The Bronte Books Ranked

Today, April 21st, marks the anniversary of Charlotte Brontȅ's birth back in 1816. That's as good a reason as any to do what I've intended for some time and rank the seven books of all three Brontȅ sisters. I'm sure there will be as many combinations as readers, but here is mine.

The top four are those I'd recommend as must-reads for everyone. When you've read them, you've read the very best. 

The bottom three, in my opinion, can be passed over unless you're a Brontȅ completist who aims to read them all just to tick them off. I wouldn't recommend anybody select one from that trio to start with, anyway.

THE TOP FOUR

 1) Wuthering Heights

Although I've considered changing my mind over the years, because I was never a great fan of either Heathcliff or Catherine, this is still my top pick. The book holds a special place in my heart because of my circumstances when I first read it. I was 15 years old with ambitions to be a fiction author myself, and learned a lot about story craft through my own passion-driven analysis of this book. I still enjoy how various narrators make this Gothic family saga so multi-layered. Most of all, I love seeing the second generation of characters begin to mirror the mistakes of the first, until a sudden, touching twist of grace changes the trajectory. Emily Brontȅ convinces us that ancestral curses aren't set in stone. The gentle, loving final glimpses we get of my three favourite characters, Nelly, Hareton and Cathy, still make me smile whenever I think about them. (My review is here.)

2) Villette

For me, this was Charlotte's Magnus Opus. I get a sense that she poured her own self into the creation of restrained and reflective Lucy Snowe, the young English teacher in Brussels who falls for two different men. Author vulnerability is probably never rawer than this, but Charlotte lets her guard down with such lavish and stirring prose, drawing from all sorts of cultural and literary sources to make a somewhat drab and homely tale into a masterpiece. Making me fond of the overbearing, bossy Monsieur Paul gets my thumbs up too, because I normally shy away from control freaks like him. The ending is certainly controversial, but I'll give no spoilers. (My review is here.)

3) Jane Eyre

I have many friends who would place this masterpiece at the very top, and I understand why. Jane is such a refreshingly grounded and sensible main character. Her integrity and developing rapport with her intimidating employer, Mr Rochester, is delightful to read. So is his awesome epiphany. The fact that a harried, world-weary cynic like himself decides a modest young governess holds the key to all he's been looking for is pure satisfaction. In her quiet, modest way, Jane turns Rochester's life upside down. We're even willing to overlook the concealing of his deep, dark secret, which proves how successfully Charlotte wrote him, for it's pretty darned shocking. (My review is here.)

4) The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

It's cool to think how Anne, the youngest sister of all, made it her personal mission to write a revelatory story with an unforeseen, unprecedented theme: Girls, don't ever romanticize bad boys! Even her sister, Charlotte, thought Anne was making a colossal mistake to focus on an alcoholic jerk like Arthur Huntingdon as a main character. I imagine Charlotte, who had such a way with words, would have been very persuasive, but Anne gently stuck to her guns. Thank heavens she did, or we would never have had this excellent early example of feminist literature. If this novel helped just one hapless victim of domestic abuse face facts and take action like Helen, it would have been a success, but there have surely been thousands, and even more to come. (My review is here.)

THE BOTTOM TRIO

5) Shirley

This has all of Charlotte's evocative detail and brings to life her own backdrop of Yorkshire during the Industrial Revolution. But her character Caroline Helstone's way of handling her supposedly unrequited love for mill owner Robert Moore disappoints me. You wouldn't find Jane or Helen taking on such a weepy, mopey attitude, to the point of death. No bloke is worth dying with lovesickness over, let alone a calculating dude like Robert with dollar signs for eyeballs. My favourite character, Shirley herself, isn't even introduced until a couple hundred pages into the story, and even longer for her cool romantic interest, Louis Moore. So this story gets thumbs down for both irritation and longwindedness too. (My review is here.)

6) Agnes Grey

This is Anne's attempt at what Charlotte does in Villette, to fictionalize her own personal experiences. Sadly, she hasn't pulled it off half as well. Agnes comes off as a sanctimonius martyr of a governess, always ready to blame setbacks on her employers. This waters down Anne Brontȅ's valid observations, that these girls lived tough and thankless lives. It does have the admirable Mr Edward Weston going for it, but he's not enough to boost my ranking from second bottom. (My review is here.)

7) The Professor

It's Charlotte's very first novel, which some critics say should never have seen the light of day. Hear hear. It's the only Brontȅ novel I've got rid of, because the main character's attitude kept making me angry. William Crimsworth is a know-it-all, 21-year-old school teacher who looks down on others with such smug condescension, it completely undermines the underdog position Charlotte is going for with him. He is this story's hero, yet I'd hate to have had him as a teacher, or have him teach my kids! Still, it gives me great pleasure to award the wooden spoon to such a deserving book. (My review is here.)  

There's my ranking of the seven Brontȅ novels. I'd be interested to see yours, if you'd be willing to tell us in the comments below. From 1 to 7 (or however many you've read) go ahead and rank them from best to least favourite.     

'Pollyanna's Golden Horseshoe' by Elizabeth Borton

For generations, the sunny philosophy of the "glad girl" has touched the hearts of millions of readers. In this book, the beloved heroine reappears to make new friends and renew old acquaintances. How Pollyanna helps countless "square pegs" find a new niche in life and how she earns a golden horseshoe make a story of true inspiration and delight.

MY THOUGHTS:

This is the 10th Glad Book, and the last one written by Elizabeth Borton.

Jimmy is back from the Antarctic, but now weakened with frequent chest infections. His masculine pride denies the idea of not being at his prime, so his boss and family make a secret pact to give him an easier job at a men's camp in a mild climate. True to the year 1940 in which this is published, he also smokes! Come on Jimmy, giving up the fags will help your coughing, yet nobody suggests it. 

His son goes along too, to keep an eye on him, although Jimmy believes it's to give the lad some work experience. Since his son is now often referred to as 'Young Jim' rather than Junior, the elder Jimmy is sometimes called, 'The Chief.' It's easy once we get it straight in our heads.

Meanwhile, Pollyanna is given another role by Dr Bennet. She becomes a consulting director at Rehabilitation House, which is a sort of employment agency, matching desperate job seekers with their skills. Pollyanna makes it her goal to either round out a bunch of square pegs, or else find square holes in which to place them. She believes the organization needs so many improvements that rather than being a deterrent, it's impossible for her to resist accepting the job. And since the Pendletons hire Mrs Maddux, who comes each day to clean, wash dishes and help with the cooking, Pollyanna may as well volunteer at the agency, for there is time on her hands at home.

(I can't help thinking that while Harriet Lummis Smith's Pollyanna was a thriving and outspoken stay-at-home-mom who relished the creative lifestyle, Elizabeth's Borton's Pollyanna is beginning to quietly subvert Smith's stance. The very first page tells us, 'The pleasant room, the potted plants flourishing in the windows, the knitting in her hands, the iced cake waiting for supper - these were not, to her, work.' Hmm, well not since Mrs Maddux does the lion's share, I guess. You might think that with three teenagers to assign chores to, the family wouldn't need to hire an employee, but apparently they think it's money well spent.)

People Pollyanna helps include Margaret Dunn, an equestrian girl who loses all her wealth in one fell swoop; Della Treat, a circus acrobat who needs another position; Dr Auguste Michel, a slightly shabby young vet of foreign extraction; and Harold Thorkel, a homeless musician. She's also able to find performers for Mrs Harkness, an eccentric harpsichordist who lives in a castle, with a passion to form an orchestra comprised solely of ancient instruments. 

I reckon this may be one of the early novels targeted at horse-crazy girls, for two of the best 'characters' are Margaret's beloved blind Irish filly, Colleen, who must learn to jump again; and Della's very ladylike circus performer, Alice, who is getting a bit old for the ring and needs another role, just like some of the human job seekers. 

I like Borton's author dedication. She writes, 'To my Dad, who because he loves horses, may enjoy meeting Colleen and Alice.' Although Borton's dad has surely long passed away, we get this snapshot of a time and place. In a similar way, Borton refers to young Jim in his darkroom, 'busy with the magic of bringing to life views of things that had happened and would never happen again.' Books do the same, in a slightly different way from photos. 

For example, this one is full of other signs of the times. Judy collects pin-ups of Robert Donat and Charles Boyer for her bedroom wall. And although they hedge around the point, Jimmy's loved ones can't help fearing a diagnosis of tuberculosis, which was still rife back then. And Pollyanna has misgivings about the unrest over in Europe. Oh boy, it's only just 1940 when this book is published, so there's a lot of horror still to come which even the Glad Book authors are unaware of yet. I guess we might see it play out during the rest of the series.

