Trixie Belden Series 1 - 3

This is the year in which I re-read this beloved, nostalgic mystery series from my past to see how they hold up. Please join me if you have them on hand. I plan to share three books every three weeks.   

1) The Secret of the Mansion

Here's the little book that set the huge ball rolling. It's summer holidays and Trixie is feeling frustrated and lonely because her two older brothers are away at camp. But then their miserly old neighbour, Mr Frayne collapses and is rushed to hospital. There are rumours that he's hidden a fortune somewhere inside his atrociously run-down house. At the same time, the Manor House on the other side is finally occupied by a wealthy family with a daughter Trixie's age. The girls strike up an instant friendship, even though Honey Wheeler seems a bit faint-hearted to Trixie. They stumble across a red-haired boy named Jim, who claims to be Mr Frayne's sole heir. Jim has run away from his cruel and unscrupulous stepfather, who would love to get his hands on any dough lying around. Trixie and Honey resolve to help Jim acquire what is rightfully his.    

* The setting, along the Hudson River in New York state, is well established from the get-go. The Belden family lives two miles out of Sleepyside village at Crabapple Farm, the only cosy, modest household in a cluster of three. The other two are mansions; one being the grand Manor House, recently bought by Matthew Wheeler the millionaire, and the other being Ten Acres, the run down home of elderly Mr Frayne. The nearest large town seems to be White Plains. 

* Trixie is a lovable, what-you-see-is-what-you-get type of girl, but it's soon clear her weaknesses include impulsiveness and overconfidence. She's game to try daring feats with total confidence that she'll pull them off perfectly first time. She also has a way of accidentally offending people with her straightforward approach. 

* Her little brother Bobby comes across as demanding and a bit spoilt. Everyone loves him to pieces but hangs out for other family members take their turns amusing him. It's easy to see why. Who wants to bother reading Peter Rabbit fifty times? His family seem to follow the path of least resistance and cave in to his demands rather than standing up for themselves and calling the shots occasionally.

* It seems to me their parents put a heck of a lot of responsibility on 13-year-old Trixie's shoulders. It's school holidays, yet she babysits Bobby, cares for chickens and spends hours helping tend the veggie garden in drought conditions. Fair enough, they're helping her earn money to buy a horse, and when her two older brothers are home, they divvy the load between them. But still, what a responsible young lady!  

* Don't get me wrong, I like Mr and Mrs Belden. They're very cool parents who actually develop rounded characters of their own.  

* Honey is as sweet as her name. Wistful, tactful and always intuitively figuring out how others feel. That's more than enough to make up for her anxious streak. 

* Jim is the sort of determined boy whose hard luck, David Copperfield style story wins him the devotion of the target audience. To this day when reminiscing about the series, several middle aged friends say, 'I had such a crush on Jim.' He's a nice guy, even under stress, if a bit gruff at times.

* There are mixed messages about the Beldens' religious affiliations. On the one hand, they don't appear to be a church-going family, since Trixie always cycles to Mr Lytell's general store to pick up the newspapers from New York on Sunday mornings. Yet Mrs Belden listens to Bobby say his prayers each night, when he sometimes blurts out 'secrets' to God, such as what Trixie bought her for Christmas. 

* We're told the Belden family struggle to make ends meet, since their father's salary earned from working in a bank must spread to cover the pending demands of college tuition for four kids. Yet it seems they can still afford to have their laundry done outside of home. (We know this because Honey almost collided with a laundry truck turning into the Belden driveway while she was learning to ride a bike. Perhaps the driver was looking for Manor House and accidentally made a wrong turn. After all, the Wheelers had just moved in down the road.) 

* We get some good background on a few staff members at the Manor House who will turn out to be key recurring characters. Regan the groom is a friendly, easy-going guy with a murky past as a runaway orphan in his teens. And Miss Trask, the neat, grey-haired governess was once Honey's math teacher, and accepted the new position after they established a bond together. It's suits her because the higher salary can help her care for her invalid sister. 

* I'm pleased that there aren't many descriptions that can date the story too badly. The kids all run around in generic T-shirts and jeans, while Mr Belden drives a simple station wagon. No popular contemporary music or revealing brand names are mentioned. Sure, they use a landline telephone and it's set clearly before the days of internet. Perhaps this could occur anywhere between its original publication date of 1948 to the mid 1990s. My gut feeling tells me late seventies to mid eighties is a good fit.

