Long Term Effects of Being Bullied (by a Survivor)

I feel it's time I had my say about the issue of bullying. I'd never planned to write this post about a long season of my life I preferred to forget. But since my husband became a relief teacher, the worst parts of the school lifestyle have been popping into my head. 

Since bullying is still an ongoing scourge on society, I thought I'd share some hard-won insights from years of being on the receiving end. (That's me in the photo above, during a time when all this was ongoing. There wasn't ever a time when it wasn't.)

Throughout the Primary and High School years, you name it, I experienced it. Pinches, punches, shoves, kicks, and name-calling along the lines of ugly freak and pathetic loser. Also loads of sexual harassment which I thought I simply had no recourse but to put up with. The term was virtually unknown in the 1970s and 80s. 

Once a kid who was rebuked for bullying me replied to the teacher, 'It's not fair to single me out, because everyone picks on Paula.'

Here are some points that may sadly resonate with you too. It's decades ago for me now, but these things still rear their ugly heads. 

I suppose I should add a disclaimer stating that I'm not a professional counselor. Just an empathetic soul who has seen it all. Now for the list.

We deal with serious PTSD

 Just because chronic stress is invisible doesn't mean it's innocuous. The Bullied Brain by Jennifer Fraser, reveals that sending me back to school every day would've caused severe cortisol overload. That's the stress hormone. It was an eye-opener when I read that neurological brain scans of kids who have been persistently bullied by their peers resemble the brains of combat soldiers. So the burden of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder dogged my footsteps long after I thought I'd moved on. The horror of those school years helped mold and shape my anxious personality, just as wind and waves form the topography of the cliffs in any given region. 

In her book, The Cure Jo Marchant provides evidence that long-term psychological responses to ongoing stress can certainly harm us, and the emotion of fear takes a severe toll on people. Other authors, such as Joe Dispenza and Henry Wright, confirm how repeated treatment of us gets absorbed into our brain chemistries and outworked in our personalities. It reminds me of the way in which blue dye steadily becomes evident in hydrangea leaves.  

We are ever on high alert.

We remain on the lookout for further attacks, hypervigilant and edgy. I liken myself to a crab scuttling for cover when a sheltering rock is lifted. I've never shed the habit of peeping out at my periphery, finding it difficult to relax, especially in social situations. If we were shy people to start with (which I was), the character trait blows out even more.  

Marchant quotes evidence that people with stressful childhood histories continue to react far quicker to stress stimuli than others, and small hassles escalate more rapidly to full-blown anxiety. This brain activity is measurable, which helps explain why the effects of early adversity may persist long after others think we should have gotten over it. 

This also explains why we feel a certain paranoia at times, and find ourselves second guessing deeper meanings behind personal remarks directed at us by others.

I haven't been to a chiropractor for years, but they always used to tell me my shoulders were wired extremely tight and tense. Probably no wonder.

We approach everyone with the sense that we must earn decent treatment. 

All the pep talks we may have endured during our childhoods have a way of eroding our confidence. Our well-intentioned relatives and friends may have urged us to be braver, behave with nonchalance, just ignore the bullies (yeah, right, as if they don't follow us), or try smiling and giving compliments. Or we might be counselled to 'learn to take a joke!' (Sure, having your fingers stomped on, your belongings stolen, the back of your head repeatedly slapped, or being called a repulsive misfit is really funny.)  

And our families never hear the note of delight in a bully's voice when they come up with a particularly venomous insult.

I used to try taking advice on board. It's easy for harassed kids to respond by becoming people pleasers or try-hards, hoping to create patches of relief for ourselves. Performative behavior goes against the grain though, and then we feel there's yet another character defect to beat ourselves up over. I kept waiting for the day when my antagonists might perceive some admirable quality in me and stop their behaviour. That day never came. 

In all honesty, I felt that I tried everything. I had nothing left in my arsenel. No idea what to do. And I internalized the responsibility, because I believed the fallacy that stopping bullies required deterrent action from me.

 We can't dodge the insidious message that there is always something we need to do differently just to be left alone. So you see why this isn't a blog post about how to get bullies to change their minds. I had no secret weapon, like Rudolph's glowing red nose, to turn the tide of unpopularity. Our culture promotes fictional stories about how characters transform themselves from sorry nerds to something impressive, but I never figured it out. Cinderella had to become a fairy tale princess to get her spiteful step sisters off her back.

We live with the default assumption that others won't like us.

When we've been treated harshly for being ourselves from our very earliest memories, our automatic recourse is to figure out what sort of mask we should wear. And of course pat advice such as, 'Just be yourself,' rolls off us like water off a duck's back. I can't count the number of times when my classmates suddenly burst into peals of laughter just because I said something unintentionally hilarious, pronounced something oddly, or showed my feelings too plainly. This is coupled with a sad sense of futility. We stop hoping that people will like us on face value because we know they'll soon discover the fashionable attitude towards us. 

Carrying this hangover into our lives beyond the school years can be extremely challenging. In my adult years I've written fiction, and trying to market my own books has sometimes felt like being handicapped with sandbags around my ankles.

We learn to instinctively mistrust signs of friendliness from others. 

This wariness is understandable, taking into account all that we've dealt with, including fake syrupy sweetness from people who eventually tell us that they hate us intensely. Second guessing others as well as ourselves becomes instinctual. 

It is hard to shrug off our mantle of shame.

We start out with the assumption that we must be flawed.

Our brains at the age of 5 or 6 are extremely plastic and malleable. When we're continually told that we're ugly and pathetic, we stand defenceless. At that age, we don't have the emotional kit-bag of coping hacks to help us deal with bullies. 

Years later, we still freeze when put on the spot. We face normal social situations as if we're about to sit an exam. We are accustomed to walking hunched with shame from a very early age. As small children, it seems perfectly logical that if we're being pushed around and called names, then there is evidently something fundamentally wrong with us. 

Once during my early years of university, I crossed paths with a former High School bully at a Christian youth camp, and my knee-jerk reaction was to pull back with shame, hoping she wouldn't see me. And I was about 19 or 20 years old at the time. 

So where do we go from here?

I believe the key is to accept that we've been broken. We resemble rag dolls who show up in our new, recycled lives having been knocked around, had our stuffing pummeled out of us, our clothes torn, and permanent marker scribbled over our faces. There might still be traces of shoe prints on our stomachs or ripped woolen hair hanging from our heads. I'm not advocating self-pity, but this perspective helps me forgive myself for being awkward at parties, shy during occasions when we've all been urged to step up, and tongue-tied when others in groups are freely sharing. 

It is counterproductive to be rough on ourselves if we come from a background of being broken. I sometimes find it easy to fall back into my old mental habit of kicking myself, and assuming my anxious, edgy behavior is the reason I was targeted in the first place. But no, that's circular reasoning. I've found it's more helpful to treat myself with a gentler approach.

Whenever I come across advice to send my former, confused self a hug back through time, I find myself growing emotional, and sometimes even a bit teary. 

That brings me to something I can't stress too highly. We never, ever deserved the way we were treated!!! It doesn't matter if our clothes were unstylish, or if we needed speech therapy, or liked goofy music, or couldn't hit cricket balls, or wanted to keep our heads tucked behind books in libraries. (All that applied to me. Your characteristics might be different.) Nor does it matter what we looked like. I was picked on mercilessly for physical attributes I certainly couldn't have changed. It is never okay to be harassed, assaulted and sneered at day after day.  

Hear me, we did nothing wrong! 

Forgiveness for our own sakes  is a powerful concept and not merely a platitude. Making the choice to forgive our bullies removes emotional toxins from our systems, even if we have to do it many times over. I've found it's not realistic to consider forgiveness a one-time action. Those acidic memories may return, and we have to do it over again. But each time becomes easier. 

Finally, we need to think of ourselves as survivors. We wear our wounds internally and unobtrusively, but the courage we've mustered is real. The fact that we've come out the other side with the ability to still be loving, trustful, moved by beauty and amused by humor makes us overcomers. 

If that describes you, you're a champion, as am I. Although we don't receive medals, we sure deserve them.

This was one of the hardest blog posts I've written, but I wanted to help bust the myth that being bullied is something we may go through for a period of time and then simply get over. I do hope it may help others realize they are not alone. Please feel free share it with any suffering souls you may happen to know, however long ago their trauma may have been. 

And next week I'll return to my usual blog content. 

    

'Dracula' by Bram Stoker

Here we are in the Halloween week of the year. I enjoy adding suitably dark or spooky reads to the blog right about now, and having deferred Bram Stoker's vampiric masterpiece for years, I've knocked it off at last. 

MY THOUGHTS:

This classic was first published in 1897, the late Victorian era when 'Invasion Literature' about monstrous beings converging on the British Empire had gained a fair bit of traction. Perhaps the Brits grappled with dread that the nations they'd colonized and subjugated might rise up in protest. Maybe it was a dose of conscience seeping out through the pages of the time period's fiction. 