I'd like to meet Pollyanna, and get the benefit of her 'eager, friendly mind' myself. I'm sure she'd be able to help straighten me out, in her lovely, tactful manner. As the mother of teenagers, she's still the same optimistic soul, but is now mature enough to add some wise perspective for other, younger characters. We are far enough into the series for her to utter:

'So many friends come and go. My life is chequered with friends who have been close for a year or so and then married and gone away, or have been taken away by business or health or something.' 

Yeah, isn't that just the way life rolls? Whenever we regret losing touch with old classmates, work colleagues or neighbours, as my own daughter was not long ago, well we're no different from Pollyanna. Different friends for different phases, and nobody remains static. 

(Having said that, I still find it hard to forgive the way Borton writes out Nancy in Pollyanna's Castle in Mexico!) 

So next up will be Pollyanna's Protegĕ by Margaret Piper Chalmers. I wonder what this new author will add to the canon. 

🌟🌟🌟½

 

 

'The Wolves of Willoughby Chase' by Joan Aiken

Wicked wolves and a grim governess threaten Bonnie and her cousin Sylvia when Bonnie's parents leave Willoughby Chase for a sea voyage. Left in the care of the cruel Miss Slighcarp, the girls can hardly believe what is happening to their once happy home. The servants are dismissed, the furniture is sold, and Bonnie and Sylvia are sent to a prison-like orphan school. It seems as if the endless hours of drudgery will never cease.

With the help of Simon the gooseboy and his flock, they escape. But how will they ever get Willoughby Chase free from the clutches of the evil Miss Slighcarp?

MY THOUGHTS:

 This book was a DNF from my childhood, but of the 100+ books Joan Aiken ever wrote, it pops up frequently enough on lists of recommended kids' lit to make me curious. I thought I'd read it straight through for a second opinion, since it's decades on from my first attempt.

Hmm, I can't really fault my juvenile self. Not that there is anything bad about this book, except for being a bit overdrawn and melodramatic. Yet I find myself wondering just what captivates generations of readers. Is it the alternative history of England that sparks people's imaginations, or the Steampunk vibes, or the lovely illustrations by Pat Marriott?

Here's how it all goes down.

Bonnie Green is a somewhat pampered only child who lives in a lavish mansion with her wealthy parents and plenty of doting staff members. Her father and mother are soon to commence a long voyage seeking treatment for Lady Green's illness. But Bonnie's dainty cousin Sylvia is expected any moment. Alas, so is Miss Slighcarp, a governess hired, sight unseen, for the pair of girls. She's distant kin, which is enough to recommend her to Sir Willoughby Green. 

The parents have barely departed before Miss Slighcarp reveals her true colours as a despicable bully and fortune-hunter. She's not the sort of villain who pretends to be a good guy. Slighcarp is at least no hypocrite, but begins an instant reign of terror - including a harsh boarding school for Bonnie and Sylvia. But Slighcarp underestimates Bonnie's crusader's heart, especially where fights for justice are concerned. 

The story is essentially a battle between good and evil. Slighcarp has a handful of formidable buddies but Bonnie and Sylvia have some fine allies, the most lovable being Simon, the boy who sells geese for his living. He helps them out of some really tight jams.

In the alternative British history in which this is set, packs of wild wolves have migrated from Europe through a tunnel between Calais and Dover, and now plague the British Isles. But except for one or two random stagey attack scenes, I can't see how the wolves are integral to the plot at all - which is Slighcarp and her minions versus Bonnie, Sylvia and Co. 

The write-up at the back of my library edition says, 'When Joan first showed the story to a publisher, they said it was too scary and asked if she could please take out the wolves. Of course she said No.' 

Well, I'm baffled as to why we should automatically echo that 'of course' since the wolves hardly ever do anything! 

The story even borders on outrageous when we learn Sir Willoughby Green is filthy rich, yet his sister Jane who lives in London almost dies of poverty. Sure, she's too proud to reveal her straightened circumstances, but he should've made it his business to find out. She's in no position to keep her plight hidden. Sir Willoughby strikes me as one of those oblivious doofuses in more ways than one. It gets irritating when we're coerced to regard these airheads as heroes.

However, I guess nothing is wasted. Reading this increased my vocabulary regarding some drinks that weren't familiar to me. The kindly maid Pattern gives Bonnie and Sylvia a posset, which is a hot drink with citrus and spices. There's also Bohea, a low quality tea which is all Sylvia gets to drink when she lives with poor Aunt Jane, and Simon's Metheglin, a sort of honey wine. (It would be yes please, no thanks and maybe for me.)

Any good takeaways? There's a nice reflective, pastoral section when the three kids wander the countryside with necessary slowness, since Simon says, 'There's no sense hurrying with geese. By the time we reach Smithfield they'll be thin and scrawny and nobody will want 'em.' Thumbs up for leisurely lifestyles and homely wisdom. The blacksmith's remedy for a chesty cough makes me smile too. (The breath of sheep.)

But altogether, I don't feel inclined to follow up with all the other titles in this series. There are quite a few. At least not yet, which I know may well mean never. There are so many other books to read.

I've got to give this edition thumbs up for its beautiful cover though.  

🌟🌟🌟   

Two Mini Reviews

The Pilgrim's Progress, Part Two (John Bunyan and Alan Vermilye.)  

Firstly, check out my review of the very famous Part One

This is the sequel to John Bunyan's famous masterpiece; the tale of Christian's wife and kids. Although Christiana and their four sons initially resisted Christian's pleas for them to go with him to the Celestial City, they now have second thoughts and decide to follow in his footsteps. The boys are called Matthew, Samuel, Joseph and James, but we don't find that out upfront. Their names unfold along with the story.  

It begins when Secret delivers a gold-written invitation for Christiana to embark on the same journey her husband took. Mrs Nervousness tries to talk her out of it, advocating the safety of a comfort zone, but a young woman named Mercy opts to travel with the family, although she fears she'll be rejected because she has no personal invitation. When Christiana advocates for Mercy, they discover the Lord will accept all who believe in Him, no matter how they come to be pilgrims. So we traverse the same ground as before, beginning with the Slough of Despond, the Wicket Gate, the Interpreter's House and so on. 

Some readers claim to love Part Two for its more corporate vibe, but I tend to agree with Emily of New Moon, who felt the crowd that surrounds Christiana at every turn dispels the fascination. Their guide, Greatheart, faces most of the dangerous foes on their behalf. All Christiana's party really has to do is tag along and hide behind him, which isn't my idea of a riveting adventure. 

That's not to say nothing interesting ever happens to the family at all. Matthew gets a bad stomach ache from snacking on fruit hanging over someone's fence. It turns out to be Beelzebub's orchard, so no wonder! And remember the Giant Despair. He gets his just desserts. 

Interestingly, Greatheart tells the family that although Christian faced Apollyon in the Valley of Humilation, that doesn't make it a bad place per se. It's a pretty good place to settle down. 'I've known many working men who have magnificent estates in the Valley of Humiliation, because God resists the proud and gives grace to the humble.' 

I think this has to be a 3-star read. Its slower pace and lack of challenge for the main characters probably deserves just two, but I guess the spiritual insights lift it to three. 

I didn't enjoy it half as much as the original. 

🌟🌟🌟 

The Body in the Library by Agatha Christie

Early one morning, Mrs Bantry is woken by hurried footsteps passing her bedroom door, followed by the maid's frantic news, 'There's a body in the library!' Incredibly, a pretty young girl lies dead on the library hearth, a stranger to the Bantrys and staff alike. Mrs Bantry's first impulse is to phone her friend, Jane Marple, because, 'You are so good at bodies.' 

Miss Marple's driving force for helping this investigation is to shield poor old Colonel and Mrs Bantry from the backlash of rumours which has already started buzzing, since the victim was found in their residence. Sure enough, our elderly sleuth homes in on the killer before the plethora of police have a clue. 'People have been much too credulous and believing.' Although Miss Marple is too kind and modest to say it, it's highly unlikely the police would ever have stumbled on the truth.

It's pretty clever unmasking of some cold-hearted, calculating crime. 

This is one of Christie's usual page-turners. The dead girl, Ruby Keene, turns out to be a dancer on the entertainment staff of the nearby Majestic Hotel. It's revealed that one of the wealthy guests there, the magnetic and mesmerising Conway Jefferson, had intended to adopt Ruby as his daughter and heir, which infuriates his family. His son-in-law, Mark Gaskell, calls Ruby a, 'half-baked, nitwitted little slypuss.' To daughter-in-law Adelaide, she's, 'a vulgar, gold-digging little simpleton.'

