Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson

I bought this one from a second hand bookshop because it was a Persephone book. I don't know what the chances of my getting my hands on another one are, but hey, I have one!

This is one of those weird books where an opinion is not so easy to voice. In other words, I am not sure what I thought of it.

Miss Pettigrew is a middle-aged spinster (don't you just hate the sound of that word) who is desperately needing a job. She arrives at the home of Miss Delysia LaFosse, and from there, many unexpected things happen.

I thought this was a completely fun read. There were definite themes of feminism which I completely enjoyed and found a total surprise, especially for a book published in 1938. But, there were things that I found myself questioning or noting with disapproval. The anti-Semitic statement definitely alerted bells in my head. A part of me wants to write something scathing in response of it, the other part of me wants to find out if that was the way society though in that time - after all, although a reader should make such judgements, I think one also needs to see whether those judgements are founded on the author, or society as a whole at the time. I think that books reflect the thoughts and feelings of the time (if they are realistic representations of the time), and that there is a lot to be learnt from it. For example, Mark Twain's characters or Bryce Courtenay's characters in The Power of One, use degrading words to refer to people of colour. If they didn't, would the message have carried? Anyway, that is a whole other conversation that is not really meant for this post.

Going back to the notes on feminism, I did appreciate how the approved behaviours of women were questioned and shown to be lacking. I liked how intelligence in women was shown to be a valuable thing. There were some parts that I questioned, but as a whole, I think this story was very progressive in its tale. Put it this way, my grandmother, who is 93, would not approve of it. Perhaps I should add another star just for that reason.

I would really love to hear what someone else had to say about this one. My opinion is still being formed.

This is the 54th book I have read for the 2015 TBR Pile Reading challenge.

I gave this book 3 stars on Goodreads.