Tommy and Grizel by J. M. Barrie

Like Sentimental Tommy, this is a book that is very much of its time, and I don't think most people today would have much patience with its whimsical and somewhat wince-inducing style. I really liked it, not as much as I liked Sentimental Tommy, but I actually really enjoy that very old-fashioned and charming style. It's often quite emotionally tangled, going on for ages about who loves whom and in what way and how and why and what one person did and another person thought they did, and the first person thought the second person thought, etc, etc, until it gets into a quite bewildering emotional web that it's difficult to keep track of. I was especially taken with the portrayal of the characters, Barrie has a real knack for summoning up very touching and real people, though how he does it through the somewhat mannered and ponderous dialogue I don't know. It's also a complex, perceptive and tragic exploration of emotional dependence, attachment, and the almost dizzying tortuousness of close relationships. The narrative voice exasperated me at times, but I thought it worked well, veering between positioning the reader outside the story, and deep within it. It also seems to pretend to pronounce judgement on characters, while actually leaving a great deal open, and allowing not giving any definitive interpretation of the motivations, desires or actions of the characters.