The story begins with a young solicitor named Jonathan Harker, on his way to a castle in Transylvania. He intends to act as estate agent to Count Dracula, a new client who wishes to purchase a London property. Jonathan's first impressions of his scrupulously polite host are a bit icky; pointy teeth, hairy palms, and rancid breath. But since the guy can't help that, Jonathan brushes off his misgivings until the creepy vibes amp up one hundred fold. 

As well as banning mirrors from his castle, the count leaves no reflection in Jonathan's shaving mirror (gulp). He shuns daylight, slips lizard-like down the wall on gruesome moonlit errands, spends daylight hours concealed in a secret place, and it turns out he's keeping Jonathan prisoner (argh!) The young hero escapes in the nick of time, but not soon enough to prevent unleashing Count Dracula on the world. Jonathan's fiance, Mina, finds him a wreck of his former self, suffering from short term amnesia. But Jonathan has kept a journal of all that happened, so horrific memories soon come rushing back to him. 

Mina's great friend, Lucy, (surely one of the most doomed female characters in Vic Lit), becomes the count's first English victim. Perhaps Dracula has chosen the wrong person to follow his footsteps into the realm of the Un-Dead, for those who love Lucy are determined to stalk the Count and finish him off for good.

 It's an all-star cast, fully aware that separately, their strength is far punier than that of the hideous vampire who's been wreaking havoc for centuries. But together, with the aid of their garlic plants and holy relics, they're a force to be reckoned with. Plus, they each have what could be regarded as a 'super power' of their own.

There is Dr John Seward, a handsome young director of a lunatic asylum, who understands the deviant mind to a certain extent, and his charismatic Dutch mentor, Professor Abraham Van Helsing, expert in philosophy and metaphysics. Also on hand is Lucy's devastated fiance, Arthur, whose 'strength' is his family background. Strategically dropping Arthur's aristocratic name often opens doors, and not merely coffin lids. Then there's his American friend, Quincey Morris, who is big and brave, because he's a Texan. 

Naturally the young Harker couple is eager to step up too. But a potential fly in everyone's ointment is Mr Renfield, one of Seward's most challenging mental patients. You'll get the irony of my statement when you meet him. From now on, I'll never hear the kids' rhyme about the old woman who swallowed a fly without thinking of this guy. 

Mina Harker is a stand-out character for me, with her warm heart and super secretarial skills. Driven by her desire to help and armed with her trusty typewriter and shorthand pad, this girl is a legend. But she has to contend with a well-intentioned but sexist plan to shield her from danger when the crunch comes. Concensus rules that Van Helsing will be aided solely by his boy brigade (Jonathan, John, Arthur, and Quincey.) Yet we readers wait for whatever underhanded shot the count will take at Mina while their backs are turned.  

(Being a Victorian novel, of course it's riddled with sexism all the way through. Near the very start, when Jonathan takes a fancy to a Chicken Paprika dish he tries in Budapest, his default reaction isn't, 'I'll try making that myself.' Rather, he adds a 'note to self' style observation that he must remember to tell Mina so she can track down a recipe and make it for him.) 

I'm not really sure why I'm giving this doorstop four stars, since horror is not my favorite genre. It may be partly the scenic tour we get through the pages, which reminds me of a Ticket to Ride game spread out on its board. The great teamwork also gets my thumbs up, although you can probably smell everyone coming, with all that garlic they're forced to carry around. Jonathan and Mina's devotion to each other is lovely, and so is the paternal way Van Helsing treats all his proteges. ('And now, Arthur my friend, dear lad, am I forgiven?')  

The unintentional Victorian comedy tickles my fancy too. There is something very droll about the idea of the Count flitting around doing castle drudgery behind Jonathan's back, to create the illusion that he operates a castle full of staff. Count Dracula gets caught making Jonathan's bed, so I guess he must've mastered the knack of perfectly tucked-in sheets, not a bad effort for someone who sleeps in a lined coffin. 

I'll finish off with the sweeping praise of Mina from Professor Van Helsing, one of her biggest fans. 'She is one of God's women, fashioned by his own hand to show us men and other women that there is a heaven where we can enter, and that its light can be here on earth. So true, so sweet, so noble, so little an egoist - and that, let me tell you, is much in this age so skeptical and selfish.' 

Wow, compliments have lost so much finesse since the Victorian era, and perhaps that's why I enjoy reading these classics. 

🌟🌟🌟🌟

  

'Sara Dane' by Catherine Gaskin

I wanted a good convict yarn for my 2025 Aussie Reading Challenge. The vague memory of a TV miniseries popped up from the dim recesses of my memory. Those series were all the rage back in the eighties. A google search revealed that sure enough, it aired in 1982, when I was still at Primary School. Next I came across this retro novel which it was based on. It's an original edition from 1954 which was reasonably priced, so I took a chance and bought it. The dust jacket fell apart in my hand while I read the story, probably a sign of many readers before me. I found out the author, Catherine Gaskin, was just 25 years old she wrote it, which impresses me for her depth of research and authenticity in a time long before the internet.

Remembering almost nothing from the TV series (my parents probably sent me off to bed) I hoped this historical epic might tick my boxes. 

MY THOUGHTS: 

Sara Dane, a young woman from Kent, is convicted of theft based on flimsy circumstantial evidence. Sentenced to seven years of hard labor, she's on her way to Botany Bay aboard the Georgette. A sudden opportunity to work for the migrating Ryder family brings her out from the squalid hold full of feral female prisoners. Sara quickly captures the heart of a young sailor named Andrew Maclay, a restless dreamer with the instincts of an entrepreneur. Andrew sees vast potential in the harsh new land and vows to quit the nautical life and make Sara his wife. 

The pair of them are soul mates with a prosperous touch, but at a high social cost. Sara fits in nowhere. Snobbish free citizens suspect her of angling for Andrew, while in reality she urged him to consider carefully before marrying a convict. And although they're building their fortune, it's still a penal colony. Servants are invariably former-convicts, who regard Sara with envy and resentment. The possible threat of sudden revolts from discontented staff members simmers away everywhere, not just on Andrew and Sara's property.

Then surprising news arrives. You might expect the opposite side of the world would be far enough away for somebody's past not to catch up with her, especially in the early 1800s. This is not the case for Sara. Her childhood crush, Richard Barwell, arrives in Sydney Town, along with his wife. Richard was always a bit of an unwise brat, and if he still possesses this quality things could turn pear-shaped for Sara in any number of ways. 

An elegant dilletante named Louis deBourget, who survived the French Revolution, also shows up. And overlooking it all is political convict Jeremy Hogan, Andrew Maclay's faithful right-hand man. He burns with love for Sara but is far too loyal not to keep a lid on it. And without Jeremy's input, things might often turn bottom up very fast. 

This is our very own Regency Era colonial novel. It's Jane Austen's own time period, but set in Sydney. Sara is comparable with strong and determined classics heroines such as Becky Sharp and Scarlett O'Hara, who understand that they'll have to look out for themselves rather than wait for anyone else to do it. But she's a far kinder and more loving mother than either of those two. Indeed, concern for her childrens' welfare guides her to make questionable decisions. Since she's willing to think of long term consequences and sacrifice her personal happiness for her sons' sakes, I prefer Sara hands down over those others, even though her reasoning sometimes makes me groan. 

The Australian setting is well-utilized. Occasional paragraphs like this are delightful.

'As she rode along, she noticed the curved, prominent heads of a dozen or more kookaburras perched on a high bough of a ragged gum on her left. They remained motionless until she drew level; then their heads went back, beaks opened, and the bush for a mile around was abruptly regaled with their mad, wild laughter. Not in all the years that she'd been familiar with this sound had Sara been able to accept it as natural, nor had she schooled herself not to laugh with them. Her mouth curved delightedly; she threw her head back as they did and laughed inelegantly and without restraint. The noise they made followed her down the road, infectious, mocking; as strange and different as the country that had bred it.' 

Overall, a good Aussie novel by a talented storyteller. When you think about it, Sara is in love with four men, sometimes simultaneously, yet somehow we're willing to nod along with it. She is definitely the sort of heroine who is adored by men and tolerated by women. If there'd been a sequel featuring the following generation, I'd grown invested enough in David, Duncan, Elizabeth, and Henriette to read it. However, given Gaskin's way of suddenly killing off good characters, perhaps it's a good thing there wasn't. My poor nerves couldn't take anymore. 

🌟🌟🌟½

Delving Deeper into Wuthering Heights (The Second Generation)

Here we are again. Check out my first post here. At the end of Part One, Heathcliff is devastated that his idol and focus of his deepest desire has died (although she'd arguably still be alive if he hadn't returned from his mysterious self-exile). Now he'll have to pour his passion into his secondary reason for living, which is demolishing the two houses of his lifelong antagonists and making himself master of their properties. 

