Margaret Drabble About Margaret Drabble: Margaret Drabble was born June 5, 1939 in Sheffield, Yorkshire, England. She attended the Mount School, York, a Quaker boarding-school and was awarded a major scholarship to Newnham College, Cambridge, where she read English and received double honors (a "starred first"). After being graduated from Cambridge University, she joined the Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford during which time she understudied for Vanessa Redgrave. Her novel The Millstone won the John Llewelyn Rhys Prize and she was the recipient of a Society of Author's Travelling Fellowship in the mid-1960's. She also received the James Tait Black and the E.M. Forster awards and was awarded the CBE in 1980. She is often described as being the author one should read to get a clear view of what it's like to live in England. This is true not only because of her non-fiction books "For Queen and Country" and "A Writer's Britain" but also for her novels. The English personalities of her characters are tangible in her novels which, through the decades, have also reflected the dramatic political, economic and social changes that have taken place in Great Britain. Running along the same lines as a daytime soap opera, Margaret Drabble’s A Natural Curiosity provides pertinent information about life in Northam, England, a small, quaint town just outside of London, during the mid to late 1900’s. Drabble narrates the novel in third person omniscient which allows her to venture into the minds of the diverse characters. Although there exists a black and white central conflict, all of the minor conflicts stem from Alix Bowen, the first, and most essential individual. In one way or another, all of the people share some distinct connection with Alix Bowen. Drabble’s description of Alix Bowen’s obsession with a murderer named Paul Whitmore who had held her hostage in the past, allows the reader identify with Alix’s innocence. A good-hearted, well-minded person, Alix Bowen feels compelled to discover how a man of Whitmore’s intelligence could possibly commit the horrible crimes that he did. Drabble also forces the reader to sympathize with Alix Bowen, and to understand her obsession. In showing her unconditional dedication to Whitmore, Alix sets off to locate the father of the murderer. The reason this infatuation continues relies solely on the fact that Whitmore offers Alix an “intellectual and psychological stimulus of an unusually invigorating nature.” The chain effect remains evident as individual dilemmas that arise between members of a social group ultimately affect the group as a whole, underlying the theme of the novel. Throughout the novel, when two or more people disagreed on an issue, a third party swiftly enters the picture offering either hurt or help to the issue. In one instance, Carla Davis, a deceitful woman, lays the blame of her husband’s supposed hostage situation in Baldai on Charles Headleand, a thoughtful, caring, gentleman. On another occasion, Liz Headleand begins to act odd when she discovers that her long-time friend, Alix Bowen, repeatedly visits the murderer. Undoubtedly, Margaret Drabble’s strengths far outweigh her weaknesses in A Natural Curiosity. Drabble’s tremendous usage of descriptive adjectives truly brings her characters to life. In addition, the author’s serious, yet sometimes sarcastic tones really add to the lively effect of the novel. Drabble shows no fear in coming right out and stating her points, and this indicates the sophistication of her style. Symbolism, the most important strength in Drabble’s novel, allows the reader to enter the minds of the characters for themselves without having Drabble do it for the reader. For example, when describing people, the author gives the deceiving characters the dark, evil shades of color, whereas when describing a naive person she uses lighter colors. The lone weakness that stands out in this novel consists of the occasional unnecessary rambling on about certain characters. As Drabble forbids the reader to ever forget about the novel, “Life sets us unfair puzzles....Puzzles with pieces missing.” Margaret Drabble 1939–, English novelist, b. Sheffield, Yorkshire. Drabble's realistic vision of an England split between traditional values and contemporary desires is apparent in such works as The Millstone (1965), The Waterfall (1969), and The Middle Ground (1980), and in her critical studies on Wordsworth (1966) and Arnold Bennett (1974). Increasingly Drabble's focus has moved from society as a whole to the fate of women, as in The Radiant Way (1987), its sequel, A Natural Curiosity (1989), The Gates of Ivory (1991), The Peppered Moth (2001), whose central character is based on her mother, and The Seven Sisters (2002). She also edited the Oxford Companion to English Literature (1985). "I write in order to find out what I don't know. So each book is an exploration or a journey." Gates of ivory. Liz Headland, a London psychiatrist, receives a cryptic package in the mail. Inside are drawings of Cambodian temple ruins, fragments of a novel by her old friend Stephen Cox, and part of a human finger bone. Middle ground. Kate Armstrong's a successful fortysomething journalist, divorced, her children grown, and blessed with wonderful friends. She's run through the expected phases of life intensely and passionately. But what now? Millstone. 