The Innocent Traveller by Ethel Wilson – #1949Club

When I was in Canada earlier this year, I was keen to add more books by Ethel Wilson to my shelves. I’d enjoyed her writing for a while, but was fully bowled over by how brilliant The Equations of Love was, which I read for another club year. One of the books I bought was her second novel, The Innocent Traveller, which fortuitously fits into the 1949 Club. The Innocent Traveller covers the lifespan of Topaz, and it is a long life – about a century, from the 1840s through to around the time of writing. And what a wonderful character Topaz is. Barb wrote about this novel and called her ‘irrepressible’, and it is the perfect word. I would add ‘exuberant’. From our first sightings of her – crawling under the table, amidst the familiar knees, while Matthew Arnold is visiting – through to her final hours, Topaz is in love with life and allergic to conventionality. Here, for instance, she meets a young playwright: Topaz was frightfully excited. She had never before sat on a log with someone…