'Nicholas Nickleby' by Charles Dickens

When Nicholas Nickleby is left penniless after his father's death, he appeals to his wealthy uncle to help him find work and to protect his mother and sister. But Ralph Nickleby proves both hard-hearted and unscrupulous, and Nicholas finds himself forced to make his own way in the world. His adventures gave Dickens the opportunity to portray an extraordinary gallery of rogues and eccentrics, such as Wackford Squeers, the tyrannical headmaster of Dotheboys Hall, a school for unwanted boys; the slow-witted orphan Smike, rescued by Nicholas; and the gloriously theatrical Mr. and Mrs. Crummles and their daughter, the 'infant phenomenon'. Like many of Dickens's novels, Nicholas Nickleby is characterised by his outrage at cruelty and social injustice, but it is also a flamboyantly exuberant work, revealing his comic genius at its most unerring.

MY THOUGHTS:

When I was a teenager in the mid-eighties, I was part of a school excursion to watch an epic stage play of this at the Adelaide Festival Theatre. It was eight hours long. Two four hour acts with an intermission for tea. We were all stiff, sore, and brain fagged by the time it ended just before midnight. That memory is essentially what crosses my mind when I think of Nicholas Nickleby, but as part of my quest to read and review all Dickens' major works, the time came to pick up the book.  

It begins with the desperate attempts of the two Nickleby kids, Nicholas and Kate, to earn a living following the sudden death of their destitute father. Their miserly Uncle Ralph resents any hints that he's in a financial position to help. He believes that since his brother made a hash of his own affairs, it's preposterous that he, Ralph the penny pincher, should step up and lend a helping hand. 

And there are hints of an even deeper reason for Ralph's antipathy to his nephew, that stem from his historical bitter envy of his brother. (In his own words, he suspects that people consider him a, 'crafty hunk of cold and stagnant blood with no passion but love of savings and no spirit beyond a thirst of gain.' Hmm, does he remind you of any of Dickens' later creations?) 

Meanwhile Nicholas and Kate's garrulous and naive widowed mother, who simply cannot read a room, keeps building ridiculous castles in the air for her children, driving everyone crazy with her high hopes and rambling, random chatter. 

I reckon anyone who's ever felt overwhelmed by the demands of the job market will find this story highly relatable, while simultaneously discovering how dismal the Victorian employment prospects were. The Nickleby siblings keep having to start clean slates through no fault of their own.

 The term 'sexual harassment' hadn't been coined back then, but the appalling behavior of a 'gentleman' and his minions puts Kate in a terrifying position. Keep in mind that amorous gentry could force their way on innocent girls, then discard them to a lifetime of shame while they go on their own merry way. Sir Mulberry Hawk is determined to stalk the helpless Miss Nickleby, and the predatory overtones of his name surely weren't accidental on Dickens' part. His younger, more pathetic sidekick, Lord Frederick Verisopht, also has an apt name.   

The Nicholas Nickleby Wiki Page suggests that Kate is a fairly passive character, typical of other Dickensian heroines, but I strongly disagree. To me, Kate's plight reveals the appalling limitations of her culture and era, rather than any softness in her own character. She does everything she possibly can to stand up for herself. She tells Sir Mulberry in no uncertain terms that he's a despicable creep! Then she pro-actively appeals for back-up to the very people who stand in a position to help; her uncle and her employer. The fact that they reject her pleas indicates that Kate's support network has failed her, and certainly not that she is a weakling. 

To anyone who suggests passivity, I'd say, 'What the heck would you have her do then?' That sicko is determined to keep hitting on her at all costs. Thank heavens Kate has a brother who'll step in when he's made aware of what's going on, for not every girl in her position was so lucky.    

Uncle Ralph's role in selling out his niece for favor with these men is truly as loathsome as Nicholas says. And all the while, he tries to keep his gruff front in place so he won't need to feel any stirrings of conscience. Here is Ralph's rationale for resisting the protection he owes Kate, as his dead brother's child. 'I am not a man to be moved by a pretty face. There is a grinning skull beneath it, and men like me who look and work below the surface see that and not its delicate covering.' 

Okay, so I've hopefully established Kate is no pliable putty-girl, but I can't say the same for Nicholas' love interest, Madeline Bray; a stunningly beautiful, self-sacrificing girl chained by love and duty to a no-good scoundrel of a father. I don't think choosing to live as a doormat to a jerk of a dad is an admirable action, yet Madeline is among the first in a string of Dickens heroines who do that very thing. (Think Florence Dombey, Lizzie Hexam, Amy Dorrit. Ladies, come on!) On the other hand, Madeline is incredibly courageous for the horrific step she intends to carry out to get the hound of debt of her father's back. She is both passive and brave, which results from her priorities being skewed.

In all honesty, this book drags at times. It took me so long to read, and I persevered mostly for Nicholas' sake. I love this gallant, polite and tactful young hero who'll strongly protest only when pushed too far by jerks and arses. The fact that Nicholas makes so many strong protests in the course of this story indicates how many jerks and arses exist in the world. 

In fact, there are brilliantly delineated characters of all sorts. To mention just a few more, there's the tyrannical, one-eyed schoolmaster, Wackford Squeers, and his heartless wife; the seamstress, Madame Mantalini, whose honey-tongued wastrel of a husband's indiscretions catch up with everybody, and the demanding wilting daisy, Mrs Wititterly. There are also the exceptionally kind Cheeryble brothers, and poor young Smike, that 'listless, hopeless, blighted creature.' 

This is Dickens third novel, overlapping with his second, Oliver Twist, since he was working on both at the same time for a while. He was still only 26 years old as these installments were being released, and in some ways, his youthfulness shows.

Spare a thought for poor Fanny Squeers, the plain daughter of the brutal headmaster, whose romantic overtures to the good-looking Nicholas are rebuffed a little too soundly. Fanny's friends keep poking fun at her in the area where it hurts most, her inability to bag herself a husband. Having them rub it in so much verges into bad taste. It's fairly obvious that a young man wrote it, with no sympathy for the sad desperation of this girl to make a decent match. 

Also, I've seen the rumour that Mrs Nickleby was patterned on his own mother, Elizabeth Dickens, who reportedly missed seeing it completely, (in the spirit of the dense Mrs Nickleby herself), thinking that such a ridiculous woman could never possibly exist. Hmm, perhaps lampooning his mother so thoroughly in a story is another sign of a juvenile author. (You know, just because you can doesn't mean you should.)

Finally, he describes the decrepitude of Arthur Gride with the relish of a young man. 'His nose and chin were sharp and prominent, his jaws had fallen inwards from loss of teeth, his face was shrivelled and yellow, save where the cheeks were streaked with the colour of a dry winter apple, and where his beard had been, there lingered yet a few grey tufts which seemed, like the ragged eyebrows, to denote the badness of the soil from which they had sprung.' 

I'd certainly recommend Nick Nick to anyone with any interest in Victorian literature. It's a very cool ride, but be sure to put plenty of time aside. It takes a bit of grit.  

🌟🌟🌟🌟 

Some Christmas Shorts

Here are some very short Christmas-themed tales from a handful of late, great authors. They won't take much time to squeeze into your Advent reading, and I'm sure digital copies are easy to track down. (The image above is the beautiful Christmas tree at the Adelaide Mortlock Library.) 

1) I Saw Three Ships by Elizabeth Goudge

This seasonal novella is under 100 pages. 

Orphaned Polly Flowerdew lives with her maiden aunts, Dorcas and Constantia, in a temperate coastal town. Polly wishes to observe an old custom to leave their doors unlocked on Christmas Eve night, to welcome the Three Wise Men, but the aunts are too nervous. Aunt Dorcas thinks the notion of wise men is hard to swallow anyway. In her experience, only the women in their family ever possessed any wisdom at all, while the men have been foolish.

In the course of this story, three men, each wise in his own way, end up converging on Holly Cottage. It puts me strongly in mind of another famous Elizabeth G's story, and that is Cranford. (Gaskell instead of Goudge.) Here we have similar straitlaced elderly aunts, whose high-spirited brother ran away to sea many years ago. They employ similar ruses to make themselves appear more financially stable than the really are, and the presence of a young, dependent niece brings out the sort of merriment they haven't had beneath their roof in years.

The illustrations by Margot Tomes add lovely ambience to this story.  

2) The Gift of the Magi by O'Henry

It's a short story, first published in 1905, which has become a classic for excellent reason.

Mr and Mrs James Dillingham Young, aka Jim and Della, are in their early twenties and struggling to make ends meet. Della has only managed to save $1.87 by Christmas Eve, which is nowhere near enough to purchase any present worthy of the honor of being owned by Jim. She has the sudden idea to sell her crowning glory, her beautiful hair, to buy a wonderful, classy fob chain for Jim's cherished watch. 

I won't spoil the bitter-sweet twist of an ending, if you haven't read it before. Even though I have read it in the past and knew what was coming, it still brought tears to my eyes. Perhaps it strikes close to home, since I know what it's like when your income barely covers your living expenses, and then another December slips around. Poor Jim and Della have generous natures, but are forced to penny pinch just to survive.  