The plot surely thickens for the second generation. 

1) Nelly's bias strikes again - with the younger Catherine.

She's the same prejudiced caregiver she was with the older Catherine, but in the opposite way this time. Nelly calls Cathy, 'the most winsome thing that ever brought sunshine into a desolate house,' yet describes the actions of a spoilt brat.

As a young teenager, Cathy Linton is horribly headstrong and entitled. She throws her father's name around with the obnoxiousness of a female Draco Malfoy (and has the same blond hair), expects people to kowtow to her, and treats Nelly's instructions as challenges to disobey. I think part of the blame for her imperious attitude must lie at Edgar's door, since he's brought her up in solitude. 

Never mind, the twists and turns of the plot tend to wean this trait out of her, and Cathy's saving grace is that she is an empathetic person. I think by the end she's humbled herself and is a far worthier recipient of the HEA that's in store for her. I'm glad Hareton takes a while to trust her change of heart toward him. She deserves to work hard for his affection, after the inexcusable way she always treated him. 

2) Heathcliff's relationship with the two boys is creepily calculating.

He is far more partial to his enemy's son than he is to his own. 'Twenty times a day I covet Hareton, for all his degradation,' he tells Nelly. It's an unexpected complication for Heathcliff. He now faces a choice between sticking to his great ambition to destroy the progeny of his mortal foe, or indulging his natural inclination to treat Hareton like the son he wishes he truly was.

The second option might actually prove to be the path of least resistance, but Heathcliff sets his teeth and chooses to follow through with Plan A. But he does so in such a devious way that Hareton grows up unaware that he's been duped and degraded by his surrogate father. Heathcliff loathed Hindley so intensely, yet he chooses to become Hindley in his plans for Hareton. 

('Now my bonny lad, you are mine, and we'll see if one tree will grow as crooked as another with the same wind to twist it.')

But Hareton never becomes as twisted as Heathcliff. He's clearly no fool. He surely must latch on to rumors of the truth and put two and two together. His name has been carved above the front door for a few centuries, after all. Indeed, Cathy, the girl he loves, is anxious to enlighten him, but he stops her mid-sentence, because it makes no difference to him.

 Hareton's blinkered attitude used to strike me as stubborn passivity. I used to wish he'd stand up to Heathcliff more on behalf of others, if not himself. Yet now I see Emily Bronte wouldn't write it that way, because that's really not what Hareton is all about. In a way, his stance makes him the greater, nobler man. Having lived all his life as the victim of Hindley's and Heathcliff's power struggles, Hareton simply decides that the revenge motif stops with him. Kudos to him for that. 

How about Linton, that querulous teenage invalid who his father detests, but chooses to put up with just for the triumph of seeing his own flesh and blood lord and master over the estates of his enemies. Yet when he finishes using the poor kid as a decoy to acquire both properties, Heathcliff is callously through with him. Won't even call Kenneth for a spot of palliative care when he knows Linton is dying. 

The thing I find hardest to believe is that Linton Heathcliff inherits none of his father's swarthy features whatsoever, but remains the palest of pale Lintons, even more flaxen-haired than his uncle and cousin. Surely Heathcliff's genetics would be stronger than that. Still I can see why Emily Bronte planned it this way, for the sake of her art, and since it is plausible, I'm willing to consider him a throwback.  

Fascinating family dynamics, hey? That gloating speech that Heathcliff spouts about the pair of young men is superb. 'One is gold put to the use of paving stones and the other is tin used to ape a service of silver.' 

And Cathy Linton gets romantically involved with both boys, at different times! Cousins falling in love was all the rage in the Victorian era. 

3) Joseph plays such a cool 'character' role.

Almost every reviewer I've read complains about his thick dialect to the point that their objections get a bit old, but I consider this elderly servant as a code to crack. When we study each line of his dialogue closely enough, it's possible to figure out his meaning ninety percent of the time. I admit on a couple of occasions I remained completely baffled, but I enjoy having to work a bit for our reading entertainment. 

I'm clearly in the minority here, and people who claim that Joseph's rambling dialect slows down the story make a fair point. But if we truly want to immerse ourselves in the country Yorkshire moors of the earliest nineteenth century, then Joseph is what we get. I'm willing to pause every so often, and sacrifice flow for authenticity. 

I'd urge anyone not to skim over Joseph's speeches, because they're well worth the effort it takes to figure them out. He's such a dour and parsimonious old crank. Nelly Dean calls him, 'the wearisomest, self-righteous Pharisee that ever ransacked a Bible to rake the promises to himself and fling the curses on his neighbors.' As such, his vitriol deserves to be fully understood for a bit of morbid comic relief. 

4) Could Heathcliff and Nelly be considered friends?

I think they have a bond that probably stemmed from when they were young and she nursed him through measles. Nelly is Heathcliff's sounding board for some of the introspective turmoil that he just can't keep bottled up inside. And it's a good thing she is, or we'd have no story. Heathcliff, knowing how much she already knows, seems to consider Nelly a trustworthy confidante who'll keep his rambling to herself. (Not quite true, to say the least.)

She tells Lockwood (among many other things), 'He might have had a monomania on the subject of his departed idol: but on every other point his wits were as sound as mine.' 

Hmm, if you say so, Nelly. How about Heathcliff's pathological hobby of shaping the younger generation into replicas of his past history, with Hareton unwittingly playing his own role, Cathy standing in for her mother, and Linton representing his delicate uncle Edgar. It's a posthumous kick in the guts for Hindley, and also a brilliantly diabolical way of wreaking vengeance on Edgar, for marrying Catherine. Nelly would have to realize it's freaking bizarre, if she thinks about it.

But yes, they are sort of friends. Heathcliff's destructive shenanigans horrify her, yet Nelly can still bring herself to tell him, 'You'd better eat something.'    

Which brings us to the next question. 

5) What is the physical cause of Heathcliff's death? 

It can't have been starvation. A sturdy guy in his late thirties can easily fast from food for longer than four days or so without kicking up his heels. Perhaps thirst had something to do with it, because humans can only survive for three to five days without water, and Heathcliff refused to drink during that cryptic last week of his life. Incredible to think that even someone as manic and focused as Heathcliff wouldn't take a sip of water when they're dying of thirst. 

6) So who inherits the two properties? 

The young couple do, of course, although their inheritance is undoubtedly more convoluted than it seems on the surface. Heathcliff grumbles that while he still has the mental capacity to think of such things, he needs to fetch his attorney, Mr Green. Then he puts it off for another day, which turns out to be crucial. I'm guessing Heathcliff's intention would've surely been to keep Hareton and Cathy out of his will. 

The fact that Heathcliff's plan wasn't carried through doesn't mean that Hareton and Cathy automatically inherit the properties they were cheated out of. Surely in the absence of any stated heirs, Heathcliff's two properties would revert to the crown! I found a few excellent articles and book chapters on this very thing by far more legal savvy people than I am, which describe how affairs must be sorted for Nelly's 'two children.' That goes beyond the scope of this blog post but it's a fascinating topic, so here is a link I found. 

I'll just leave you with the striking, Gothic image of Joseph, kneeling beside Heathcliff's corpse, offering up a prayer of thanksgiving that the 'auld family' now have their rights restored to them. Joseph is jumping the gun a bit, but his confidence turns out to be rewarded.  

Whew, what a ride! I was delighted to find that rather than simply living up to my wonderful first impression, this re-read of Wuthering Heights has brought to my attention even more nuances. The story reinforces my original opinion. It's safe to say that Wuthering Heights is still one of my very favorite books. Now, if only Emily Bronte had survived for long enough to finish that second novel she was working on. 

As always, Wuthering Heights lingers strong in my imagination. If you'd like to read a short story I wrote to follow the end of Wuthering Heights under my fanfic pseudonym, click here.

Delving Deeper into Wuthering Heights (The First Generation)

It's 'Victober' the time of year many of us find ourselves in the mood for something nineteenth century and Gothic. I counted this among my favorite novels when I was a teenager. In the intervening years, other friends, relatives and acquaintances have claimed to detest this classic story as much as I loved it.

It's been a couple of decades, so I decided now is the perfect time to refresh myself in the guise of an impartial reader. My biggest question was whether or not it would stand up to my positive first impression. 

I'll split my fresh observations into two posts, covering each of the two generations of Wuthering Heights goings-on.

Look out for spoilers. This is a discussion rather than a review. 

Okay, here goes for Part One.

1) Lockwood is self-delusional and cannot read any signs whatsoever

Our first narrator likes to kid himself that he's an interesting, solitary sort of chap, which is why he makes an impulsive decision to rent a property such as Thrushcross Grange, in the middle of an inhospitable bog. (Sounds pretty appealing to me too.) Yet all his attitudes and actions proclaim that he is the exact opposite type of person. Any genuine solitary guy wouldn't go calling on his landlord two days running, especially when the second day is brewing up a doozy of a blizzard. 

