1949
Nancy Mitford
Love in a Cold Climate
B
Although I don't generally like the term "companion novel," this is closer to that than to a sequel of The Pursuit of Love, since it's set from the mid 1920s to the early '30s, and it tells of Fanny's distant cousin Polly. The love of the title is Polly's for her uncle by marriage, Boy Dougdale, whom the Radletts have nicknamed The Lecherous Lecturer, because he likes to molest teenaged girls. It's not clear what he does to Polly at 13, at least hair-stroking, probably much more, since he pinches Jassy's bottom, and she must be about 7 at the time. Mitford is not at all consistent with the Radletts' ages in this novel. Not only does Jassy sound much older than she is, but so does little Victoria, who can't be more than 10 by the end of the novel. Also, Mitford has the Crash of '29 happening a year or two too soon if Fanny and Linda are born in 1911. (Polly is a year or two older.)
The uncle-niece romance is distasteful, but it's seen that way by most of the characters. It does lead to one of my favorite exchanges, between sassy Jassy and always hilarious Uncle Davey:
"'I say,' said Jassy. 'Come on, Dave.'"
"'Oh, no, dear, thank you. Marry one of you demons? Not for any money.'"
Polly does marry her uncle soon after his wife dies, but her parents, Lord and Lady Montdore, disinherit her. The estate is entailed, but she was going to get everything else. Now all the property is going to go to a distant relation, so distant he's Canadian. (Thank you, I'll be here all week. Try the veal.) People imagine a cross between Little Lord Fauntleroy and a lumberjack, but what they get in Cedric is closer to the former. He's a stereotypical but completely happy homosexual, gay you might say. (Tip your waitress.) The story ends well for him and everyone, as both he and Lady Montdore get the Boy, although Fanny points out that the stodgy Borely family "think it simply terrible."
As with Pursuit, read the novel for everything other than the main romance. Lady Montdore is a delightful old bitch and Uncle Matthew continues to be a delightful old bastard. My favorite section was the chub-fuddling, although I also enjoyed Fanny's disillusionment with Oxford wives.
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Excerpt from "The Blue Lantern"
1949
Colette, translated by Elaine Marks
Excerpt from The Blue Lantern
B-
It's somehow fitting that the last of Colette's works I own, from almost the last thing she published, ends with "To be continued...." The nearly 50-year span of her writing that we've covered has been wildly uneven, but I can't say that it hasn't been an interesting ride. And what's most notable about her and her characters (except the ones that commit suicide) is that they always go on, their sparks of life impossible to extinguish. Colette herself lived to 81, still writing, and still outrageous. This last piece tells of herself as an old woman shivering before the fire, but there's a memory of a prize-winning reader, "at twelve and a half years of age, Gabrielle-Sidonie Colette." That madcap but clever tomboy lived on inside the sophisticated writer.
Just taking the works of Gigi and Selected Writings, there are a B+, 3 B's, 6 B-s, 2 C+s, a C-, and a D, but of course these are various lengths. A B- for the overall grade feels fair though.
Colette, translated by Elaine Marks
Excerpt from The Blue Lantern
B-
It's somehow fitting that the last of Colette's works I own, from almost the last thing she published, ends with "To be continued...." The nearly 50-year span of her writing that we've covered has been wildly uneven, but I can't say that it hasn't been an interesting ride. And what's most notable about her and her characters (except the ones that commit suicide) is that they always go on, their sparks of life impossible to extinguish. Colette herself lived to 81, still writing, and still outrageous. This last piece tells of herself as an old woman shivering before the fire, but there's a memory of a prize-winning reader, "at twelve and a half years of age, Gabrielle-Sidonie Colette." That madcap but clever tomboy lived on inside the sophisticated writer.
Just taking the works of Gigi and Selected Writings, there are a B+, 3 B's, 6 B-s, 2 C+s, a C-, and a D, but of course these are various lengths. A B- for the overall grade feels fair though.
Orchid
1949
Colette, translated by Roger Senhouse
Orchid
B-
Colette describes, yes, an orchid, comparing it to everything from an octopus to a shoe. Colette's grown daughter has a very brief cameo, but then the whole thing is only two pages.
Colette, translated by Roger Senhouse
Orchid
B-
Colette describes, yes, an orchid, comparing it to everything from an octopus to a shoe. Colette's grown daughter has a very brief cameo, but then the whole thing is only two pages.
Spring Fever
1948, as part of 1983 Avenel edition of P. G. Wodehouse: Five Complete Novels
P. G. Wodehouse
Spring Fever
Original price $15.70, purchase price $9.99
Good condition hardcover
C-
Unlike the '30s Jeeves books, I seldom reread this volume, and this story is a good example of why. The plots and subplots are kind of boring. Also, the "hero" likes to jokingly insult and threaten violence to the "heroine." There are occasional flashes of the Wodehouse wit, and a bit of insight into Hollywood, but it's rather a slog to get to them. Not exactly terrible, but not something I'd recommend. The title has little to do with the story, other than it's set in the spring, and the cast is mostly dim-witted, although not feverish.
Also, this novel is riddled with typos, often of the extra-letter-in-a-word variety, I suspect due to Avenel trying to cash in on Wodehouse's name.
P. G. Wodehouse
Spring Fever
Original price $15.70, purchase price $9.99
Good condition hardcover
C-
Unlike the '30s Jeeves books, I seldom reread this volume, and this story is a good example of why. The plots and subplots are kind of boring. Also, the "hero" likes to jokingly insult and threaten violence to the "heroine." There are occasional flashes of the Wodehouse wit, and a bit of insight into Hollywood, but it's rather a slog to get to them. Not exactly terrible, but not something I'd recommend. The title has little to do with the story, other than it's set in the spring, and the cast is mostly dim-witted, although not feverish.
Also, this novel is riddled with typos, often of the extra-letter-in-a-word variety, I suspect due to Avenel trying to cash in on Wodehouse's name.
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
The Loved One
1948, 1969 Dell Laurel edition
Evelyn Waugh
The Loved One
Original price 50 cents, purchase price 10 cents, quite a bargain
Not very worn paperback
B-
Dark comedy of love among the mortuary crowd, with the female love interest named Aimée Thanatogenos, meaning "beloved tribe of death." I have to agree with the original New Yorker review, "The freshest part of Mr. Waugh's story is the part which refers to the English in Hollywood, and we wish, wistfully, that he had concerned himself more exclusively with that theme." It's not that the parts about the Forest-Lawn-inspired Whispering Glades and the pet cemetery Happier Hunting Ground are in poor taste. They are, but the shock value is mostly gone, along with the resulting humour. It's much more entertaining reading about a Jewish actress who became "Spanish" a decade ago and now has to be revamped as Irish by one of the British expatriates.
Waugh dedicated the book to his friend Nancy Mitford, but if I recall correctly, he didn't care for Jessica Mitford's The American Way of Death (1963), which I think is funnier because it's nonfiction rather than satire. This edition came out not only after her book but after the now forgotten 1965 Terry Southern film loosely based on the novel. The cover here is by, quite appropriately, Charles Addams.
Evelyn Waugh
The Loved One
Original price 50 cents, purchase price 10 cents, quite a bargain
Not very worn paperback
B-
Dark comedy of love among the mortuary crowd, with the female love interest named Aimée Thanatogenos, meaning "beloved tribe of death." I have to agree with the original New Yorker review, "The freshest part of Mr. Waugh's story is the part which refers to the English in Hollywood, and we wish, wistfully, that he had concerned himself more exclusively with that theme." It's not that the parts about the Forest-Lawn-inspired Whispering Glades and the pet cemetery Happier Hunting Ground are in poor taste. They are, but the shock value is mostly gone, along with the resulting humour. It's much more entertaining reading about a Jewish actress who became "Spanish" a decade ago and now has to be revamped as Irish by one of the British expatriates.
Waugh dedicated the book to his friend Nancy Mitford, but if I recall correctly, he didn't care for Jessica Mitford's The American Way of Death (1963), which I think is funnier because it's nonfiction rather than satire. This edition came out not only after her book but after the now forgotten 1965 Terry Southern film loosely based on the novel. The cover here is by, quite appropriately, Charles Addams.
Cheaper by the Dozen
1948, 1988 Bantam edition
Frank Gilbreth, Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey
Illustrated by Donald McKay
Cheaper by the Dozen
Original price $5.50, purchase price $3.00
Fair condition paperback
B-
Although I'm an only child, I've always had a soft spot for stories of large families, which I suppose you can blame on The Brady Bunch. There are twice as many children in this real-life story, although one (Mary) died at age five. For the most part, this is ignored, and the brood is spoken of as a dozen throughout. In any case, eleven or twelve children was a lot even in the 1920s, and perhaps only a pair of efficiency experts could've deliberately planned and managed that amount (even down to there being half girls, half boys, although that was just luck).
Having read Making Time: Lillian Moller Gilbreth-- A Life Beyond "Cheaper by the Dozen," I know that she was a much more complex woman than the mother shown here, or in the 1950 movie. Even in the sequel, Belles on Their Toes, more sides are shown to her. But this book is about Dad, up to shortly after his death in 1924. He comes across as larger than life, bluff and charming. However, what really struck me this reading was his harsh discipline. I don't mean the spankings or the way the children had to check off things like teeth-brushing. I mean things like him hitting them on the head to teach typing, or flogging them when they're the crew on his boat. The punishments are told in the same breezy, humorous style as the rest of the book, but they leave a bad aftertaste.
