I don’t remember the name of the movie theater or even where in Denver it was located, since it was 1989 and 1990 when I lived there, but it was my favorite theater in the city because I saw the most interesting movies in it. I saw Kenneth Branagh play in Henry V, still my favorite Shakespearean adaption. I saw Jeff Goldblum and Geene Davis starring in a cult classic Earth Girls Are Easy, a title I don’t refute except to say that Earth boys are just as easy. And I saw an English film based on a novel by Richard Adams, best known for his Watership Down, called The Girl in a Swing. Starring Rupert Frazer and Meg Tilly, the film had weaknesses, naming Tilly’s German accent, but I enjoyed it enough to read the novel it based on. The novel had its own weaknesses, but for some reason, I kept returning to read it again and again. I just finished my third reading of it, and I thought I tell you about it.
Is The Girl in a Swing is a love story with a supernatural bent or a ghost story with a romance subplot? I let you decide for yourself, but I see as a hybrid story where it has elements of both romance and horror. The horror is low key, what I believe they call quiet horror, but without it, the novel is nothing but a trite story of a marriage that was strong but still destined to fail. But maybe not, because without the supernatural element, there was no reason for the relationship to fail.
Meet Alan Desland. He is an unassuming man who sells ceramics at a shop he inherited when his father died. He’s a homebody who lives with his mother in the only house he lived in, the only house he ever wants to live in. Though he’s an adult, he has never had sex. In an early scene, a woman grabbed him and kissed him, and he’s offended. She’s not the girl he wants. While on a business trip to Copenhagen, he meets Karin, a German secretary, and he becomes enchanted. The attraction is mutual. After a few dates, they decide to marry. Unfortunately, there is an element of man-saves-woman-from-poverty in the wedding. Though he isn’t rich, he has the shop that provides him status and prospects. They elope to Florida, and once they return to England, they live happily ever after.
Or not!
Karin has a secret that haunts her. Though Alan knows she has a secret, he doesn’t know what it is, and frankly, he doesn’t care. Unfortunately, there an element of woman-saves-man-from-virginity in the novel. On his wedding night, he proves impotent. In fact, he’s impotent for several days. When he manages to have sex, he becomes insatiable. And Karin, more experienced, is the willing, even eager partner. I don’t like the sex-for-money trade in the novel, in this wedding, but really, what else is the relationship base on? As she’s attracted to his money, he’s attracted to her…well, charms.
The Girl in a Swing is a ceramic piece they find at a county auction, and it’s rare and significant enough that it’s worth a lot more than they paid for it. The find will make their fortune. The girl in a swing also refers to a scene where Karin swings in a garden swing and Alan comes home and “rapes” her. Rape is the word she uses to describe later in the novel. Though she met it as metaphorical, it serves to illustrate how rough their sex was. More than any other scene, this scene draws me back to the novel. I said rough while describing the scene, but the roughness is the subtext, in Karin’s use of rape in the remembering it. The scene plays like a dream sequence.
The novel is slow-paced. Really, really, really slow. It’s like watching frozen syrup being poured over pancakes. Eventually, you will enjoy its delicious taste, but first, you have to get the syrup over the hot cakes. Remembering the pacing from previous readings, I budgeted a month to read it. I’m a slow reader, more so since my stroke. But it took me a month and a half to finish the book. I blame the narrator. Alan told the story himself, first-person narration, but he was long-winded and lethargic. The scenes were great, but to get to them, the setup to them, he made you work for them. There was little humor in the pages, or else it was the dry humor the English known for. I don’t think that though, because I like dry humor. The book would be improved by a bit of comic relief.
The denouement was particularly long-winded. Once a story ends, end it! Okay, you want to know what the characters’ lives are like after the events of the story, but a few pages are all you need for that. Again, I blame that narrator, Alan Desland. A more exciting man would’ve told a better story. I do not like Alan! I do not trust Alan! Here I’m not referring to the device of unreliable narration. That would have made the story more interesting. And I would trust him in business. He’s not going to cheat me. I don’t trust him because he’s willing to overlook and forgive so much of Karin’s sins, even to make her secrets his secrets.
But isn’t the book’s most realistic element? How many secrets and misdeeds of your lover do you overlook? Perhaps she steals from her employer. Or he goes out with the boys when there are chores at home that need to be done. Maybe it is more serious. Do they cheat on you? Beat you? Have they committed rape? Even kill someone? The true crime stories are loaded with accompanists who help dispose of the body. In America, we had elected Donald Trump as president, a man who has committed rape and fraud. At least, the court determined that he has. Well, we like cheap gas, see?
So maybe I’m being hard on Alan Desland. He’s doing what lovers and friends always do. He’s loyal. Forget that Karin’s crime is among the worst!
Best known for Watership Down, his first novel, Richard George Adams was born on May 20, 1920. After living for 96 years, he died on December 24, 2016. In World War II, he had a noncombat liaison position in the British Army. He studied History, but he served in the Civil Service. He married a woman named Barbara, and they lived within 10 miles of his birthday, in Whitechuch, Hampshire. Like Alan Desland, he was a homebody. I have read only one other book by him, Maia. It was good, but not great. Along with Watership Down, his The Plague Dogs was well-received, and I suspect those two books are worth more of your time than The Girl on a Swing.
Empyrean is this book’s word; it means the highest heaven. Adams is using it as a metaphor for his enjoyment of music. “I was all set to soar once more into the blue empyrean, but Mendelssohn was not going that far.” I had asked about what this couple have in common other than sex, but I have to admit they share a love of music, especially classical music. Karin often plays the piano in the parlor, while Alan listens with all his heart.
The Girl in a Swing is a good book but not a great one. I found its slow pace frustrating, and that was apparent in my previous reading of this novel. I am curious about Adams’ Watership Down, and I think I’ll read it in the near future. I recommend you do the same rather than reading this book.
