Reading on the beach is a careful art, made all the more perilous when you have children to keep track of. Books plus sand and water; it’s a delicate dance. For some parents, reading will be out of the question, too dangerous even to consider. Whether for reasons of the children’s age, personality, or the environment, luxuriating in the written word is flat out of the question for some of us for a time.
For the fortunate, there are moments (perhaps when an infant is napping and older kids are fishing for minnows, easily monitored intermittently) when taking up a novel by a body of water becomes a real possibility. Made all the more precious by its fleeting possibility, reading on the beach should not be squandered on the trash that lines the library checkout: romance novels. Oh no, something of substance is the only kind of writing that will satisfy.
That said, too much substance will lead to frustration. You’re checking on those kids wading with nets, remember? They can’t just wander up the stream unsupervised while you parse complex grammatical construction. What, then, will scratch the itch of a pleasant summer reading experience, sun-kissed with water on the horizon. Margaret Kennedy’s “The Feast” fits the bill.
Dominika, a wife, mother, and exquisite writer, recommended “The Feast” on her Substack Gathering Light. She explains:
In the prologue we learn that an overhanging cliff has crushed a seaside hotel and that there are both victims and survivors. The narrative then immediately turns back to the start of the week preceding the disaster. It’s through often seemingly inconsequential details, such as gossip between maids or children’s games, that we get to know the victims and the survivors and learn what it is that will set them fatally apart.
The idea for the novel came to Kennedy in the 1930s during a discussion with fellow writers in which they challenged one another to write a modern day version of a medieval allegory of the seven deadly sins. So the book can be read as a kind of puzzle inviting the reader to try to work out which character symbolizes which sin and thus will end up dead.
Because we, the readers, know from the outset that there is a dire disaster that will claim many lives, all of the action is overlaid with anxiety. The tension is masterfully developed, both in the overarching disaster story and in the increasingly complex personal situations of the characters. What struck me most was the pressing realization that kept coming back to me that any of these character might die at any moment!
But isn’t that our condition all the time? We might think of momento mori as a Stoic philosophical principle, but it is a simple recognition of our mortality that should accompany us in our daily lives. All of our decisions should be made in light of that unavoidable end. It can be shocking to meet someone who is 90 or 100 years old. They will tell you that everyone they grew up with—parents, siblings, cousins, neighbors, childhood friends, spouse, even some of their own children—have died. How easily we can choose to ignore this fate that awaits us all.
I had not heard of Margaret Kennedy before encountering this novel. A prolific writer, she manages to convey the allegorical signification without overbearing moralism. Through her characters, who are quite believable and three-dimensional, she offers artfully drawn lessons about virtue and vice, such as the following.
Mr. Siddal, the slothful man who once had a promising academic future but now lives off his wife’s hard work, is asked to explain the difference between pride and self-respect. He answers that the two conditions “‘give rise, to a certain extent, to the same kind of conduct. Proud people and self-respecting people prefer to sail under their own stream, paddle their own canoes and boil their own kettles of fish. They do not demand help of sympathy. But the motive…’ he emphasized the word by patting his knee, ‘the motive is differenct. Self-respect regards independence as a social and moral duty. We must not fling our burdens onto the shoulders of other people. We must not inflict on them the story of our woes. But self-respect is not antagonized by sympathy or offers of help. It may feel obliged to refuse them, but it can be touched by the offer and respect the generosity which makes the offer.’
‘Yes,’ said Mrs. Paley, ‘and the proud man is angry with anyone who offers him help.’
‘The proud man is humiliated that anyone should suppose he needs help. The offer is an insult. His motive is not that of social obligation, but a desire for superiority. He always thinks in terms of superiority and inferiority. Help, he imagines, is given by the superior to the inferior, and to offer it to him is to degrade him. If he is obliged to accept generosity he hates the giver. His independence is an indulgence of his own ego.’”
This is but one of many meditative moments that apply to our lives outside the story. As we summer somewhere, near home or afar, with the characters on their summer holiday, we can enjoy an entertaining little thriller that also gives us meaty material to chew on long after the action of the novel subsides.
I second Dominika’s recommendation to pack this one for any summer trips. Or, if you are like me and decide to read it on the eve of a trip, have Thriftbooks send it to the place you’re staying and dive in!