I used to think the Wuthering Heights family were all uniformly unfriendly, yet now I perceive that Lockwood is super annoying for placing them in a position to have to either guide him home or shelter him for the night. They owe nothing to this pesky stranger with his banal small talk who lobs there uninvited. Even after just one visit from Lockwood, Heathcliff puts out vibes that he's not interested in having him come again, yet Lockwood ignores this and returns the very next day. What sort of clueless duffer does this sort of gatecrashing? 

Way down the track, when Lockwood is about to return to the city, Heathcliff offers lunch and tells him, 'A guest that is safe from repeating his visit can generally be made welcome.' 

2) Was Mr Earnshaw's long walk to Liverpool remotely suspicious?

Liverpool is sixty miles away, and it's not a market town, so why would a Yorkshire farmer have any sort of business there at all during August, which is harvest time at home? And why walk, since he keeps a stable full of horses? Is it really as straightforward as it seems, that Mr Earnshaw simply chances upon an abandoned orphan boy while he roams the city streets? 

I know some readers suggest that Heathcliff was actually Earnshaw's illegitimate child, given birth to by some anonymous gipsy mother. Was Earnshaw surreptitiously going to fetch him? That might be reading far too much into it, but this scandalous interpretation adds an extra lurid layer of incest to Catherine and Heathcliff's intense relationship. It's one of these questions we'll never know the answer to, but the speculation is fun. One thing is clear, Emily Bronte certainly provides no satisfactory reason for this middle-aged family patriarch to take off on foot to a faraway seaport. Does she want us to poke around in Heathcliff's possible origins? 

Personally, I find the face value idea that Heathcliff is a destructive cuckoo from nowhere is far more compelling. 'You must e'en take it as a gift from God, though it's as dark almost as if it came from the devil,' says the boy's new protector. 

3) The 'new and improved' Heathcliff has sold his soul to the devil.

Whatever he did during those mysterious three years when he went away, brooding over his wrongs at the hands of others was evidently a driving force. I love Heathcliff during his boyhood and adolescence, when he bears Hindley's injustice with such stoicism, and asks Nelly to make him look decent, if she possibly can. But his secret makeover into an impactful person comes at the cost of his soul. 

This dangerous young man, who is no older than nineteen or twenty when he returns, means dark business. He's decided that his life's calling, however long it might take, is revenge. Nelly says concerning Hindley and Heathcliff, 'I felt that God had forsaken the stray sheep there (at Wuthering Heights) to take its own wicked wanderings and an evil beast prowled between it and the fold.' 

Spare a thought for poor Isabella. She learns the hard way that just because a guy is sexy and hot, doesn't mean you can reform him and soften his heart. Heathcliff is no rough diamond (like Hareton). While the second Cathy eventually hits the jackpot, her aunt draws the short straw. 

4) Catherine uses tantrums and illness as weapons.

'Say to Edgar, if you see him tonight, that I'm in danger of being seriously ill.' She adds, 'I'll try to break their hearts by breaking my own.' Even though her freak-outs genuinely lead to physical sickness, they are nonetheless strategically planned, and used as means of gaining control of situations when she feels herself floundering. Bashing her head against the chair, tearing pillow fabric with her teeth, racing out in the pouring rain, it's all part of Catherine's arsenal to call the shots. 

Or maybe she just wants out. Being all things to all people has taken its toll. Social and mercenary thoughts of her future convince her that being the Lintons' household angel will be most to her advantage. Yet denying her real yearning, to run around wild and unfettered on the moors with Heathcliff takes emotional energy, especially when he too accuses her of selling out on her real desires. 

Perhaps throwing calculated hissy fits and falling sick is her unconscious desire for everyone to leave her alone. Incidentally, I think she really does value Edgar for his own sake. If Heathcliff hadn't shown up again, I think Catherine could've been content enough with her husband. He catered to her every whim, so why not? 

5) Nelly treats Catherine with passive aggression.

My word, this went under my radar as a teenage reader. Our main narrator admits that she never liked her young mistress after her infancy was past, and she's refined her own subtle way of letting it show. Nelly's weapon is staying calm and unruffled whenever Catherine tries her paddies on her. She coolly calls Catherine out for pinching her, tells tales on her, ignores Catherine's direct orders, and only obeys her when she feels like it. 

My youngest son used Nelly-like tactics on his sister. He'd say, 'Take a chill pill,' in an aggravating manner guaranteed to set her off even more. I can't help thinking Nelly's intention is similarly to press Catherine's buttons, whether she admits it to herself or not. (For example, when Nelly reports that Edgar is calmly reading his books, her aim seems to be to rub Catherine's face in it.) How frustrating for a volatile diva like poor Catherine, when the person who's supposed to be her loyal employee treats her with very thinly veiled scorn. 

When Edgar says, 'You knew your mistress's nature and you encouraged me to harass her,' he's not completely wrong. Nelly presents herself as a peacemaker, but I think at heart she's a stirrer. 

6) Does Heathcliff murder Hindley?  

I believe Emily Bronte intends to set our suspicion antennae twitching. Even though Heathcliff insinuates that Hindley basically committed suicide by drinking himself to death in one sitting, Joseph's aside to Nelly is telling. He mutters, 'Ah'd rayther he'd gone hisseln fur t' doctor! Ah sud uh taen tent u' t' maister better nur him - un he warn't deead when Aw left, nowt uh t' soart.' (Translation: I'd rather he'd gone himself for the doctor. I should've taken care of the master better than him - and he weren't dead when I left, none of the sort.)

 It's easy to imagine that Heathcliff snatched the opportunity to suffocate his foster brother with a pillow, or something equally sneaky and underhanded.

(John Sutherland, in his essay entitled, 'Is Heathcliff a Murderer' suggests that a 27-year-old man with Hindley's robust Earnshaw constitution would be hard pressed to drink himself to death within a few hours.) Surely Heathcliff's accusation of suicide is off the mark anyway. I highly doubt that Hindley would choose that stage of his life to shuffle off his mortal coil, when he's so anxious to win back his property for Hareton's sake. Can you imagine him opting out of the mess, knowing full well that his son will be a beggar in the hands of his enemy? 

But that's not to say he didn't top himself accidentally, by being his normal pathetic, pickled self. Once again, it's impossible to tell for sure. For a person with Hindley's habits, death by accumulated alcohol poisoning doesn't sound unreasonable. Perhaps he's not all that different from his sister. 

Indeed, a thread all through Part One could be how the Earnshaw kids drive themselves to the grave because they can't control their own explosive emotions. Brother and sister alike.

Oh, and Hindley was evidently a terrible card player. A sorry loser in every way, for a young man who starts off with such advantages in life. I wonder whether it would've been any different for him had Frances survived.

Which brings us to the next question. 

7) Is Kenneth the most tactless and insensitive physician in VicLit?

John Sutherland suggests that he may be the most useless, because when we think about it, what percentage of Kenneth's patients actually recover? Regardless of this, the question I pose is more pertinent.

Think about it. When Frances Earnshaw delivers her baby and is soon to die of consumption, Kenneth reproaches Hindley for choosing 'such a rush of a lass.' He takes on a similar tone during the older Catherine's illness, insinuating that it serves her right. Then later, he makes Hindley's untimely death into a guessing game for Nelly, adding, 'I knew I'd draw water.' At least he has the grace to add, 'Poor lad, I'm sorry too.'  

You can expect no bedside manner, from a straight-talking Yorkshire doctor like Kenneth.

I invite you to visit my entire Bronte-Saurus page. 

Next, please check out my impressions here of Part Two, which is when Heathcliff stirs the pot for the younger generation, intent on using them as pawns to wreak his revenge on their parents. Feel free to hum along to Kate Bush in the meantime. 

'Heathcliff, it's me, Cathy, I've come home... So co-o-o-old, let me into your wind-o-o-o-w!'  

'My Place' by Sally Morgan

I bought this book in the early nineties soon after it was published, as it was in the media a lot back then. I decided to pull it off my shelf, where it's been ever since, for the memories. Would it live up to the positive impression I'd formed? The answer is.... not really! 

But I'm including it for the Memoir/Autobiography category in my 2025 Aussie Book Challenge.

MY THOUGHTS:

Sally Morgan's autobiography merges into family history, because getting to the bottom of whatever happened to her mother and grandmother became a driving force in her own life.

It begins in the mid-1950s. Sally is the eldest of five children. Her dad (Bill) is a war veteran and plumber whose PTSD keeps him frequently hospitalized and out of work. Mum (Gladys) is the main breadwinner with frequent cleaning jobs, who later starts her own successful floristry business. Nan (Daisy) keeps house and cooks for the family. She's a chain smoker whose front hair is bleached yellow with nicotine. Nan also holds the distinction of wielding the longest cigarette ash in the neighbourhood, but she has an odd way of scurrying off whenever the kids bring friends around to play. 