Miss Marple, as usual, draws heavily from other anecdotal examples in her memory banks to make educated conjectures. This prompts her old mate, Sir Henry Clithering, to remark, 'I must say I do dislike the way you reduce us all to a general common denominator.' I'm sure we can all anticipate Miss Marple's inevitable reply. 'Human nature is very much the same anywhere.' 

Agatha Christie gives herself a plug in this story. A nine-year-old character, Peter Carmody, boasts how he's collected autographs from all the current crime writers. 'I've got Dorothy Sayers, Agatha Christie, Dickson Carr and H. C. Bailey.' I like how she gives her mystery writing peers a shout-out as well as depicting herself as someone who would be gracious enough to sign a young boy's autograph album. 

🌟🌟🌟 

'Black Narcissus' by Rumer Godden

Under the guidance of Sister Clodagh, the youngest Mother Superior in the history of their order, five European Sisters of the Servants of Mary leave their monastery in Darjeeling, India, and make their way to remote Mopu in the foothills of the Himalayan Mountains. There, in the opulent, abandoned palace where an Indian general housed his harem, the holy sisters hope to establish a school and a health clinic. Their aim is to help combat superstition, ignorance, and disease among the mistrusting natives in the village below, and to silence the doubts of their royal benefactor's agent, the hard-drinking and somewhat disreputable Mr. Dean.

MY THOUGHTS:

This is Rumer Godden's classic tale about an Anglo-Catholic order of nuns who intend to start a convent high in the Himalayan mountains, from which they'll teach and evangelize the locals and also run a medical dispensary. The building, once a harem, is bestowed on them by General Tada Rai, an elderly, wealthy philanthropist who's deeply embarrassed by his father's original use for it. 

But the big mystery is why had the Brotherhood of Saint Saviour's School, to whom he'd bequeathed it before, quit after just five months? Their only excuses were, 'No scope,' or, 'We weren't needed.' Regardless of their true reason for pulling the plug, the Sisters feel confident that they'll succeed where the Brothers failed. 

Sister Clodagh is put in charge as the youngest Sister Superior in their order. She's a bit of a know-it-all whose flashbacks suggest that she became a nun just to save face when a love affair went sour. Sister Briony, the key-bearer, is in charge of storage and the dispensary. Sister Philippa does the laundry and garden, and Sister Blanche is considered an asset because she's a chatty and sentimental 'people' person. To Sister Clodagh's secret dismay, the intense and uptight Sister Ruth has been sent along as a teacher, because Mother Superior deemed the responsibility would be good for her. They're later joined by the dour and inflexible Sister Adela who wants to do everything strictly by the books. 

Mr Dean is the General's somewhat bumptious and cynical English agent, who is called on often to help the Sisters out with structural problems or interpretation emergencies. It all goes against his grain, since he doubts they'll last long. But never does he dream he'll make such a huge impression on at least one of the nuns!  

My favourite character isn't either of the main pair. So not the abrasive Mr Dean, whose method of dealing with problems is to get himself totally plastered. And not Sister Clodagh, whose main talent seems to be rebuking underlings, although I do understand her growing sense of helplessness. To me, this book's ray of sunshine is Dilip Rai, the General's teenage nephew and heir. This original young man eagerly wants to Anglicize himself, but is already shaped by his formative culture. He's always disarmingly respectful to the Sisters, but has no idea that his sunny openness about unmentionable subjects presses their buttons. 

I love it that the novel's title comes from the scent of his cologne, Black Narcissus, which becomes their snide nickname for him. The innocent 'Young General' becomes the embodiment of all that's sensual and erotic, a perfect match for his environment, yet symbolizing all that makes the nuns feel awkward. He justifies his arousing scent by cheerfully observing, 'Don't you think it's rather common to smell of ourselves.' 

Comparing this novel to other books I've read by Godden, I think In This House of Brede introduces more situations in which characters must draw upon the tenets of their faith to make decisions. And perhaps Kingfishers Catch Fire has more plot points where two juxtaposing cultures clash heads. In Black Narcissus, fractures often (but not always) come more from within, although they are undoubtedly triggered by the strange new setting. 

Although I prefer In This House of Brede, I still rank this book highly because the questions it raises gives it plenty of depth. 

Can it really be labelled faithfulness, to recklessly barge into a different culture and begin trying to superimpose your ways without fathoming theirs? Should an evangelistic religious order be flexible enough to take into account the worldviews of the people they live among? If so, where do you draw the line so that you retain the parameters of your prescribed faith without morphing into something entirely different? If you blur the lines, are you still effective as a Christian witness? 

I don't think Rumer Godden really intends to answer any of these questions, but just set us pondering them. The way her plot plays itself out suggests that she has no easy answers anyway. I think books like this should be mandatory reading for every wannabe missionary, and perhaps every wannabe nun.

 (A bit off topic, if I'd ever considered such a career, or more correctly, experienced such a calling, their tight wimples might be a definite deterrent, since I feel hot and constricted with fabric around my neck and throat, and find having my ears covered impedes my concentration.)

Of course, if you like pure drama, spare a thought for Mr Dean, who has a crazy, love-sick nun throw herself at him. I'm guessing this might be a main reason why Hollywood latched onto the story for their 1947 film, which I don't think I'll bother tracking down at this stage.

🌟🌟🌟🌟 

'The Alice Network' by Kate Quinn

In an enthralling new historical novel from national bestselling author Kate Quinn, two women—a female spy recruited to the real-life Alice Network in France during World War I and an unconventional American socialite searching for her cousin in 1947—are brought together in a mesmerizing story of courage and redemption.

MY THOUGHTS:

This book was a birthday present from my sister-in-law, and it has two of my favourite literary conventions going for it. Firstly, it's one of those historical novels with dual, intersecting timelines, and secondly, it weaves three real-life heroes among the fictional main characters. They were such secret, unsung heroes, I hadn't heard of them until beginning this novel. The best spies received no acclaim or praise, since their work had to be so hush hush, and this carries over into the twenty-first century. Part of Kate Quinn's aim, I think, is to finally give credit where it's due.   

Now for the story.

For the more recent thread in 1947, we're with Charlie St Clair, a 19-year-old American girl being dragged by her mother to a Swiss abortion clinic where they can get rid of Charlie's 'little problem.' However, Charlie's ulterior motive is to track down her beloved cousin, Rose, who disappeared somewhere in France. Her first port of call is connecting with a frowsy, wasted woman named Evelyn Gardiner, who works on a bureau to track refugees, and signed a report on Rose. 

The earlier thread begins in 1915 and introduces the same Evelyn (Eve), as a beautiful, newly recruited spy aged 22. World War One was a time when female spies sometimes managed to sneak beneath the radar and Captain Cecil Aylmer Cameron (one of the true historical figures) takes advantage of this. He helps train Eve for the job and sets her in France with the code name Marguerite Le Francois. 

Eve becomes part of the Alice Network, a real life group of female spies based in Lille, France, who sneakily gather information about German troop movement and battle plans. Her undercover job is to wait on Nazi clientele at Le Lethe Restaurant, run by detestable enemy sympathiser, Renē Bordelon. 

Eve's close comrades are the jaunty and talented courier Lili (real life Louise de Bettignes) and the grim and glowering Violette (real life Leonie van Houtte). Since our impression of the wide-eyed, lovely Eve of 1915 differs so much from the grumpy, drunken recluse of 1947 with her painfully crippled hands, of course we are driven to find out what happened. 

Whew, it's a wild ride and an eye-opener alright, but parts of this novel don't sit well with me.

(There are some minor spoilers here, but I can't discuss this book without brushing over them. So proceed carefully.)

1) The whole thing becomes an intensely bitter, personal revenge mission. Haggard 54-year-old Eve decides she absolutely has to be the one to kill her old nemesis, Renē, with her own busted hands. This blinkered drivenness, against the sound advice of the young couple she has come to love, may seem impactful plotwise, but it's also pretty darn creepy to me, suggesting she's become unhinged.

2) The story feels somewhat contrived to give Charlie as good a personal reason to hate Renē as Eve does. It's farfetched to believe that Renē could possibly have his dirty fingers stuck in two evil pies spanning both wars. But according to the story, this fictional baddie is pivotal in two crucial historical events about 30 years apart. Come on! 

3) I thoroughly hate that Eve would even for one moment consider herself a failure for supposedly blurting secrets to the enemy while she was unconscious. Coming after the sacrificial charade she played for so long, plus having her hands mangled and opium forced on her, it's appalling to imagine she wouldn't extend herself an ounce of grace or forgiveness. Not to mention Violette resenting her for being a 'Judas Bitch.' This harsh attitude sets our minds against Violette, whose real-life counterpart may not have been so unreasonable at all.  

