'A Traveller in Time' by Alison Uttley

Summary: This unusual novel is set in rural Derbyshire in the old manor house, Thackers, where the Babington family and their servant, Cicely Taberner, lived when Elizabeth I was Queen of England. The descendants of the Taberners have farmed the land through the centuries, and to the Taberners of the present day comes Penelope, their great-niece, a sensitive, imaginative girl, who is aware of other layers of time. With her awakened vision she sees people of the past move in their daily tasks among those of the present, and behind the contented life of the household of Cicely and Barnabas Taberner she finds the old tragedy of Anthony Babington and his plot to save Mary, Queen of Scots, being re-enacted.

MY THOUGHTS:  

This vintage YA time travel tale was first published in 1939.

The main character is Penelope Taberer Cameron, a lonely, delicate bookworm. She's sent for an extended stay to Thackers Farm, owned by elderly Aunt Tissie and Uncle Barnabas. Penelope's older siblings, Alison and Ian, go along too, but it happens that only Penelope possesses the rare family gift of second sight, which becomes her time travel catalyst. 

Time travel, in this story, strikes me as a double exposure sort of phenomenon, similar to old, wind-on film cameras. Every so often a scenario from the past is superimposed over Penelope's routine twentieth century life. She is frequently drawn back to the 1500s, when Thackers was owned by the Babington family, who were closet Catholics and staunch supporters of Mary, Queen of Scots during the time she was imprisoned by her cousin, Elizabeth I. 

Young Master Anthony Babington is a red-hot rebel who devotes his life to plans for Mary's release. His younger brother, Francis, becomes Penelope's good friend. Of course, Penelope has the awkward knowledge from her future vantage point that Mary gets executed, but blurting this out earns her no popularity.

Sadly, this book gets the thumbs down from me. It's essentially a history text book written in the guise of a time travel novel to fool the unwary. Different characters tend to launch into lengthy summaries about their life and times for Penelope's benefit (and therefore the reader's). This makes for wooden characterization. And they're all quite chill with the startling way she bobs up every so often in their private chambers, interrupting intimate moments, then disappearing again, supposedly to return to her family in London. 

What's more, modern historical fiction authors advise us that there's no need to divulge every snippet we research. Since this is a text book in disguise, Uttley ignores all this and crams in every trivial detail she can possibly manage. 

I used to come across this type of book during our homeschooling days, when they were highly recommended. Fellow homeschooling parents seemed to love these incognito history books masquerading as novels. ('The children are learning about the past without even knowing it, hehehe, shh.') I'm sure they knew it alright, like being hit with a brick. It makes for tedious reading, and I'd be willing to bet several kids throughout the decades decided they hated reading novels based on specimens like this. 

I don't deny there are a few nice touches. For example, when Anthony Babington loses his precious miniature of Queen Mary which he considers a good luck talisman, Penelope finds it as he asks her to, but in the twentieth century, where it's no good to him. For in this particular time travel universe, inanimate objects are not portable back and forth. 

I've noticed several other reviewers have called it, 'a beautiful novel' because of its depth of description, and some of the finer details about agrarian Elizabethan life that comes to light, along with the lovely illustrations by Faith Jaques. My reply would be, 'Sure, it might be beautiful, but it certainly doesn't tick my boxes of what makes a decent novel.' 

I love a good novel, and I like a well-written text book, but I have no time for these sneaky hybrids.

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25th Anniversary of 'Picking up the Pieces'

It's now 25 years since I've been a published author. This first hit the shelves around February 2000.

I was in my late twenties, with a great idea derived from a nocturnal dream. It started with a date rape, following which the perpetrator's life is devastated as thoroughly as his victim's. My challenge was to elicit strong reader sympathy for both of them, and I'm sure I succeeded, for in quarter of a century, I heard mostly positive feedback. It fitted the Christian fiction market I aimed it for, because of the strong redemption, grace, and forgiveness themes. 

My first ever sales opportunity made me quake in my shoes. I set up a stall of hot-of-the-press copies at a combined churches rally in the Adelaide Hills where we lived at the time, and sold only two copies. I hoped that abysmal response wouldn't prove to be a precedent of what to expect. Thankfully over time, quite a few thousand copies were sold, with a second printing and brand new publisher. And at around the halfway point, in 2014, the novel won a first prize in a category of the International Book Award. 