During their school years, Sally and her siblings suspect some family deception happening. Whenever their friends inquire where they come from, owing to their slightly darker skin tone, Mum and Nan mutter, 'Say you're Indian.' What's more, other adults, including school teachers, seem to disapprove of their family for some reason they can't comprehend. 

Rumours reach Sally's ears that their origin is Aboriginal. In effect, Mum and Nan have been denying the children their right to know their heritage for the most well-intentioned reason, fear of social backlash. 

When Sally makes it her business to find out whatever happened, her Nan in particular, is extremely sensitive to having the light of day shone on her past. Sally's gentle persistence takes years, but eventually she plumbs the personal histories of Nan, Mum, and Nan's brother, Arthur. Without getting too spoilerish, they've been victims of the Stolen Generation, in which young children were forcibly removed from their parents, supposedly for their own good. It was a disgraceful stage of our country's history which has left horrific scars on many Australian citizens.  

This is a good book with some irritating bits. I feel the supernatural content is presented in a way to confuse rather than intrigue or enlighten spiritual seekers. Those parts are written in a fairly obfuscating manner. But for the main part, Sally Morgan has a good balance of comic nostalgia and poignant heartache.

 I like her historical detail. For example, she recalls Australia's change to decimal currency on Valentine's Day, 1966, when many of us weren't even born. And even though I'm from a younger generation, Morgan's reference to show bags crammed with Smarties, Cherry Ripes, Samboy chips, and Violet Crumble bars stirs fond memories.   

My main issue with this book though, is its rough presentation. Punctuation is all wrong and the typesetting is dodgy. Quotation marks are higgledy-piggledy and there are often single-line widows and orphans dangling at the tops and bottoms of pages. The font is crammed and the margins skinny. 

My copy is an early one, so hopefully these issues have been fixed in more recent editions, considering this is quite a famous Aussie book that's been elevated to classic status. Once I might have brushed all this aside as having nothing to do with the story, yet this sort of thing is a big deal when it comes to readers' subliminal impressions of Australians as a whole. It is exactly the sort of sloppiness that might give our national literature a reputation for being slapdash and rough around the edges. I blame the publishers for this. To consistently get details wrong which could've so easily been corrected is a vital oversight.

But on the whole, it was an interesting book to revisit.  

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'The Infernal World of Branwell Bronte' by Daphne du Maurier

This review is my tribute to a tortured soul on the anniversary of his death, for Branwell passed away all too soon on this very date in 1848. He's a young man whose plight has a way of lingering on my mind. I discovered this book at a great little seaside secondhand bookshop, and instantly bought it to add to my collection of Bronte lore. 

MY THOUGHTS:

This book is written in a documentary style. Daphne du Maurier was a huge fan of the Brontes, and it's very cool to see her tackle a non-fiction project of this calibre, changing her setting for once from her beloved seaside Cornwall to the chilly inland Yorkshire moors. 

She begins with the death of the unfortunate Branwell, aged just 31, then delves back into his past to examine the tragedy of the boy who got nowhere. Early on, he's described as, 'quick tempered, excitable, and as full of mischief as a bog pixie.' She explores how the sudden deaths of his two eldest sisters shocked the eight-year-old into 'an apprehension that would never leave him, that would for years fill his dreams by night, however much energy and fury he put into his days.'

Branwell Bronte was regarded by his family as a boy prodigy. He had an extensive vocabulary, photographic memory and fertile imagination. His peers were impressed by his ability to write two letters at once, holding one pen in each hand. He also played piano, which he did in his capacity as a junior member of the Freemasons. And he was quite a talented portrait painter, plugging away in his early twenties at his own business in Bradford. He even invented his own dialect for the fantasy land of Angria which he shared with his sister, Charlotte. The pair of them nicknamed their setting, 'the infernal world,' giving the title of this biography a grim double meaning. 

 It is sad to reflect that Reverend Patrick himself, for the best of reasons, might have been a catalyst in stuffing up his son's life. He strikes me as similar to the well-meaning menace in the old fable who attempts to rip open the cocoon for an emerging butterfly, thus causing its premature death. Perhaps Mr Bronte was too vigilant a caretaker. His valiant efforts to shield his sensitive son, and make his passage through the world as pain free as possible, stifled the frustrated young man who discovered, aged 20, that the sheltered lifestyle had fitted him for nothing. As a huge advocate for home education I don't say this lightly, but it might have been the wrong fit for Branwell in many ways. 

(However, I can't censure Reverend Patrick too severely, because he may well have been right. If he'd pushed Branwell into the brutal school system of that era, that may have proved disastrous in a totally different way. What a lose-lose situation.)

Reading this has stirred my sympathy for Branwell. It's easy enough for us in the 21st century to declare, 'He should've got his act together,' or, 'He didn't have what it takes.' But we're talking about the eight-year-old who was traumatized by the senseless deaths of two beloved sisters, and the 25-year-old who received a brutal triple blow with the loss of a vivacious young family friend, a best buddy of his, and the aunt who'd taken the place of his mother, almost all at once. 

He'd travailed at his aunt's bedside during her final agony while his sisters were away. And he suffered this grief at a time when it was a cinch to buy opium over the counter at the local chemist to dull any type of pain. 

Branwell was surely delusional at times, and wrote more than his fair share of waffly, egotistical letters, as du Maurier's extracts prove. I'm sure he was the dubious model for some of his sisters' drunken characters, such as Anne's Arthur Huntingdon and Emily's Hindley Earnshaw. It's easy to see how Branwell would've annoyed the heck out of everyone who knew and loved him, yet in spite of all this he was probably a courageous soul to have been as fun-loving as he reportedly was.   

Overall, you cannot help but feel compassion for this young man who pours his prodigious output into the deaf ears of an indifferent world, becoming famous on the coattails of his sisters for all the wrong reasons. He never wanted to be remembered for posterity as a fall-short, drunkard, and hopeless wreck, but a life of nothing but deferred hope takes its toll on a person's body, soul, and spirit. How could Branwell avoid bearing on his shoulders the demoralizing identity as a failure, especially with such a lot riding on his status as the 'The Son' in a patriarchal society, and the shining hope of his sisters.

How about that famous pillar painting of his, which he reputedly attempted to scrub himself out of. Almost two centuries later, traces of his image now show through a bit. This may be taken as a positive reinforcement that he truly deserves his spot along with his sisters in the family image. But if you're anything like me, the darkly comedic thought might have crossed your mind that he couldn't even get that right!   

Regarding the big scandal of his life, his relationship with Mrs Lydia Robinson, du Maurier paints her in a more sympathetic light than many Bronte biographers do. I find this very interesting, since she focuses her research on Branwell in particular, comes to understand him well, and conjectures that he may have blown a whole lot out of proportion in his usual delusional way. Also fascinating is the interesting evidence that Branwell may have written or collaborated with Emily on at least a portion of Wuthering Heights. (More on that another time.) 

Isn't life full of irony. One of Branwell's idols, and embodiments of success out of his reach was a poet named William Deardon. Poor Branwell longed for similar standing in the eyes of the world, yet as du Maurier points out, Deardon's only claim to fame now is having heard a live reading from Wuthering Heights straight from the lips of Emily Bronte's brother.

We'll never know how Branwell might have got along had he been born in the 21st century. I'm sure he would've found it a hard slog with all his personal issues, including whatever nervous and medical conditions ailed him along with probable bi-polar disorder. But I'd be willing to bet it might've suited him more than the infernal nineteenth century, to borrow his own term, and at least he might've survived beyond the age of 31. 

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Please check out my Bronte Page for more content.

'Fangirl' by Rainbow Rowell

Summary: A coming-of-age tale of fanfiction, family, and first love.

MY THOUGHTS:

Some anonymous donor dropped this novel off into our Little Free Book Library, and I considered it very timely, for I meant to read it someday. I know this book has been doing the rounds for years and since it found its way to me,  I've got onto it at last. 

The heroine is an introverted 18-year-old named Cath, who has a thriving fanfic following incognito. Her writing revolves around the Simon Snow series, a global phenomenon about an 11-year-student who attends a school of magick. (Yep, of course it's a thinly disguised replica of Harry Potter.)

 Meanwhile Cath's real life is fraught with difficulties. Her identical twin, Wren, is all for extroverting, drinking, and partying. Their single dad, Arthur, is a workaholic in the creative field of advertising, ever on the verge of breakdown, and their mother, Laura, who left when the girls were eight, is extending feelers after a decade of absence. Cath's roommate, Reagan, is a super-cool chick, and Reagan's best friend, Levi, is an effervescent soul who takes an interest in Cath, which is disconcerting. On top of all this is actual course work too. 

