The Early Life and Adventures of Sylvia Scarlett by Compton Mackenzie

There's nothing really wrong with this novel, except that it would not stop. It's so long, and there's just too much in there. The plot just rushes on, and there's no sustained mood. I wound up just giving up in despair when I was really close to the end. I've noticed before that Compton Mackenzie does an excellent job of writing female characters (which almost no male writer does), because he actually depicts women as human beings rather than mindless sex objects. Parts of the novel reminded me a lot of Tipping the Velvet because Sylvia is pretty clearly having affairs with women, and moves through different classes exceptionally easily, as the narrator of Tipping the Velvet does, and like, Sylvia is occasionally a performer (a singer in a cabaret). What was interesting to me was how easily Sylvia made friends and moved from one circle to another, forming connections with and affection for a very wide range of characters, some of whom are fairly bizarre, such as an over-zealous and eccentric clergyman and the ex-ballet dancer former mistress of an army captain. Sylvia is also exceptionally mobile for a woman of the time (late Victorian-Edwardian era). Besides travelling all over Europe, she makes it to Africa, South America, the USA, Russia and Eastern Europe (and this is all before I gave up). I always had a vague idea that women at the time couldn't go anywhere further than 10 metres away from their home unaccompanied by a male, but this novel shows how women could be adventurous and independent, travelling very far afield with great ease. But unfortunately, Sylvia contacts typhoid fever in Russia and upon recovery, develops a disgusting religious fervour, and spends forever in metaphysical contemplation, which is incredibly annoying. The book kept me interested when Sylvia's lively personality and wonderful sense of humour were predominant, but after her Easter European religious mania, she suddenly becomes really boring and starts endlessly moralising. It was at that point that I had to chuck it, before Sylvia could find true love in the arms of the rather confusingly personality-less Michael Fane (though I believe Mackenzie wrote other books about him, so I guess he has more substance there). The book is also really frank about sex, and is definitely relevant to studies on sexuality and attitudes towards it at the time.