* Sadly, I wouldn't really consider this one an ideal mystery story. Trixie, Honey and Jim don't really solve anything by deduction, but rather have a tendency to barrel into significant revelations by total accident. I know from my past enjoyment that this doesn't set a precedent for the rest of the series, but if this was my first reading, I might be a bit worried.   

* And what's with the snarling yellow dog? I thought he'd turn out to have a far more significant role and was saddened by his fate in this book.

* Yet on the whole, so far so good. Thumbs up. 

2) The Red Trailer Mystery  

 

This story picks up directly where The Secret of the Mansion finishes. Trixie and Honey are off to look for Jim, who has taken off unaware that he is now heir to a fortune of half a million. They decide to seek him first at some of the boys' camps where he planned to enquire about work opportunities. Miss Trask is their willing driver, and they take the Wheelers' luxury silver trailer to sleep in. (As an Aussie, I know them better as 'caravans'.) An evasive, ragged family seem to own the luxurious red trailer parked next to them at the first stop-off point. Their hangdog demeanor doesn't seem to match their flash vehicle, and they certainly aren't in holiday mode. What's more, the girls discover there are crooks in the area, stealing trailers, stripping their contents for the black market, then abandoning them. Can the weird family have anything to do with the racket? And most importantly, how will Trixie and Honey find Jim?

* I love the rural, upstate New York setting. It reminds me of National Park areas and caravan parks where I live. A good story makes the world seem smaller. 

* The first book makes it sound as if the state was suffering drought conditions and people's dams and tanks were struggling to muster a trickle. Yet in this story, torrential downpours occur just a matter of a few days later. I'm happy to roll with that, but funny nobody mentioned what a welcome relief the change was.  

* Taking two dogs along strikes me as such a bad idea. Reddy and Bud cause havoc, and the fact that they're allowed to roam freely through the area dates this book for me. In modern times, pets can't run rife through environmentally protected areas. And rightfully so! They're no longer even allowed at most decent caravan parks. Trixie and Honey are arguably pests too, for insisting that these nuisances come along.  

* Riding in the trailer while it's moving also dates the story. That's strictly illegal now. Also, I'm amazed how many car and trailer owners walk off and leave their keys in the ignition, practically inviting thieves to steal them. What a blast from the past. Were people really ever so trusting of their fellow men? 

* We get to meet the first extended family member who appears throughout the series. It's Honey's cousin, Ben Riker, who is staying at one of the camps for part of the holidays. He's a practical joker and can be a pain in the neck, judging from the reminiscences about their shared childhood at their grandmother's. 

* Jeff, the careless and malicious waiter at the park headquarters gave me a few laughs.

* We get the first mention of the Lynch family, but revealing why would be a spoiler for this book.

* Honey finally gets her adopted older brother, who coincidentally looks a lot like her red-haired father. How cool is that! Yet having said 'finally', the action of Books 1 and 2 takes little over a week in total.

* Trixie mentions in passing an old tenant house on Honey's property at home. Heads up, this will be an important factor in the third mystery. 

3) The Gatehouse Mystery  

Trixie, Honey and little Bobby set off to explore the old gatehouse where visitors in carriages were welcomed to the Manor House in days long past. Bobby trips over and cuts his knee on a sharp, glassy looking stone which Honey identifies as a stunning diamond. Trixie convinces her not to hand it over to her parents immediately, as she wants a crack at solving the mystery of how it got there. That decision attracts jewel thieves on the girls' tails instantly, especially when an eavesdropper overhears exactly what they've done with it. Meanwhile, Trixie's brothers Brian and Mart arrive home from camp at last, and make great friends with Jim and Honey, like Trixie before them. Together, the five of them attempt to solve the diamond mystery and also form a club, the Bob Whites of the Glen. 

* Brian and Mart at last, hooray!!! The fun and wisecrack level soars to a new high when these two arrive home. I always remember all the banter with as much nostalgia as the mysteries themselves.

* We find out Regan is only 22! Virtually a kid himself in my books. To think I used to relegate him to the world of staid of old adults. He comes across at least ten years older.

* Trixie and Mart are regarded as 'twins' for the month of May, since he was only 11 months old when she was born. Her birthday is May 1st and his is June 1st. That's worth mentioning in case it comes useful for records.