The most abrasive character for me is Professor Piper, the popular teacher who gives Cath an 'F' on a fiction writing assignment because it's fanfic. The professor is horrified for all the conventional reasons. Because Cath has adopted another author's created world and characters, Piper considers it plagiarism and theft of creative property. 

Her reasoning strikes me as somewhat shallow and reactive. The HUGE popularity of this style of writing alone fails to convince the Prof Pipers of the world that fanfic is a powerful tool for promoting positive social change. When well-beloved stories of our culture are tweaked to offer fresh insights, the resulting works of literature sometimes pack a greater punch than brand new material ever possibly could. It has been done in various forms for centuries. But even when Cath likens it to repurposing and recycling, Professor Piper won't budge from her fixed point of view.

Perhaps I'm negatively biased because this character has stepped on my toes, but as well as her narrow-mindedness, I find Piper's attitude of favoritism makes me gag. Every other student in the class must twig that Cath, despite her dwindling enthusiasm for the subject, is the teacher's pet. What Professor Piper is willing to do for one, such as extending deadlines unsought, she ought to do for every single student. So this professor has become one of those occasional characters who I don't like even though the author intends us to. 

The ending is somewhat disappointing. The story simply sputters to a stop. Several threads we're invested in are left dangling. However, I suppose the fact that I wanted them to go on, having plowed through almost 450 pages already, proves the compelling nature of Rowell's writing.

Overall, I enjoyed Fangirl. The characterization and dialogue are great, and the premise of a quiet and awkward young student who's secretly building a massive fanfic following is a winner for me. To quote Cath, 'I'd rather pour myself into a world I love and understand than try to make something up out of nothing.' It's a totally valid stance and I find it almost a shame that she finally caves in to pressure to write an original story. (Mild spoiler - the fact that Cath wins a prestigious prize for it after cranking it out so grudgingly makes me feel sad for other students who pour everything into their own efforts.)    

There is a sequel, or rather a companion novel to this one, entitled Carry On! We readers are to take it as the actual fan-fiction written by Cath throughout this novel, which sets my brain spinning. We are essentially being offered a fanfic by a fictional character about a non-existent book series. Even though there is no such thing as the original Simon Snow series by Gemma T Leslie, that hasn't stopped thousands of readers willing to read fanfic about it. Am I weird in preferring to stick to fanfics which are at least based on some existing material we can compare it with?  

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Note: If you'd like to explore my fanfiction page, including those I've read and those I've written, start here.

'Digital Minimalism' by Cal Newport

Summary: Minimalism is the art of knowing how much is just enough. Digital minimalism applies this idea to our personal technology. It's the key to living a focused life in an increasingly noisy world.

In this timely and enlightening book, the bestselling author of Deep Work introduces a philosophy for technology use that has already improved countless lives.

MY THOUGHTS: 

Cal Newport's voice is widely known for speaking dire warnings about the consequences of our twenty-first century online habits. He strikes me as someone standing in an Old Testament prophet sort of role, with one crucial difference. While those biblical prophets were brushed off as melancholic loonies during their own era, I think we all know in our deepest hearts that Newport speaks wisdom and common sense. As a race, we often simply prefer to drift along, spending passive hours on social media platforms anyway, driven by FOMO and the possible hope of positive reinforcement. 

This is why I feel books such as this one give me the indignant drive to actually see what's going on and do something about it. Here comes a brief summary of how Newport's research and study helps pull the wool away from my eyes.     

The smart entrepreneurs at Silicon Valley who set up our social media platforms play on our weaknesses. They know all about the power of intermittent reinforcement and quick dopamine fixes. But the problem for us as individuals is that any form of addiction is no good for us. These surges of dopamine play havoc with our overall contentment and wellbeing, yet we still fall for it. And when reinforcement in the form of likes, hearts, taps, and comments is not as frequent as we'd hope, the resulting sadness can cast a pall over our days. But it's a lose-lose situation, for even when it is forthcoming, we then set our bars higher and aim for even more. 

When I was about 19 years old, studying undergraduate Psychology, part of the mandatory course material was an experiment with poor rats down in the laboratory. We had to test their willingness to press a bar that distributed a handful of food pellets, and examine the power of intermittent reinforcement. I've never forgotten that, and feel certain that whistle blowers like Cal Newport are quite correct in pointing out that we ourselves are being played for rats, all so that some corporate giants can keep lining their own pockets. For if we regard ourselves as the consumers of social media platforms, he turns it upside down in pointing out that we are, in fact, the product. Big monopolies and advertisers are the 'consumers' who count on our taps and engagement in this attention economy. 

Newport also examines Henry David Thoreau's theory of 'new economics.' In a nutshell, for each small gain any activity might confer, Thoreau would examine the extreme cost on the other side of the scales. In Thoreau's nineteenth century example, a fine house with the best quality curtains, wallpaper and furnishings was paid for with the time, toil, maybe even blood, of hard work. In the case of our modern, digital era, Newport suggests that for our regular social media engagement and scrolling, we're sacrificing huge chunks of time, valuable solitude, quality of mood, shredding our attention spans and possibly straining our relationships. In a nutshell, we are paying for it with our lives.

Solitude Deprivation is a serious repercussion of our online era because many of us are spending zero minutes of time solely with our own thoughts, away from the non-stop input from other minds. The way Newport puts it is that, 'prioritizing communication over reflection is a source of serious concern.' Hence, he advises us to consistently create our own metaphorical cabins away, similar to Thoreau's actual cabin by Walden Pond. Possible ways of doing this may be taking long walks with our phones tucked away, journaling our reflections, and choosing high quality leisure, such as demanding arts and crafts. 

What I like about this book is that Newport isn't advising to quit our online lives completely. He advises us to take a month-long detox, then honestly assess whether each social media platform directly supports something we deeply value (for the fact that it offers some value is irrelevant). And oh man, after reading all of this, I feel seriously inclined to pare back even more than I already have.

I'm not giving five stars because some of Newport's counsel strikes me as somewhat extreme. Since he believes that nothing can beat real time spent with friends, either face-to-face or over the phone, he recommends never clicking likes or hearts on social media at all as a general rule. In Newport's opinion, these multiple 'on-line' friendships give us the mere illusion of 'real' relationships. Perhaps he's right to some extent, but as a shy introvert, I treasure my on-line friendships as more genuine than he gives them credit for. As for sending PMs or text messages instead of picking up the phone, having these wonderful options at my fingertips has been a game-changer for me. Making actual phonecalls was always something I dreaded, for when you think about it, you're surely interrupting people, whether it's welcome or not.     

I don't review or outline all of the non-fic books I read, but make an exception for potentially life-changing ones with valuable content. Newport's suggestions of 'high quality leisure' to replace this mindless scrolling is cool to read (like creating blog content like this). He sets us pondering whether or not we'd still voraciously use Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X, and all the others if we had to pay for it. As for me, I'll certainly think carefully before I obey any impulse to check my stats on the sites I do value, namely this blog and Archive of Our Own. Do I really need to know right this second?

If you've ever been remotely anxious about digital well-being, then this is one of the books I'd recommend. 

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'Nemesis' by Agatha Christie

Summary: In utter disbelief, Jane Marple read the letter addressed to her from the recently deceased Mr Rafiel - an acquaintance she had met briefly while on vacation in St. Honore, as recounted in "A Caribbean Mystery."

Rafiel had left instructions for her to investigate a crime after his death. The only problem was, he had failed to tell her who was involved or where and when the crime had been committed. It was most intriguing. Soon she is faced with a new crime - the ultimate crime - murder. It seems someone is adamant that past evils remain buried.

MY THOUGHTS:

Miss Marple notices the name of an old acquaintance, Mr Rafiel, in the death column. It turns out he's bequeathed her ￡20 000, provided she solves a mystery with details he's very sketchy about. Rafiel has booked her a place, seemingly from beyond the grave, on a bus tour of famous houses and gardens of Great Britain. Miss Marple has no idea what she's meant to do but await further instructions from the dead man. It seems Mr Rafiel was determined not to influence her mindset, yet Miss Marple feels that going in blind is ridiculous. 

She discovers that Rafiel's only son is in jail, convicted of murdering his own fiance long ago. Young Michael Rafiel was generally regarded as a 'bad lot.' His father considered him 'morally sick' and beyond the hope of reform, yet believed him innocent of this heinous crime. His dying wish was to have it proved. The question is, who was the real murderer? Should Miss Marple consider any of the other passengers on the tour, or maybe one of three sisters who lives in the vicinity of their first stop?

The need for resolution becomes more urgent when another coach passenger, (I won't divulge who), is killed by a falling boulder. The fact that this person also seemed on the trail of young Verity's murderer convinces Miss Marple that this was no freak accident. Especially since two other young passengers are certain they saw an unidentified figure rolling the huge rock. Now there is at least one other murder involved, Miss Marple desperately doesn't want to fail. 