The other weakness of the book is the illustrator. On the one hand, McKay shows many funny moments from the lives of the Gilbreths, but on the other, his style is kind of bland. I could blame this on the decline of illustration in the post-war period, and gosh knows he's not as ghastly as Kramer, but I own some 1950s books with pleasant or even beautiful illustrations. The worst thing that McKay does is hair. Whether the girls wear cootie-catchers (long hair) or bobs, their hair is nondescript, and the boys' isn't any better.
On the plus side, the book is still occasionally laugh-out-loud funny and the co-authors (eldest boy and third-eldest girl respectively) do a good job of making each of their siblings, even baby sister Jane, distinct to the reader. It's also fun to see how the early '20s seemed a quarter-century later.
Apparently, this book is sometimes assigned in high schools, and one of the Phyllis Reynolds Naylor "Alice" books (which I've read but don't own) has Alice taking the role of eldest sister Anne in the school play. I never thought of it as a children's, or YA, book. It contains enough mild swearing to offend some readers on Amazon, and there are references to illegitimacy and prostitution. There's also a quite funny scene, which made it into the movie, where a mother of eight sends a birth control activist over to the Gilbreths because Mrs. Gilbreth would be a better campaigner for the cause than she is.
And, yes, I can like this book and Margaret Sanger's autobiography. The Gilbreths wanted and could afford a dozen children, even sending them all to college. However, I despise the 2003 Steve Martin movie because it's tasteless without being funny.
Frank Gilbreth, Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey
Illustrated by Donald McKay
Cheaper by the Dozen
Original price $5.50, purchase price $3.00
Fair condition paperback
B-
Although I'm an only child, I've always had a soft spot for stories of large families, which I suppose you can blame on The Brady Bunch. There are twice as many children in this real-life story, although one (Mary) died at age five. For the most part, this is ignored, and the brood is spoken of as a dozen throughout. In any case, eleven or twelve children was a lot even in the 1920s, and perhaps only a pair of efficiency experts could've deliberately planned and managed that amount (even down to there being half girls, half boys, although that was just luck).
Having read Making Time: Lillian Moller Gilbreth-- A Life Beyond "Cheaper by the Dozen," I know that she was a much more complex woman than the mother shown here, or in the 1950 movie. Even in the sequel, Belles on Their Toes, more sides are shown to her. But this book is about Dad, up to shortly after his death in 1924. He comes across as larger than life, bluff and charming. However, what really struck me this reading was his harsh discipline. I don't mean the spankings or the way the children had to check off things like teeth-brushing. I mean things like him hitting them on the head to teach typing, or flogging them when they're the crew on his boat. The punishments are told in the same breezy, humorous style as the rest of the book, but they leave a bad aftertaste.
The other weakness of the book is the illustrator. On the one hand, McKay shows many funny moments from the lives of the Gilbreths, but on the other, his style is kind of bland. I could blame this on the decline of illustration in the post-war period, and gosh knows he's not as ghastly as Kramer, but I own some 1950s books with pleasant or even beautiful illustrations. The worst thing that McKay does is hair. Whether the girls wear cootie-catchers (long hair) or bobs, their hair is nondescript, and the boys' isn't any better.
On the plus side, the book is still occasionally laugh-out-loud funny and the co-authors (eldest boy and third-eldest girl respectively) do a good job of making each of their siblings, even baby sister Jane, distinct to the reader. It's also fun to see how the early '20s seemed a quarter-century later.
Apparently, this book is sometimes assigned in high schools, and one of the Phyllis Reynolds Naylor "Alice" books (which I've read but don't own) has Alice taking the role of eldest sister Anne in the school play. I never thought of it as a children's, or YA, book. It contains enough mild swearing to offend some readers on Amazon, and there are references to illegitimacy and prostitution. There's also a quite funny scene, which made it into the movie, where a mother of eight sends a birth control activist over to the Gilbreths because Mrs. Gilbreth would be a better campaigner for the cause than she is.
And, yes, I can like this book and Margaret Sanger's autobiography. The Gilbreths wanted and could afford a dozen children, even sending them all to college. However, I despise the 2003 Steve Martin movie because it's tasteless without being funny.
Kingsblood Royal
1947, original Random House edition
Sinclair Lewis
Kingsblood Royal
Original price unknown, purchase price $4.95
Falling apart hardcover
B-
Although more horrible things happen in this book than in Cass Timberlane, including a couple and their friends arrested for defending their home from a mob, I find it a more pleasant and more hopeful book. Lewis takes a nice but bigoted young man-- a veteran, husband, father, and banker-- and shows how his world is turned upside-down when he finds out he has "black blood." His ancestor was an admirable pioneer, who happened to be a Negro. (Pace, George Carlin.) Neil Kingsblood's father thinks that the family is descended from Catherine of Aragon, but Neil's amateur explorations in genealogy turn up a more dramatic story on his mother's side of the family.
As other online reviews show, this book still has the power to startle, that Lewis was talking about race 65 years ago. (The year after it was published, Strom Thurmond ran for President as a Dixiecrat.) White critics of the time found the book contrived, which it is, while many black critics found it courageous, which it also is. I would give it a B, but I find the transformation of Neil and his wife Vestal, from owners of a dog named Nigger to the expectant parents of a child they half-jokingly plan to name Booker T., to be too quick and easy.
Also, I'm not sure what the point of Neil's flirtation with Sophie Concord is. In Arrowsmith, Orchid Pickerbaugh is a distraction from Martin's marriage to sloppy saint Leora and from his noble bride Science, but he doesn't let it go too far. Sophie seems to be here to assure readers that if Vestal leaves him, as her family and most people in town urge, Neil won't be alone. And he also has surrogate parents and dear friends in the black community by the end, making up for all the white associates he loses. (A few loyal whites, including Vestal, stick by him.)
The story is set in the same world as Timberlane, picking up at roughly the time that novel ended. Indeed, Vestal is friends with Jinny Timberlane. The judge is one of the more tolerant whites, although he doesn't have much impact on the story.
Lewis wrote two more novels after this, but I've never read them. He died in 1951. He was a very flawed man and a somewhat flawed writer, but I'm glad I own so many of his books.
Sinclair Lewis
Kingsblood Royal
Original price unknown, purchase price $4.95
Falling apart hardcover
B-
Although more horrible things happen in this book than in Cass Timberlane, including a couple and their friends arrested for defending their home from a mob, I find it a more pleasant and more hopeful book. Lewis takes a nice but bigoted young man-- a veteran, husband, father, and banker-- and shows how his world is turned upside-down when he finds out he has "black blood." His ancestor was an admirable pioneer, who happened to be a Negro. (Pace, George Carlin.) Neil Kingsblood's father thinks that the family is descended from Catherine of Aragon, but Neil's amateur explorations in genealogy turn up a more dramatic story on his mother's side of the family.
As other online reviews show, this book still has the power to startle, that Lewis was talking about race 65 years ago. (The year after it was published, Strom Thurmond ran for President as a Dixiecrat.) White critics of the time found the book contrived, which it is, while many black critics found it courageous, which it also is. I would give it a B, but I find the transformation of Neil and his wife Vestal, from owners of a dog named Nigger to the expectant parents of a child they half-jokingly plan to name Booker T., to be too quick and easy.
Also, I'm not sure what the point of Neil's flirtation with Sophie Concord is. In Arrowsmith, Orchid Pickerbaugh is a distraction from Martin's marriage to sloppy saint Leora and from his noble bride Science, but he doesn't let it go too far. Sophie seems to be here to assure readers that if Vestal leaves him, as her family and most people in town urge, Neil won't be alone. And he also has surrogate parents and dear friends in the black community by the end, making up for all the white associates he loses. (A few loyal whites, including Vestal, stick by him.)
The story is set in the same world as Timberlane, picking up at roughly the time that novel ended. Indeed, Vestal is friends with Jinny Timberlane. The judge is one of the more tolerant whites, although he doesn't have much impact on the story.
Lewis wrote two more novels after this, but I've never read them. He died in 1951. He was a very flawed man and a somewhat flawed writer, but I'm glad I own so many of his books.
Monday, May 28, 2012
The Magical Mimics in Oz
1946, 1990 International Wizard of Oz edition
Jack Snow
Illustrated by Frank Kramer
The Magical Mimics in Oz
Original and/or purchase price unknown
Worn paperback
C
If it weren't for the sometimes horrible art, I'd probably give this a C+, since the writing is on a level with Thompson and Baum at their weakest. Neill, after publishing two more books beyond Wonder City and leaving behind a manuscript for another, died in 1943. I don't miss him as a writer but, man, do I miss him as an illustrator! Kramer is at best passable, as with Scraps and the Wizard. But he can't manage Dorothy and at one point gives her scary sunken eyes. Snow had a horror background and Kramer would be fine if this were purely a horror story, as it verges on with the identity-stealing villains. Even the benign pine people seem terrifying on the cover, with their round, rosy cheeks that look like explosives. Kramer does try for humor at times, especially with Toto, but it's leaden compared to Neill's whimsicality.
