Each year I aim to include a spooky theme on Halloween week. This year I've decided to extend it throughout the entire month of October. I'll review four witch-themed books back-to-back, but not the popular, spine-tingling type of novel aimed to disturb and unsettle us. I'll focus on insightful vintage reads which encourage us to consider the topic through the lenses of tradition, history, and even Christian faith.
MY THOUGHTS:
This novel won the 1959 Newbery Award, but is set way back in 1687. Sixteen-year-old Kit (Katherine) Tyler is soon to embark in Connecticut, New England, to gatecrash on relatives who aren't remotely expecting her. She was brought up in Barbados by her grandfather, an indulgent plantation owner who managed his affairs badly and lost everything before he died. Now Kit plans to throw herself on the mercy of her Aunt Rachel and Uncle Matthew who live way across the ocean and have two teenaged daughters of their own.
Awkward incidents pile up before Kit even sets foot off The Dolphin. While on board, she keeps accidentally shocking or offending the two handsome young men she befriends; Nat Eaton, the captain's son, and John Holbrook, a divinity student bound, like herself, for the colony of Weathersfield.
Some of Kit's behavior has the potential to get a little hazardous in the new land where she's bound. Kit rescues a child's beloved doll which has fallen overboard, but young women aren't usually proficient swimmers. (For witches float but the innocent sink.) And 'normal' girls generally can't read fluently either, as Kit can. There is no real impetus to learn, for the proper use of reading isn't for fun but to improve our sinful natures.
It's when she reaches her new home and makes friends with the local oddity, Hannah Tupper, that Kit really begins to gain a suspicious reputation with some of the townsfolk, for Hannah lives isolated in a small rickety house at the edge of a swamp, and she is a Quaker, who folk regard as blasphemous. Throughout the novel, especially when several townspeople fall sick with fever, accusations of outright witchcraft come to a head, although why they believe Hannah Tupper would wish to kill them and their children is anyone's guess.
But the story is really as much about culture shock as it is about witch hunts. Kit's Puritan relatives are not unsympathetic (which I appreciate) but their niece, with her seven trunks crammed with lavish clothes, is now expected to pull her weight and help out with work she'd only ever seen done by slaves, such as wool-carding, weaving, spinning, cooking, and vegetable garden maintenance.
Worst of all, she has to put up with all those pious, dour Puritans, who find it outrageous when Kit sets some young schoolchildren playacting Bible stories.
The story sometimes lacks depth though. When Aunt Rachel says, 'The Quakers don't take the holy sacraments,' Kit responds, 'So what?' She has evidently given no thought to the significance of what she chews and swallows each week in church. Surely a teenager can chafe under the heavy weight of Puritanical rules without glibly dismissing a major Christian mainstay. Puritans are tiresome at best and downright dangerous at worst, but since Kit is living among them, she might as well try to dig for some bedrock to their staunch faith. Yet there is no evidence that she ever does.
In fact, I noticed a continuity glitch early on. At first Kit seems not to know what a Puritan even is. (You mean a Roundhead? One of those traitors who murdered King Charles?) Then not long after that, she explains to John how her Aunt Rachel married a Puritan and ran away to America. So she must have known something about them, and at least heard the word before.
There is a comical mix-up in the matter of potential marriage partners. It involves Kit, her cousins, and several young men. We keep reading to find out how these unfortunate liaisons might get untangled when they are in such a massive snarl. Girls and guys who are totally wrong for each other somehow end up engaged. I found the resolution a little too slick, considering what a scramble it was.
But I grinned to discover that some of these characters were real historical figures. Based on their names, I would have sworn Speare had invented them, especially Mr Eleazar Kimberly, the schoolteacher, and Reverend Gersholm Bulkeley, John's esteemed mentor. If we're thinking in the most traditional, vitriolic sense of the word, the biggest 'witch' in the story is the hate-filled Goodwife Cruff. But no, perhaps she's more like a snake. ('Goodwife Cruff drew in her breath through her teeth in a venomous hiss.')
I recently landed on a book recommendation forum where several commenters mentioned this as their favorite book ever. Meh, I consider that pretty generous. After the hype I came across, I was a little disappointed. I guess it is refreshing to see three young people actually want to visit an old woman, when in the 21st century young people often need coercing to visit elderly relatives. Perhaps the proverb about forbidden fruit is true.
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Next week I'll examine a blast from my long-ago past which really utilizes the tradition of the wicked witch.
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