O'Henry makes the observation toward the conclusion of his story that the magi started the tradition of gift giving at Christmas time. Those star-followers had no idea of the centuries of angst they set in motion with their tributes of gold, frankincense and myrrh. Perhaps if they could have foreseen the mad commercialism of modern Christmases, they might have had second thoughts. 

All jokes aside, this is a lovely seasonal tale that highlights the sacrificial nature of true love.

3) Adventure of the Christmas Pudding by Agatha Christie

The Queen of Crime attributes nostalgia for the decadent Christmases of her childhood to her writing of this short mystery, which can be read in one sitting.

Hercule Poirot's heart sinks at the prospect of a freezing, British country Christmas, but he's coerced to visit a manor estate named King's Lacey to help solve a crime. A significant dynastic family ruby has been pilfered by the fly-by-night girlfriend of a young eastern prince. There's good reason to believe some of the Lacey family's guests may be involved. 

Meanwhile the elderly Laceys are concerned that their granddaughter, Sarah, is infatuated with the unsavoury Desmond Lee-Wortley, who preys on upper-crust girls. Sarah herself wishes to hide her sentimental appreciation of the festivities from the cynical Desmond. And three young teens, Colin, Michael, and Bridget, plan to make Poirot the butt of a prank, by staging a fake murder. 

A flaming, boozy, custardy Christmas pud laden with favors and trinkets is the main hero, and turns out to save the day. The satisfying and surprising solution to this story comes in the nick of time.  

4) The Burglar's Christmas by Willa Cather

Nineteenth century Chicago is the scene (think the Gilded Era) and a young homeless tramp named William is the main character. Once the pride and joy of his parents, he now reflects how far he's fallen. At one time he'd demanded great things from the world, including fame, wealth, and admiration. Now it's simply bread. Hunger is the powerful incentive that makes him consider stealing; a recourse he's never resorted to before. But it's harder than he anticipates to adopt a thief's mindset.

I can relate to William because he shares my Christmas Eve birthday. Whenever I come across anyone else born on December 24th, I think, 'Haha, poor sucker,' but the date worked well for Will in the past. His mother never skimped on birthday feasts for him when he was young. 'It's too much to have your birthday and Christmas all at once.'

This story focuses on his experience in the house he intends to rob. The theme is revealed in a sentence toward the end. 'Love has nothing to do with pardon or forgiveness, it only loves and loves and loves.'

Since William has only just turned 24 on the day of the story, he undoubtedly has plenty of time for making amends, and has learned some sober lessons about the world which many older men never learn. 

Have you read any of these?    

'The Flying Classroom' by Erich Kastner

A comical school story by the author of Emil and the Detectives. In the Christmas at the Johann Sigismund School there's plenty of fun and excitement for Martin, Matthias, Johnny, Sebastian and Uli, including a flying classroom, the kidnap of a friend, a parachute descent, and a family reunion.

MY THOUGHTS:

Here is an absorbing, whimsical Christmas tale set in a German boys' school in the 1930s. It's written by the late great Erich Kastner, of Emil and the Detectives fame 

The story focuses on five boys in the fourth form of the Johann Sigismund School, who are preparing a Christmas play. The novel's title makes the boys' effort a story within a story, since their unique stage production is also dubbed, 'The Flying Classroom.' 

The school play is written by Jonathan Trotz, whose father deserted him by sending him overseas to live with grandparents who no longer exist. Martin Thaler, the clever and artistic head boy, has financially straitened parents, who can't scrape together funds to bring him home for Christmas. Sebastian Frank is a fringe dweller with philosophical tendencies, and Matthias Selbmann, a perpetually hungry kid who aspires to be a prize fighter. Finally, little Uli von Simmern, reminds me of Piglet from the Pooh Bear stories. He has a small stature and wishes more than anything that he could be braver. 

From the start, the intensity of inter-school wars and politics mirrors how affairs tend to play out on a world stage. Grown men all around them become role models, whether they realize it or not. Their friend nicknamed 'the non-smoker' lives in a discarded railway carriage with that plaque on the door. He gardens and reads a lot in his spare time, and the boys sense that he never intended from the beginning to earn a crust by strumming dance tunes at a sleazy beerhall. 'Don't come to me with the yarn that a man can't live without ambition,' he tells his schoolteacher friend. 'There are far too few who live as I do.'

Dr Johann Bokh, their favourite teacher, earns the boys' allegiance by being genuinely switched on to their feelings and fixes, but I tend to like Herr Kreuzkamm, the sober German master, who seemingly could not laugh, though it is equally possible that he did not want to. Yet this dude drops the type of one-liner which keeps making students wonder whether he's pulling their legs or not. 

Overall, it's the sort of festive treat we should just plunge into to experience its charm, since any review is just scratching the surface of what makes it special. Sometimes quirkiness defies review. 

It would have been five stars from me, except that the school politics at the start dragged on a bit. 

🌟🌟🌟🌟 ½

'A Pocket Full of Rye' by Agatha Christie

A handful of grain is found in the pocket of a murdered businessman!

Let us explain. Rex Fortescue, king of a financial empire, was sipping tea in his 'counting house' office when he suffered a sudden and agonising death. On later inspection, the pockets of the deceased were found to contain rye grain. What is that all about? It was a second incident, this time in the parlour at his home, which confirmed Jane Marple's suspicion that here she was looking at a case of crime by rhyme!

MY THOUGHTS:

Here is another nursery rhyme themed murder mystery by the queen of crime that made me hum along.

Rex Fortescue, the flabby financier, is first to die, suffering a convulsive fit in his office at work over a cup of tea. Strangely enough, somebody has tipped a handful of rye into his coat pocket. His young and attractive wife, Adele, is murdered next, eating scones and honey at home. In the very same hour, Gladys the maid is strangled out at the clothesline, and the murderer clips a peg onto her nose. 

Young Inspector Neele is on the case, but it takes Miss Marple, Gladys' former employer, to point out to him the 'Sing a Song of Sixpence' pattern in the triple murder.

'The king was in his counting house, counting out his money,

The queen was in the parlour, eating bread and honey,

The maid was in the garden, hanging out the clothes,

When down came a blackbird and pecked off her nose.'

A bit of probing reveals that Fortescue was involved in a scandalous investment with the Blackbird Mines, and may have seekers of retribution on his trail. Somebody pranked him a few months earlier, with blackbirds baked in a pie. It now appears to have been a herald of doom, rather than just a tasteless practical joke. 

Inspector Neele must figure out whether Rex Fortescue's children from his first marriage, who stand to inherit, are above suspicion. His two sons appear to be straight out of the Prodigal Son parable; miserly 'good boy' Percival and likeable, reformed 'bad boy' Lancelot. There is also a daughter, Elaine, two daughters-in-law, a cantankerous old sister-in-law, and Mary Dove, the serene, efficient and all-knowing young housekeeper. 

Miss Marple manages to piece together an audaciously wicked, far-fetched and twisted scenario. 'Wickedness is wickedness and must be punished,' is her refrain more than once, suggesting that Dame Agatha herself really meant it. The killer is definitely a total arse.

My favourite line is Inspector Neele asking Miss Marple, 'How do you think that I'm ever going to be able to prove all this?' Well may he ask. However, Agatha Christie sprinkles a light dusting of tiny clues for us readers, but they could simply be read over as descriptive writing. Especially since we have to sift them out of all the equally scattered red herrings. It was well done.

There are dated aspects evident about 1953, when this was published. It annoys me that if a girl is regarded as 'plain' (or rather doesn't have conventional beauty), then people assume the men in their lives must have an ulterior motive in pursuing a relationship. This is true of both Elaine Fortescue and Gladys Martin. It's insulting to the girls, possibly even more insulting to the guys, to be thought so shallow, and makes me cringe at the cynicism of any character who voices such a thought.

Hopefully we've moved on a bit.

🌟🌟🌟½

Some texts about living with abundance

Here are a couple more reviews in the spirit of Non-Fiction November.

The Art of Abundance by Dennis Merritt

For millennia, humanity's collective unconscious has been saturated with ideas of scarcity, and belief in not enough to go around. We see it every day when we scroll down social media, so we can't help getting ourselves infiltrated with ideas of lack and limitation. In Merritt's opinion, it's a short-sighted mistake. In actual fact, says he, the universe is generous, over-expanding and replenishing itself. If we take care to look for it when we venture out into nature, we'll see such evidence as sand grains comprising soft, lustrous beaches, droplets becoming gushing waterfalls, and clover leaves forming verdant green pastureland. Abundance is our birthright and we need to become comfortable with the notion of its availability for us too. 

He counsels us to stay focused and intentional, for a focused mind is like a laser and an unfocused mind is like a defuse, incandescent light. When our mind becomes our master rather than our servant, it can take us places we don't want to go. (My word, haven't I experienced that over the years!) We can't unthink thoughts, agrees Merritt, but we can mindfully identify and 'undo' them by choosing and superimposing new ones that neutralise them. It's a matter of challenging and changing them one at a time.

Being in a flow of abundance means trusting what he calls the Law of Circulation. We are both givers and receivers, and in order to let abundance flow into our lives, we must let it flow out of our lives. Holding onto physical things we no longer need or ever use blocks the flow. In the same way, we need to keep our emotional pipelines free of such sludge and clutter as regret, jealousy, envy, resentment, greed, selfishness, and pessimism, which are also different variants of fear, the master sludgemaker. 