4) All that sleeping with the enemy is just horrifying and icky. I know it's meant to signify just how much a great spy like Eve was willing to sacrifice, but it leaves a bad taste.

5) I find it just a bit slick and stagy at the end. And dare I say easily done. That Baudelaire bust just had to be in the right place at the right time. Whenever life does deliver such poetic justice, I doubt it's quite so pat.

All up, I think Kate Quinn crosses a line to melodrama and staginess, which is a shame about such a huge, ambitious writing project that had so much going for it. Still a well flowing, easy reading, often enjoyable read. 

🌟🌟🌟 

'The Shipping News' by E. Annie Proulx

At thirty-six, Quoyle, a third-rate newspaperman, is wrenched violently out of his workaday life when his two-timing wife meets her just deserts. He retreats with his two daughters to his ancestral home on the starkly beautiful Newfoundland coast, where a rich cast of local characters all play a part in Quoyle's struggle to reclaim his life. As three generations of his family cobble up new lives, Quoyle confronts his private demons--and the unpredictable forces of nature and society--and begins to see the possibility of love without pain or misery.

A vigorous, darkly comic, and at times magical portrait of the contemporary American family, The Shipping News shows why E. Annie Proulx is recognized as one of the most gifted and original writers in America today.

MY THOUGHTS:

 This was the Pulitzer prizewinner of 1994. I grabbed a copy from a free street library, planning to add it to the small pile I intend to read.

Its hero, Quoyle, is a shy and self-conscious social misfit. Taking up far more space with his gauche and ugly self than he'd like to, Quoyle has just been widowed. His villainous wife, Petal, is killed in a car smash as she cheats on him. Meanwhile, his parents have made a successful suicide pact. Poor Quoyle takes off with his two young daughters and his aunt to Newfoundland, the icy cold province of their ancestry.

Quoyle acquires a job as a reporter at The Gammy Bird, a rickety local rag staffed by a couple of rough-as-guts old men. We're told it's 'a tough little paper that looked life right in its shifty, bloodshot eyes.' At the age of 36, Quoyle will be the youngest on the team. The founding editor, Jack Buggit, assigns him the job of reporting car wrecks plus the shipping news. Quoyle will have to list arrivals and departures, and is later assigned to write feature articles about one vessel each week.

Poor Quoyle feels in way over his head, from his grief-triggering reporting role to the prospect of getting around in a boat. What's more, he discovers that he comes from a wild and disreputable bunch of ancestors whose 'filthy blood runs in his veins.' Yet in this daunting new setting, he somehow finds his stride and gains confidence. There might even be a bit of romance in store for bereft Quoyle. 

His aunt's words prove true when she says, 'Of course you can do the job. We face up to awful things because we can't go around them or forget them. What we have to get over, somehow we do. Even the worst things.' It's gratifying to see things turn out well for these longsuffering characters, although I can't imagine how Quoyle and his aunt muster so much money to spend on costly expenses like major house repairs, boats and trucks. After all, he works at a modest local newspaper with a piddling staff and she has set herself up as a yacht upholsterer, a niche business if ever there was one. Still, at least they pay lip service to having to watch their expenses.    

What strikes me most is the fine line between beauty and ugliness. On my back cover, the Sunday Telegraph calls this book, 'As stark and ruggedly beautiful as the storm-battered coast of Newfoundland itself.' Yet Proulx consistently uses repugnant imagery. How about, 'The bay crawled with whitecaps like maggots seething in a broad wound.' Or, 'The rock was littered with empty crab shells, still wet with rust-coloured body fluids.' It took me no time to realise that reflecting the harsh events of life with the most sordid minutiae of nature is simply Annie Proulx's style, for Quoyle, his aunt, his love interest and even his young daughters all have horrific backstories. Well, if others want to call it beautiful, I won't argue.

She does something similar with characters. I started to notice early on that nobody is ever depicted as nice looking, but written with every wart, wrinkle and blemish mercilessly highlighted, even those their owners would prefer to keep hidden. Quoyle himself is described with, 'features as bunched as kissed fingertips, eyes the colour of plastic, monstrous chin a freakish shelf jutting out from his lower face.' He still manages to win the love of a good young widow. Perhaps compared to everyone else we meet within these pages, Quoyle is actually a Casanova, or at least the handsomest guy to be found. 

Ranking this book is a challenge. I really like Quoyle. His mild surprise at finally getting something right after 36 years of being called a screw-up and a failure is heartwarming. I love the chapter in which he sticks up for himself when Tert Card, the second-in-charge under Buggit, attempts to change Quotle's article about the infamous oil rigs. And it's satisfying to see how his earnest and gentle parenting style breaks through the hang-ups his girls presumably inherited from their uncaring mother. Perhaps most of all, it's great when it strikes Quoyle that he can break the mould set by his no-good ancestors. For all that, I never really looked forward to picking this book up to continue the story but felt as if I was forcing myself to do it. And I was puzzled as to why I kept wanting it to finish, when there is such a lot to like. 

I've decided all the small talk, coarse joking and lengthy anecdotes tend to drag on a bit. It's the sort of realism we all get such a lot of in our actual lives. I want books to help me escape from that sort of tedium instead of shovelling on more. Maybe Proulx has succeeded in making these in-your-face Newfoundlanders so real that they come across as a bit boring. Or I'm willing to admit that perhaps I'm just one of those people who could never assimilate easily into the Killick-Claw community. 

🌟🌟🌟   

 

'Jonathan Livingston Seagull' by Richard Bach

This is a story for people who follow their hearts and make their own rules...people who get special pleasure out of doing something well, even if only for themselves...people who know there's more to this living than meets the eye: they’ll be right there with Jonathan, flying higher and faster than ever they dreamed.

MY THOUGHTS:

This was the bestselling fiction title for consecutive years 1972 and 1973, and its popularity spread by word of mouth through a world that was supposedly starving for its message. I was a toddler during its heyday, but I remember some of my unimpressed friends being forced to study it at High School in the mid eighties. I was in a different English class. Now, at last I've decided to put this runaway bestseller to the test.

It's all about how the intrepid Jonathan shuns the breakfast flock of birds to practice maneuvers way out of their league, such as eagle swoops. If there was a seagull Olympics, he would absolutely ace it. But instead he becomes a feathered pariah, since his peer group simply can't understand him. To them, eating is the most important part of life, not flight. 

 If I hadn't skipped reading this as a teenager, I might've easily been fired up by its message. It's hard to say in retrospect. At my current stage of life, I probably gravitate more toward the breakfast flock, whose lifestyle brings its own type of satisfaction if you manage to snag a chip or two. I guess as we age, a life of normalcy in which we feel no need to stand out from the crowd gains more appeal every day. The fact that this little fable sold like hotcakes in the early seventies suggests to me a horde of readers who each considered themselves to be radical, far-reaching Jonathans; lots of wannabe high-flyers who shunned the notion of simply scrambling after fish heads. In other words, few people admit to belonging in the breakfast flock, even though it contains millions of members. 

I believe we can still take the story's basic message on board, although some of us may choose to turn it upside down. I tend to think after decades of inundation with bestselling literature like this, it's now more radical to embrace a lifestyle of ordinariness without growing restless. Instead of speedy stunts in the air currents, we understand the peacefulness of bobbing in the shallows.  

This book really evokes the psychedelic seventies in which it took off. The story gets all spacey and strange, introducing notions of different incarnations, astral travel and higher spiritual planes until we finally reach some sort of enlightenment. And our friend Jonathan learns so much, he gets to skip several evolutions. It's all a bit way out and esoteric the further on we read. 

I can see how people call the book beautiful. The photos by Russell Munson are evocative and gorgeous. Jonathan belongs to a species of gull with golden eyes, yet most of the southern hemisphere seagulls I'm familiar with have either white or beady black orbs, so it increased my education. And the author Bach himself was a pilot, so he wrote his knowledge of aerodynamics into Jonathan's specky stunts, which is also pretty cool. 

But on the whole, I tend to think I'd be nowhere in this seagull centric world. I'm probably not aggressive and pushy enough to survive for long in the breakfast flock after all, yet I'm certainly not ambitious and driven enough to be a super flyer like Jonathan. Hi to any of my fellow lone, retiring gulls who may be reading this. 

Even though it surely helped define a decade's heartbeat, I can't quite bring myself to give this story three stars since I felt like putting it down several times. A bit too woo woo for me. 