The story still holds a strong place in my heart, because of all the excitement I found hard to keep a lid on, my comparative youth, and hard work. I had a new-born baby who I would drive to sleep in her car-capsule while her brother was at kindergarten, and then I'd park at some attractive spot and work on my writing. Both kids are now grown up with the addition of a 20-year-old brother. Coincidentally, I was the same age my oldest son (that kindy kid) is now; 29 just turning 30 for the publication date. When I mentioned that the slide from 30 to 55 seems fairly rapid, he wasn't impressed. 

The purpose of this post is to celebrate that memorable stepping-stone. I've always loved the idea of time travel, including the notion of receiving insight from an older version of myself. If such a thing was possible, I've now reached  a perspective (just turned 55) where I could speak back to my younger self (just turned 30).

The first thing I would tell her is that I have grown much older, but not rich or famous, or even well-known, as I'd fantasised. But I'm still writing! And that's the main thing. (I know she would've been disappointed to have heard that first bit, so I would've had to break it to her gently.)

Here are a few more things I've picked up in that quarter century I might've told her, or anyone else who might want to eavesdrop.

1) It's true when writers claim, 'My characters are my friends.'

I've heard that this comes across as an exaggerated claim, but it's nonetheless true. The thing to understand is that our relationships with our characters converge a lot with the ones we have with our flesh-and-blood family and friends. Our 'real' people are precious to us for obvious reasons. They make great sounding boards as we do life together, and often deliver surprises as their lives unfold along with ours. With fictional characters, the same thing happens but from deep within our psyches. For me, it's never been a matter of sitting down and nutting out a plot. There is a lot of spontaneity involved in getting to know the characters. Scenes in which they communicate, react, and develop bubble up from my imagination. So given this sort of ongoing revelation, of course I consider them to be friends!

But it's the same with the characters of other authors, when they're well written. Any characters at all have the potential to become our friends, even when we are technically not theirs. 

2) Sadly, readers owe us nothing.

The quantity of feedback we receive isn't at all proportionate to the amount of time, passion, sacrifice, and vision we pour into each project. Each reader gets to enjoy the outcome of a writer's work for the couple of hours they take to read it, but they are under no obligation to pat our backs. Perhaps it's a good thing if it never occurs to the average reader that the souls of the writers hang over their shoulders like eager puppy-dogs, pawing their arms and demanding, 'Did you like it, did you like it, did you like it?' Who needs that sort of pressure?

I think this neediness is excusable on our part, because of the sheer volume of time and passion we've expended. But for our own peace of mind, we have to let it go. We must untwine the roots of ego that are tendrilled tightly around our brainchildren. We must regard the world of readers out there as a potentially friendly ocean we'll never fathom, rather than demanding echo chambers of our characters' worth and ours. 

To use another metaphor, feedback is something like priceless gold dust. It shouldn't be our fertilizer, because it's sparse by its very nature. The only way to keep our enthusiasm and inspiration flourishing is through the joy of the project itself. We can be high-maintenance hothouse plants that bloom only when sprinkled with rare praise and accolades, or we can be more like the agapanthus that grows along my front fence, which is self-renewing. I never get out there and so much as water it, yet each summer, new flowers predictably pop. After all this time, I've learned that it's a no-brainer to choose the second.

3) People's memories aren't as long as ours.

The accolades and awards that have come my way have been fewer and further between than my turn-of-the-century self would have hoped, and they've taught me something sobering but valuable. It's simply that people other than myself quickly forget about them.  

Why should they remember, after all? My dad once told me a story of how he kicked an astounding, match-winning goal when he was a young man who played football. He said that although he was the hero of the day, he'd be willing to bet that all those years later, not another soul remembered that event. That's liberating perspective.

 Everyone's grey matter is limited, so their own milestones must take priority. And with the passing of enough time, even we begin to forget our own milestones, if we don't take care to record and revisit them. 