Snow, born in '07, was a huge Oz fan from childhood, but he disliked Thompson and Neill's books to the point that he hoped Reilly & Lee would drop them, which seems to be going a bit far, particularly since it's not as if Snow was a better writer than Thompson. He is faithful to Baum, mentioning Lurline and Merryland, and I can't accuse him of misreading the Original Fourteen Oz books, as Neill seems to have. At times, he even quotes/plagiarizes lines from Baum. It's just, I can't say I'm particularly drawn into the story. It's OK but not memorable, not unlike Purple Prince. Also, I'm irritated by the laxness of Ozana, Ozma's first cousin who's supposed to be keeping an eye on the Mimics but gets distracted by gardening and carpentry.
The Pineville couple we meet have a mischievous, complaining son named Charlie. The Wizard owns a radio, so he knows what happened to the lad. Yes, there's a Charlie McCarthy joke in an Oz book. Wait till we get to Snow's next story....
Jack Snow
Illustrated by Frank Kramer
The Magical Mimics in Oz
Original and/or purchase price unknown
Worn paperback
C
If it weren't for the sometimes horrible art, I'd probably give this a C+, since the writing is on a level with Thompson and Baum at their weakest. Neill, after publishing two more books beyond Wonder City and leaving behind a manuscript for another, died in 1943. I don't miss him as a writer but, man, do I miss him as an illustrator! Kramer is at best passable, as with Scraps and the Wizard. But he can't manage Dorothy and at one point gives her scary sunken eyes. Snow had a horror background and Kramer would be fine if this were purely a horror story, as it verges on with the identity-stealing villains. Even the benign pine people seem terrifying on the cover, with their round, rosy cheeks that look like explosives. Kramer does try for humor at times, especially with Toto, but it's leaden compared to Neill's whimsicality.
Snow, born in '07, was a huge Oz fan from childhood, but he disliked Thompson and Neill's books to the point that he hoped Reilly & Lee would drop them, which seems to be going a bit far, particularly since it's not as if Snow was a better writer than Thompson. He is faithful to Baum, mentioning Lurline and Merryland, and I can't accuse him of misreading the Original Fourteen Oz books, as Neill seems to have. At times, he even quotes/plagiarizes lines from Baum. It's just, I can't say I'm particularly drawn into the story. It's OK but not memorable, not unlike Purple Prince. Also, I'm irritated by the laxness of Ozana, Ozma's first cousin who's supposed to be keeping an eye on the Mimics but gets distracted by gardening and carpentry.
The Pineville couple we meet have a mischievous, complaining son named Charlie. The Wizard owns a radio, so he knows what happened to the lad. Yes, there's a Charlie McCarthy joke in an Oz book. Wait till we get to Snow's next story....
Snugglepot and Cuddlepie
1946, 1987 Bluegum edition
"Pictures & Words by May Gibbs
Snugglepot and Cuddlepie
Original price unknown, purchase price $6.00
OK condition paperback
C+
I bought this one because the title characters sound like cutesy pet names that lovers give each other. Actually, they're foster brothers who are gumnuts that look like Kewpie dolls. In fact, there's a very 1910s or 1920s feel about the book, not surprisingly since the series began in 1918. But the earliest date on the copyright page is '46 and, as with The World Of Jeeves, I'm going to assume that the act of collection is what matters.
It's a very odd book, if not as bizarre as Wonder City of Oz. The fact that this edition has no page numbers adds to the feeling of everything just spilling out of Gibbs's mind in a stream of consciousness. S & C decide to go see humans, "at a distance" (which is often the best way), but they keep getting sidetracked, until you realize that the sidetracks are the plot, such as it is. There are three stories in the book, but you only know this because there are three sort of resolutions, and after the first two you get a new title page.
The pictures are better than the words, with some of the underwater views quite lovely. The text sometimes refers to the pictures, such as when explaining that one "Native Bear" (Koala) isn't visible because he's up a tree. The Nuts (male) and Blossoms (female) are almost naked, in that they wear clothes that don't cover up anything, but they're as sexless as Kewpies, so I guess it's all right. (Some Nuts do go on strike, the leaf-banners proclaiming that they want more clothes.) At the end of the last story, Ragged Blossom, who's raised a baby who's now a princess older than her, wants another baby. Snugglepot knows how to give her one: he'll take her to the Baby Shop.
There is a marriage, with Ann Chovy marrying evil John Dory to save the protagonists' lives, and of course her love redeeming him. But there's actually more about employment than romance, with the Nuts and Blossoms easily getting jobs wherever they go. The creatures do have a version of civilization, even if it's kangaroos for cabs and a praying mantis (I think) for a dentist. There are also evil banskia cones who sometimes work for the evil Mrs. Snake. (When the first becomes deadibones, another Mrs. Snake appears.)
The book feels like such an oddity it's a shock to read on the back cover that it "has become, undoubtedly, Australia's best-loved children's book." Maybe The Wizard of Oz feels as weird to people outside the culture, but I doubt it.
"Pictures & Words by May Gibbs
Snugglepot and Cuddlepie
Original price unknown, purchase price $6.00
OK condition paperback
C+
I bought this one because the title characters sound like cutesy pet names that lovers give each other. Actually, they're foster brothers who are gumnuts that look like Kewpie dolls. In fact, there's a very 1910s or 1920s feel about the book, not surprisingly since the series began in 1918. But the earliest date on the copyright page is '46 and, as with The World Of Jeeves, I'm going to assume that the act of collection is what matters.
It's a very odd book, if not as bizarre as Wonder City of Oz. The fact that this edition has no page numbers adds to the feeling of everything just spilling out of Gibbs's mind in a stream of consciousness. S & C decide to go see humans, "at a distance" (which is often the best way), but they keep getting sidetracked, until you realize that the sidetracks are the plot, such as it is. There are three stories in the book, but you only know this because there are three sort of resolutions, and after the first two you get a new title page.
The pictures are better than the words, with some of the underwater views quite lovely. The text sometimes refers to the pictures, such as when explaining that one "Native Bear" (Koala) isn't visible because he's up a tree. The Nuts (male) and Blossoms (female) are almost naked, in that they wear clothes that don't cover up anything, but they're as sexless as Kewpies, so I guess it's all right. (Some Nuts do go on strike, the leaf-banners proclaiming that they want more clothes.) At the end of the last story, Ragged Blossom, who's raised a baby who's now a princess older than her, wants another baby. Snugglepot knows how to give her one: he'll take her to the Baby Shop.
There is a marriage, with Ann Chovy marrying evil John Dory to save the protagonists' lives, and of course her love redeeming him. But there's actually more about employment than romance, with the Nuts and Blossoms easily getting jobs wherever they go. The creatures do have a version of civilization, even if it's kangaroos for cabs and a praying mantis (I think) for a dentist. There are also evil banskia cones who sometimes work for the evil Mrs. Snake. (When the first becomes deadibones, another Mrs. Snake appears.)
The book feels like such an oddity it's a shock to read on the back cover that it "has become, undoubtedly, Australia's best-loved children's book." Maybe The Wizard of Oz feels as weird to people outside the culture, but I doubt it.
Animal Farm: A Fairy Story
1945, 1996 Signet Classic edition
George Orwell
Animal Farm: A Fairy Story
Original price $5.95, purchase price $2.99
OK condition paperback
B
I thought I had only two books from 1945, since the copyright page of this edition says '46, and it's supposed to be a 50th anniversary edition. Then I saw that the Introduction says '45, and Wikipedia confirms this. Oh well. Unlike the other '45ers, and many "fairy stories," this is not about love but about war. And Communism vs. Socialism. And farming of course.
Other than obvious things like Old Major, Napoleon, and Snowball being Marx, Stalin, and Trotsky respectively, I don't know what the specific elements of the story represent. I remember that when my 7th-grade English teacher assigned this, she didn't go into detail. We were just told (this being the still cold-war early '80s) that the book showed why Russia was wrong. No one mentioned that Orwell was a disappointed Socialist.
This reading, I mostly approached the story as a fable. As such, it holds up fairly well, although it's certainly bleak. I think Gulliver's Travels, the nearest comparison I can think of, is better in some ways in that it's more complex and funnier. However, Animal Farm manages to be more quotable per page, "Some animals are more equal than others" a particular stand-out. I'm also reminded of Charlotte's Web, with the talking (and arguing) farm animals, but we haven't got up to that yet.
The Introduction by C. M. Woodhouse is from '54 and talks about what an impact the novel had already had. The Russell Baker Preface is for the "anniversary" and points out that Russia was unprepared for technology, both how to use it themselves and how to defend themselves against things like blue jeans and rock 'n' roll. While Orwell was protesting against Stalin, as always he was most objecting to tyrants, and anyone who betrays the high ideals of founders. And pointing out why pigs should never drink, at least to excess.
George Orwell
Animal Farm: A Fairy Story
Original price $5.95, purchase price $2.99
OK condition paperback
B
I thought I had only two books from 1945, since the copyright page of this edition says '46, and it's supposed to be a 50th anniversary edition. Then I saw that the Introduction says '45, and Wikipedia confirms this. Oh well. Unlike the other '45ers, and many "fairy stories," this is not about love but about war. And Communism vs. Socialism. And farming of course.
Other than obvious things like Old Major, Napoleon, and Snowball being Marx, Stalin, and Trotsky respectively, I don't know what the specific elements of the story represent. I remember that when my 7th-grade English teacher assigned this, she didn't go into detail. We were just told (this being the still cold-war early '80s) that the book showed why Russia was wrong. No one mentioned that Orwell was a disappointed Socialist.
