earlier. I actually don't say this too often, but I think this his book would've benefited from a more rigorous editing process. The second half was actually quite good, and there were ideas and moments in here with great potential, but in general I found the book largely disappointing and even cringeworthy at points. This book was written in 1953 and was classed as a horror book. The sparse narrative certainly helps to make it that way, although today’s more sophisticated readers (in terms of there is little that hasn’t been written about these days) would find this a much tamer read. It wasn’t scary so much as eery for me but the ending certianly woke me up.

How do you restore a Chaise Longue?

When I was a boy we had lawn furniture and there was a lawn chair that was sort of like a lazy-boy….where you could rest your legs and feet on an extension of the chair. My parents called it a chaise lounge. I guess they were right. But maybe technically it was a chaise longue. And both books look at people in their time, and really caught up in time and other circumstances. In Laski's novel, this leads to illustrate the state of women in society - Victorian society and that of the 1940s/50s. Is there much change? The GR summary, in its entirety, says, "Tells the story of a young married woman who lies down on a chaise-longue and wakes to find herself imprisoned in the body of her alter ego ninety years before."