'Do what is truly yours to do,' we are told in yet another chapter. We arrive on this planet predisposed with certain unique gifts and innate talents. When we align our passions with these gifts and talents, then we've discovered the thing which is ours to do. This is connected to being of service, which needn't be as grandiose as we often imagine it should. 

'Be Blessed!' he exhorts us toward the end. Since our collective unconscious leads us to focus on things that are wrong or lacking, our minds get bogged down with all that seems missing in our lives. It's difficult to feel blessed when we're always looking at what's wrong. Instead, by focusing on our blessings, we initiate a centrifugal force. It's helpful to picture it as a gravitational pull that draws increasingly more good toward us. 

Perhaps these visual pictures just may help us remember to practice this counter-cultural way of looking at things.   

A Piece of Chalk, by G.K. Chesterton 

Legendary novelist and theologian, G.K. Chesterton, describes how he set off on an excursion armed with brown paper and coloured chalks, to do some nature-inspired drawings. He regrets forgetting his white stick of chalk but discovers to his vast amusement that he can improvise. A chunk of rock makes a fair substitute for white chalk. 

He makes lots of beautiful landscape observations and discusses how nature may inspire artists to create original material without reproducing precisely what they're seeing. It includes Chesterton's conviction that white, like virtue, is a pure color, rather than being the absence of other colors. He concludes with a lovely epiphany that our world is generous to anyone open to discovering abundance in unexpected places. 

I believe one great central theme is summed up near the end of the essay. It is his joyful realization that when we use our imaginations to probe deeply enough, we may discover that the world is more generous and abundant than we give it credit for. Having forgotten his white chalk, Chesterton snaps off a piece of the rock he was sitting on to substitute for it on his brown paper. His willingness to think on his feet helps reveal the world to him as a treasure trove of resources. 

To people with more limited outlooks than Chesterton's, our world may appear meagre and deficient. When imagination and fresh perceptions lapse, then lack apparently abounds and good things seem in short supply. Yet as the divergent thinker Chesterton discovers, 'England itself could be regarded as one generous slab of white chalk.' 

His attitude is expressed most triumphantly in the final paragraph when he lets loose a string of analogies that remind him of his own situation. 'Imagine a man in the Sahara regretting that he has no sand for his hourglass. Imagine a gentleman in mid-ocean wishing that he had brought some salt water for his chemical experiments. I was sitting on an immense warehouse of white chalk.' It's his clear invitation for us to take time to consider unexpected places from which blessings might flow. 

To me, the most enjoyable quality about this essay is Chesterton's upbeat mood, bubbling over with simple joy. His playful disposition nudges him to choose a pastime that might strike others as relatively childish; sketching chalk drawings on brown paper. But Chesterton's colourful, enthusiastic prose builds my confidence that he'll convince me to reconsider this kindergarten activity I'd dropped decades ago. Essentially, I was challenging him as I read, to see if he'd convert me to begin chalk drawings on brown paper. 

I also love Chesterton's use of breathtaking analogies. He likens the 'soft and strong' features of the English countryside to other gentle but powerful phenomena, such as great carthorses and smooth beech trees. He introduces one other person, presumably as a foil for his own expansive point of view. This is his landlady (we assume), a generous but totally practical woman who cannot understand why he's asking for brown paper unless he wishes to wrap parcels. 

Although I wasn't convinced to rush out and buy coloured chalks of my own, I did resolve to begin looking out for unexpected ways in which the earth provides for us. 

'Wide Sargasso Sea' by Jean Rhys

Wide Sargasso Sea, a masterpiece of modern fiction, was Jean Rhys’s return to the literary center stage. She had a startling early career and was known for her extraordinary prose and haunting women characters. With Wide Sargasso Sea, her last and best-selling novel, she ingeniously brings into light one of fiction’s most fascinating characters: the madwoman in the attic from Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. This mesmerizing work introduces us to Antoinette Cosway, a sensual and protected young woman who is sold into marriage to the prideful Mr. Rochester. Rhys portrays Cosway amidst a society so driven by hatred, so skewed in its sexual relations, that it can literally drive a woman out of her mind.

THOUGHTS:

 Although I consider this novel comes under the umbrella of fan fiction, it's a huge stretch of the term. I'm sure Jean Rhys was too incensed to consider herself a 'fan' of Charlotte Bronte's. That indignation is what prompted her to write this prequel-cum-protest. It's the backstory of Bertha Mason, the doomed first wife of Edward Rochester from Jane Eyre. I expected a grim read but quite a significant one, which is just what I got.

Jean Rhys herself had common ground with Bertha Mason Rochester, being the daughter of a Welsh father and Creole mother from the Caribbean. As a teenager in 1907, she was reportedly horrified to read Bronte's masterpiece, and decided to someday become the voice for this character, who was denied a voice of her own within canon. 

It's an important novel within a historical context, prompting us to approach British classics and famous storylines with open minds, looking out for untold stories of marginalized folk. The fact that it cemented Rhys' name for her comes as no surprise. 

The main character starts off as a little girl named Antoinette Cosway, who lives with her mother and ailing younger brother in their dilapidated estate, Coulibri. Antoinette's slave-owning father has passed away, but many former slaves, now liberated, still regard Cosway's wife and kids with resentment. Antoinette grows up with this hostile background murmur. Her only friend, Tia, is more of a frenemy. The district natives practice obeah charms, a type of black magic or voodoo, which nobody takes lightly. 

In the course of time, Antoinette's mother marries Mr Mason, who has a son named Richard (whom we meet in Jane Eyre). The senior Mason assumes his wife is too sensitive and paranoid about the ill will of their neighbors. He discovers his mistake too late when they become the target of full-blown riot. So the only side of human nature Antoinette has experienced is malicious hatred, simply for being born into a particular family. 

Next is the part many of us know so well already. Antoinette/Bertha is used as a pawn in somebody else's game. Her stepfather (who was surely intended by Bronte as her biological dad, but never mind) bargains with a rich Englishman to marry Antionette to his younger son, for her dowry. 

This younger version of Edward Rochester expresses more of the same point of view he spouted in Jane Eyre. He considers himself to be a victim because he's a second son coerced to marry a stranger, who turns out to be in a far different headspace from his own. Rochester never takes time to reflect that Bertha is the ultimate victim, being presented by her male family members as a commodity to a stranger who is greedy to control her purse strings. 'I have not bought her, she has bought me,' is how he expresses it. 

Not cool, Ed.

Sinister cultural differences is partly what begins to wedge them apart, but he sometimes expresses frustration for nothing much at all. 'I watched her holding her left wrist with her right hand. An annoying habit.' Talk about finding the slightest thing to pick on. He does make an effort here and there, in his own way, to make the best of the hand life seems to have dealt him, but to mention any more would be flirting with plot spoilers (although we all know where the story is headed).

Anyway, the main theme is, of course, the fact that Antoinette/Bertha is consistently fobbed off and abandoned by those stronger than her, who have pledged to care for her. 'If the razor grass cuts my legs and arms, I would think, "It's better than people."'

 I didn't enjoy the story. It was a relief to finish and escape from all the mean, cutting, gloating, spiteful characters. There is not one single 'nice' person in the whole book. And from a structural perspective, some of the story's transitions between narrators seemed like a confused jumble at times, but if we know Jane Eyre well enough, we manage to latch on. 

The Cosways have a cynical family servant named Christophine, whose observation aptly summarizes poor Bertha's story. 'When a man don't love you, more you try, more he hate you. If you love them, they treat you bad. If you don't love them, they after you night and day, bothering your soul case out.' 

I googled the significance of the title, which turns out to be another symbol of poor Bertha's life. It seems there is a deceptively calm stretch of water near Jamaica where a type of seaweed named 'sargassum' lurks in tangled traps, ensnaring ships until they can only drift helplessly and hopelessly.  

Overall, it is not a fun read, but quite obvious why it became Rhys' magnum opus. Within this reasonably slim book, she's made herself an advocate for femimism, anti-racism, and mental healthcare all in one. Even though I didn't like it, I feel it deserves three stars for its originality and significance.

It's one of those books which is 'important' but unpleasant. A bit like taking literary medicine maybe. 

🌟🌟🌟   

'Gift from the Sea' by Anne Morrow Lindbergh

This month, a meme entitled 'Non Fiction November' is all over bookstagram. I thought I'd jump in on it this year, starting with this classic. 

MY THOUGHTS:

 For a long time I've seen this celebrated as an inspirational classic. Goodreads calls it 'inimitable and graceful.'  I realized not far into that I'd probably end up disagreeing. It's one of those cases, I feel, where the hype is misleading.

Lindbergh is the mother of a passel of kids and teens. She's taking time out by herself at a beach hut for a few weeks where she writes these reflections. As the book's framework, she compares various shells with corresponding stages of the generic woman's life. The two perfect halves of a double sunrise shell signify the shiny beginning of a romantic relationship; the rough, sprawling oyster shell represents those unglamorous years with kids living at home, when the mother's life seems to bulge in several different directions, and so on. 