This reading, I mostly approached the story as a fable. As such, it holds up fairly well, although it's certainly bleak. I think Gulliver's Travels, the nearest comparison I can think of, is better in some ways in that it's more complex and funnier. However, Animal Farm manages to be more quotable per page, "Some animals are more equal than others" a particular stand-out. I'm also reminded of Charlotte's Web, with the talking (and arguing) farm animals, but we haven't got up to that yet.
The Introduction by C. M. Woodhouse is from '54 and talks about what an impact the novel had already had. The Russell Baker Preface is for the "anniversary" and points out that Russia was unprepared for technology, both how to use it themselves and how to defend themselves against things like blue jeans and rock 'n' roll. While Orwell was protesting against Stalin, as always he was most objecting to tyrants, and anyone who betrays the high ideals of founders. And pointing out why pigs should never drink, at least to excess.
Sunday, May 27, 2012
The Pursuit of Love
1945, 1982 Modern Library edition with Love in a Cold Climate
Nancy Mitford
The Pursuit of Love
Bought newish for $12.95
Good condition hardcover although dustjacket a bit worn
B
Despite an arguably more depressing ending than Cass Timberlane-- the heroine dies in childbirth-- this is a frothier, funnier book than its year-peer. Set roughly 1925 to '41, it tells of romantic Linda's romances, although you'll want to read it for the Radlett family, a thinly disguised version of the Mitfords. The Mitford siblings were six (in)famous sisters and a brother who died the year this book was published. The Radletts are four sisters and three brothers, although the boys are less memorable. Rather than Nancy born in 1904 down to Deborah (still alive and writing at 92), we have Louisa (1909), Linda (1911), Bob (1913?), Jassy (1917ish), Matt (1918ish), "little Robin" (male, unknown birth year), and Victoria (1923). Not that Mitford is very consistent about the ages, in this or the 1949 sequel. The seven siblings are joined by their cousin the narrator, relatively sensible Fanny, who's Linda's age. Fa and Mother, Uncle Matthew and Aunt Sadie to Fanny, are as eccentric as their children, Mitford taking the real-life oddities of her parents and exaggerating them, apparently to the amusement of Baron Redesdale (Farve, AKA her father).
Linda marries first a stodgy "middle-class" millionaire and then a distracted Communist, then she finds love with a French Resistance nobleman. None of the romances are particularly interesting, and it's always a relief to get back to things like Jassy running away to marry film star Gary Coon (or was it Cary Goon?), or Uncle Davey fretting about his health, or Uncle Matthew ranting hilariously about foreigners. Even "good" sister Louisa is wittier and more fun than any of Linda's love interests. Oh, and there's the Bolter, Fanny's much-married and much-divorced mother.
The humour is outrageous and sometimes deliberately in bad taste, joking about rape and abortion. But it's all part of the over-the-topness of the Radletts, who can make Linda cry over a matchbox-less match or wage an ongoing battle with the gamekeeper. There is some snobbishness in the book, but it takes surprising forms, as in the contrast between Society parties and those of "The Party."
As in Cass Timberlane, the war is mostly offstage, although it comes figuratively and literally closer to home in England than the U.S. Linda's French lover dies, leaving their son to be raised by Fanny. And yet, this is less depressing than Cleo the cat dying in Cass, even if Cleo's granddaughter shows up at the end. The Radletts and friends are much more unsinkable than the denizens of Grand Republic.
This edition has a charming foreword by Jessica Mitford, who doesn't even seem to mind that her involvement in the Spanish Civil War is given to a nonexistent brother, while irrepressible Jassy goes to Hollywood.
Nancy Mitford
The Pursuit of Love
Bought newish for $12.95
Good condition hardcover although dustjacket a bit worn
B
Despite an arguably more depressing ending than Cass Timberlane-- the heroine dies in childbirth-- this is a frothier, funnier book than its year-peer. Set roughly 1925 to '41, it tells of romantic Linda's romances, although you'll want to read it for the Radlett family, a thinly disguised version of the Mitfords. The Mitford siblings were six (in)famous sisters and a brother who died the year this book was published. The Radletts are four sisters and three brothers, although the boys are less memorable. Rather than Nancy born in 1904 down to Deborah (still alive and writing at 92), we have Louisa (1909), Linda (1911), Bob (1913?), Jassy (1917ish), Matt (1918ish), "little Robin" (male, unknown birth year), and Victoria (1923). Not that Mitford is very consistent about the ages, in this or the 1949 sequel. The seven siblings are joined by their cousin the narrator, relatively sensible Fanny, who's Linda's age. Fa and Mother, Uncle Matthew and Aunt Sadie to Fanny, are as eccentric as their children, Mitford taking the real-life oddities of her parents and exaggerating them, apparently to the amusement of Baron Redesdale (Farve, AKA her father).
Linda marries first a stodgy "middle-class" millionaire and then a distracted Communist, then she finds love with a French Resistance nobleman. None of the romances are particularly interesting, and it's always a relief to get back to things like Jassy running away to marry film star Gary Coon (or was it Cary Goon?), or Uncle Davey fretting about his health, or Uncle Matthew ranting hilariously about foreigners. Even "good" sister Louisa is wittier and more fun than any of Linda's love interests. Oh, and there's the Bolter, Fanny's much-married and much-divorced mother.
The humour is outrageous and sometimes deliberately in bad taste, joking about rape and abortion. But it's all part of the over-the-topness of the Radletts, who can make Linda cry over a matchbox-less match or wage an ongoing battle with the gamekeeper. There is some snobbishness in the book, but it takes surprising forms, as in the contrast between Society parties and those of "The Party."
As in Cass Timberlane, the war is mostly offstage, although it comes figuratively and literally closer to home in England than the U.S. Linda's French lover dies, leaving their son to be raised by Fanny. And yet, this is less depressing than Cleo the cat dying in Cass, even if Cleo's granddaughter shows up at the end. The Radletts and friends are much more unsinkable than the denizens of Grand Republic.
This edition has a charming foreword by Jessica Mitford, who doesn't even seem to mind that her involvement in the Spanish Civil War is given to a nonexistent brother, while irrepressible Jassy goes to Hollywood.
Cass Timberlane
1945, original Random House edition
Sinclair Lewis
Cass Timberlane: A Novel of Husbands and Wives
Original price unknown, purchase price $4.95
OK condition hardcover
C+
While Tik-Tok of Oz (1914) managed a reference to WW I, this is the first of my books to mention WW II. Not only does the copyright page say, "THIS IS A WARTIME BOOK. The text is complete and unabridged but every effort has been made to comply with the Government's request to conserve essential materials," but the novel is set 1941 to '45. However, the story takes place on the homefront and is more about the Battle of the Sexes. Indeed, with the central story of Cass Timberlane's second marriage, and "An Assemblage of Husbands and Wives" interspersed throughout the book, it presents the bleakest collection of marriages until perhaps The Women's Room (1977).
At this point, Lewis was 60 and his second marriage had broken up. If I remember correctly, he was dating a much younger woman, so it's not too surprising that he matches up 41-year-old Cass with 24-year-old Jinny. And yet, it's the old Dodsworth conflict, not all that different from the Main Street conflict: solid but sensitive man deals with clever, flirtatious wife. (Lewis, as he did in Babbitt, has characters mock Main Street and Sinclair Lewis, here mixed up with Upton Sinclair.) In this novel, the wife has an affair and returns, partly because she knows Cass will take care of her, and she's suffering from diabetes. It's supposed to be a relatively happy ending, with Jinny (and Cass) sadder but wiser, but you know she's going to fall for some other heel within a year.
One of the things I liked about the novel was the list of modern synonyms for "cad" and "bounder." Although Lewis's references to jazz as a new thing feel incredibly dated (after all, Babbitt had jazz in '22), it is interesting to see his continued interest in evolving language. In this book and the other '45 book I own, for the first time "making love" means sex, not just wooing, although for many of the characters there's nothing loving about it.
And it is hard to read of spouses making each other miserable in so many ways. Some are driven to suicide, while others live out their lives of misery. Some belittle their spouses, while others worship them too much. One man is in love with his 15-year-old daughter, another with his "Sweetheart" mother, although he gets a burly male lover after her death. There's not much wife- or husband-beating, since most of the abuse is psychological. There are a few happy couples, but it's implied that they're an endangered species.
Actually, "implied" is the wrong word to use for this book. Everything is very heavy-handed, particularly the connection of Cleo the cat and Isis the figurine to Jinny and her fragile love for Cass. And yet, I liked Cleo and I liked Mrs. Higbee the cook and I liked the houses that Cass and Jinny live in, old and modern. It's a strange story in that I liked the trappings of it, including Grand Republic (a gentler Zenith), but didn't really care for most of the inhabitants. I will say that it is nice to have Lewis show genuine emotion after the dryness of It Can't Happen Here.
Yes, there's a decade between the two novels. He published three novels in the interval, but given these two C+ book-ends, I've never been strongly tempted to read them.
Sinclair Lewis
Cass Timberlane: A Novel of Husbands and Wives
Original price unknown, purchase price $4.95
OK condition hardcover
C+
While Tik-Tok of Oz (1914) managed a reference to WW I, this is the first of my books to mention WW II. Not only does the copyright page say, "THIS IS A WARTIME BOOK. The text is complete and unabridged but every effort has been made to comply with the Government's request to conserve essential materials," but the novel is set 1941 to '45. However, the story takes place on the homefront and is more about the Battle of the Sexes. Indeed, with the central story of Cass Timberlane's second marriage, and "An Assemblage of Husbands and Wives" interspersed throughout the book, it presents the bleakest collection of marriages until perhaps The Women's Room (1977).