🌟🌟½     

'Pollyanna's Door to Happiness' by Elizabeth Borton

MY THOUGHTS:  

It's a pleasure to get back to the Pollyanna books after a break of several months. 

This time Jimmy sets off for a year on an engineering job where Pollyanna and the kids can't follow. He's an eleventh hour team member joining a high-profile expedition to the South Pole. I must say, he breaks the news to his wife in a tactless, un-Jimmylike way, along these lines. 'Chance of a lifetime... make or break career opportunity... but if you say the word, Pollyanna, I'll turn it down right now.' What does he expect her to do?

Alas, Pollyanna is true to character. Remember in Pollyanna of the Orange Blossoms when she didn't tell Jimmy she was pregnant before he shipped off to the war? This time she hides info she's just discovered that their bank has gone broke. Jimmy assumes his family will live off his savings. It seems strange that he wouldn't check such a vital detail, even with just a day's notice, but oh well, whatever. 

The upshot is that Pollyanna joins the jobseekers in Boston. A lot of her desperation makes no sense in the context of the whole series. Why look for modest rooms to rent, instead of staying with Aunt Ruth and Uncle John, who are loaded with dough? Even if the older couple are away on one of his research trips, isn't that all the more reason why their close family members should move into that beautiful mansion? But John and Ruth don't even get a mention in this story. Again, oh well, whatever. 

Pollyanna ends up as the non-professional assistant of Dr Bennet, a psychiatrist. Her job will be regular chit chat with several selected patients to work her Glad Game magic on them. It sounds dodgy to readers in our era, for somebody with no training whatsoever in the mental health sector to be hired for such a responsibility, but this was the 1930s. Dr Bennet even sets her up in an apartment conducive to entertaining. In other words, Pollyanna will be getting paid for being herself.

At first I facepalmed, for Dr Bennet is doing the very thing Aunt Polly dreaded during Pollyanna's childhood; that is making Pollyanna feel self-conscious and put on the spot. Surely monetizing Pollyanna's gift will take away her beloved spontaneity, especially now that she has to write up formal reports on her new 'friends.' I expected it to destroy the whole spirit of the series, but somehow it works! 

Pollyanna has a humble, caring attitude, holds the doctor's trust seriously, and the job takes a great toll on her. The patients themselves are an interesting bunch. There's a novelist, Rada Masters, who has a complex that people are stealing from her. Deborah Dangerfield is a poor little rich teenager who keeps running away from home, and bereft Mrs Garden keeps shoplifting baby clothes without even realizing. Then there's poor Mr Bagley, a transport company director whose wife and son both die in separate accidents on his vehicles! No wonder Pollyanna gets a bit burned out. 

She has some wise insights about how the human mind works, after all her years of fascination with people.

Pollyanna reflects:

 'Curbed and exercised for our entertainment, the imagination gives us pure happiness. Running wild though, and substituting itself and its manufactured dreams for reality... it plunges us into problems, despair, mental troubles. It's a thing like fire; capable of infinite good and comfort if harnessed and guided and understood, and capable of injuring us in uncounted ways if we permit it to rule us.' 

And again:

'Sometimes we think strange things. They are like little sores on our minds, like measles or chicken pox. We get over them. They aren't natural things... don't last forever.'

Pollyanna's children are 13, 10 and 7, which is a few years younger than they were said to be in the previous book (Pollyanna's Castle in Mexico)! Elizabeth Borton messes up her own timeline, but the kids ring more true at these younger ages. Junior acquires a part time job, helping a newspaper office with his photography skills, and grapples with his own conscience crisis of whether or not it's ethical to throw in his lot with the snoopy paparazzi. Delicate Judy aspires to be a professional dancer. At this stage I wonder whether sturdy Ruth, the plain little plodder, will blossom out and eclipse her talented brother and sister in some remarkable way. Time will tell.

Here's a funny speculation. When Ruth assumes her daddy will be working close to Santa Claus, Junior and Judy exchange amused glances because she still believes in Santa Claus, yet neither seem to twig that she's chosen the wrong polar region. Since Elizabeth Borton has got so many other things wrong within her own stories, I can't help wondering if she realised it herself.   

Overall, I enjoyed this far more than Elizabeth Borton's two previous Glad Books, in which she went off the rails, turning the stories into sensationalist adverts for their lavish settings. There's been some much-needed course correction here, and she's finally writing more in the initial spirit of Eleanor H. Porter and Harriet Lummis Smith. This book takes place in a normal city suburb with several people walking around beneath black clouds of depression and despair which Pollyanna helps them clear. Hooray, that's all we really want from a Pollyanna book. It's formulaic maybe, yet not predictable, because there is so much scope.  

🌟🌟🌟½  

Next up will be Pollyanna's Golden Horsehoe (the last of Elizabeth Borton's offerings, whew!)

'The Secret Adversary' by Agatha Christie

Tommy Beresford and Prudence 'Tuppence' Cowley are young, in love… and flat broke. Just after Great War, there are few jobs available and the couple are desperately short of money. Restless for excitement, they decide to embark on a daring business scheme: Young Adventurers Ltd.—"willing to do anything, go anywhere."

MY THOUGHTS: 

We are introduced to young job-seekers Tommy and Tuppence, the only Christie characters destined to age through the decades in real time alongside their author. In this debut they are babes in their early twenties, broke and anxious for work. The year is 1920. Tuppence Cowley possesses elfin charm and oodles of self confidence and energy. Tommy Beresford is a 'pleasantly ugly' young ginger who prides himself on his common sense. Friends since childhood, they agree to start a new business venture named 'The Young Adventurers', in which they'll hire themselves out to anyone who needs them.

An eavesdropper soon plunges the pair deep into espionage and danger. These kids must think on their feet and rely on their wits more than they'd ever expected. (So one moral is don't start a business unless you're certain you can deliver on your hype.) 

Tommy and Tuppence find themselves embroiled in the search for Jane Finn, a young passenger aboard the sinking Lusitania in 1915, who was entrusted with some vital documents as she boarded a lifeboat. Neither Jane nor the precious, inflammatory papers have been seen for five years and foul play is suspected. 

Hot on the trail of the two Ts, who are hot on Jane's trail, is the titular secret adversary, a criminal mastermind who goes by the modest alias, 'Mr Brown.' This slick crook is renowned for popping up in unexpected places, posing as a nonentity. But although others know his methodology in retrospect, nobody has caught him at it. Can the formidable Mr Brown be foiled by a couple of green youths like Tuppence and Tommy?  

One intelligence agent tells them, 'My experts, working in stereotypical ways, have failed. You will bring imagination and an open mind to the task.' Perhaps the enjoyment of this novel hinges on the willingness of us readers to accept that reasoning for involving total noobs. 

If we are happy to swallow that premise, it's a fun read! The story sets us on edge, looking for Mr Brown in the unlikeliest places. Breakthroughs sometimes rely on the slightest details and surprises follow on the tail of each other. And perhaps because Christie isn't a deft hand at writing romance, the romantic snippets are sort of awkward and endearing.

The story takes place only five years after the disaster it draws from; the sinking of the passenger ship Lusitania by a German submarine during WW1. I guess Agatha Christie joins the ranks of opportunistic fiction authors who profit from still raw grief, for over 1000 passengers were drowned in this tragedy. But hey, Covid pandemic novels started hitting our shelves barely three years after 2020, so story fodder is still being left to the discretion of writers and publishers. 

Although this story is not totally flawess, relying heavily on coincidences a few too many times, I think it still deserves full marks for its wonderful twists and subtle clues, especially considering Christie was still quite young and this was just her second novel. She was excellent at anticipating not only my initial suspicions but even my subsequent guesses when I thought I was being smart. 

One thing that puzzles me is why characters such as Tommy initially find the name 'Jane Finn' so outlandish and remarkable. It strikes me as quite a fine and run-of-the-mill name. Would you pause in amazement if you heard some stranger refer to 'Jane Finn'? I wouldn't. If I was able to step into the pages, I'd ask him why he found it so odd.

As for Jane herself, wow, what a memorable character. Talk about taking a trust seriously on behalf of her country. 

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟  

'Romancing Mark Twain' novels by E. E. Burke

I'm surely not the only reader who finds Mark Twain's famous boy duo lingers in our imaginations long after we finish the books. He wrote two very different classics about two equally divergent boys. It has become easy for Twain fans to ask others if they'd choose 'Team Tom' or 'Team Huck.' The only thing these two characters have in common is that they greatly admire each other. 

Tom is a power personality while Huck is a peacemaker.

Tom is choleric, while Huck, I think, slides into phlegmatic.

