Margery Benson lives a lack-luster life as a domestic arts teacher at a girls' school. One day a cruel joke played by the girls pushes over the edge and she walks away from it all and decides to attempt to fulfill a life long dream of finding a legionary gold beetle of New Caledonia. She will be the leader of the expedition, but she needs an assistant, especially since her hip is none too flexible these days. Only four people apply, and only one gets the job when the others turn out unsuitable or unwilling. Her assistant, Mrs. Enid Pretty is the opposite of Margery. Bold and vivacious, she has an uncanny way of making the impossible happen. As the two women face life threatening nature and soul killing societal prejudice together, they find freedom by throwing off social convention and sharing with each other their painful pasts.
I am still puzzling over this book. I both loved it and found it hard to finish. On the one had I think Joyce is a brilliant writer. She has an amazing turn of phrase, and some of her sequences are laugh-out-loud funny. Enid and Margery are very sympathetic and relatable. I had two struggles with the book. One was the pacing which was, in my mind, painfully slow. If the book had been 25% shorter, I think it would have been a better book. I think the other is that I just am not a huge fan of the "dream the impossible dream" type stories. People can improve their lives without doing something drastic and dangerous. (spoiler alert) I also wasn't thrilled with the ending. I can kind of see why it had to end that way, but after committing 12 hours to the story, I felt pretty bummed at the ending. (2021, 368 p)
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