I'll finish up by quoting in full this fantastic snippet of wisdom by an author named Joe Moran in his book, 'If You Should Fail: A Book of Solace. (I don't consider Picking up the Pieces or any of my other eight published books failures by any means, but that's the title of his book.)

He says:

'No truly worthwhile act has any surety of return. All creative work is a long-odds wager with our time and our lives. Books get pulped and shredded into road aggregate. Plays are performed to half full auditoria for a fortnight before the theatre goes dark. Films project into cinemas where paying customers fall asleep in the comfy chairs. A TV actor performs her big scene drowned out by the sound of thousands of hair dryers, vacuum cleaners and living room arguments. "All work is as a seed sown," wrote Thomas Carlyle. "Who shall compute what efforts have been produced, and are still, and into deep time producing?" 

'Many seeds are scattered, most fall on stones. Art is a dead letter with no name on the envelope, sent into the void. The fruits of creativity are asynchronous and asymmetrical - a suspended dialogue with the absent and yet to be born. All we can do is keep the faith that our lone acts of creation occur like the movements of flocking starlings or shoaling fish, in tandem with others, and that they will one day feed into the accumulated beauty and wisdom of the world. Every creative act joins in this eternal symphony of human life. Failure is the price we pay for our part in the orchestra.' 

Wow, in some perverse way, I find that encouraging. I'm still writing. Are you still doing your thing, whatever it is? 

'Evan and Darcy' by Melanie Coles

I needed a true blue Australian fan fiction for my 2025 Aussie Book Challenge. This one ticks off that category more than I'd even imagined. I discovered it at a $1 - $2 book sale at my local library. As soon I saw the blurb, I knew I must add it to my stack. It is Jane Austen like you've never imagined. 

MY THOUGHTS: 

Since my mania for fanfic started, I've been reading quite a few. This is everything I hope for whenever I crack open a new one. It's a gender-reversed Pride & Prejudice, set in the agrarian rural community of Meryton in present-day Australia.

The Bennet family owns a wheat and barley farm named Longbourn, and they have five sons to help run it. Meanwhile, rich girl Claire Bingley has just purchased nearby Netherfield, a lavish country estate she plans to turn into a function centre. When Jamie, the good-natured, eldest Bennet boy, becomes besotted with Claire, his more cynical brother Evan is willing to humor him. But Evan gets deeply offended by Claire's best friend, a polished young lawyer named Darcy Fitzwilliam. Evan overhears Darcy referring to him as a swaggering farm boy she'd waste no time on. From then on, he considers her a snooty ice-queen who makes him see red whenever he thinks about her. 

I felt compelled to keep turning pages to see how it all plays out in this topsy turvy, up-to-date rural setting. The character counterparts to Jane Austen are all excellent supporting roles. The third Bennet son is nerdy, try-hard Mark who is a terrible musician. And the two youngest brothers, lazy party boys Caleb and Liam, kept stealing the show for me in their scenes.

Melanie Coles has proven that an excellent plot is both timeless and geographically transferable. It can be copied and pasted, so to speak, to work anywhere. If this modern version occasionally lacks the same Regency era urgency (Charlie Lucas doesn't have Charlotte's same sense of desperation before hooking up with Cara Collins), it's more than compensated for at other times. When cute but crooked Jemma Wickham seduces teenager Liam Bennet, the stakes are enormous indeed. You'll see if you read it. Wow, the nerve of that girl! 

Evan and Darcy's romance, at the heart of the story, is swoon-worthy in its own right to the extent that I sometimes forgot all about that most famous literary couple they are meant to mirror. What's more, Coles shows us that the filthy rich have their own problems to deal with, and work extremely hard. 

I'll be recommending this fan fiction far and wide to anyone willing for their rosy ideals to be shaken up a bit. In my opinion, it takes an Aussie author to pull off something so hilarious, compelling, and cool. 

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'Peter Pan' by Sir James Matthew Barrie

Summary: One starry night, Peter Pan and Tinker Bell lead the three Darling children over the rooftops of London and away to Neverland - the island where lost boys play, mermaids splash and fairies make mischief. But a villainous-looking gang of pirates lurk in the docks, led by the terrifying Captain James Hook. Magic and excitement are in the air, but if Captain Hook has his way, before long, someone will be walking the plank and swimming with the crocodiles.