For a book raved about by so many, the shell metaphors strike me as forced and simplistic, more like a school essay than celebrated inspirational literature. Yet this was the top nonfiction bestseller for 1955!

 What's more, Lindbergh's comparisons are sweeping generalizations, because women's lives don't follow the same trajectory. She also makes broad claims such as, 'females look inward and males look outward.' And she doesn't even collect all of those shells during this particular trip. 

Yet despite my disillusioned impression, she does make some points worth pondering, especially in the light of almost 70 passing years. 

It strikes Lindbergh that a short holiday is a bit like an ocean in time, and she expresses uneasiness at being alone. She says:

 'The interrelatedness of the world links us constantly with more people than our hearts can hold. Our modern communication loads us with more problems than the human heart can carry. My life cannot implement in action the demands of all the people to whom my heart responds. Our grandmothers lived in a circle small enough to let them implement in action most of the impulses of their hearts and minds. We were brought up in a tradition that has now become impossible, for we have extended our circle throughout space and time.' 

My reaction is, 'Wow, you've noticed this in 1955! Anne, you've no idea how crazy and teeming the world will turn with the introduction of the internet and social media.' She lived between 1906 and 2001, passing away just before our online era really took off. Now news from far and wide gushes onto our screens, we are mere finger clicks away from anybody in the world, who can rant about whatever pushes their buttons the instant they get triggered, and You-tubers are always asking us to 'like, share, and subscribe.'

I don't think Lindbergh has a real solution for this problem she'd already started to notice, because there really isn't a clear one. Her personal take-home is simply to focus on the precious small details of her life, the here and now, the drops that make up the ocean. If more people simply make it their goal to improve the things within their own domains, the world will have to get better.  

Lindbergh realizes that her regular life is cluttered with too many things and activities, and not enough margins or empty space. We spread our desks with an excess of shells, she points out, where one or two would perfectly suffice. So she plants down her own flag with the likes of Henry David Thoreau and Marie Kondo, sandwiched in the century between each of theirs. This indicates that minimalism is nothing new. Yet avid collectors of the world, like my own daughter, claim that their quests to stuff shelves to overflowing fill their lives with a type of delight these austere teachers of simplicity know nothing about. So at the end of the day, it has got to be each to their own.

In Lindbergh's opinion, the perfect shape of our days resembles a dance or a pendulum, swinging back and forth between the 'particular' and the 'universal'; the first being viscera that comprises our individual lives with all its chat and chores, and the latter being vast, abstract blessings, such as the beach and stars that we all have access to. I guess that's her fancy way of saying that anyone can take time out from our personal daily grind to notice the glory of nature. 

Finally, it begs to be said that Lindbergh and her husband, aviator Charles Lindbergh, were big celebs and media darlings of their era, both noteworthy for their multiple torrid extra-marital affairs among other things. I hardly feel she qualifies to address us in the guise of 'everywoman' or even as a person whose advice on marriage deserves attention.

I feel I might be expressing an unpopular opinion by panning this book, since it has received oodles of love over the years. 

Ah well, love it or hate it, at least we may all agree it's fairly short and easy to get through.

🌟🌟½

'The Pale Horse' by Agatha Christie

For the past several years, I've made an effort to include a Halloween themed book for the last week in October. This one came my way accidentally, and sure fit the bill! 

Wow!

MY THOUGHTS: 

This 1961 title is one of the scariest Agatha Christie mysteries that has come my way so far. It gave me more than a few goosebumps, and I consider it a very appropriate choice for Halloween.

Poor old Catholic priest, Father Gorman, is called out one night to take the confession of a dying woman, Mrs Davis, who makes the cryptic remark that wickedness must be stopped. On his way home, while musing about the enormity of whatever he's just heard, Father Gorman is brutally bludgeoned from behind. But the killer overlooks a hastily scrawled list of names which the old cleric poked down into his shoe. Detective Inspector Lejeune is quick to figure out that most people on that list have died quite recently of supposedly natural causes.

Meanwhile, a young historian named Mark Easterbrook has a puzzle of his own to solve. Mark, who narrates several sections of this story, is taken by friends to visit the Pale Horse, an ancient Inn which is now the home of three old hags who seem to be straight from the pages of Macbeth. Thyrza Grey is an occultist, Sybil Stamfordis is a medium, and their cook, Bella, is a witch. Mark is uneasy about the creepy trio, because he's heard rumors that the Pale Horse is the place to visit if you want to get somebody bumped off.

It seems the three ladies use their black arts on behalf of clients who wish to have people killed without hiring actual hitmen. But is murder by supernatural methods, or 'remote control' even possible? When Mark realizes that he's had brushes with a few of the people on Father Gorman's list, it becomes a matter of honor not to turn a blind eye, even though he's quaking in his shoes. 

I find it refreshing when Agatha Christie departs from Poirot and Marple to use young novice protagonists. When Mark and his friend, Ginger, attempt an experiment to discover firsthand what really goes on within the walls of the Pale Horse, they're flying by the seats of their pants and secretly terrified. In spite of the vibe of malevolence all through the story, these two are lots of fun to read about. Could the methodology used by the heartless crooks really be a lot less mystical than everyone is led to believe? 

This book features a recurring character, Ariadne Oliver, a successful mystery writer and fictional counterpart of Dame Agatha herself. I'm sure Oliver is also Christie's mouthpiece to vent about some of the same challenges she faces. 'I only write very plain murders about people who want other people out of the way and try to be clever about it.' This story itself ticks the box, for what could be more ingenious than killing a person by means of pointing the bone types of methods, which can't possibly be convicted as murder in an English court of law?

It's fascinating and unnerving, with some excellent dialogue sequences and a wow factor to the solution. And the premise contains chilling spiritual elements founded on mind power which I'm sure Agatha Christie, who was herself a committed Christian, knew full well. The name of the Inn itself is found in Revelation 6:8, 'And I looked, and behold, a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him.' It is these undertones most of all, that had me biting my nails. Christie has Mrs Dane-Calthorp, the minister's wife, comment, 'Sin is such a wretched, mean, ignoble little thing. It's terribly necessary to make it seem grand and important.' 

A jolly good, spooky yarn.

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 

'The Song of the Lark' by Willa Cather

MY THOUGHTS:

This wonderful coming-of-age novel, first published in 1915, lingers powerfully in my mind.

The protagonist is Thea Kronborg, a small-town girl who grows up to become one of the most celebrated opera singers of her generation. Cather reveals the huge toll focused genius takes on a person. At the start, Thea is a cheerful, industrious, and obliging little girl. Yet her calling shapes her into a restless, intense, and often scornful young woman.

The story follows Thea from her hometown of Moonstone, Colorado, to Chicago to learn piano with a young teacher named Harsanyi, who discovers that her voice is the most unique tool she possesses. Thea then learns singing with an expert named Madison Bowers, and plays accompaniment for some of his other clients. Eventually she travels overseas to study far more intensely in Germany, and finally makes her way onto the famous stage scene. 

Thea's epiphany is inspiring. While taking a rest in Arizona among ancient ruins from long forgotten tribal people, she notices that fragments of their water-vessels are embellished with artistic designs. This suggests to Thea that these cave-dwellers strived for aesthetic beauty over mere functionality. She decides she bears an obligation to these earlier generations to keep developing her own artistic vessel, which happens to be her voice.  

But the high price that top-of-their-game professionals must pay is enormous. Within these pages, Thea's muse is seen not so much as an alluring, chummy comrade, but more of a slave-driver brandishing a whip. Even as a little girl, Thea declares, 'Difficult things are enemies, aren't they, because you have to "get" them.' Later, as a student in Chicago, she faces challenging concepts as if they're mortal foes to vanquish. Instead of being inspired by all the musical theory she hasn't learned, her heart sinks at the magnitude of all she's been oblivious to, and the hours of slog it will take to wrap her head around it. Her reactive misery surprises her teacher, Harsanyi, who'd assumed that opening up a whole new world for her would make Thea happy. 

I'm fascinated that many reviewers disapprove when Thea chooses not to return home from Germany to see her dying mother one last time. She knows her burgeoning career is ripe with opportunities which will never return at a later date, for time is short. It's a bitter sacrifice on Thea's part, for she loves her mother dearly, but knows that the life of a focused artist requires this sort of inflexible priority. Leaving at such a pivotal time would have compromised what she was all about. The general disappointment expressed by readers indicates to me that few of us possess the doggedness it takes for a life devoted to one's art. We all enjoy benefiting from a great master's finely honed craft, yet criticize them for shaking off all sorts of normal ties that we mere mortals may indulge in.  

This incident more than any other, puts me in awe of Thea's grit, for in her place, I certainly couldn't have stuck to my resolve not to travel home.

Another thing that wins her no friends is her contempt toward fellow artists who fall short of her standard, especially if they become highly acclaimed anyway. The success of hacks and amateurs offends Thea, since they reveal the general public to be shallow, undiscerning and too easily impressed. This tarnishes and lets down her high ideals, especially in the aptly titled section, 'Stupid Faces.' 

