Summer Will Show by Sylvia Townsend Warner

This book reminded me a lot of Tipping the Velvet (unsurprisingly, since Sarah Waters constantly praises Sylvia Townsend Warner), because they're both wonderful historical novels about lesbians (or at least women having a sexual relationship) and are both ruined by the ending, where communism is suddenly the magical solution to everything. I've actually read this novel before, but didn't really appreciate it fully. It's a beautifully written story about a woman who falls in love with her husband's ex-mistress and gets involved in the French Revolution of 1848. Sylvia Townsend Warner has a really fresh, strong and original style, when I'm reading her it feels like she's looking at the world from some angle that no one else can. All the events and people she describes assume a fascinating and unique aspect. She captures character exquitely through the description of gestures, movements, dress, and manner rather than dialogue, which seems almost random at times. I feel like a story about a woman whose children have died and who starts an affair with a Lithuanian Jewish adventuress would have been quite enough material, and I wish there hadn't been all the stuff about the Revolution and communism. I get really bored by novels about political ideology, and personally have no belief in communism. It's unfortunate (for me) that a lot of great women's writing of the early 20th century is often imbued (and, for me, ruined) by communist ideology and various left-leaning political beliefs (South Riding by Winifred Holtby comes to mind). But I really loved the first two-third or so of this novel, the parts that aren't as political and focus more on the relationship between the two female characters and their stories.