At this point, Lewis was 60 and his second marriage had broken up. If I remember correctly, he was dating a much younger woman, so it's not too surprising that he matches up 41-year-old Cass with 24-year-old Jinny. And yet, it's the old Dodsworth conflict, not all that different from the Main Street conflict: solid but sensitive man deals with clever, flirtatious wife. (Lewis, as he did in Babbitt, has characters mock Main Street and Sinclair Lewis, here mixed up with Upton Sinclair.) In this novel, the wife has an affair and returns, partly because she knows Cass will take care of her, and she's suffering from diabetes. It's supposed to be a relatively happy ending, with Jinny (and Cass) sadder but wiser, but you know she's going to fall for some other heel within a year.
One of the things I liked about the novel was the list of modern synonyms for "cad" and "bounder." Although Lewis's references to jazz as a new thing feel incredibly dated (after all, Babbitt had jazz in '22), it is interesting to see his continued interest in evolving language. In this book and the other '45 book I own, for the first time "making love" means sex, not just wooing, although for many of the characters there's nothing loving about it.
And it is hard to read of spouses making each other miserable in so many ways. Some are driven to suicide, while others live out their lives of misery. Some belittle their spouses, while others worship them too much. One man is in love with his 15-year-old daughter, another with his "Sweetheart" mother, although he gets a burly male lover after her death. There's not much wife- or husband-beating, since most of the abuse is psychological. There are a few happy couples, but it's implied that they're an endangered species.
Actually, "implied" is the wrong word to use for this book. Everything is very heavy-handed, particularly the connection of Cleo the cat and Isis the figurine to Jinny and her fragile love for Cass. And yet, I liked Cleo and I liked Mrs. Higbee the cook and I liked the houses that Cass and Jinny live in, old and modern. It's a strange story in that I liked the trappings of it, including Grand Republic (a gentler Zenith), but didn't really care for most of the inhabitants. I will say that it is nice to have Lewis show genuine emotion after the dryness of It Can't Happen Here.
Yes, there's a decade between the two novels. He published three novels in the interval, but given these two C+ book-ends, I've never been strongly tempted to read them.
Friday, May 25, 2012
The Sick Child
1944
Colette, translated by Antonia White
The Sick Child
C-
The title character lives a life of fantasy, until he gets well. Too drawn out, although there are a few nice turns of phrase.
Colette, translated by Antonia White
The Sick Child
C-
The title character lives a life of fantasy, until he gets well. Too drawn out, although there are a few nice turns of phrase.
Armande
1944
Colette, translated by Antonia White
Armande
D
What could be an interesting story about a young doctor who is afraid to tell the local heiress of his love for her is bogged down in sadism. He can't separate love from violence-- for instance, after he has an accident, he imagines "turning her into a wounded, moaning creature"-- and this is probably the most unpleasant thing of Colette's I've ever read.
Colette, translated by Antonia White
Armande
D
What could be an interesting story about a young doctor who is afraid to tell the local heiress of his love for her is bogged down in sadism. He can't separate love from violence-- for instance, after he has an accident, he imagines "turning her into a wounded, moaning creature"-- and this is probably the most unpleasant thing of Colette's I've ever read.
The Photographer's Missus
1944
Colette, translated by Antonia White
The Photographer's Missus
B-
The biggest problem with this story is the title character. I'd much rather read about the pearl-stringer. Still, it's interesting to see Colette as a character in what I assume is a fictional story. The setting is during the Great War, and she has working-class friends that her then-husband knows nothing about.
Colette, translated by Antonia White
The Photographer's Missus
B-
The biggest problem with this story is the title character. I'd much rather read about the pearl-stringer. Still, it's interesting to see Colette as a character in what I assume is a fictional story. The setting is during the Great War, and she has working-class friends that her then-husband knows nothing about.
Gigi
1944
Colette, translated by Roger Senhouse
Gigi
B
Here it is, probably Colette's most famous work, and it's still delightful. Set in 1899, shortly before the first Claudine book came out, it has automobiles and ortolans, scandal and innocence. As so often with Colette, none of the characters are exactly sympathetic, but it's fun to see them play off of each other. Even Gigi's weary actress mother, who's less involved in her life than the grandmother and great-aunt, has her moments. The joke of the story is that 15-year-old Gigi is being groomed to be a courtesan, but when a family friend offers for her, she loves him too much to accept, so he has to make a matrimonial offer instead. Tasteless, sure, but in a sophisticated way. I have almost no memory of the musical-- other than "Thank Heaven for Little Girls" of course-- but I'm amused that the 1951 stageplay was by that old expert of humorous gold-digging, Anita Loos.
Pity that Colette's humor is less in evidence for her other stories from '44....
Colette, translated by Roger Senhouse
Gigi
B
Here it is, probably Colette's most famous work, and it's still delightful. Set in 1899, shortly before the first Claudine book came out, it has automobiles and ortolans, scandal and innocence. As so often with Colette, none of the characters are exactly sympathetic, but it's fun to see them play off of each other. Even Gigi's weary actress mother, who's less involved in her life than the grandmother and great-aunt, has her moments. The joke of the story is that 15-year-old Gigi is being groomed to be a courtesan, but when a family friend offers for her, she loves him too much to accept, so he has to make a matrimonial offer instead. Tasteless, sure, but in a sophisticated way. I have almost no memory of the musical-- other than "Thank Heaven for Little Girls" of course-- but I'm amused that the 1951 stageplay was by that old expert of humorous gold-digging, Anita Loos.
Pity that Colette's humor is less in evidence for her other stories from '44....
These Happy Golden Years
1943, 1971 Harper & Row edition
Laura Ingalls Wilder
Illustrated by Garth Williams
These Happy Golden Years
Original and purchase price unknown
Stained and possibly moldy hardcover
B
This book covers about three years, taking Laura from a 15-year-old who's beginning to teach school to a just-married 18-year-old. Since The First Four Years was published posthumously, this will be the last we'll see of the Ingallses and Wilders for a long while. As such, there's a bittersweetness, despite the title. Laura and her sisters are growing up, as Mary reluctantly admits and Carrie proudly states.
There are some dark moments, including Laura's stay with a very unhappily married couple, the wife threatening her husband with a knife one night! Laura is boarding with them but bravely stays on so as to finish her teaching term. Also, there's a tale of a cyclone that wreaks havoc for some of the distant neighbors. Laura and her family come through the rough times, as before, but the rough times are fewer. Indeed, there's a surprising amount of comparative prosperity, as the shanty expands to include even a parlor with an organ. Thanks partly to Pa's farming going well and partly to Laura's own hard work, she's able to afford nicer clothes, and Mary even comes home from college a couple times. In contrast to the snowflakes of Long Winter, there are drawings of wildflowers throughout.
Perhaps because earlier books covered shorter spans (Long Winter in particular of course), this book feels a bit rushed. The courtship is handled well though, showing Laura's growing love for Almanzo in an understated way. The scene with her scaring Nellie, who's horned in on Almanzo's buggy rides, by riling up the colts is funny and believable. Laura herself handles the horses well, which is part of what he admires about her. He agrees to leave "obey" out of the wedding ceremony, and, as she tells Mary, they just seem to suit each other. I found Ida's wedding gift of lace very touching.
I would've liked to have seen more of the teaching though. After the first school, where she wins over the students, there's less detail. But, as she also tells Mary, time goes so much faster as they get older. (In my own case, it's slowed down the older I get, but I know that's unusual.)
Farewell for now, Laura Ingalls Wilder. You are still an admirable heroine seven or eight decades later. I just wish your books were a little more worthy of you.
Laura Ingalls Wilder
Illustrated by Garth Williams
These Happy Golden Years
Original and purchase price unknown
Stained and possibly moldy hardcover
B
This book covers about three years, taking Laura from a 15-year-old who's beginning to teach school to a just-married 18-year-old. Since The First Four Years was published posthumously, this will be the last we'll see of the Ingallses and Wilders for a long while. As such, there's a bittersweetness, despite the title. Laura and her sisters are growing up, as Mary reluctantly admits and Carrie proudly states.
There are some dark moments, including Laura's stay with a very unhappily married couple, the wife threatening her husband with a knife one night! Laura is boarding with them but bravely stays on so as to finish her teaching term. Also, there's a tale of a cyclone that wreaks havoc for some of the distant neighbors. Laura and her family come through the rough times, as before, but the rough times are fewer. Indeed, there's a surprising amount of comparative prosperity, as the shanty expands to include even a parlor with an organ. Thanks partly to Pa's farming going well and partly to Laura's own hard work, she's able to afford nicer clothes, and Mary even comes home from college a couple times. In contrast to the snowflakes of Long Winter, there are drawings of wildflowers throughout.
Perhaps because earlier books covered shorter spans (Long Winter in particular of course), this book feels a bit rushed. The courtship is handled well though, showing Laura's growing love for Almanzo in an understated way. The scene with her scaring Nellie, who's horned in on Almanzo's buggy rides, by riling up the colts is funny and believable. Laura herself handles the horses well, which is part of what he admires about her. He agrees to leave "obey" out of the wedding ceremony, and, as she tells Mary, they just seem to suit each other. I found Ida's wedding gift of lace very touching.