Tom crams his head with fancy and folklore to arguably unhealthy levels, while Huck tends to be more practical and hands-on, which, I think gives him the survival edge the poor kid needs.  

Tom revels in being the centre of attention while Huck shuns the spotlight. 

Tom is a controller while Huck hates making waves. 

While searching for any fan fiction, I was delighted to stumble across these two books in my scrolling. E.E. Burke has written two bona fide romances about Tom and Huck as adults - the perfect indulgence to feature for Valentine's Day. Kudoes to her! I enjoyed them both immensely. And it's fitting that just as Mark Twain's own two books about this duo differ markedly from each other, so do Burke's. 

Check out my initial reviews of Tom and Huck. 

Now for what I dare to call these sexy spin-offs :) 

Tom Sawyer Returns

This novel embroils some of our favourite characters in Civil War espionage.

We readers are probably all sentimental enough to imagine Becky and Tom end up tying the knot, even though as tweenies they infuriate and offend each other quite as often as they are friends.

Becky Thatcher has grown into an attractive but deeply troubled young woman, whose father has been accused of treason; namely printing and distributing seditious propaganda. And her cousin, Jeff, although dearly loved, has placed his uncle, the judge, in some hot water. 

Tom Sawyer is the sudden arrival Becky never expected to see again. He's a spy who gets knocked unconscious as he heads straight for the Thatchers' house. Tom knows he was sent there for a reason, but partial amnesia has obscured whatever it was. With his attraction to Becky rekindled, he fears it won't be anything that will endear him to her. Especially since his cryptic orders were, 'Bring in the evidence you were sent to collect against Judge Thatcher.' Is it possible Tom could be involved in an evil mission and not even remember it? 

This story brings out a pleasing vulnerability in Tom which Twain never really taps into. Yet I can fully believe that with Tom's orphan background, it always existed. Another thing I love is how Tom's secret agent duties prevent him from boasting about his own heroism in the old way. Enforced modesty must almost kill this famous show-off. 

Becky fights her love for the unwelcome Tom, especially now that she's engaged to his old rival, none other than the smug and dapper Alfred Temple. Alongside the main couple, I love the reappearance of other familiar faces from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Intervening years have turned Alfred into a man whose motivation Mark Twain surely never foresaw, yet I'm willing to bet he'd be a big fan of the direction in which Burke takes Alfred in this story. Then there's Amy Lawrence, a dour and reclusive young woman who now resents Becky for another reason than her sway over Tom's fickle affection. 

A couple of faces I missed were Joe Harper and Aunt Polly, although I can see there was no place for them in this tightly woven plot. (It's easy to assume Aunt Polly must have passed away.)

I think most of all, I love how E. E. Burke has developed the character of young Sid. Far more than Tom's insipid, goody-goody, tell-tale little brother, he is now the youngest ever appointed Provost Marshall, or head of local police. Sid is shown to have an intriguing inner life of his own. It's a hard pill for Tom to swallow to accede to Sid, whether or not he can figure out if he's even trustworthy. 

There is plenty of action which proves lethal for some and a close shave for others. Some sneaky disguises are also in order, some on the spur of the moment. A very clever book which I thoroughly enjoyed.

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

Taming Huck Finn

A romance featuring a disgruntled and heart-torn Huckleberry Finn that takes place largely on an old paddle steamer. Yes please! 

The story begins at Atchison, Kansas. Huck Finn, having recuperated from a serious gunshot wound, is almost ready to seek work as a steamboat pilot for which he's been trained. There, he receives a bombshell in the form of a lawyer accompanied by a friendly little boy. Huck's one-time guardian, Widow Douglas, has passed away and left custody of her only grandson to him. While he's still reeling from this news, an intense and bitter young woman shows up. Hallie MacBride wants to claim her nephew, who is her only remaining family member. 

This spurs one of Huck's famous conscience issues. Although he considers himself an unfit guardian for a child, bad memories of his personal experience with Miss Watson drive him to look out for young Tad. He wouldn't forgive himself for leaving an impressionable and lively young lad with another sour spinster - which is his initial impression of Hallie. Huck has no idea that a deeply hurtful experience has branded its mark on her soul. 

For her part, Hallie never anticipates how disarming and irresistible she'll find her infuriating adversary.

And for the record, young Tad badly wants to stay with Huck. He seems by far the cooler option for an eight-year-old. 

There's a lot of fascinating detail about the major responsibilities of a riverboat pilot, including subtle peril spotting in the water and interpretation of other signs, such as wind direction. These days are long before motor cars, so steamboat pilots were really the only drivers as we know them. I didn't miss the nice little Easter egg that Huck started learning his skill under an old pilot named Samuel Clemens. 

The chemistry between Hallie and Huck is sizzling hot, and a formidable enemy posing as a friend raises the danger stakes sky high. My only misgiving at the very outset was scepticism that Widow Douglas would assign guardianship of her precious grandson to Huck without ever telling him beforehand. But before long the convincing storyline won me over. I'm willing to believe that desperation and fond nostalgia made her do it. 

And what a swoon-worthy ending, as our heroine Hallie might say herself.   

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

Oh, by the way, do you consider yourself to belong in Team Tom or Team Huck?      

'Nothing Else but Miracles' by Kate Albus

From the author of A Place to Hang the Moon comes a hopeful World War II story about three scrappy siblings on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

This is one of the several WW2 themed novels I plan to read this year. I'm glad the springboard is such a delightful, whimsical read. 

MY THOUGHTS: 

Like almost every other reviewer, I was a great fan of Kate Albus' first novel, A Place to Hang the Moon. I was anxious to read this second story ever since I found out it was another WW2 tale about kids on the home front, but set in New York instead of England. 

 I love this survival story about the three Byrne siblings with their marine-themed names. Dory's father is off fighting somewhere in France. Her brother Fish is technically too young to be in charge of Dory and little Pike, but desperate times call for desperate measures. Their section of New York City's Lower Eastside is quite snug and Mr. Byrne is confident that the neighborhood will provide his children with what they need. This stroke of optimism intrigued me from the get-go, since we so often hear the opposite, that you need to watch your back in impersonal and dangerous big cities. Paired with the title and the middle-school target audience, I anticipated a treat.

Of course sudden strokes of misfortune are part of war and storytelling alike. Mr. Reedy, the diabolical new landlord of their apartment block, heckles the trio with threats of an orphanage, at least for the younger two. That's when Dory and the boys sneak off to squat in an old ghost-hotel that's been boarded up for over half a century.

I wish this book had been in print back when I was homeschooling my kids. There is a treasure-trove of leads to follow up, including ethnic food from delis and cafes to find recipes for, and wonderful nostalgic old 1940s music to listen to.

However it's worth mentioning that some other reviewers including homeschooling parents panned the story because of mischievous Dory's flagrant disobedience. She flouts the authority of her brother and teachers whenever it suits her, which according to some readers gives a dubious message that misbehavior pays off.

 While I see their point, they may be throwing the baby out with the bathwater. The cool flip side of their opinion is that sometimes going our own way, shrugging off conventional caution and pushing through fear may yield astounding rewards. There are times when sneakiness and boldness are required for original thinkers. Rather than being the naughty girl some people call her, Dory Byrne may, in fact, possess the germ of an entrepreneurial spirit. Dare I say that in this respect, she's an excellent example for kids.

I'm possibly biased to love this book, because Fish, Dory and Pike are an almost perfect gender, age and character match for my three children, who are now grown up. I've seen many interactions like the Byrne kids' play out for real in my own household. My older son treated his little brother with the same sort of tender sweetness Fish shows Pike, while their sister in the middle was more inclined to be blunt, practical and adventurous. That's another reason why I wish we had this during their childhood.

What more can I say? I love the comfort Dory takes on board from the strength and character she sees on the face of the Statue of Liberty. And as for a certain diamond, some call it an annoying red herring but I think it's a good twist; true to life and unpredictable.

Yes, I'd add this to my pile of warm and cosy reads. 

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 

'The Good Earth' by Pearl S Buck

I've decided to work my way through a small stack of Pulitzer Prizewinning novels I've picked up here and there, before I realised what they share in common. This one was from a small, jam-packed secondhand bookshop near the sea at Port Eliot. I already knew, from a list I'd printed off, that it was the bestselling and Pulitzer winning fiction title the year my Dad was born. I knew it would be worth the few dollars I paid, regardless of what I thought of the story. 

