Day 37 Small Pleasures and Little Treats
Small Pleasures and Little Treats Small Pleasures There is an inevitability about the ending of Clare Chambers’ Small Pleasures. It is signalled with little ambiguity by the structure of the novel. The one thing that isn’t clear is who’s destiny we are foreseeing. The story is set in 1957 mostly in southeast London, in genteel suburbia, peopled by the sort of people the 50s always brings to mind, the conservative (with a small c) lower middle classes in their between-the-wars semis. It's a good, pitch perfect late 50s setting. Jean is a reporter on the local paper. She is fast approaching forty, single, looking after her difficult and sickly mother. Her sister has escaped to Kenya with her family. Jean feels abandoned. Life isn’t exactly a struggle, but it’s confined and small, getting by, making ends meet, not miserable but with no room for joy. It always amuses me how people want to recall the community spirit of the 40s and 50s. My memory is that keeping yo