* The Wheelers keep a large staff, including a cook, a laundress, three maids, Regan, Miss Trask, a new gardener named Nailor and a new chaffeur named Dick. This time around, their pomp amazes me, since they have members of staff actually wait on them at dinner time. A cook I can understand, but isn't this taking it a bit far? Come on guys, get over yourselves! You're just wealthy, not royalty or nineteenth-century gentry. Surely you can plate up for yourselves.

* Although we haven't seen much of Honey's mother yet, whenever we do see or hear of her, she strikes me as a pampered princess. I prefer Mrs Belden's style by far. 

* It's fascinating how Jim proves that two different people's impressions may vastly differ. When they first see Dick the new chaffeur, Trixie sums him up as weaselly looking while Honey thinks he's quite attractive. They consider the shade of his car different colours too. We shouldn't ever assume the person next to us is taking in the same scene we are. 

* Mart remarks that he has no idea why pickpockets are referred to as 'dips'. Come on Mart, a smart boy like you should be intuitive enough to figure out that it's because they dip their fingers into other people's pockets. 

* Miss Trask enjoys watching the wrestling on TV! I'm afraid that makes me laugh. It's very easy to believe that Regan is such a fan he'd be glued to the screen. But Miss Trask! It takes a huge stretch of the imagination. 

* This final observation probably shows my age. Trixie had no right to hold on to that diamond for a single minute. She was being very naughty and waaaay overstepping herself. Honey and the boys became culpable for agreeing to go along with her. I'm especially surprised at Jim. If they'd handed it straight to the police as they should have, it would have made its way straight back to the lady who owned it, and a lot of shady drama at the Manor House would have been avoided. However, perhaps the crooks wouldn't have been caught, or at least not as quickly. That's surely how Trixie's staunchest fans would defend her.

* Okay, this is actually my last observation. My favourite line in the book comes from Regan. It occurs soon after he scolds Trixie for withholding the diamond. Brian comments that their father will be mad at all of them. Then Regan asks, 'How do your parents stand you kids, anyway?' I guess he'll have the opportunity to ask that question many more times to come. 

Whew, that was great fun. These dudes have had three mysteries already, all within the final weeks of their summer holidays. Please join me at the end of next month for the next three books in the series. Full marks for pure enjoyment and great memories so far.   

Next up will be Volumes 4 - 6

Great Survival Stories (and why we love them)

Who can resist stories with characters in desperate situations? Whether or not we consider ourselves fans of survival stories in general, we're bound to have read a few. They make compelling page-turners because they feature one or two brave souls who face seemingly impossible odds against nature. Although we'd hate to be in their shoes for real, we're happy enough to place ourselves in their mindsets for as long as we're reading. 

Several of my choices feature just one key character alone against the elements. Perhaps that appeals to the introvert side of my nature. Or perhaps there's nothing quite as satisfying as cheering for an intrepid underdog, and who could be more deserving than a loner who prevails against the pitiless elements? 

1) Robinson Crusoe

I had to read this classic for Uni and found it exceedingly dull, to be honest. Yet Daniel Defoe's famous hero has made his stamp on our western cultural consciousness for generations. He's the quintessential Brit who cannot be subdued by decades on a desert island. Crusoe adapts to what's around him but retains the faith and proud nationalistic spirit he was born with. By modern standards, his imperial attitude of superiority and dominance isn't the most admirable characteristic. But boy, did it work for our friend Robinson!

2) The Martian

The brilliant and creative astronaut Mark Watney is accidentally stranded on Mars where his crew mates leave him for dead, but manages to keep himself alive with basically nothing but his own desperation and ingenuity. I guess he can thank his seed potatoes, botanical background, self-fertilising toilet habits and seemingly never-ending roll of duct tape. Most of all, Mark proves that an offbeat sense of humour is a strong survival tool. His attitude is always, 'This new development is very bad, and I have no idea what I'll do yet, but I'll think of something or I'm history!' (My review is here.)

3) Life of Pi

Piscine Molitor Patel is a resourceful teenager who not only finds himself stranded in a lifeboat on the vast Pacific Ocean but shares it with a group of zoo animals including Richard Parker, a fierce Bengal Tiger. Pi has to assert himself as the dominant animal on the boat or die. In short, this high school boy must embody the superiority of the human spirit just to stay alive. (See my review.)