She comments:

 'I dislike so much and so hard, it tires me out... You get to hating people who do contemptible work and still get on just as well as you do. If you love the good thing vitally enough to give up all for it, then you must hate the cheap thing just as hard. I tell you, there is such a thing as creative hate. You can't try to do things right and not despise people who do them wrong.' 

Wow, how's that for raw honesty! No disingenuous, tactful, 'Yeah, they're pretty good,' from Thea.  

I suspect Thea's attitude must have mirrored Willa Cather's, regarding her own craft of writing. So much of Cather's prose impresses me, making me suspect she possibly spent hours polishing single sentences until they shone as she wanted them to. There are simple gems like, 'The frail, brightly painted desert town was shaded by the light-reflecting, wind-loving tress of the desert, whose roots are always seeking water and whose leaves are always talking about it, making the sound of rain.' And, 'The long, porous roots of the cottonwoods are irrepressible. They break into wells as rats do into granaries, and thieve the water.' 

 Cather also sets a standard for all writers in the awesome line given at the poignant moment when railway man, Ray Kennedy, one of Thea's greatest admirers, dies on the job:

'Thea saw in his wet eyes her own face, very small but much prettier than the cracked glass of home had ever shown it. It was the first time she had seen her face in that kindest mirror a woman can ever find.'  

Willa Cather's embellishment of small, domestic details are the type which many authors might not choose to mention. In a similar way, she describes the attitudes of bit-characters and what makes them tick in a way I rarely see, which enriches the whole story. All this makes her outstanding, in my opinion. 

Overall, Thea is a highly-successful person, but not a happy one, because uncommon achievement is very often incompatible with peace and satisfaction. She's proof that striving and vocational success is not the road that leads to contentment. Yet she is a fulfilled individual because she's swept everything in her life to the periphery except for the one main thing she's chosen to make her life's focus. 'I have to work hard to do my worst, let alone my best.' For most of us, the sort of sacrificial heartlessness it takes is too high a price to pay. 

I'm left to grapple with the unexpected notion that we owe it to accomplished, hard-working creative souls in any field to be honest and discriminating when expressing our opinions. I've grown up under the famous axiom, 'If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all,' which has sometimes pricked my conscience while working on this blog. But what if calling out subpar work is, in fact, a favour to the truly deserving! While wearing my reviewing hat, pointing out specimens that miss the mark whenever I see them may be an important duty. Thea believes that politely calling average work excellent is a slap in the face for those who have sacrificed everything for their calling. 

Well, with no hesitation at all, I can say this book itself is great. No 'creative hate' is necessary in this case. Beneath is an image of the famous painting by Jules Breton from which the book partially derives its title. It is the painting, within the story, which Thea Kronborg herself bonded with when she saw it inside the Art Gallery of Chicago. And for us readers, it is also easy to imagine it as a perfect representation of Thea herself, during her Moonstone days. I think this would have been a far more suitable cover picture for my Virago classic. 

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 

Some thoughts on 'Jane Eyre' this time round

 'Victober' is a good time for reading and re-reading some Victorian Classics. It's a regular meme on bookstagram each October, and a habit I'm happy to buy into. I plucked this good old standby off my shelf, since it's been a good while since I last read it. (Here is my last review.) And coincidentally, it coincides almost perfectly with its publication date back in 1847. There are always fresh insights from each reading of an old text. Here is a list of what jumped out at me this time around. 

Beware, there may be spoilers.

1) Jane is a refreshing reverse-Cinderella. Her physical appearance is plain and her character is quite human and not saccharine sweet. The nurse, Bessie, says, 'If she were a nice, pretty child, one might compassionate her forlornness, but one really cannot care for such a little toad as that.' Whew, and Bessie is one the more sympathetic characters in young Jane's life. Charlotte Bronte was traversing new territory with a homely heroine in an era steeped with traditional fairy tales, that suggested that inner beauty surely must be reflected in outer. How liberating this book must have been for anyone whose appearance didn't live up to the social benchmarks at play around them. At last, even ordinary looking people are permitted to have lovely souls.

2) Is Helen Burns the real Cinderella persona here? Some Bronte scholars suggest that this sweet and pious girl was written as a tribute to Charlotte's sister, Maria, who died tragically at school under similar circumstances to Helen's. When severely punished for paltry offences, Helen's coping mechanism is to, 'look at what she can remember, not at what is really present.' It's a great habit that has aided many suffering souls. It's also Helen who leaves Jane with the lesson that, 'life is far too short to spend nursing animosity or registering wrongs.' 

3) Famous motifs keep repeating themselves throughout classic novels. For example, the way in which her Reed relatives treat Jane is a perfect 'snap' scenario for how the Dursleys treat Harry Potter. Jane is excluded from Christmas celebrations and receives no presents. Put a big, spoiled bullying cousin in Victorian knickerbockers and he's John Reed, yet in 21st century jeans and windcheater he becomes Dudley Dursley. It could be the same dude, in terms of nastiness, smugness, and being the recipient of their mothers' mollycoddling. There gets to be a, 'Hello, haven't I seen you before?,' quality to famous books.

And Aunt Reed's final act of tyranny to Jane is ensuring that she starts off on the wrong foot at Lowood School, similar to how David Copperfield's reputation as a 'biter' precedes him. Jane is locked in the Red Room and faints with fear, and a similar incident is repeated in early 20th century Canada when Aunt Elizabeth Murray punishes Emily of New Moon by locking her in an equally scary room in which an elderly male relative died. 

I find it credible to imagine some sort of collective unconscious phenomenon at play here across time and space, since these authors surely didn't have each other in mind when they wrote their stories. 

4) Jane is refreshingly free of name-dropping and big-noting herself. She's in no position to bung it on as we're encouraged to do in the 21st century in terms of platform building, which she's totally okay with. Her first grilling by Mr Rochester is great. Not only is Jane honest about having no family connections to boast of, but she feels no desire to 'fake it til you make it.' 

'Have you read much?' he asks, and she replies, 'Only such books as have come my way, and they have not been numerous or very learned.' 

Her refusal to bluff is one of the attributes that makes her so interesting to him, and later, she refuses to let him dress her in fine clothes and jewellery. 'You won't know me, Sir. I shall not be your Jane Eyre any more, but an ape in a harlequin's jacket, a jay in borrowed plumes.'

Her humility makes her exceptional, and it's no wonder that he deems her 'sagacious, novel and piquant.'

5) Jane exhausts her verbal eloquence pretty quickly when her cousins, Diana and Mary Rivers are around. While they're deep in discussion about whatever they're reading or studying, Jane is always first to run out of things to say. Even that's refreshing to me, since I'm just the same in class at Uni or around tables. I've often longed for the gift of the gab, but with Jane, I'm in good company. 

6) Giving somebody a piece of your mind isn't always as satisfying as it sounds. Several times in my life, I've found myself in the position to think, 'I wish I'd told her/him... (finish off with something cutting or snarky). But being quick-witted in the moment simply fans the flames of resentment and makes matters worse. As Dale Carnegie is famous for pointing out, people don't want to be cut down to size, so giving them pieces of our minds isn't the best way to win friends and influence people. 

When young Jane tells Aunt Reed what a nasty, horrible guardian she's been, it truly backfires on her. Aunt Reed now bears an even huger grudge to shape both the short term and long term future for Jane. First she establishes Jane's reputation as a troublemaker at Lowood School, and later she holds back news from Jane's wealthy uncle on the other side of her family, simply out of spite.

7) Don't get burned by people like St. John Rivers. This guy, whoa! He really is happiest when he's pushing himself to be miserable, and dealing with as much hardship as possible. A pleasant, pastoral lifestyle doesn't suit him at all, yet since he's performing acts of charity and working on God's behalf, it's so easy for him to place guilt trips on other people. I think that performing charitable acts is actually St. John's form of selfishness.

Girls, run a mile if you come across anybody as pious and manipulative, even if he does resemble a Greek god. 

8) Don't get burned by people like Rochester. I admit that in some ways, our hero seems sexier with each subsequent reading, to the extent that I found myself thinking, 'I wish Mason and Briggs wouldn't come and pull the plug on his wedding this time.' Rochester's passion-driven reasoning for his engagement to Jane does carry its own sort of weight. Since Jane has no relatives for any backlash to hurt if she lives an unwitting lifestyle as his mistress, she may well go for it. Yet the fact that she refuses to discard her solid principles makes her one of the most admirable characters of English literature. 

We must have lines we wouldn't cross, or we have nothing.

Check out for my review of Wide Sargasso Sea, in which Rochester's wife, Bertha, gets the understanding she arguably misses out on in Jane Eyre. Even though he clearly pictures himself as the victim in his relationship with his first wife, that's not entirely true, since he exploits her fortune, making full use of it for himself. 

'Pollyanna at Six Star Ranch' by Virginia May Moffitt

MY THOUGHTS: 

 I commend Virginia May Moffitt for choosing to do something that no other Pollyanna author did after Eleanor H Porter, and that is backtrack the story to Pollyanna's youth. Porter left no room to do so. Pollyanna 'grows up' in the second book of the series, and gets engaged at age 20 to her childhood chum, Jimmy. Ever since then, authors stick to her married life, although it was a shame to have passed over the scope for gladness in those teenage years. Moffitt evidently thought so too, because she decided to squeeze one in anyway.

