Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner

What a strange and quirky little book this is!

One of the adventures of trolling around the internet for ideas about books to read is coming upon something entirely unheard of before. This book, which was written in 1926, is #52 on a list from the British newspaper The Guardian of the 100 Best Novels Ever. It starts out as a novel of manners, kind of like Jane Austin, and ends up as a feminist allegory, kind of like Virginia Woolf. It even anticipates the magic realism of Angela Carter. As I said, strange and quirky.

Lolly Willowes is the dutiful daughter and later the helpful spinster aunt until her middle age, when she finally has enough of always being helpful and self-sacrificing and decides to move away from her family, to an out-of-the-way country village. Before long she realizes that she is, and has always been, a witch. In a long conversation with Satan, she explains that being a witch is "to have a life of one's own, not an existence doled out to you by others...."

All of this is told in rather whimsical prose. It is often chuckle-worthy funny. Here's my favorite tongue-in-cheek quote: "One has to offer marriage to a young woman who has picked dead wasps out of one's armpit."

I would recommend this novel even to those without feminist or lesbian interests (Yes, there's a hint of that, too). Warner is much more charming than Virginia Woolf.