4) Piranesi

Not only does this young man have a whopping case of amnesia but he lives in a mansion full of statues and rising tides with the potential to drown or starve him any time. Our boy figures out how to develop his fishing and record keeping skills, and this takes all his time so he can't despair. And it sure helps when he chooses to think of the House as a friendly setting he's cooperating with rather than an enemy he's fighting against. (I've raved about it here.)

5) The Long Winter

There were six members of the Ingalls family in this true story, but they made one unbeatable family unit. These guys were stuck in an isolated town buffeted by blizzards. They were slowly freezing and starving, because the supply train couldn't push through until spring. Electricity to houses was way in the future, so they had to improvise ways to produce heat and food out of practically nothing for month after month, surprising themselves by their ingenuity with buttons and straw. (I've written more about this compelling true story here.)

Whew, now that I think of it, what a great stack to read back to back. If you had to choose just one setting to be dropped into, which would it be? Scorching desert, barren red planet, daunting ocean, frozen snow plain or weird house? I think if I had to choose, I'd join Piranesi in the neverending series of halls with all the statues. Even though it's a horrifying prospect, something about it appeals to me. 

Have you any favourites you could add to my list?  

'The Lincoln Highway' by Amor Towles

The bestselling author of A Gentleman in Moscow and Rules of Civility and master of absorbing, sophisticated fiction returns with a stylish and propulsive novel set in 1950s America

In June, 1954, eighteen-year-old Emmett Watson is driven home to Nebraska by the warden of the work farm where he has just served a year for involuntary manslaughter. His mother long gone, his father recently deceased, and the family farm foreclosed upon by the bank, Emmett’s intention is to pick up his eight-year-old brother and head west where they can start their lives anew. But when the warden drives away, Emmett discovers that two friends from the work farm have hidden themselves in the trunk of the warden’s car. Together, they have hatched an altogether different plan for Emmett’s future.

Spanning just ten days and told from multiple points of view, Towles’s third novel will satisfy fans of his multi-layered literary styling while providing them an array of new and richly imagined settings, characters, and themes.

MY THOUGHTS:

This is my first book finished this year. I wrapped it for myself and put it beneath the Christmas tree, having enjoyed A Gentleman in Moscow so much. At first I assumed Amor Towles was going to reverse his scope from close confinement in one building to an expansive road trip. The title turns out to be a smidgen misleading, since this is less of an actual travel tale and more about the snags and shenanigans which interrupt characters from potential road trips they intend to take. Lots of the action takes place in New York city.

It's about three 18-year-old men who became friends within a juvenile work farm where they were all serving time. Emmett Watson is on his way home to Nebraska. He'd been sentenced for unintentional man slaughter, and while there his father dies, leaving him the sole guardian of his 8-year-old brother, Billy. The bank has repossessed the family home, and the brothers now intend to start a new life west in California. However, it turns out Emmett's two mates, Duchess and Woolly, stowed away in the warden's car, and they intend to go east to New York. Although he sensibly plans to part from them ASAP, wily Duchess has his devious ways of making sure that doesn't happen.    

The characterisation is excellent. In contrast to Emmett's earnest, grounded determination to be a quiet, hardworking citizen for the sake of his little brother, his two friends are completely different personalities. Woolly is a gentle, lost soul who drifts through life at a slower pace than others, easily overwhelmed by life's details. Yet his observations sometimes plumb depths the multi-tasking masses overlook. And energetic, disarming Duchess is a street-smart, manipulative charmer with rigid notions about pay-backs and retribution. He's the sort of guy who desperately needs a true friend, yet hopelessly complicates the lives of whoever he grows close to. Distancing oneself from him always seems by far the wisest choice, yet he's so charismatic, that's far easier said than done. 

Shifting perspectives enable plenty of cliffhangers at the ends of chapters and sections. I read an interview with Amor Towles, who revealed his original intention to share all the scenes between Emmett and Duchess alone, yet several other voices insisted on having a say too. I'm glad of that, because without Woolly's thoughtful, eccentric observations, it would be a way less quirky book. And sure, the additions of voices such as Ulysses and Pastor John make the whole book more far-fetched and less credible as a whole, yet is that such a bad thing? They arguably make it more Dickensian and lyrical. It's the sort of book for suspending disbelief and going with the flow.  