Chronologically, this fits in at the halfway point of Pollyanna Grows Up. So you could stop reading that book at the end of Part 1, pick up this novel, then return to Part 2 when you finish. Here we have Pollyanna aged 16. She hasn't seen Jimmy since she was 14 and won't catch up with him again until she's 20. And Uncle Tom Chilton is resurrected from the dead for a few appearances, which is a bittersweet touch for us readers.

Having traveled for three years in Europe, Pollyanna and family are back in Beldingsville. Another young teen named Genevieve Hartley, whose father knows Uncle Tom, invites her to spend a few months at their ranch in Texas. Pollyanna will be joining Alice Jones for the train trip, a prim young school teacher who's returning to visit her Texan family. Uncle Tom is all for it, which neutralizes Aunt Polly's misgivings. So Pollyanna is off to spend time among the cactus and cowboys. 

She has grown a little self-conscious about the Glad Game, since Alice hints that it's childish, but can't help telling people all about it anyway. And there are plenty of people to benefit, like Mrs Billings, the widowed owner of a nearby ranch who envies all the perks of civilization her daughter, Susie, is missing out on. There's also old Tarby, a former quick-draw cowboy who now considers himself a has-been; and young Jack Ainsley, an amateur or 'tenderfoot' who feels he has a lot to prove. And there's also Storm, a prickly wild girl with a log-sized chip on her shoulder, who needs a bit of taming; and a family of roving Mexican workers who could really do with some friends. 

Okay, first for the good parts. It takes hard work by these characters to master the knack of the Glad Game, which gives us readers indirect lessons too. And Moffitt is great at embellishing her settings. Texas blooms beneath her pen; a spacious and breathtaking backdrop for honest and fun characters. 

Alas, now for the bad. I find some key plot points are heavy-handed and way too predictable. Folk are searching for a long-lost heir who stands to inherit half of another neighboring ranch. I think Moffitt intended to stun us with a gob-smacking revelation, but it's obvious to any canny reader from a mile off who the unwitting heir will turn out to be. Far-fetched proof plummets down like missiles. If only somebody had tipped Moffitt off that her subtlety is of the sledge hammer type. 

(She pulls the exact same move in the only other Glad book she authored, which was Pollyanna of Magic Valley. That long-lost heir's background and personality are strikingly similar to this one's. Using this tired trope once is corny, twice is almost farcical. So much for Virginia May Moffitt's contribution to this series.)

Pollyanna herself is far too good to be true this time around. She never once loses her cool, even when certain others behave in spiteful and dangerous ways. For this reason, I prefer Pollyanna's sidekick, Genevieve, who at least gets triggered as normal people do. Pollyanna's prattle about her Glad Game doesn't usually annoy me, but does in this story. There is some serious cheesiness overload. Pollyanna crosses a line to superior do-gooder, and white savior. 

It irks me, for example, when Pollyanna assumes that Refugia, the young Mexican mother, presents a grubby appearance because she knows no better. Pollyanna instinctively tries to teach her how to wash her face and comb her hair, when it turns out that in fact, Refugia simply had no access to soap and a comb for weeks. Perhaps we 21st readers are primed to wince at a certain Anglo-centric condescension. I usually try to overlook it based on the age of a text, but it was hard in this case.  

I really liked some of the characters, especially Genevieve, Jack (whose character is built up and then taken nowhere), and Alice's younger sister, Quentina. However, the drawbacks I've mentioned sadly prevent this from being a really good book.  

🌟🌟🌟

Hooray, that's it, folks. I've finished reviewing every single one of the fourteen Glad Books. It's taken me longer than I anticipated, since those written by anyone other than Eleanor H Porter and Harriet Lummis Smith were lemons in their own way, making me loath to persevere. I guess the good news is that you only need to read the first six to get the best of the Pollyanna series. You can be GLAD of that, if you like. I might just hold onto Porter's and Smith's because I can't see myself ever re-reading any of the others again.  

But hey, I'm glad I collected them all and extra glad that I've finished reading them. And if you're a completist, you'll no doubt want to do the same. Regardless of the quality of the stories themselves, it is quite interesting to see how they evolve throughout the decades in which they were written, from the turn of the twentieth century and WW1 through the twenties, thirties (and WW2), forties and fifties. It's like a tour through the first half of the twentieth century. 

Now, having received requests to review other books by Eleanor H Porter herself, I might start doing that before too long. 

If you'd like to read my thoughts from the very top, you can start HERE.

The Broad Scope of Fan Fiction

What is Fan Fiction?

The Merriam Webster Dictionary defines it as 'stories involving popular fictional characters that are written by fans and often posted on the internet.' It is sometimes abbreviated to 'fanfic.' 

I'd define it as a wealth of stories derived from other celebrated or well-known sources. When another author's work is used as a springboard for something new and original, that's fan fiction.

Why Do People Write Fan Fiction?

 a) I'll start with the reason which may first spring to the minds of many. It is easier in some ways, to craft our writing to fit a worldview we're already familiar with, rather than creating a totally fresh world with brand new characters. When we and our potential readers already know and love a cast of familiar faces and their setting, we are free to dive straight into the action, because there is already a fan base. 

Some fan fiction authors simply love the characters in pre-existing fictional worlds, feel they can't get enough of them and wish to add even more beyond the canon. Howard Pyle's 'The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood' fits this category. The legends of the heroic outlaw and his loyal band had been circulating since the Middle Ages when he decided to compile his own omnibus of stories in the late nineteenth century. 

b) Sometimes authors feel triggered by an original canon. When source material seems sadly shortsighted or lacking, they may decide it needs to be threshed out, or even totally redressed. If something in a story presses our buttons, taking steps to set it right in our own way may be a pro-active move, or skillful literary protest. This may be by re-telling the tale from the point of view of another character.

A famous example is Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys' answer to Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre. Rhys explores Edward Rochester's doomed first marriage from the point of view of Bertha, aka the mad wife in the attic. This fan fiction, now a classic itself, brings out Bertha's vulnerability, her powerlessness and lack of advocates to stand up for her.

Another revealing example is Longbourn by Jo Baker, who decided to re-tell the story of Pride & Prejudice from the servants' perspective. When events made famous by Jane Austen play out against the lives of the Bennet family's hired help, we readers get a chance to see familiar characters in a way we've never considered before.

A very recent example is Adventures of Mary Jane by Hope Jahren. This author is a great Mark Twain fan, yet the gullibility and passivity of the appealing character Mary Jane in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn galled her. Jahren explains in her introduction how she decided, 'We can fix this!' In her mind, Twain's version left much to be desired, which she deftly expanded upon without changing his canon. This includes making Mary Jane more intrepid by giving her a set of her own adventures. 

c) Sometimes we may simply wish to draw from source material as a creative way of making some new social commentary or observation. Barbara Kingsolver's award-winning Demon Copperhead mirrors Charles Dickens' David Copperfield from start to finish. Using the framework of a famous Victorian classic to tell her own contemporary story about the deplorable foster care system and horrific opioid crisis in the Appalachian region of America is Kingsolver's ingenious way of suggesting that human nature hasn't changed.

Barbara Kingsolver certainly isn't the first author to have had the brainwave of adopting a well-established older story to mold her own take on it. The popular Broadway musical West Side Story is a mid-twentieth century re-telling of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, focusing on New York city's rival gangs. And speaking of Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew became Pygmalion which morphed into the musical, My Fair Lady, starring Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison. And not all that long ago, American author Anne Tyler did her own take on it in Vinegar Girl. 

One of the most ambitious examples of all may be C.S. Lewis' re-telling of the Christian gospels as fantasy in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, with his majestic lion Aslan taking on the role of our Lord and Savior. 

d) A fourth reason authors may decide to write fan fiction is to bring out more nuances or finer points from the original material which fellow fans may relish. Sometimes inspiration about book friends we all love and admire seem too good to keep to ourselves. This is the main reason why I decided to have a go.

I hope I've succeeded in showing that other important reasons for writing fan fiction exist than simple self-indulgence in prolonging our attachments to our favorite characters (although isn't the fun of that enough?) And I've hopefully proven that some quality, highly acclaimed examples may even fly under the radar of being fan fictions, although that is certainly what they are.

Introducing my own attempt.

Two side characters from Louisa May Alcott's Little Women series have become main characters in a spin-off which I've shared on Archive of Our Own, an extensive site devoted to fan fiction. I always thought my two young men (for I now consider them mine) had huge potential, but Alcott was burned out by the time she wrote their incidents in Jo's Boys. She'd written just enough to capture my imagination, so this year I indulged my passion and developed their storylines into an all consuming project I named Longing For Home. 

The first of these is Jo March's nephew, Emil, who follows his dream of going off to sea, but gets caught in a shipwreck. I've extended his couple of chapters from Jo's Boys to include a supporting cast of new characters, and a longer, slower burn of his romance with Mary, the captain's daughter. The other character is Nat Blake, a destitute former foundling who the Bhaers send overseas to study music. Nat is a talented violinist who battles anxiety and an inferiority complex from his impoverished background.    