Some of her own beliefs make this story quite interesting. Throughout her long life, Miss Marple has noticed that, 'curious connections of incidents with special subjects seem to happen to people in life,' and in her own case, murders have a way of happening in her vicinity. (If Miss Marple happens to walk into your cafe, get out quick smart.) But her 'fine sense of evil' helps her get to the bottom of them. 

Regarding evil itself, she remarks:

'I don't like that sort of thing. If you expect me to feel sympathy, regret, urge an unhappy childhood, blame bad environment; if you expect me, in fact, to weep over him, this young murderer of yours, I do not feel inclined to do so. I do not like evil beings who do evil things.' 

And her new friend, Professor Wanstead, expert on the criminal brain, replies:

'I'm delighted to hear it... If people knew the bad environments that people have had, the unkindness, the difficulties of their lives and the fact that nevertheless they can come through unscathed, I don't think they would so often take the opposite point of view.'  

I figured out the murderer. This person was on my radar for similar reasons to those which occurred to Miss Marple. Since every fellow passenger had suspect potential, this should have been way harder to figure out than it was. I consider it a middling Marple mystery, so perhaps it's a good thing it was the last. 

Finally, the fact that the coach tour carried on after a passenger's tragic demise dates this 1971 publication! Holy Moley, my daughter who works in the travel industry confirms that if it happened in the 21st century, the rest of the tour would be cancelled as a matter of course and all the passengers refunded. 

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More Gifts from the Sea

Currently, our beautiful South Australian coastline is being devastated by a widespread algal bloom named karenia mikimotoi. I can almost type that straight off without checking the spelling, since it's been in our news headlines so frequently. Its effect on the sea in which it spreads is pernicious, since it's toxic to hundreds of different forms of marine life. That's ravaged our seafood industry, and I've personally seen dead fish and stringrays washed up along my favourite beaches. You can see from my photo above that this resembles suds from a horrific washing machine. Its cause is attributed to converging factors. Drawn-out summer heat caused unusually warm ocean temperatures, which were exacerbated by the lingering effects of some serious river flooding a couple of years ago. Since I moved to the coast with my family around seven years ago, I've never taken this soothing setting for granted, and to see it like this makes me long for the end of the scourge even more.

From the sound of the scientific reports we've been following, it's a matter of waiting it out, since the situation is dynamic, responding to daily conditions. 

In the meantime, since my mind has been on the ocean, I thought I'd compile more sea-themed literary excerpts and quotes, to follow on from this one, which included words from Laura Ingalls Wilder, Anne Bronte, and Walt Whitman, among others. As I keep reading, I come across increasingly more incidents in which fictional characters are awed by their glimpses of the ocean.  

1) In her novel Longbourn, Jo Baker's young character, James Smith, is amazed by his first sight of the ocean, as a roving soldier in the British army. 'Glimpsing it for the first time, he was astonished by the silver brilliance of the sea, the way it just kept moving, but never shifting from its place. It seemed at once beautiful and monstrous.' 

2) In Emil and the Three Twins, a wonderful German kids' classic from the 1930s, Frau Heimbold and her two grandkids, Emil and Pony, share a surreal moment when they view the sea for the first time. 'At the edge of the shore began the sea. Whichever way they looked, there was no end to it. It seemed to be made of liquid mercury. Far off on the horizon a ship was sailing into the falling night... The two children and their grandmother were overwhelmed. They stood there in silence, feeling as if they would never speak again in their lives... Eventually Emil's grandmother said softly, 'At last I know why I've lived to be such an old woman.' 

And the next day, 'Sometimes a succession of waves ran across the surface of the water, and Pony remarked: 'It looks as if an invisible shop assistant was unrolling bright silk on an endless counter.'

3) In Barbara Kingsolver's epic Demon Copperhead, all the young hero's attempts to visit ocean have been thwarted until the very final chapter. He's on the cusp of viewing it at last, with his love interest Angus (aka Agnes) Winfield.

Angus: I'm serious, I'm giving you the ocean.

Demon: It's winter.

Angus: You know what. They don't roll it up and put it away. It's just sitting there. Take it or leave it, home skillet. One goddamn Atlantic Ocean on offer.

4) Salesian priest Flor McCarthy's wonderful reflection. This treasure is found in secondhand book I picked up long ago entitled, 'Windows on the Gospel.' Here, he is addressing the sea as a perfect destination to get away to. 

'It would be hard to find a more suitable place. Here one experiences greatness and grandeur. Everything speaks of permanence and timelessness, the ceaseless ebb and flow of the tide, the sound of the surf that is never stilled, the infinity of sand grains beneath my feet, the horizon which seems so near yet can never be reached, the immensity of the star-strewn sky above me. There is a little bit of eternity of every seashore. Yet nowhere does one experience one's own finiteness so acutely. I look at the clear footprints I leave behind me in the soft sand and realize they won't survive even one tide. Suspended between time and eternity, I am at once humbled and elevated.' 

5) Finally, I'd like to include this excerpt from the fanfic, based on Louisa May Alcott's Little Men, which I've recently completed writing. In this scene, Uncle John tries to understand why Emil, his sea-mad teenage nephew, can't shake off an all-consuming desire to go to sea. 

'His uncle filtered some cool earth between his fingers. ‘You probably wouldn’t remember, but Uncle Laurie and I once took you and Franz for a boat ride. It was soon after your Uncle Fritz married your Aunt Jo. Your brother was content to sit still, but we kept having to pluck you back by your shirttails, because you were so obsessed with the thought of glimpsing a mermaid or hydra.’

‘I do remember that day,’ Emil said. ‘I thought I saw a giant kraken and leaned over so far I got my nose wet.’

‘Well, now that you’re fourteen, you do realize those beings are mythical, don’t you?’ Uncle John cleared his throat and twisted his fingers together. ‘Uh, they don’t really exist.’

‘I know what the word mythical means, Uncle John.’ Emil took care not to sound irritated.

His uncle turned a shade of red. ‘Of course you do. So now since the magical element is gone…’ he cut his hand through the air, ‘you still want to go, even though you know the prosaic truth?’

Emil began shaping a dirt tower with his hands. ‘Sure, I probably won’t see mermaids, sirens, or hydras. But there’s still a good chance I’ll see whales, porpoises, octopuses and dolphins. Maybe even a shark or two. So what you call the prosaic truth is still magical enough for me, sir.’

Up above is another shot I took very recently of our sick gulf waters. You can see that it's not normal foam but more of a slick, marshmallow ooze. It's heartbreaking to simply wait this natural disaster out, but if you're the sort of person who prays, please keep our situation in mind. 

'The Ladies of Missalonghi' by Colleen McCullough

After decades of not giving this book a thought, it popped into my head out of the blue, and I thought I might like to read it, although I had reservations in my teens when it was published for reasons which you'll read below. Just a few weeks later, I discovered a copy in a Little Free Library in a small Yorke Peninsula town named Warooka. I assumed reading it was meant to be, so I'm including it for the Romance category of my 2025 Aussie Reading Challenge. The back cover blurb calls it a 'magical romance' and tale of dreams come true.   

MY THOUGHTS:

The time period is early twentieth century, leading into WW1. The setting is a fictional town named Byron in the stunning Blue Mountains not far from Sydney. Missy Wright, a drab 33-year-old spinster, ekes out a spartan existence with her widowed mother, Drusilla, and invalid aunt, Octavia. They are bottom in the pecking order of their wealthy relatives, the Hurlingfords, who virtually control the whole town.

But something is stirring in Missy's stagnant, routine world. A possible diagnosis of terminal heart disease looms over her, leading her to question the inhibited way she's always done things. Driven by a rebellious instinct to have a little fun before she dies, Missy feels a scandalous attraction to John Smith, an auburn-haired 'cloud of energy' who has just purchased an extensive section of valley land which her own clan hadn't even realized was for sale. His sole purpose is to live alone, answerable to nobody. (Even Missy's wealthy Aunt Aurelia considers his generic name hard to believe. 'One is forever reading about John Smiths, but have you ever actually met one?' It is easy to wonder if he has something to hide.)

If you think all this sounds strikingly similar to Lucy Maud Montgomery's The Blue Castle, you'd be absolutely right. I never read TLOM back in 1987 when it was first published, but I remember the literary furore as McCullough was called out for plagiarism of ideas, and denied the accusation, claiming that she must've read TBC in her youth, and then subliminal memories evidently bubbled to the surface. Back then, as a loyal teenage Montgomery fan, I declined reading TLOM out of principle. The case was eventually dropped as nobody could dispute McCullough's word. 

Fast forward to now. Fan fiction is an extremely popular twenty-first century concept and I love re-imaginings of excellent plots in different settings. Having ripped through this, I consider TLOM to be a great Aussie replica of TBC. Missy's truly gorgeous, but flat-voiced and calculating cousin Alicia is an awesome counterpart to Valancy Stirling's perfect cousin Olive. In fact as a whole, the Hurlingford connection is even easier to hiss and boo than Valancy's Stirling clan, for rather than being merely pompous and annoying, they are corrupt and callous crooks who prey on widows and orphans. 