MY THOUGHTS:  

This book was the bestselling fiction title of 1931 and 1932, winning Pearl Buck the 1932 Pulitzer Prize. In 1938 she also won the Nobel Literature Prize for her 'rich and truly epic descriptions of peasant life in China.' Eighty or ninety years down the track, I'm wondering if now she'd be more likely to be accused of cultural appropriation, for Buck was American, although she lived for a time with her missionary parents in China. Gone are the days a writer can simply spin an imaginative yarn based on meticulous research or close observation of others without getting in hot water.

Anyway, I digress.

This novel spans the life of its main character, Wang Lung, from the eve of his wedding day as a peasant farmer to his elderly years, as the head of a wealthy family. His passion for the land (the good earth of the title) combined with his savvy real-estate skills and the cleverness of his wife, earns him huge material success. But the story also takes its characters through some very rough patches of famine and war. 

This book's outstanding character is Wang Lung's wife, the under-appreciated O-lan. He purchases her, sight unseen, from the House of Hwang, the local gentry. O-lan is one of their plainest slaves, since Wang couldn't afford a pretty girl. There is nothing remotely romantic about the transaction, except that prior to their first night together, Wang Lung decides to wash his entire body for the first time since his boyhood. 

The young woman's exceptional frugality and initiative revolutionises his life, boosting Wang's comfort level in ways he'd never imagined. Still, he simply considers that he'd got what he paid for. O-lan even delivers her own babies quietly behind a closed door and then returns to her farmwork. No wonder we're often told the smile on her lips rarely reaches her eyes. She's regarded as slow and stupid because she's quiet, but it's evident to readers that her insightful wisdom keeps the household afloat. Whenever quiet O-lan speaks, we readers sit up and pay attention, knowing that she must consider the import worth the effort. 

 I think the crux of the story is that every upwards financial move chips away at a person's character, reducing our ability to enjoy what we've achieved. (Sorry to all the rich people out there.) Wang Lung's initial satisfaction with simple blessings from nature and willingness to work hard morphs over the years into a grasping, irritable, restless personality. Yet he retains enough of his early passion for the land to realise, too late, that his sons have lost sight of what he held most precious. There is a tinge of inevitability to the progression, since Wang makes sure to provide the boys with the culture and education he never had. Only later does it dawn on Wang Lung that in the process, their hearts were infused with entirely different values from his own early ones.

Whenever the urgency of simply living is no longer an issue, nothing suits Wang Lung, including his own wife. For when you've 'arrived' nothing that used to suffice seems good enough anymore.

 He's really a total arse, but we are challenged to wonder whether that's just human nature. It's darkly comedic when the oldest son goes through a phase of moodiness because he has the leisure to. Then instead of feeling irritated because the kid is a pain in the neck, Wang Lung feels proud that his boy exhibits the disgruntled traits of rich young men. We're prompted to ponder a chicken-or-egg sort of a question. Does a person's personality shape their wealth building or does their wealth building shape their personality?

Toward the end of the book, we are told, 'The people who used to say Wang the Farmer now said Wang the Big Man or Wang the Rich Man.' Therefore he is technically a huge success, but does pay a price for something that brings no real happiness. 

And the ending reminds us that we can't take any of it with us.

I'm giving this book just three stars because I found it so triggering, especially regarding the sorry plight of females. It left me with a melancholic readers' hangover. But I'm sure many other readers may give it five stars for the very same reasons. My back cover blurb calls it, 'Pearl Buck's magnificent Pulitzer prizewinning novel.' Well, lots of sordid and desperate stuff happens over a long time span, if that's what they mean by magnificent. I guess it is rather Biblical in its scope. Wang Lung's family saga puts me in mind of the patriarch Jacob's family in the Book of Genesis, with poor old O-lan taking on the Leah role. 

Perhaps I'll put it out there as a timely recommendation for anyone who's ever felt taken for granted. No matter who we are, I can guarantee that O-lan and her daughters fare far, far worse. The horrific foot binding is just the tip of the iceberg. 

🌟🌟🌟

'The Mysterious Affair at Styles' by Agatha Christie

This year's Read Christie Challenge has the changing decades of publication as its theme. And January's choice is this novel that set the ball rolling.  

MY THOUGHTS: 

This is the story that started it all. It's Agatha Christie's debut mystery, written in 1916 and published in 1920. She first introduces us to Hercule Poirot, who is already considered one of the finest detectives of his day. Belgian refugees were fleeing from the thick of World War One and arriving in Christie's home town, to which we owe the conception of her most famous personality. We also meet other recurring characters; the ferret-featured Inspector Jimmy Japp, and the surprisingly youthful Captain Arthur Hastings, a 30-year-old soldier invalided home from the Front. I admit, I'd never imagined him as such a relative baby before.

Young Hastings is invited to stay at the grand country estate of Styles, where he spent time in his boyhood. His old friends, John and Lawrence Cavendish still live there with their stepmother, Mrs Inglethorp, although she has now married her male secretary, a far younger man everyone suspects of gold-digging. When poor Mrs Inglethorp suffers an agonising death in bed late one night, an autopsy reveals a dose of strychnine killed her. But was it administered to her nightcap cup of coffee or her supper mug of cocoa? The finger of suspicion points straight at her unpopular husband, but Inglethorp turns out to have a rock solid alibi. Yet it's unthinkable that her stepsons, grateful boarder or loyal staff members could have done it. Hastings' cleverest move in the whole story is dashing off to beg Poirot's help to figure out the mess. 

Hastings sets up his pattern of being a bit of a doofus, for which he's teased by Poirot throughout all their subsequent cases, committing errors of extremes. He either skims the surface of clues where he should have probed deeper, or flails in way too deep, jumping to rash conclusions and letting his imagination run away with him. As Poirot says, Hastings has no instincts. And he's also a sucker for flattery.

I like this passage, in which Poirot muses about the crook and gives Hastings a backhanded compliment.

'Yes, he is intelligent. But we must be more intelligent. We must be so intelligent that he does not suspect us of being intelligent at all.'

I acquiesced.

'There, mon ami, you will be of great assistance to me.'

I was pleased with the compliment. There were times when I hardly thought that Poirot appreciated me at my true worth.  

'Yes,' he continued, staring at me thoughtfully. 'You will be invaluable.' 

Yet we readers are challenged not to be too hard on Hastings, since it's written in such a way that we probably won't piece together the solution from the patchwork of clues right in front of us either. I didn't, although I did foresee a nice little romance.  

I enjoyed the intro to this edition, written by Agatha Christie herself. She describes how she was inspired to write this story by her wartime work in a Red Cross dispensary, similar to the character of Cynthia Murdoch in this story. Christie admits that her war work helped her establish poisons and drugs as her very favourite murder weapon in her stories. Turns out she felt far less confident with firearms. 'People can't, of course, be poisoned every time, but I'm happier when they are. Especially the drug that allows the victim to gasp out one, unnecessarily cryptic sentence before expiring.' 

I'm glad she could be so tongue-in-cheek about what turned out to be such a brilliant career for her. And I agree that for a debut murder mystery by a young author, this was pretty good and watertight. 

🌟🌟🌟½   

'Kilmeny of the Orchard' by Lucy Maud Montgomery

Later this year will be Lucy Maud's Montgomery's 150th birthday. It's an excellent reason to focus on her novels. The Race Who Knows Joseph Book Club on Bookstagram will be reading them in publication order throughout 2024. I decided to join them, starting with this story from her youth.

MY THOUGHTS: 

This short romance novel was from early in Montgomery's writing career. I believe she wrote it in her teens, and it was published in 1910, not long after Anne of Green Gables. Now, sit tight while I try to explain why this story makes me see red. 

Eric Marshall is a young university graduate and dreamboat; a total package sort of guy all the girls drool over. And he's already being quizzed by his father and friends, at the age of 24, as to why he isn't inclined to engage himself to one of the many lovely girls he knows. The answer turns out to be that he's waiting for absolute perfection. 

Anyway, Eric accepts a plea from his ailing friend, Larry, to come and do some substitute school teaching until he recuperates. There in the little backwater town on Prince Edward Island, Eric chances upon a lonely and romantic old orchard where a reclusive, stunningly beautiful girl plays violin like an angel. She turns out to be Kilmeny Gordon, whose initial reaction to Eric is one of sheer terror. She's never set eyes on another man outside of her immediate family and the egg peddler, let alone one as drop-dead gorgeous as Eric. They strike up a friendship which becomes rock solid in a matter of days. 

Eric has finally discovered a girl whose beauty ticks his high standards. Her wide-eyed naivety, and inclination to treat his every word as an oracle probably exceeds his wildest dreams. She's a one-dimensional character but that suits him, for he is another.

