Many Mansions

MANY MANSIONS

by Isabel Bolton

 

Nomination: National Book Finalist 1953

 

Date Read: November 7, 2020

 

We meet Margaret Sylvester as an aged woman, living in a rented room and reflecting on the life she has lived. For the times, she broke so many conventions – having a child out of wedlock which she was not allowed to keep, working for unions and worker justice, never marrying or raising children.

 

People pass through her memory and she assesses the relationships that have sustained her throughout her life. She reflects on the home she purchased on her own and the pear tree in her garden that she cherished. She lived through two world wars and changing social mores. 

 

Margaret put herself to the task of writing a memoir and she refers back to this unread manuscript and holds dear the memories it evokes. Regardless, she determines that it should be destroyed but life, or rather, death intervene.

 

I found the writing beautiful but I am unclear on whether I gained anything by having read this. If anything it makes me fear the future as I age and my life becomes smaller and smaller.

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