I would've liked to have seen more of the teaching though. After the first school, where she wins over the students, there's less detail. But, as she also tells Mary, time goes so much faster as they get older. (In my own case, it's slowed down the older I get, but I know that's unusual.)
Farewell for now, Laura Ingalls Wilder. You are still an admirable heroine seven or eight decades later. I just wish your books were a little more worthy of you.
The Boxcar Children
1942, 1977 Albert Whitman & Company edition
Gertrude Chandler Warner
Illustrated by L. Kate Deal
The Boxcar Children
Original and purchase price unknown
Worn hardcover
B-
I read many of the "Boxcar Children" books as a child, but I have to admit that I was always disappointed that the series became about a bunch of kids living in luxury and solving mysteries. I much preferred the siblings living in the boxcar and making do with what they find and make. Going back to the story, I'm still disappointed in the "happy ending" where they're reunited with their rich grandfather, but I'm also struck by two other things. The plot and vocabulary are much simpler than I remembered, a contrast to most of the other children's books I've read for this project. Also, it's definitely a safer time, with no real dangers threatening the children. The one "wild" animal they meet turns into their trusty watchdog Watch. Even the mean adults aren't violent. Mostly, the children meet with kindness and encouragement. Anne Shirley and Laura Ingalls face much greater hardship. Even the Automobile Girls are living in a scarier world. I can't attribute it to the time period, because the 1940s were a scary time for some children, admittedly more so in other parts of the world than the U.S.
On its own, I'd give the story a C+, but the sort of silhouette illustrations by Deal are perfect, managing to convey emotions and scenery in a striking way. The cover of this edition looks more 1960s/70s, with the two boys wearing t-shirts and brown slacks, as opposed to the short pants/knickerbockers, jackets, and hats that the two brothers wear. Even by my 1970s childhood, this book was a period piece, and I now suspect that it may've been one even in the 1940s, although supposedly set in the then contemporary world. That's part of its continuing appeal, the fantasy that you could go live in a boxcar, but I find that fantasy less appealing, or at least less well done, than I did as a child.
P.S. After looking on the Internet, I discover the book was originally published in 1924 but heavily revised by Warner in '42. That may account for some of its datedness.
P.P.S. This finishes off the third bookshelf, covering a score of years, with lots of children's books in particular.
Gertrude Chandler Warner
Illustrated by L. Kate Deal
The Boxcar Children
Original and purchase price unknown
Worn hardcover
B-
I read many of the "Boxcar Children" books as a child, but I have to admit that I was always disappointed that the series became about a bunch of kids living in luxury and solving mysteries. I much preferred the siblings living in the boxcar and making do with what they find and make. Going back to the story, I'm still disappointed in the "happy ending" where they're reunited with their rich grandfather, but I'm also struck by two other things. The plot and vocabulary are much simpler than I remembered, a contrast to most of the other children's books I've read for this project. Also, it's definitely a safer time, with no real dangers threatening the children. The one "wild" animal they meet turns into their trusty watchdog Watch. Even the mean adults aren't violent. Mostly, the children meet with kindness and encouragement. Anne Shirley and Laura Ingalls face much greater hardship. Even the Automobile Girls are living in a scarier world. I can't attribute it to the time period, because the 1940s were a scary time for some children, admittedly more so in other parts of the world than the U.S.
On its own, I'd give the story a C+, but the sort of silhouette illustrations by Deal are perfect, managing to convey emotions and scenery in a striking way. The cover of this edition looks more 1960s/70s, with the two boys wearing t-shirts and brown slacks, as opposed to the short pants/knickerbockers, jackets, and hats that the two brothers wear. Even by my 1970s childhood, this book was a period piece, and I now suspect that it may've been one even in the 1940s, although supposedly set in the then contemporary world. That's part of its continuing appeal, the fantasy that you could go live in a boxcar, but I find that fantasy less appealing, or at least less well done, than I did as a child.
P.S. After looking on the Internet, I discover the book was originally published in 1924 but heavily revised by Warner in '42. That may account for some of its datedness.
P.P.S. This finishes off the third bookshelf, covering a score of years, with lots of children's books in particular.
Little Town on the Prairie
1941, undated probably 1970s Harper & Row edition
Laura Ingalls Wilder
Illustrated by Garth Williams
Little Town on the Prairie
Original and purchase price unknown
Hardcover in good condition except for worn dustjacket
B+
My cousins gave me this book for Christmas 1975, even though I hadn't read any of the previous "Little House" books. As such, I've always had a soft spot for it, but it turns out it is the best of the series so far. Yes, there is a regrettably racist scene, but I was so young when I first read the story that I didn't even understand that it was racist. Pa and some of the other men perform a minstrel show. At 7 going on 8, I didn't know what minstrels or "darkies" were. I thought they were wearing clown make-up. That's not to say that I'm cool with the scene now of course. I'm just saying that I look at it differently than I do at the racism of, for instance, Silver Princess.
That scene aside, this is the book that has Kitty, the cute but tough cat; Nellie Oleson and Miss Wilder (Laura's future sister-in-law) being bitches; Laura standing up to them; Mary admitting what a pain she was with her goody-goodiness in her younger days; blackbirds baked in a pie; a spelling bee; Laura making money; name cards; a replica of a teaching certificate; and the beginning of Almanzo's courtship. Also, some of Williams's best "Little House" illustrations are in this book, like the scene of Laura defiantly rocking the schoolroom seat, and the name card selection scene. I do have to gripe that he draws Grace as far too tall for a 3-year-old, like in the scene of the four sisters admiring little Kitty. That picture is adapted for the front cover, so that the girls are standing on the porch of their house in town. The illustration is extended to the back cover, so that we go down the steps and into the titular town. To both a child and an adult, this almost three-dimensionality is appealing.
Laura Ingalls Wilder
Illustrated by Garth Williams
Little Town on the Prairie
Original and purchase price unknown
Hardcover in good condition except for worn dustjacket
B+
My cousins gave me this book for Christmas 1975, even though I hadn't read any of the previous "Little House" books. As such, I've always had a soft spot for it, but it turns out it is the best of the series so far. Yes, there is a regrettably racist scene, but I was so young when I first read the story that I didn't even understand that it was racist. Pa and some of the other men perform a minstrel show. At 7 going on 8, I didn't know what minstrels or "darkies" were. I thought they were wearing clown make-up. That's not to say that I'm cool with the scene now of course. I'm just saying that I look at it differently than I do at the racism of, for instance, Silver Princess.
That scene aside, this is the book that has Kitty, the cute but tough cat; Nellie Oleson and Miss Wilder (Laura's future sister-in-law) being bitches; Laura standing up to them; Mary admitting what a pain she was with her goody-goodiness in her younger days; blackbirds baked in a pie; a spelling bee; Laura making money; name cards; a replica of a teaching certificate; and the beginning of Almanzo's courtship. Also, some of Williams's best "Little House" illustrations are in this book, like the scene of Laura defiantly rocking the schoolroom seat, and the name card selection scene. I do have to gripe that he draws Grace as far too tall for a 3-year-old, like in the scene of the four sisters admiring little Kitty. That picture is adapted for the front cover, so that the girls are standing on the porch of their house in town. The illustration is extended to the back cover, so that we go down the steps and into the titular town. To both a child and an adult, this almost three-dimensionality is appealing.
Thursday, May 24, 2012
The G-String Murders
1941, 1984 Penguin edition
Gypsy Rose Lee
The G-String Murders
Original price $3.95, purchase price unknown
Very worn paperback with stains
B-
A murder mystery by the world's most famous stripper? Yes, and it's pretty good. It's more interesting for the glimpses of backstage (and onstage) life than for the mystery, although that's fairly well done. Gypsy herself is a character, in both senses, with her book-only boyfriend Biff helping her figure out whodunnit. This was later made into Lady of Burlesque with Barbara Stanwyck, which I've never seen.
The novel is one of the racier pre-1960s ones I own, with not only references to nudity and breasts, but cocaine, prostitution, and lesbians. And yet, some of the innuendo is just hinted at, like with the Pickle Persuader skit. There's mild racism, about blacks and Chinese, although most of this comes from characters other than Gypsy. Another weakness is I had trouble keeping track of all the other girls, beyond lisping Alith and union-organizer Jannine.
Gypsy Rose Lee
The G-String Murders
Original price $3.95, purchase price unknown
Very worn paperback with stains
B-
A murder mystery by the world's most famous stripper? Yes, and it's pretty good. It's more interesting for the glimpses of backstage (and onstage) life than for the mystery, although that's fairly well done. Gypsy herself is a character, in both senses, with her book-only boyfriend Biff helping her figure out whodunnit. This was later made into Lady of Burlesque with Barbara Stanwyck, which I've never seen.
The novel is one of the racier pre-1960s ones I own, with not only references to nudity and breasts, but cocaine, prostitution, and lesbians. And yet, some of the innuendo is just hinted at, like with the Pickle Persuader skit. There's mild racism, about blacks and Chinese, although most of this comes from characters other than Gypsy. Another weakness is I had trouble keeping track of all the other girls, beyond lisping Alith and union-organizer Jannine.
The Long Winter
1940, 1968 Harper & Row edition
Laura Ingalls Wilder
Illustrated by Garth Williams
The Long Winter
Original price unknown, purchase price $2.50
Worn paperback
B
In some ways this is the best "Little House" book so far, but it's hard reading about how the Ingallses suffer during the harsh winter. Also, the Indian dialect is very cliche.