Kilmeny cannot communicate except through her violin and her trusty slate and chalk. Her backstory involves an intriguing possibility for her muteness, since there is absolutely nothing wrong with her vocal apparatus. Even though she quickly grows to love Eric wholeheartedly, Kilmeny refuses to marry him unless, by some miracle, she acquires the power of speech. She believes it would be unfair on him to put up with a mute wife. (There's a nice bit of ableism right there, but hold on, the 'isms' keep coming.) 

Eric's good friend David Baker, a clever speech specialist, deems Kilmeny's silence psychological, which makes the whole stalemate extra tricky. 

Maybe I'd rank this book higher if not for the plight of poor Neil, the boy of Italian descent who's partly Kilmeny's adopted cousin and partly a convenient plot device. The Gordon family are convinced they've always done right by Neil, who was born beneath their roof. They even, 'had him baptised, same as any Christian child.' Nice one, dudes! Reading between the lines, it's clear to the modern reader (although apparently not to LMM herself), that he's always suffered filthy racism and been kept at arm's length by his nearest and dearest, who just can't see what they've done to him. Neil, in his own tragic way, bears a 'curse of the innocent' as much as Kilmeny is said to do. 

It's no wonder he has a sullen countenance! And I totally get why, after loving and caring for Kilmeny for so long, he'd develop an intense grudge against Eric, this smug Marty Stu character who breezes in and wins everyone's hearts after three measly weeks. 

Neil's running away is treated as a blessing, which elicits a sigh of relief all round. No member of the Gordon family will try to track him down, even though he's been with them since he drew his first breath. Uncle Thomas' self-righteous, 'We have cared for him as our own...' is super-hypocritical in light of his earlier instruction to Kilmeny not to make an equal of Neil. Yet he can't see it. You see, to them, the tainted Mediterranean blood that flows through Neil's veins makes him a potentially volatile, embarrassing second-class citizen. My gosh, the whole Gordon family attitude is appalling! 

But hey, it's happily ever after for everyone but Neil. Eric the newcomer, backed by his father's considerable Canadian lineage and wealth, wins the girl and nobody is happier to see the back of Neil than he. Kilmeny can at last give her fingers a break from scribbling so fast on that slate. She was as chatty and effusive with her pencil as Anne of Green Gables was with her tongue, and wrote such very long speeches, Eric must have waited around twiddling his thumbs a lot. And there is absolutely no need for Uncle Thomas and Aunt Janet to take a good, hard look at themselves, since Neil has conveniently removed himself from the picture. 'We have made more of him than we should,' Thomas decides. Charming way to regard your own adopted son.

(Sigh) Although I aim to overlook the standards of their own eras when ranking old novels, sometimes one comes along that pushes my buttons a bit too hard. My low score here is mostly about the triggers, but I also feel Maud was still finding her voice and perfecting her craft when she wrote this book. She's given Kilmeny's parents a melodramatic history which puts me in mind of the sensational stories that Anne and her friends wrote for their Story Club. And Kilmeny and Eric's relationship is a bit too saccharine sweet. She's a perfect fairy tale princess and he's Prince Charming. Lucy Maud Montgomery does Disney here. It wouldn't surprise me if Maud ended up agreeing with me, since she eventually decided love scenes were a challenge for her. This is probably her most lovey-dovey attempt at fiction. 

I'm willing to wonder if Montgomery might have even agreed with my two-star ranking for this early novel of hers, and lampooned it herself down the track. Overall, I'm so glad she became a more sensitive writer who gave her characters far more depth as she progressed.  

🌟🌟  

'Orley Farm' by Anthony Trollope

It's been years since I read a novel by Anthony Trollope. Back in my twenties I read a couple of the Barchester chronicles which I remember finding a trifle slow and meandering. I thought they might be more suitable for my dad's demographic than mine. This far down the track, I'm ready to try again. Especially since I've seen them recommended by several bookish friends on Instagram. 

Trollope wrote 47 novels! He had an intensely productive work ethic. I won't necessarily aim to read them all, as I'm doing with his peer, Charles Dickens' major works. At that rate, reviewing one each year would take me until I'm older than 100! On the other hand, reading nothing but Anthony Trollope books back to back would take just a few years, but no way am I doing that either. I'll read one every so often, to help fill my quota of Victorian novels. That's all I'm committing to :) 

So rather than tackling one of his series, I'll start with the occasional stand-alone title. I'd seen this one recommended, so got hold of a free kindle version. 

MY THOUGHTS: 

I ripped through this massive Victorian court case novel. What makes it so compelling is that the 'bad guy' is the wronged party, and the lovely, gracious lady is the 'crook.' Trollope is playing around with his readers' headspaces, making us want to see justice averted. 

The backstory occurs twenty years prior to this novel's start. When elderly Sir Joseph Mason dies, everyone assumes that his eldest son, also named Joseph, will inherit both family properties; the smaller but productive Orley Farm along with the large family seat, Groby Park. Indeed, that's what Joseph Junior has been led all his life to expect.

However, old Sir Joseph recently married a very young woman and now has a baby named Lucius, who's a full forty years younger than his half-brother. A codicil was added to the will, bequeathing Orley Farm, the smaller property, to his infant son. Joseph Mason angrily disputes the will after the old man's death but loses the case. Peace has reigned for twenty years, but something outrageous is about to be unleashed. Fast forward to the start of this book.

Samuel Dockwrath, a disgruntled former tenant of some Orley Farm land, approaches Joseph Mason with strong evidence in his favour that's been lying dormant for two decades. It appears that Lady Mason forged the signatures on the will, anxious to provide for her own baby son. (For some time, Trollope makes her guilt crystal clear without stating it outright, so this is no spoiler.) Now Lady Mason, a valued friend and neighbour to many, may be arrested as a felon. And Lucius, a forward-thinking young experimental farmer whose high principles tend to be black and white, has no inkling of his mother's dodgy maneuvre on his behalf.  

We don't want to see her suffer the consequences of a crime based on the tenderest love, which may include deportation to the colonies. And we certainly don't want to see grumpy, greedy Joseph Mason take over Orley Farm, which he'll rent out to the smug and odious Dockwrath. Not when his young half-brother has exciting plans to maximise its potential. So are we readers supposed to hope the lie will win out? Lucius Mason once rejected his mother's suggestion to consider studying for the law, since he has an idea that all lawyers are basically dishonest. Little does he know his mother may count on that very thing, for his sake! 

Mr Thomas Furnival is the barrister defending Lady Mason. He's fallen prey to her charm, although he's convinced of her guilt, and his devotion to her cause has caused friction in his own marriage. (Oh dear, many of us could tell you that passive aggression and sulky guilt trips don't work on guys, Mrs Furnival. It just makes them uptight and defensive, and therefore more inclined to blame you to justify their own behaviour.) 

Sir Peregrine Orme, the local landed gentry, is the stately old widower in the mansion next door. He falls in love with Lady Mason and longs to rescue her from her plight by marrying her, to the chagrin of his grandson, young Peregrine. And Sir Peregrine's daughter-in-law, Edith Orme, is one of the loveliest characters in the book; a gentle and gracious friend who takes doing a friend's dirty work to a whole new level.

It's interesting how both opposing parties use scripture to strongly justify their questionable attitudes. Lady Mason reasons that she was taking the precedent of the biblical matriarch Rebekah, who was prepared to cheat to gain an inheritance for her beloved son, who would otherwise have been left out in the cold. And arguably the principled and energetic young Lucius turns out to be a 'better' heir than his vitriolic older half-brother, just as Jacob trumps Esau. For his own part, Joseph Mason is all about wreaking righteous vengeance on the head of the woman who prevented him receiving his full inheritance. This dour, pitiless man prides himself on carrying out the letter of the law. 'All that I have done from my youth upward,' were his thoughts about himself.  

There are also plenty of amusing side-characters, such as the travelling merchant, Mr Kantwise, who carts around what sounds like the Victorian version of an IKEA ensemble and assures everyone that wooden indoor furniture is going out of vogue, and iron is where it's at. What I appreciate about Anthony Trollope is his fairness in showing the strengths and weaknesses of all his characters. His narrator sometimes tends to interrupt the flow of conversations, but since his voice has the sense of humour I enjoy, it's all good. 

Trollope is very much easier to read than his contemporary, Charles Dickens. This book took me a steady fortnight to read rather than the full month I'd expected to put aside, based on Dickens. The ethical dilemmas and awkward relationships of Orley Farm guaranteed that I kept turning pages, but I still can't decide whether I consider the ending of this one disappointing or satisfactory. Perhaps all that can be said is that it is, in a way, inevitable. 

🌟🌟🌟🌟½