Giving these two young men voices of their own has been an extremely satisfying writing project, especially since I set out to stick within the parameters of canon. I resolved to weave in as much from Alcott's original source material as I could without ever deviating outside of the lines. I like to think Louisa May Alcott might have been happy with my result, because it's my tribute to her writing. 

If I've stimulated your curiosity, please check out Longing for Home. You don't need to be familiar with Alcott's work to enjoy it. Archive of Our Own (AO3) is full of gifts such as this. Having spent time reading stories by many others before I ever dreamed of having a try, I now regard fan fiction authors as an extremely generous bunch of people who I'm happy to count myself among. For writing free novels and stories for fans to enjoy is surely a painstaking random act of kindness and labor of love.

And if you don't choose to commit to something so long at the moment, you might like to start with this shorter fan fiction I wrote. It's the perfect size to have with a cup of tea and slice of cake. And it features somebody we surely all know well. 

Keep your eye out for my further upcoming posts about fan fiction. I will soon share some of my initial experiences about the fan fiction site, where I initially feared to tread but am now so glad that I did. It is a venue full of pseudonyms, and the one I've chosen (Ada Sage) is combination of my grandmother's given name plus the embodiment of wisdom, which also happens to rhyme with her maiden name, which was Ada Gage.

More later. (And by the way, every fan fiction I've mentioned in this blog post, I aim to review.)      

 

'Son of Oscar Wilde' by Vyvyan Holland

During my Diploma of Creative Writing, I studied an interesting subject named 'Literature and Christian Faith.' Each week we took turns reading aloud from some formative text, beginning from ancient times. One of our modern selections was Oscar Wilde's 'The Ballad of Reading Gaol.' It can hardly be called a tribute, but it was an acknowledgement of the shockingly hard two years he spent imprisoned there which contributed to his premature death. By writing this masterpiece after his release, Wilde's intent was to raise awareness of the barbaric British penal system and inhumanity of capital punishment. I was fascinated to come across this autobiography by Wilde's son, who was just a young boy when it all unfolded. It really shows how the ripple effect of one person's life may adversely shape those of others, putting in place the real life chain reaction nobody ever wants to start.    

Also see my reviews of The Importance of Being Earnest and The Picture of Dorian Gray

MY THOUGHTS:  

What a fascinating autobiography, and its scope even makes it something of a bildungsroman, but true instead of fictional.

Oscar Wilde's younger son, Vyvyan Holland, tells of his own baffled lifestyle as a child fugitive, following his famous father's imprisonment. Young Vyvyan (what a cool name, especially for the Victorian era) knows that his father, once feted is now hated, but his mother, Constance, conceals the details from him. So does Vyvyan's brother, Cyril, who accidentally discovers the truth but wishes to shield his little brother from the disgrace he feels. 

Poor Constance Wilde, fearing harsh public backlash on her innocent sons, rushes them across to the Continent to hide. She changes their surname from Wilde to Holland, after some of her distant relatives. This story is an excellent literary social artifact about the lifestyle of boys in the late Victorian era, and what is expected of them as they become young men in the turn into the twentieth century and Edwardian era. Vyvyan writes differently from his dad, but his detailed memory, wry humour, and interesting incident choices kept me scrolling pages. I was finding that in no time flat, another hour had passed. 

He describes the emotionally harmful burden of being forced to deny their father, compounded by their mother's sad, premature death a few years later, while they were still only 11 and 13. Cyril swings reactively to create an identity nothing like their father's, scorning anything he perceives as arty or effeminate. And Vyvyan himself develops a lifelong case of social anxiety and shyness, resulting from his fear and confusion early on. The two boys are hidden victims whose budding personalities are shaped by what happened to the previous generation. Being child pariahs takes a huge toll on them. 

Next, Cyril and Vyvyan are left at the mercy of Constance's extended family; a straitlaced bunch who were always offended by Oscar's flamboyant notoriety and hadn't wanted her to marry him in the first place. Rather than seeing their new charges as a couple of vulnerable young boys, they perceive a pair of tinder boxes who might explode in outrageous ways at any time. The brothers are forced to keep the secret of their paternity until one day when Vyvyan is nearly 21, their father's friends discover their existence. To these new faces, the boys are more like holy grails who'd been long sought.

That's one of the lasting impressions this book leaves me with. Same pair of kids, but polar opposite sentiments, depending on others' points of view. It was one of the tragedies of the early 20th century that Oscar's zealous attempts to meet up with his sons after his release from prison were met with a brick wall. Vyvyan had no idea that his father was being told, 'The boys are happier without you in their lives,' since he certainly wasn't thriving with his reluctant guardians. In fact, Vyvyan was led to believe that Oscar was dead.  

The publisher's note, in this book published in 1954, refers to Oscar Wilde's 'sexual perversion' and 'misguided way of life.' What would these early readers think, and what would Vyvyan himself think, to see how far the social tide has turned!    

Vyvyan is not afraid to call out the worst of Victorian hypocrisy, including the cruelty of some highly acclaimed folk of the time period. I fully agree when he says toward the end:

'I do not try to defend my father's behaviour but I do think that the penalties inflicted upon him were unnecessarily severe. And by that I do not only mean the prison sentence, I mean the virtual suppression of all his works and the ostracism and insults which he had to endure during the remaining years of his life.'

However, I disagree with these words written by Vyvyan in his Preface.

'This is not a very amusing and entertaining story. I think, however that it should be written as part of the whole story of Oscar Wilde.' 

He sells himself short there, because in spite of plenty of reflective and serious subject matter, I did find this book on the whole, especially some of the antics he and Cyril get up to, to be vastly amusing and entertaining indeed. I'm sure it'll be up among my ten best books of the year. 

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'Carry On, Mr Bowditch' by Jean Lee Latham

MY THOUGHTS:

 I've seen this Newbery Award winner from 1956 being recommended by decades of readers, including homeschoolers. I finally discovered I could borrow an internet archive copy. It's a fictionalized biography of Nathaniel Bowditch, the young mathematician and astronomer who noticed a dire need for a comprehensive, potentially life-saving encyclopedia of navigation, so went ahead and wrote one. 

Instead of fulfilling his dream to become a Harvard graduate, young Nat (born in 1773) is shaped by the school of hard knocks. Family hardship requires him to help in his father's cooperage business, and then he's indentured as a clerk in a chandlery. During his early twenties, Nat Bowditch sails on several merchant ships and discovers, to his horror, that Moore's Navigation, the standard resource for seafarers, is riddled with errors. 

Young Nat gets hopping mad. 'It's criminal to have mistakes in a book like this. Men's lives depend on the accuracy of the tables! When you depend on a book with mistakes, it would be safer not to depend on it.' His only viable solution is to replace it by writing a huge tome of his own, and luckily for all sailors, Nat has the brainpower to pull it off. It's a monumental feat for a young, self-taught man, which deserves far more acclaim than he possibly gets in the 21st century.

Nat Bowditch also educates other crew members in navigation, and eventually becomes a captain himself.

There is a lot to wrap our heads around. I won't even begin to delve into the historical backdrop, with America's War for Independence followed by the Napoleonic Wars, even though they're fascinating in the context of Nat's life. (Suffice to say that having won that first war, America must fight for her rights on the High Sea, which makes British vessels look like ultimate sore losers.) Rather than letting this review blow out into something huge, I'll list off the main points that struck me.

1) Who needs Harvard! Not highly motivated geniuses anyway. Study is what teenage Nat does in his downtime for fun. He teaches himself Latin so that he can understand 'Principia' by Isaac Newton. Interesting that we modern folk consider Latin to be a dead language, yet in the late 18th century it was the cutting edge language of scholars and scientists. Who killed it? Next, he teaches himself French, Spanish, and German too. 

2) Bowditch's life was incredibly tragic. Sure, this novel condenses it within 300 or so pages, but there is so often a fresh announcement of some heartbreaking death. The line, 'I'm sorry to tell you, Nat, I have some very bad news,' becomes a major motif. His second young wife, Polly Ingersoll, must have been reckless to have married him, having seen firsthand what happens to people Nathaniel Bowditch grows fond of. I see that several other reviewers decided to give this novel less than five stars solely because of all the deaths. I understand their decision, even though it's not Latham's fault. She didn't make all this crazy, sad stuff up. Maybe giving her book a lower ranking is a case of, 'Don't shoot the messenger,' yet it's still problematic having a book aimed at juvenile readers which a huge percentage of them may be too sensitive to read.

3) I appreciate Nat Bowditch's acquired patience. One of his love interests points out that his brain works so fast, he 'stumbles over other people's dumbness.' Eventually Nat makes a point of noticing the exact moment when the people he tutors twig, so that he can write his 'dumbed-down' explanations in his notebook, for they must be the most effective teaching tools. I always imagined it must be cool to be a genius, but they evidently suffer the downside of finding 99% of people have puny mental scopes, compared to their own. Small talk must get tedious. 

4) I was awed by the brilliance and dedication of Jean Lee Latham herself, for she obviously put everything she had into writing this book. The flyleaf of the version I borrowed tells us that before making a start on the story, she studied Mathematics, Astronomy, Oceanography and Seamanship to familiarize herself with Bowditch's work. Wow, that takes fandom to a whole new level, and it shows in the story. I didn't miss noticing the painstaking detail.