The Ma vs. tomboys dilemma continues, with Laura helping Pa perform "boys' chores," since someone has to help. And Laura wants to play catch with the boys at school but knows she shouldn't. The cover picture shows two girls, one presumably Laura, having a snowball fight with a boy, and this seems not only unlikely, but in contrast to the bleak story. Williams's illustrations are better than they've been in awhile, and I like his use of snowflakes.
In this book, the age difference between Laura and Almanzo is cut down to about half, around five years rather than the ten of real life, presumably to make it more palatable to 20th-century readers. Laura is 14 to Almanzo's 19. There's no romance yet, but she does admire his brown horses. He has some heroic moments in the story, including getting wheat in a snowstorm, to feed the starving town.
When the winter ends, after seven months, there's a feeling of relief and release, but it is a long time getting there, for the town and for the reader.
Laura Ingalls Wilder
Illustrated by Garth Williams
The Long Winter
Original price unknown, purchase price $2.50
Worn paperback
B
In some ways this is the best "Little House" book so far, but it's hard reading about how the Ingallses suffer during the harsh winter. Also, the Indian dialect is very cliche.
The Ma vs. tomboys dilemma continues, with Laura helping Pa perform "boys' chores," since someone has to help. And Laura wants to play catch with the boys at school but knows she shouldn't. The cover picture shows two girls, one presumably Laura, having a snowball fight with a boy, and this seems not only unlikely, but in contrast to the bleak story. Williams's illustrations are better than they've been in awhile, and I like his use of snowflakes.
In this book, the age difference between Laura and Almanzo is cut down to about half, around five years rather than the ten of real life, presumably to make it more palatable to 20th-century readers. Laura is 14 to Almanzo's 19. There's no romance yet, but she does admire his brown horses. He has some heroic moments in the story, including getting wheat in a snowstorm, to feed the starving town.
When the winter ends, after seven months, there's a feeling of relief and release, but it is a long time getting there, for the town and for the reader.
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
The Wonder City of Oz
1940, undated but I think 1990s Books of Wonder edition
Written and illustrated by John R. Neill
The Wonder City of Oz
Original and/or purchase price unknown
Good condition paperback
D+
When Thompson bowed out, Reilly & Lee chose the Imperial Illustrator for the next Royal Historian. It made sense in a way, since he'd been creating the visual image of Oz for 35 years. In his "Dear Boys and Girls" message, he says even he can't tell which came first, the story or the pictures. I'll tell you what I think came first: a concussion or an LSD trip.
Taking these in no particular order, since gosh knows the book has little order, here is some of the WTF-ness of this book:
1. Houses that fight with each other
2. Houses that sneeze
3. An Ozcalator invented by Oz. C. Later, which takes the entire population of each quadrant home
4. Citizens having the skin color of their quadrant, so that there are blue-skinned Munchkins
5. Not only red-skinned Quadlings, but fire in'jins
6. A Jersey girl named Jenny Jump, who becomes half-fairy because a leprechaun steals her pepper-cheese
7. An Ozlection between Jenny and Ozma, in which shoes count as votes until the (ward) Heelers try to steal the votes
8. The Ozlection revised to count poundage of the Oz inhabitants
9. Jack Pumpkinhead forming a Glee Club with Ozma's shoe-votes
10. Scraps being besties with Jack, and spending most of the book in an 8-year-old boy's swimsuit
11. The turn-style, which creates new outfits for Jenny's customers
12. A cameo by Polychrome in which she gets snubbed
13. "Ojo, the elephant boy"
14. The Wizard of Oz trying to go around incognito
15. The Wizard of Oz performing sort of a lobotomy on Jenny, to "put her in her place"
16. The Wizard of Oz (or was it Siko Pompus the leprechaun?) de-aging Jenny from a hard-working 15-year-old to a fun-loving 11-year-old
17. Jenny's 12-year-old shop boy, whose entire family has specific ages they stop aging at, basically falling in love with his Boss
18. Said shop boy being named Number Nine, since he and his siblings are numbered one through fourteen
19. Number Nine (number nine number nine, sorry, had a Beatles moment there) being renamed Whistlebreeches, due to an outfit Jenny makes him to stop his lollygagging
20. Scraps, Jack, and Jenny flying "last year's model" of the Ozoplane to a planet where they're thrown behind chocolate bars
21. Whistlebreeches rescuing them via a device of the Wizard's that seems like a fancier version of the Magic Picture
22. The inhabitants of the invaded planet invading the Wonder City (AKA the Emerald City) but being turned into little tin soldiers by the turn-style
23. People using guide-cats to get home from the Glee Club concert in the dark
24. The picture of the Scarecrow labeled "Scarcrow"
25. The Scarecrow being the King of the Munchkins (is this why Ojo is an elephant boy rather than a prince?)
26. Glinda, while still Queen of the Quadlings and a Sorceress, being just a girl chum of Ozma's and performing no magic
27. Aunt Em and Uncle Henry's debate on spanking
28. The Gnomes that live under Oz (rather than Ev)
29+ Anything that I've blanked out
A few of these elements might've worked, like the turn-style or the Ozlection, but it's all too much, and it's thrown in there without developing most of it. Yes, Baum and Thompson would ramble and not have much of a plot, but there was always a sense that there was something driving the story. Thompson was reasonably faithful to the history and characters Baum created, or at least they were never unrecognizable. This made me feel like I was reading fanfic as bad as My Immortal. In fact, if Dumblydore had shown up saying, "What the hell are you doing, you motherf***ers???", he would've fit right in.
On the plus side, the illustrations are good. Wacked-out as the text, but with expressive people, lively animals, and cool buildings. If C is average, then all of the Oz books till this point (and all the other children's books) have been at least a bit better than average. The lack of Ozziness (and no, coming up with words like "Ozbestoz" doesn't count) brings the book down to a C-. The insanity takes it down to a D+. The borderline sexism and racism to a D. And then with the illustrations back up to a D+. Yet, I will keep this book, just in case some friend ever speaks of a book being the weirdest and/or worst children's book ever. I can say, "Have you read The Wonder City of Oz?"
Oh, and welcome to the 1940s, we won't be here very long.
Written and illustrated by John R. Neill
The Wonder City of Oz
Original and/or purchase price unknown
Good condition paperback
D+
When Thompson bowed out, Reilly & Lee chose the Imperial Illustrator for the next Royal Historian. It made sense in a way, since he'd been creating the visual image of Oz for 35 years. In his "Dear Boys and Girls" message, he says even he can't tell which came first, the story or the pictures. I'll tell you what I think came first: a concussion or an LSD trip.
Taking these in no particular order, since gosh knows the book has little order, here is some of the WTF-ness of this book:
1. Houses that fight with each other
2. Houses that sneeze
3. An Ozcalator invented by Oz. C. Later, which takes the entire population of each quadrant home
4. Citizens having the skin color of their quadrant, so that there are blue-skinned Munchkins
5. Not only red-skinned Quadlings, but fire in'jins
6. A Jersey girl named Jenny Jump, who becomes half-fairy because a leprechaun steals her pepper-cheese
7. An Ozlection between Jenny and Ozma, in which shoes count as votes until the (ward) Heelers try to steal the votes
8. The Ozlection revised to count poundage of the Oz inhabitants
9. Jack Pumpkinhead forming a Glee Club with Ozma's shoe-votes
10. Scraps being besties with Jack, and spending most of the book in an 8-year-old boy's swimsuit
11. The turn-style, which creates new outfits for Jenny's customers
12. A cameo by Polychrome in which she gets snubbed
13. "Ojo, the elephant boy"
14. The Wizard of Oz trying to go around incognito
15. The Wizard of Oz performing sort of a lobotomy on Jenny, to "put her in her place"
16. The Wizard of Oz (or was it Siko Pompus the leprechaun?) de-aging Jenny from a hard-working 15-year-old to a fun-loving 11-year-old
17. Jenny's 12-year-old shop boy, whose entire family has specific ages they stop aging at, basically falling in love with his Boss
18. Said shop boy being named Number Nine, since he and his siblings are numbered one through fourteen
19. Number Nine (number nine number nine, sorry, had a Beatles moment there) being renamed Whistlebreeches, due to an outfit Jenny makes him to stop his lollygagging
20. Scraps, Jack, and Jenny flying "last year's model" of the Ozoplane to a planet where they're thrown behind chocolate bars
21. Whistlebreeches rescuing them via a device of the Wizard's that seems like a fancier version of the Magic Picture
22. The inhabitants of the invaded planet invading the Wonder City (AKA the Emerald City) but being turned into little tin soldiers by the turn-style
23. People using guide-cats to get home from the Glee Club concert in the dark
24. The picture of the Scarecrow labeled "Scarcrow"
25. The Scarecrow being the King of the Munchkins (is this why Ojo is an elephant boy rather than a prince?)
26. Glinda, while still Queen of the Quadlings and a Sorceress, being just a girl chum of Ozma's and performing no magic
27. Aunt Em and Uncle Henry's debate on spanking
28. The Gnomes that live under Oz (rather than Ev)
29+ Anything that I've blanked out
A few of these elements might've worked, like the turn-style or the Ozlection, but it's all too much, and it's thrown in there without developing most of it. Yes, Baum and Thompson would ramble and not have much of a plot, but there was always a sense that there was something driving the story. Thompson was reasonably faithful to the history and characters Baum created, or at least they were never unrecognizable. This made me feel like I was reading fanfic as bad as My Immortal. In fact, if Dumblydore had shown up saying, "What the hell are you doing, you motherf***ers???", he would've fit right in.