I can't help wondering why Towles chose to use third person perspective for Emmett and first person for Duchess. Does he intend for readers to feel more closely connected to that impossibly presumptuous ratbag? I'm guessing many people do and it's easy to understand why. You'd have to be pretty hardhearted not to warm to him when you discover his backstory. I found myself liking Duchess more with each page I turned, even though his sheer cheek often astounded me. Yet young men with kind hearts and sound principles always appeal to me, for which reason Emmett never stopped being my favourite of the boys. 

He's not necessarily my favourite character altogether though. To me, the most awesome character is Sally, Emmett's next door neighbour. She's a strong-spirited young woman, firm in her conviction to use kindness and common sense as her compasses, no matter how crazy the world seems to grow. Her father calls her wilful, a nurser of furies, contrary and prone to speak her mind. He means all that as a pointed put-down but she takes it as a compliment. Sally's feisty presence lifts the quality of every scene she's in, and she's in far too few. My favourite chapter of the whole book is a personal reflection in which she defends her feminine household arts when she suspects the boys tend to blow them off. It's precisely because they're old-fashioned, time-consuming and unnecessary that she does them.  

The ending is abrupt and shocking. It winds up one part of the plot perfectly with some brutal poetic justice, yet I still can't help demanding, 'Is this really all we get?' Some seemingly important loose ends are left waving in the wind, including the strong purpose behind the Watson brothers' joint decision to choose California as their ultimate destination. Even more frustrating, a certain person gets to escape the 'unfinished business' that seemed to be pursuing him all through the story. I realise I'd been hanging out for that encounter, so it's the hardest rub which makes me long for a loophole. Must we accept that last page with absolute finality? If only there's a little room for ambiguity, I'll take it. 

Overall, I think the story is all about the complications of getting involved with other people's messes, inviting us to consider the extent to which the threads of different people's stories converge and blend into one. It's sprawling, ungainly, tangential and all over the place, but always strangely compelling. Laughter comes often, and I never even got started on the endearing, innocent genius of young Billy. I found it a perfect read for that lazy final week of the year beginning with Boxing Day, and would recommend it to anyone who's interested in reading it.

But although I can forgive the bizarrely far-fetched moments, I can't really forgive and forget the frustration of those loose ends! In fact I'd go so far as to say that Towles has let his readers down by letting these threads peter out, when he'd gained our interest so strongly and seemed to intimate they'd be main plot points. It's enough to remove a whole star from what might have been my final ranking. 

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'Pride and Prejudice' by Jane Austen

Since its immediate success in 1813, Pride and Prejudice has remained one of the most popular novels in the English language. Jane Austen called this brilliant work "her own darling child" and its vivacious heroine, Elizabeth Bennet, "as delightful a creature as ever appeared in print." The romantic clash between the opinionated Elizabeth and her proud beau, Mr. Darcy, is a splendid performance of civilized sparring. And Jane Austen's radiant wit sparkles as her characters dance a delicate quadrille of flirtation and intrigue, making this book the most superb comedy of manners of Regency England.

MY THOUGHTS: 

Warning: A few mild spoilers, but I consider old classics to be fair game. And who isn't thoroughly familiar with this timeless classic anyway?

For many years I was prejudiced against Pride and Prejudice, because of its iconic reputation which I wasn't convinced smart-alecky but short-sighted Lizzy Bennet and arrogant Mr Fitzwilliam Darcy really deserved. Back in my early teens, I summed Darcy up as a nasty piece of work for alienating everyone at that first local ball by his bad manners. When he delivered his famous line (tolerable but not pretty enough to suit me) any sympathy I might have had for him was completely lost. And the screen version did nothing to help the story's cause in my youthful eyes. I remember being disillusioned by the lascivious way other females reacted to the sight of Colin Firth emerging from the lake in his white shirt. ('I mean, come on girls, we shouldn't complain about being wolf-whistled and sexually objectified, if we're going to do the exact same thing!') Altogether, it was enough to make me decide, 'Nope, I don't like Pride and Prejudice. Never will.' 

I've read it a few times since, of course, and boosted my opinion a little each time. So having reviewed each of the other five Austen classics, it was time to tackle it yet again, which I had great fun doing in the weeks leading up to Christmas. I decided to give it a fair appraisal, as if I'd never read it before. But I seriously wasn't prepared for all the impressive subtleties I don't remember noticing in past readings.  

To start with, a vulnerable side of Darcy emerged this time which I'd never considered before. Perhaps during the intervening years I've gained more knowledge about true introversion and recognise him as a member of my tribe. Yet it's still easy to understand, especially with his vast fortune and good looks, how his natural reserve could be mistaken for arrogance and pride.

