Extraordinary Women by Compton Mackenzie

This book is so light and delightful, it absolutely melted under my fingers. It's also completely not what I expected. I still don't understand how it was allowed to be published, because it's completely frank about homosexuality at a time when The Well of Loneliness caused utter outrage. It was written at a time when the question of how to write about homosexuality seemed to haunt literature, and Mackenzie has a really refreshing take. While the sexual politics might not be totally palatable to us now, what I loved is that it absolutely refuses to treat homosexuality as an abnormality (at a time when that was extremely common, even by lesbian writers themselves). In fact, Mackenzie mocks this sort of view. The book deals with a community of lesbian women living in Capri during and immediately after World War I, and the title refers to the fact that these women develop a sort of absurd pride in being what they have decided is 'abnormal'. The worst insult one woman can give to another in this novel is that she is just pretending, that she is in reality interested in men and is not 'really abnormal'. But Mackenzie portrays them as having perfectly ordinary emotions that are alternately as ridiculous, touching and pathetic as the emotions of any person in love with any other person, regardless of sexuality.

In terms of writing style, it alternates between little exaggerated tableux like extravagant moments in films or picture-postcards (or rather like Georges Barbier's fashion sketches, as that on the cover of the book), and a frothy, exuberant satire. I found the combination hugely enjoyable, and the wit and cynicism didn't prevent me really loving some of the characters. I also loved the way Mackenzie paced the entire book; Rosabla's seductions accelerate in pace as the book goes on. The first romantic involvement is described in detail, but as the book progresses, her affairs begin to flash by faster and faster, as the plot seems to gather speed. It feels like one of the those 'x except every time y happens it gets faster' memes. Or like car chase in Keystone Kops movie, everything rushing at comic speed to its inevitable conclusion.