The second in Richardson’s modernist, stream-of-consciousness novels about an English girl who has to become a teacher because her family has fallen on hard times. There are thirteen of these books and the series is called Pilgrimage. Last time she was working at a German boarding school, and this time she is at an English school. I love the way the main character Miriam’s mind works. Her romantic mooniness is so real and relatable. The most touching part was when she discovers a lending library where she can read the complete works of Ouida, which have always been forbidden to her because they’re too smutty. This novel really shows how when you have a rich inner life you will find splendor and meaning somewhere, even in the most depressing or banal surroundings. Unfortunately there’s a section when she’s on holiday at the seaside and there are some musicians who are described with the n-word repeatedly. ( )

This is the second book in Pilgrimage, a set of 13 novellas published by Virago in 4 volumes. Author Dorothy Richardson pioneered the stream of consciousness form in telling the life story of Miriam Henderson. In the first book, Pointed Roofs, Henderson’s family falls on difficult financial times and 17-year-old Miriam obtains a teaching position in a German girls’ school. It’s a formative if unhappy experience; Backwater opens after her return to England, where she is about to take up a new post in a small girls’ school in London.

Miriam’s delight at being reunited with her sisters jumps off the early pages of this book, as does her enthusiasm for her new teaching position. But since the reader is privy to all of Miriam’s thoughts, we are also keenly aware of her feelings of awkwardness, self-doubt, and isolation. Her relationships with men are tentative and uncertain, but she seems to accept that even as her sisters pair off and become engaged. While she becomes a more confident teacher, she also yearns for something better, but undefined. She’s thrilled to discover newspapers, which she squirrels away in her room to read in secret. And she’s positively euphoric when she stumbles across a library near the school, and begins devouring every book in sight. Miriam’s summer holidays see her reunited with her sisters, enjoying long warm sunny days but perhaps living somewhat beyond their means. Near the end of this novel, financial pressures become more acute, Miriam’s mother’s health is threatened, and Miriam once again feels compelled to find a different form of employment.

I am really enjoying Richardson’s writing, and taking this in approximately 150-page increments is working well for me. ( )