 I experimented with re-reads of several dialogue-driven scenes Darcy is part of. When we read them with the mindset that he's a haughty snob, there's plenty of apparent evidence to support that opinion. Yet when we read them with an awareness that brain fog and social freeze are real things, it's far easier to cut him slack. The same slabs of dialogue yield completely different conclusions, depending on our impressions of Darcy. And indeed, Elizabeth reverses her opinion of him when she comes to know him better.

It's really carefully crafted writing from Jane Austen, since we're able to read it either of two ways. Every line such as, 'I certainly lack the talent which some people possess of conversing easily with those I have never seen before,' is a clue to the real man. He's not really a snooty elitist, but just an awkward wallflower who blurts out something entirely stupid and unsuitable on the spur of the moment which he never intended her to overhear. And that verdict makes him far more lovable.

I love Elizabeth's own feasting on humble pie. It's the moment after reading Darcy's letter to her describing his background with Wickham. She realises that in spite of giving herself credit for clear judgment and penetration, she has in fact responded to two guys (Darcy and Wickham) based on her personal experience of how flattered or snubbed they made her feel. 'How despicably I have acted,' she reflects, yet it's a mistake any of us could make. There's nothing quite like a grand moment of self-revelation in a story, since many people live their whole lives without one. 

Elizabeth is actually a very fair-minded person. Her cynical father gains a lot of sympathy from readers for rushing in and marrying a pretty airhead, and then having to live with the consequences. But throughout the story, Lizzy comes to realise that it's been hard on her mother too, living with a sarcastic grouch who makes his indifference clear by always withdrawing to his library. In fact he 'exposed his wife to the contempt of her own children' which is 'highly reprehensible.' I appreciate Lizzy's well-balanced appraisal here. 

Apart from the complex main pair, there are so many other unforgettable characters too. The 'nice guys' Bingley and Wickham; one genuine and the other hypocritical and slanderous. Parasitic Mr Collins, with all his servility and self-importance rolled into one. Lady Catherine de Bourgh, the autocratic old tree whose sap he'll keep sucking, because he knows as long as he flatters, she'll keep nourishing. The pragmatic Charlotte Lucas, who considers a ridiculous husband a fair sacrifice for security and social standing. The ultimate catty, mean girl, Caroline Bingley. (What a 'rhymes-with-witch'!) And the shallow and reactive Mrs Bennet, and her equally boy-crazy, fashion obsessed youngest daughter Lydia. What a fantastic cast!

This time round, I can't help really liking Jane. Brushing her off as Lizzy's naive, less penetrating and therefore vulnerable older sister does her an injustice. Jane isn't blind to people's faults and shady motives. She just chooses to give others the benefit of the doubt for her own peace of mind. On the whole, choosing to think well of people isn't a cop-out, but a tranquil and sound way to live, because it takes far less energy than maintaining a mental resentment list. It's Jane's secret weapon, just as Lizzy's is humour and discernment. For example, Jane is the only person willing to think the best of Darcy after Wickham has spread his malicious tale around, and it turns out she's right to do so. Steady and kind wins the day. Anyone can benefit from a friend like Jane. 

I'd forgotten some of the brilliant social comedy in the book! I love it that Elizabeth is busy rehearsing every reason why she hates Darcy the very moment before he enters and makes her his first atrocious proposal. And how Lady Catherine later gives her nephew a ray of hope while she thinks she's actually stamping out the final embers of his misplaced affection. Then there's Mr Collins' abysmal letters to Mr Bennet! And the fact that Mrs Bennet, unaware of Darcy's magnanimous gesture, is perfectly chill with the idea that her brother Mr Gardiner should fork out big money from his own pocket to cover the indiscretions of her daughter, Lydia. Every single page is highly entertaining.

Since I decided Pride and Prejudice may be overrated compared to Austen's other classics, I aimed to choose another one as a personal favourite instead. I left this review till very last, assuming I knew it back to front. But guess what? I've changed my mind, as it now seems this book must always deliver some fresh revelation for each stage of our lives. It deserves all its praise for introducing the 'hate to love' theme long before it was even a trope, and no doubt helped to make it so.

 I concede, it is my very favourite Jane Austen novel after all. Like Lizzy and Darcy, I can admit when I was wrong. 

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