Talk:Olivia Manning

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A fact from Olivia Manning appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know? column on 29 May 2009. The text of the entry was as follows: ... that while fleeing from Greece to Egypt during World War II, a frustrated Olivia Manning used a chamberpot to crush a fellow refugee's Parisian hats?

[edit] Chronology

I can't work out what order these events are in:

"Manning was educated privately at a small dame school before travelling to Northern Ireland in 1916, the first of several extended periods spent there while her father was at sea. In Bangor she attended the Bangor Presbyterian School, and while in Portsmouth Lyndon House School, and subsequently Portsmouth Grammar School, developing, as she recalled, "the usual Anglo-Irish sense of belonging nowhere".[8][5] Schoolmates described her as shy and prone to tantrums; her tendency to tell boastful tall-tales about her family led to ostracism by her peers.[9] Supported by her father, Manning read and wrote extensively, preferring novels, especially those by H. Rider Haggard. Her mother discouraged such pursuits, and confiscated material she thought unsuitable; when she found her daughter reading the Times Literary Supplement she scolded that "young men do not like women who read papers like that", and that Manning should focus on marketable job skills, such as typing.[10]

"Indeed, when financial circumstances forced Manning to leave school at sixteen, she went to work as a typist in professional offices, and spent some time as a junior in a beauty salon. A talented artist, she took evening classes at the Portsmouth Municipal School of Art, where a fellow student described her as intellectual and aloof.[11][5] In May 1928, she had a painting selected for an exhibition at Southsea, and was subsequently offered a one woman show of her works. Manning seemed to be poised for a career as an artist, but she meanwhile she had continued her interest in literature, particularly modern literature, and at the age of twenty determined instead to be writer.[12] Her artistic skills were to resurface in her writing in her intense descriptions of landscape.[5]

I assume the dame-school was some kind of pre-primary and it was in Portsmouth. Then in 1916 she moves to Northern Ireland. Then in the next sentence we're in Bangor - I'm not sure where that is, but I think it's somewhere in Britain. So I'd like to be told how old she was when this happened, and where Bangor is. And then shes in Portsmouth - but when? Perhaps the para could be re-written along the lines of:

Olivia's childhood was marked by constant moves as the family followed her father's varying assignments. By the time she left school at sixteen she had attended four different schools, and schoolmates later remembered her as shy, introverted, prone to tantrums, and given to boastful tall-tales about her family. Unhappy and ostracised at school, she sought refuge in books, especially the novels of Rider Haggard. Her frequently absent father encouraged her love of reading and writing, but her mother confiscated "unsuitable" material ("young men do not like women who read papers like that!" she scolded when she discovered Olivia reading the TLS) and nagged her daughter to concentrate on marketable job skills such as typing.

Just a suggestion. PiCo (talk) 03:53, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Sorry for the delay in responding. Not much internet time these days. Thanks for this request for clarification, and though I can help a bit, we are hampered by the not-the-greatest bio as a main source. So yes, the dame school is a short of private school for young girls; basically she spent her youth going back and forward between Portsmouth and her mother's old hometown in Bangor (in Northern Ireland-it's mentioned at the start, but bears repeating it appears) while her father was sailing the ocean's blue. It wasn't really his assignments changing, but a mother going home to her mother while her husband was away. The dates are not given in the book, but that she went back and forth several times, staying for long periods of time, including attending school in both places etc. So while much of your proposed sentence is great, some of it needs modification,and I have given it a quick shot. The bio doesn't make the point that she took refuge in books as a response to the school situation. More than she was, (and remained) a rather difficult person, tending to lie about herself (and others) throughout her life. --Slp1 (talk) 09:51, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Another question

Another question: "Manning's first published works were three serialized detective novels, "Rose of Rubies", "Here is Murder" and "The Black Scarab" written in 1929 under the pseudonym Jacob Morrow." Were they actually written in 1929, or just published? To write 3 novels in 1 year is a major achievement!PiCo (talk) 05:26, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for spotting this: I think I had written a more accurate version earlier, and then somehow copy-edited things to the above state. Have made an edit to get it back on track.--Slp1 (talk) 12:55, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Lawrence Durrell and Manning

I read somewhere that Manning and Durrell met in Egypt and didn't get on - very different personalities. At that time neither was famous, of course, but they both moved in the literary circles of wartime Cairo/Alexandria - a Golden Age forsooth. Worth mentioning? PiCo (talk) 12:00, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the great edits; you've made the article much better. Yes, he did know her and dislike her, calling her a "hook-nosed condor", I believe. I have included Durrell's name as part of the poetry gang in Cairo, but could certainly include more. I'll look into it soon.--Slp1 (talk) 13:13, 28 June 2009 (UTC)