On the strength of that, I wish I could give this book 5 stars myself, but nope. Along with all the deaths, I thought Latham compresses so much detail and time frame within a comparatively short word count, it gets a bit bogged down at times. It's almost enough to blow the brain gaskets of readers who aren't as cluey as either Nathaniel Bowditch or herself.

Still, I've got to say it definitely encourages us to smarten up our own work ethics. Sure we might never be able to write major scientific encyclopedias or even the bios of those who do, yet we can devote ourselves to the projects which ignite our imaginations and seem worthy, even when the going gets tough. One of my favourite lines in the story is when teenage Nat learns Latin with the intent to read Isaac Newton. He says, 'First I have to figure out what it means in English, and then I have to figure out what it means.' 

I'm inspired by such painstaking and compelling enthusiasm. 

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'Peril at End House' by Agatha Christie

Hercule Poirot is vacationing on the Cornish coast when he meets Nick Buckley. Nick is the young and reckless mistress of End House, an imposing structure perched on the rocky cliffs of St. Loo.

Poirot quickly takes a particular interest in the young woman. Recently, she has narrowly escaped a series of life-threatening accidents. Something tells the Belgian sleuth that these so-called accidents are more than just mere coincidences or a spate of bad luck. Something like a bullet! It seems all too clear to him that someone is trying to do away with poor Nick, but who? And, what is the motive? In his quest for answers, Poirot must delve into the dark history of End House. The deeper he gets into his investigation, the more certain he is that the killer will soon strike again. And, this time, Nick may not escape with her life.

MY THOUGHTS:

We're back with Poirot at his most egotistical, never missing a chance to sing his own praises.

The story is narrated by his sidekick, Captain Hastings. The pair of them are staying at the Majestic Hotel in the Cornish seaside town of St. Loo. Poirot is adamant that he wants to retire from private investigation, yet even as he speaks, a furtive bullet is fired at a pretty girl who strolls past their verandah. She informs them it's the fourth time she's experienced a near miss within a short period of time. The young lady is Miss Nick Buckley, the owner of the ramshackle End House, which stands alone on a promontory overlooking the sea. Her plight is enough to entice Poirot to re-think his decision. 

Who could possibly want to kill this charming and bubbly young woman, whose property is worth nothing substantial? Poirot is certain that whatever the motive, it must be deeply hidden or else the crook wouldn't take such brazen risks in broad daylight. 

There are Australian characters in this book; a middle aged husband and wife duo named Bert and Milly Croft, who rent a small lodge on Nick's property. The bunging on of their Aussie colloquialisms is cringeworthy. Bert refers to Poirot as a 'bonza detective,' and says, 'I think neighbours should be matey, don't you?' And he always summons his invalid wife with a 'Cooee.' Even Poirot muses that they might be just a shade too typical for their culture. So the question becomes whether Agatha Christie is making them so overdrawn for a reason. I certainly hoped so, because that's easier to swallow than so many other international authors who overdo our Aussie persona accidentally.

Poirot often refers to Hastings' 'slightly mediocre mind,' which irritates but never outright offends his best friend, since they know each other too well. At one stage, Poirot chastises himself, asking, 'What good is it to be Hercule Poirot, with grey cells of a finer quality than other people's, if you don't manage to do what ordinary people cannot?' And Hastings simply reflects, with an inner eye roll, 'Poirot's self-abasement is astonishingly like other people's conceit.' 

There's another amusing incident in which Hastings lists Poirot's OCD qualities, such as toast that has to be made from square loaves, eggs matching in size and his objection to golf as a shapeless and haphazard game. 

My biggest problem with this mystery is that I sadly figured out the villain around the halfway point! Yep, for once I guessed the criminal and their motive before the brilliant Hercule Poirot twigged. Maybe Dame Agatha was too heavy-handed with her clues this time. Or perhaps I need to have an even longer break between reading her books. It's hard to say. It took the wind out of my sails when I noticed a glaring red flag. I prefer it by far when I don't guess, or at least not so easily, because unlike Poirot, my grey matter is not such fine calibre, so I look forward to the satisfaction of being surprised. Because I wasn't this time, and also because of the annoying Croft couple and Poirot being irritatingly smug, this one is not a three star read for me.

Dame Agatha has the occasional misses. To me, this is one of them.  

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'Longbourn' by Jo Baker

Having just finished writing a fan fiction of my own, I thought I'd like to read more fan fiction by others. 

MY THOUGHTS:

The titular setting is the legendary home in Pride and Prejudice where two radically different lifestyles orbit along together. The mismatched Bennet parents and their five daughters are, of course, well known by generations of readers. Jo Baker now decides to reveal the tale of their servants, who deal with the unmentionable but vital aspects of keeping life functioning smoothly. These five know full well that their security depends upon the caprice of their employers.   

Baker's author blurb informs us that her own forebears had been employed in service, so she knows full well that instead of attending the Netherfield ball she would have stayed home with the washing up. My ancestry is equally humble, so I found this story to be revealing and significant from the get go. 

Our main character is a young housemaid named Sarah, who works under Mrs and Mr Hill, the housekeeper, and butler. There is also Polly, a pert adolescent maid who is learning on the job. One day the Bennets hire a new young footman named James, who Sarah suspects of concealing some secret. It turns out James has far more to hide than he's even aware of himself.

Meanwhile, Sarah's fascination is stirred by a freed slave turned servant named Ptolemy, who works on Mr Bingley's estate. She's attracted to Tol's sprightliness and the wider world he represents, yet something about the mysterious and evasive behavior of James also intrigues her. I love how this romance, in all it's everyday, sometimes sordid routine, plays out against that more famous plot that we all know so well. 

The Bennets, their neighbors and all other familiar characters are totally true to canon, yet we're offered deeper, richer ways of understanding them, since we now see them as their underlings do. For example, it takes an insightful helper like Sarah to sense that Elizabeth's new married life isn't totally angst free, as she adjusts to the expectations of being mistress of such an intimidating address as Pemberley. 

After forming my own thoughts, I turned to other reviews, expecting a bit of flak, for Jane Austen's most devoted fans tend to deify her and consider her work untouchable. Yet I was stunned nonetheless by the sheer volume of cutting and unkind reviews of one and two stars on Goodreads. Holy moly! I guess Jo Baker must've known she was prodding a sacred cow. What amazed me most was the vitriolic content of some of these reviews, because these reactive people might've been reading a totally different book to me!

Some called it humorless compared to the great Jane Austen, yet to me it brimmed with wry observations that kept me grinning. How ironic that the same people who complain of no humour evidently take Pride and Prejudice extremely seriously. 

Others call Sarah a whinger, yet I considered her to be wise, astute, and far more gracious than some of those big-nobs deserved. I suspect some of the disgruntled readers resent Sarah's insights into sides of their favourite characters they refuse to acknowledge. Apparently suggesting that Darcy comes across as a granite block in the eyes of the working class, or that Lizzy is somewhat preoccupied and insensitive to her servant's priorities is a crime to some. And heaven forbid that anyone should feel sympathy for Collins (that easy-to-please young man) or Lydia (merely a child seduced by a master manipulator). 

Come on peeps, Pride and Prejudice is a novel, not a sacred text! Please don't be so blinkered about the sanctity of your favourite characters that you resist an opportunity to see how they may come across to others! I suspect those who do so might be the sort of readers who also resist real life revelations about themselves. This book is a refreshing invitation to expand our outlooks, and it's sad to see that so many diehard Janeites refuse to take it as such.

Some reviewers object to the TMI (too much information) factor in passages such as this. 

'The young ladies might behave like they were smooth and sealed as alabaster statues underneath their clothes, but then they would drop their soiled shifts on the bedchamber floor to be whisked away and cleansed, and would thus reveal themselves to be the frail, leaking, forked bodily creatures they really were. Perhaps that was why they spoke instructions at her over an embroidery hoop or over the top of a book: she had scrubbed away their sweat, their stains, their monthly blood; she knew they weren't as rarified as angels and so they just couldn't look her in the eye.' 

I get that this sort of straight talk isn't everyone's jam. Since this particular description occurs on the second page of the story, it's an early invitation for the squeamish to instantly abandon the book rather than read the whole thing and then slam it. I think stark realism like this is handy for revealing the disingenuous quality of the nineteenth century when facts of life were routinely swept beneath the carpet.

One particular plot twist (which I can't spoil here) inevitably causes some readers' hackles to rise. They insist, 'It's because Jane Austen herself didn't write it in.' Hmm, perhaps she simply didn't know about it. Even I object to the type of fan fiction that contradicts and changes canon, but Longbourn doesn't do this. The skeleton in the closet which I'm skirting around is consistent with Austen's unfolding of events. Baker never once destroys the Pride and Prejudice canvas, but merely offers us a broader vista from which to view it. 

So after my rant about the ranters, my final verdict is that I loved this story for its boldness and its beautiful imagery. As far as Pride and Prejudice spin-offs go, it's a winner in my opinion. Now, some reckless soul should write a novel depicting Wickham as the put-upon and misunderstood young man he presented himself as being. Not because I admire him, which I certainly don't, but because it would be interesting to watch the fur and feathers fly. 

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