All these years later, I'd urge anyone to go ahead and read it. Our distinctive Aussie cheekiness along with a few risque innuendoes adds some spice. Although the two plots share the same foundation they don't play out identically in every respect. The twists are quite different but equally surprising. After willingly swallowing the unlikelihood that both Missy Wright and John Smith would choose to step so far out of character as we see here, it becomes easier to suspend disbelief all the way through. I just grinned at the shock supernatural machinations, as it's all in good fun. 

This book has the added appeal of lovely illustrations by Peter Chapman. The wonderful setting along with Missy's eventual triumph in living a simple life on her own terms, free of pecuniary stress, certainly made me feel happy, so grab refreshments of your choice and put your feet up. Morning tea for the Missalonghi ladies has an authentic national vibe, including pikelets with jam and cream, a sponge, some little butterfly cakes, and sour apple tart with cloves. That might be a good place to start.

And just for the record, I was probably wise to wait until now, for I'm not sure this would have been to my liking at the age of 17. 

🌟🌟🌟🌟 

Note: The more I think about this, the sadder I feel that the controversy ever happened, for even if McCullough's critics were correct in accusing her (which wouldn't surprise me since the similarities were spot-on in so many respects), she's done no different than what Barbara Kingsolver did far more recently with Demon Copperhead, which won a Pulitzer Prize.

 I guess the key difference is that while Kingsolver was quite open and aboveboard about her recycling of David Copperfield, McCullough's example was more sneaky and underhanded, if indeed it was intentional at all. And while The Blue Castle is soon to celebrate its publication centenary in 2026, it had just tipped its 60th anniversary back in 1987, which was nowhere close to becoming public domain. I guess it's a lesson to anyone who might take it into their heads to rip off Canada's national treasure with no acknowledgement whatsoever. If the whole thing really was planned, did McCullough honestly think nobody would ever notice?!

Even though it was never hailed as such, I'm going to include The Ladies of Missalonghi in my fan fiction page, because it ticks all the right boxes anyway. (If you're still with me, see my overview here.)

'Before Green Gables' by Budge Wilson

Summary: This is the story of Anne Shirley's very young life before the Green Gables years. 

MY THOUGHTS:

I found this novel in a local secondhand shop. Although I had misgivings about stirring up this part of Anne's life, fanfics of old classics are one of my passions, so of course it came home with me. It turns out this prequel was authorized by the heirs of L.M. Montgomery, and it's instantly clear that Canadian kids' author Budge Wilson took the honor seriously. The events play out according to canon. Wilson draws specifically from what Anne tells Marilla in Chapter Five of Anne of Green Gables, entitled Anne's History, along with Chapter 21 in Anne of the Island, entitled Roses of Yesterday, when Anne, as a college student, visits her parents' little yellow house and their gravesites.

Wilson also attempts to fill in the characters of Anne's earliest guardians, the Thomases and the Hammonds. But the novel begins with poor Bertha and Walter Shirley, who never realized how short their days were numbered, and ends with Anne on her appointment with destiny, where she's soon to meet Matthew Cuthbert at Bright River Station. It took confidence on Budge Wilson's part, to imagine she could replicate the magic of the original, and sadly I don't think she's pulled it off. There are four main reasons why. 

1) The genre is said to be children's fiction, but I consider it too bleak for kids. The starting point, with Bertha and Walter, is heartrending. Who was Wilson's ideal reader? Lots of little girls I know, (including my old self), would have found the subject matter far too harrowing. And I'd bet minutiae about housekeeping gets tedious for young readers. Yet it surely isn't an adult or YA novel either, crammed as it is with Anne's streams of consciousness at the ages of five and six, including long soliloquies to 'Katie Maurice' in the glass. (Dare I admit these get very boring!) 

2) An omniscient narrator frequently pops up to embellish Montgomery's details, shovelling on more injustices. Wilson adds extra layers of rejection and unfairness to Anne's very early life that we never imagined. I can't help making my objections in capitals. SINCE  ANNE'S  BACKSTORY  WAS  ALREADY  SO  BAD,  WHY  MAKE  IT  EVEN  WORSE? And just so nobody misses any injustice, the narrator often ends chapters with remarks that state the obvious, such as, 'Anne had no idea what she (Mrs Thomas) meant, nor would she ever find out.'

3) Anne herself, although lovable and poignant, isn't the same Anne we bond with throughout the rest of the series. Within these pages, tiny Anne Shirley is depicted as preternaturally wise with an uncanny knack of reading into others' deepest motivations. Yet Montgomery's Anne retains a certain vivacious sparkle, whimsy, and innocence that Wilson's Anne lacks. That being the case, this unintentionally misses the goal of staying true to the original character's voice.  

And when it comes to unlikelihoods such as drunken Mr Thomas taking advice from 5-year-old Anne, it loses credibility fast.

4) This story also lacks Montgomery's trademark sense of humor. I'm not claiming Budge Wilson had no sense of humor at all. It's just not the same style, or as refreshing as Montgomery's. Perhaps finding glimmers of humour in Anne's tragic backstory is simply too big an ask.

Overall, I wouldn't recommend this to fellow Anne fans. Although I could see that Wilson tried very hard, the canvas she starts with swings between too horrific or too mundane. I'm sure Montgomery intended it as mere backstory for an excellent reason.

🌟½

'Small Bomb at Dimperley' by Lissa Evans

This is a British novel by an author I'd never heard of, but I saw it highly recommended by another book blogger. When I checked it out, I decided to take my chance on a kindle copy, because it sounded right up my alley. Crumbling country manor house compiled of patchwork sections from different eras, post WW2 tale that's hailed as a joyful historical novel, sly digs at Britain's landed gentry, and heartwarming romance. What's not to love?

MY THOUGHTS:

It's 1945, the wake of WW2. As her hodgepodge ancestral home, Dimperley Manor, deteriorates around her ears, snooty elitist, Lady Irene Vere-Thissett mourns the diminishing adulation she considers her due, along with the death of her eldest son, Felix, who was everything a young baronet should be; handsome, polished, and suitably imperious.

 Lady Irene's second son, Cedric, can't possibly inherit the family title in Felix's stead, for a childhood bout of encephalitis arrested his mental development. The successor will have to be Valentine, the plain and inept baby of the family, who she's always brushed aside as an embarrassment and disappointment. Most galling of all for her is the fact that despite his aristocratic birth, he considers himself no better than anyone else (shock horror)!

Twenty-three-year-old Corporal Valentine Vere-Thissett baulks at the sudden inevitability of assuming the title of 'Sir.' As third in line, it'd always seemed a safe bet that he'd never have to step up, but now he's inherited the nightmare of a property in dire financial straits, with its dilapidated hazards and skeleton staff. His own estimate of his capability is rock bottom. All written documents have a rebellious habit of spinning and blurring whenever he tries to focus. (We readers recognise undiagnosed dyslexia, but he still believes his school teachers, who simply labelled him a dunce.)  

Meanwhile, others under Dimperley's roof try to move on with their disrupted lives. Felix's disheveled widow, Barbara, chafes under the control of her overbearing mother-in-law, while her teenage daughters, who'd been evacuated to America are now home dealing with tremendous culture shock. Pedantic Uncle Alaric is writing a drawn-out volume of family history which nobody has the heart to tell him is excruciatingly boring. But Alaric's capable secretary, Zena Baxter, turns out to be an unexpected ally for Sir Valentine. 

Zena is a working class girl with a history of being shunted from one foster home to the next. She's the struggling single mother of a precocious three-year-old, and depends on her efficient organizational skills to make ends meet. While the Vere-Thissetts are all too close to the situation to think creatively, Zena just might have an unexpected idea to help save the property. She's fallen under the spell of Dimperley Manor, but her feelings for the young baronet take a surprising turn as well.

Shout out to Zena's daughter, Allison, who deserves a special mention as an authentic, large-as-life three-year-old-character. Such youngsters are notoriously difficult to write authentically, but Evans has a brilliant way of weaving Allison's interruptions and non sequiturs into each scene so they become an integral part of the action.

I'm so glad I took the chance on this book. There are some hilarious laugh-out-loud moments. At it's core is a lovely romance between two great protagonists whose social backgrounds are poles apart, and who have both been emotionally damaged in different ways, yet who complement each other perfectly. The shocking turn of events is exciting too. I wonder if there will be a sequel to this. I guess it's no spoiler to surmise that Zena will be in for some serious mother-in-law friction. 

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟    

Note: It puts me in mind of this novel, which is also a post-WW2 comic family tale of picking up the pieces, starring a young hero with scars and challenges, whose humor sees him through. This must be a 5-star combo for me.