1960s London. Rosamund, clever, cool, naive, just down from Cambridge, almost casually loses her virginity to a BBC annnouncer, but there's nothing casual about the result. A Natural curiosity. Liz is divorced from Charles, but works with him to find out what's happened to their friend, held hostage in the Middle East. Liz's sister Shirley learns the truth about their mother's life and death. Alix, Liz's friend from university days, regularly visits an imprisoned mass murderer, bringing him books about the ancient Britons and trying to track down his long vanished mother. All just natural curiosity. Peppered moth. In 1912 Bessie was a small girl living in a South Yorkshire mining town. Gifted, she studied hard, waiting for the day to sit the Cambridge entrance exam, her parents in awe of her. Nearly a century later Bessie's granddaughter, Faro, returns to the depressed little town where Bessie grew up. Radiant way. Liz, Alix and Esther were best friends. They led charmed lives. They were lucky, and it was good to know they had each other when that luck began to run out. Red queen. Dr Barbara Halliwell receives an unexpected package - a memoir by a Korean crown princess, written more than two hundred years ago. A highly appropriate gift for her impending trip to Seoul for a conference. But who sent it? On the plane she reads the princess's account of the Korean court, the family dramas that left her childless and her husband dead by his own hand, and begins to feel very close to that earlier life. Sea lady. Humphrey and Ailsa met as children, by the grey northern sea. Now they're returning as distinguished guests to a ceremony where they'll meet for the first time in three decades. Both are apprehensive, as they review the successes and failures of their public lives, and their secret histories. Seven sisters. Recently divorced from her perfect husband and distanced from her three adult daughters, Candida moves from the countryside to a London flat. What can happen, at her age, to change her fortunes? How will she adjust to the city? She's always had a secret belief that despite all she's a lucky person. Is she right? Waterfall. Locked in a marriage to Malcolm where her strongest emotion is apathy, Jane's about to give birth to their second child. Malcolm finds this an apt moment to leave her. Witch of Exmoor. Frieda, an eminent author, has fled her old life to take up residence in a remote, crumbling old hotel by the sea in Exmoor. To her three children, Frieda's always been a powerful and puzzling figure. What is next for this mother of theirs, who late in life developed a passion for Wagnerian opera, abandoned her Saab in a traffic jam, and sued the government over tax returns? A Natural Curiosity Written by Margaret Drabble Rich in character and incident, A Natural Curiosity sweeps the reader from smart London townhouses to a run-down embassy in the Middle East, from the splendours of the Musée d’Orsay in Paris to drowsy afternoons in the hills of sunny Italy, as we re-encounter Alix, Liz, and Esther, three erudite, middle-aged... The Radiant Way Written by Margaret Drabble Set in London and in the north of England, beginning in 1979, this grand and sweeping tragicomedy tells the story of three women –psychiatrist Liz Headleand, art historian Esther Breuer, and social worker Alix Bowen. Strong, articulate, witty, and opinionated, they find their personal and professional lives changed by national political... The Peppered Moth Written by Margaret Drabble The Bawtry family has been in South Yorkshire for generations when Bessie is born just before the turn of the last century. The Bawtrys have been content with their humble lot, but Bessie longs for the freedom promised by a new beginning. However, when she succeeds in being admitted to Cambridge... In the swinging culture of sixties’ London, Canadian Mortimer Griffin is a beleaguered editor adrift in a sea of hypocrisy and deceit. Alone in a world where nobody shares his values but everyone wants the same things, Mortimer must navigate the currents of these changing times. Richler’s eccentric cast of characters... The Cambridge Introduction to Modern British Fiction, 1950–2000 DOMINIC HEAD Questia Media America, Inc.