MY THOUGHTS:

 This beautiful edition is one of my William Morris inspired Puffin classics from the Aldi Bargain Table.

We all know that the boy who left his shadow behind at the Darling family's London home has become a cultural icon. When young Wendy kindly sews it back on, he pleads with her to go with him and tell stories to the Lost Boys in Neverland. Wendy asks for her brothers, John and Michael, to go too. So Peter teaches all three to fly, and off they shoot out the window. 

You can read this story two ways. For children, it's probably a pure adventure tale, as it was for me a long time ago. But for adult readers, Barrie's brilliance really begins to shine through. What he's created is a homage to pretend play, and Neverland is a map of children's collective unconscious minds. The Darling trio hail it not as a new destination, but as a familiar place to which they're returning for some holiday fun. And significantly, the landscape nuances are slightly different for Wendy, John, and Michael. Yet they all agree that Neverland always begins to seem a little dark and threatening by the time bedtime rolls around. 

It turns out that Peter is head of a rebellion, because he never wants to grow up and assume a man's duties of heading out to the office each day. The half dozen 'Lost Boys' all fell out of their prams when their nurses' backs were turned, and now they're members of Peter's gang. Whenever they appear to be growing up, which is against the rules, Peter thins them out. 

And get this, the main difference between Peter Pan and the other boys is that they know deep down that their underground home and skirmishes with the pirates and redskins is all make-believe, while Peter hasn't ever developed the discrimination to tell the difference. 'This troubled them when they had to make-believe they had their dinner.' 

The book is both profound and ridiculous. It puts me in mind of psychology articles I've read, which claim that make-believe play is the proper occupation for children, and their development is stymied if they're prevented from doing so. Another whimsical incident the narrator divulges is that one day the boys wanted to pretend to be redskins, so the redskins agreed to pretend to be Lost Boys. 

Tinker Bell, the jealous fairy, is as iconic as Peter Pan himself. Like me, you may remember attending live performances during which we were asked to bellow, 'I do believe in fairies!' at the top of our lungs. She's capable of sacrificing her life to rescue Peter, but also sets Wendy up to be shot down, because the human girl occupies too much of Peter's attention. 

'Tink was not all bad, or rather she was all bad just now, but on the other hand, sometimes she was all good... fairies are so small they have room for only one feeling at a time.'

Of course, there's the colorful villain, Captain James Hook, who is bent on both a revenge mission and a fearful game of hide-and-seek. He's out to get Peter Pan for cutting off his hand, while simultaneously dodging a ticking crocodile who swallowed a clock. This beast ate Hook's hand, and has now developed a taste for the rest of him. When Peter finally defeats Hook in a major show-down, we're told the boy hero forgets about the pirate menace and moves on very quickly. 

For Barrie depicts Peter with several character traits that are consistent with childhood development, in very general and blanket terms. Peter is heartless, egotistical, and unable to see any given situation from others' points of view. He is always self-focused and rooted firmly in the present moment. In fact, Hook is mostly incensed by Peter's cockiness, for the boy's childishness gets on his nerves. 

I consider it most fortunate that Peter Pan is oblivious to Wendy's and Tink's crushes on him. Surely harboring romantic feelings for a person who still has all his milk teeth intact is bound to end badly. 

The story leaves me with a lingering, bitter-sweet melancholy at the inevitability of aging. By the end, 'Michael is an engine driver... and the bearded man who doesn't know any story to tell his children was once John.' I believe Barrie challenges us to aim to retain Neverland's charm, while also celebrating our wider and wiser outlooks, earned from years of experience in the world, for would we really wish to stay as static and narrow-focused as Peter if we were offered the chance?

I read this way back when I was little and credulous, and the underlying themes soared right over my head. I enjoyed it far more this time round, sorry kiddies. 

For any grown-up who thinks, 'Naw, I read Peter Pan as a kid,' I'd say, 'Read it again! You'll get so much more out of it.' He surely wrote it for all ages, for vastly difference reasons, and the fact that it works makes J. M. Barrie a genius. 

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