On the plus side, the illustrations are good. Wacked-out as the text, but with expressive people, lively animals, and cool buildings. If C is average, then all of the Oz books till this point (and all the other children's books) have been at least a bit better than average. The lack of Ozziness (and no, coming up with words like "Ozbestoz" doesn't count) brings the book down to a C-. The insanity takes it down to a D+. The borderline sexism and racism to a D. And then with the illustrations back up to a D+. Yet, I will keep this book, just in case some friend ever speaks of a book being the weirdest and/or worst children's book ever. I can say, "Have you read The Wonder City of Oz?"
Oh, and welcome to the 1940s, we won't be here very long.
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
By the Shores of Silver Lake
1939, 1971 Harper & Row edition
Laura Ingalls Wilder
Illustrated by Garth Williams
By the Shores of Silver Lake
Original price $1.95, purchase price $1.50
Poor condition paperback
B
Since I don't own On the Banks of Plum Creek (1937), we're going to jump ahead about six years, to when Laura is turning 13. Grace has been born and Mary has gone blind. And since Pa is broke, the family must move on again. But this time they settle in the area where the rest of the series is set. This book shows how the Ingallses move to an unsettled area that, come springtime, gets settled quickly. It's a more social book than in the past, although most of the people the family meets are "rough" men.
The conflict of Ma and civilization vs. Indians, tomboys, etc. continues in this story. I was most intrigued by Laura's friendship with fellow tomboy Cousin Lena. And it's ironic that the two girls discuss the marriage of a girl their age, when Laura's future husband shows up several chapters later.
Williams's illustrations are better than in Prairie, my favorite being smiling Laura poking her head into the storeroom. One thing that really strikes me on this reread of the series is how the simplest things please the children, particularly at Christmas-time. And, yes, Mr. Edwards comes back, along with the minister from Plum Creek, and Aunt Docia and some of the other "Big Woods" relatives.
I remember that as a child Mary irritated me. And in this book I can see why. It's not just that Mary is goody-goody. It's also that when Laura is kindly being her "eyes," Mary still has to nitpick, or brag about how she can sew better than Laura in the dark. Also, it breaks my heart that Laura is pressured into being a teacher even though she doesn't want to be, now partly to send Mary to a college for the blind. I know it's the Victorian period (and written during the Depression), but what about Laura's dreams? Still, this is a step up from Prairie.
Laura Ingalls Wilder
Illustrated by Garth Williams
By the Shores of Silver Lake
Original price $1.95, purchase price $1.50
Poor condition paperback
B
Since I don't own On the Banks of Plum Creek (1937), we're going to jump ahead about six years, to when Laura is turning 13. Grace has been born and Mary has gone blind. And since Pa is broke, the family must move on again. But this time they settle in the area where the rest of the series is set. This book shows how the Ingallses move to an unsettled area that, come springtime, gets settled quickly. It's a more social book than in the past, although most of the people the family meets are "rough" men.
The conflict of Ma and civilization vs. Indians, tomboys, etc. continues in this story. I was most intrigued by Laura's friendship with fellow tomboy Cousin Lena. And it's ironic that the two girls discuss the marriage of a girl their age, when Laura's future husband shows up several chapters later.
Williams's illustrations are better than in Prairie, my favorite being smiling Laura poking her head into the storeroom. One thing that really strikes me on this reread of the series is how the simplest things please the children, particularly at Christmas-time. And, yes, Mr. Edwards comes back, along with the minister from Plum Creek, and Aunt Docia and some of the other "Big Woods" relatives.
I remember that as a child Mary irritated me. And in this book I can see why. It's not just that Mary is goody-goody. It's also that when Laura is kindly being her "eyes," Mary still has to nitpick, or brag about how she can sew better than Laura in the dark. Also, it breaks my heart that Laura is pressured into being a teacher even though she doesn't want to be, now partly to send Mary to a college for the blind. I know it's the Victorian period (and written during the Depression), but what about Laura's dreams? Still, this is a step up from Prairie.
Ozoplaning with the Wizard of Oz
1939, 1990 International Wizard of Oz edition
Ruth Plumly Thompson
Illustrated by John R. Neill
Ozoplaning with the Wizard in Oz
Original and/or purchase price unknown
Worn paperback
B-
Continuing the sci-fi note of Silver Princess, Thompson this time puts seven of the characters from the first Oz book into outer space, via the wizard's Ozoplanes. One of these characters is the Tin Woodman, which is honestly the first memorable thing she's had him do since polish himself when the Emerald Palace was attacked in Kabumpo. The character who's not given much to do is, perhaps not surprisingly but still annoyingly, Dorothy. She and her first Oz friends, including the Soldier with the Green Whiskers renamed Wantowin Battles, gather to celebrate her (unspecified) anniversary of arrival in the Emerald City. But the heroine of the story is Jellia Jam [sic]. Thompson gives her a saucy but clever personality, not too far from the minx of the second book. Neill draws her with an upswept late '30s do.
As for the Wizard, he invents the Ozoplanes and some other devices, but he's a supporting character, despite getting his name in the title for the third or fourth time. (I'm not sure how to count the Little Wizard books that Baum wrote, especially since I've never read them.) His tell-all-escope doesn't tell all, since it gives his background without the whole accessory to Ozma's kidnapping thing.
As the quite good afterword by Michael Patrick Hearn describes, Thompson had very mixed feelings about Oz by the mid-1930s, but reluctantly stayed on. She had issues with the Baum family and with Reilly & Lee. And then along came a certain MGM adaptation of The Wizard of Oz. This book had to tie in with the new movie, which is why the cover looks the way it does, with the Tin Woodman, Wizard, and Scarecrow all greeting something in the sky, the words "The Wizard of Oz" larger than any others.
Thompson got fed up, and financially independent, enough to quit, but she had produced nineteen Oz books, which is why, even though I'm missing a few, I've still read more of hers than of Baum's. Her output isn't bad but it's rarely on the level of the originals. This last one does show bursts of imagination, but the plotting is weak, particularly the introduction of yet another dispossessed young royal, once the travelers are back in Oz. Still, this story, even when the Wizard and friends are plummeting to Earth on an iceberg, doesn't compare to the insanity of what came next....
P.S. I couldn't find any innuendo! Although it is weird that there's a husband and wife deer couple.
Ruth Plumly Thompson
Illustrated by John R. Neill
Ozoplaning with the Wizard in Oz
Original and/or purchase price unknown
Worn paperback
B-
Continuing the sci-fi note of Silver Princess, Thompson this time puts seven of the characters from the first Oz book into outer space, via the wizard's Ozoplanes. One of these characters is the Tin Woodman, which is honestly the first memorable thing she's had him do since polish himself when the Emerald Palace was attacked in Kabumpo. The character who's not given much to do is, perhaps not surprisingly but still annoyingly, Dorothy. She and her first Oz friends, including the Soldier with the Green Whiskers renamed Wantowin Battles, gather to celebrate her (unspecified) anniversary of arrival in the Emerald City. But the heroine of the story is Jellia Jam [sic]. Thompson gives her a saucy but clever personality, not too far from the minx of the second book. Neill draws her with an upswept late '30s do.
As for the Wizard, he invents the Ozoplanes and some other devices, but he's a supporting character, despite getting his name in the title for the third or fourth time. (I'm not sure how to count the Little Wizard books that Baum wrote, especially since I've never read them.) His tell-all-escope doesn't tell all, since it gives his background without the whole accessory to Ozma's kidnapping thing.
As the quite good afterword by Michael Patrick Hearn describes, Thompson had very mixed feelings about Oz by the mid-1930s, but reluctantly stayed on. She had issues with the Baum family and with Reilly & Lee. And then along came a certain MGM adaptation of The Wizard of Oz. This book had to tie in with the new movie, which is why the cover looks the way it does, with the Tin Woodman, Wizard, and Scarecrow all greeting something in the sky, the words "The Wizard of Oz" larger than any others.
Thompson got fed up, and financially independent, enough to quit, but she had produced nineteen Oz books, which is why, even though I'm missing a few, I've still read more of hers than of Baum's. Her output isn't bad but it's rarely on the level of the originals. This last one does show bursts of imagination, but the plotting is weak, particularly the introduction of yet another dispossessed young royal, once the travelers are back in Oz. Still, this story, even when the Wizard and friends are plummeting to Earth on an iceberg, doesn't compare to the insanity of what came next....
P.S. I couldn't find any innuendo! Although it is weird that there's a husband and wife deer couple.
Anne of Ingleside
1939, 1992 Bantam edition
L. M. Montgomery
Anne of Ingleside
Original price $2.95, purchase price $1.99
Worn paperback
B
This is the last "Anne" book Montgomery published before her death three years later, although it's #6 in the saga, going from just before Rilla's birth to just before Rainbow Valley. It focuses on Anne and her family, although my favorite parts were the gossipy quilting bee and Anne's memory of someone telling off the corpse at his funeral. The parts with the kids aren't too cutesy, although it bothers me how there are so many instances of "bad families" put in to contrast with the happy Blythes. I like that Anne visits Diana early in the story, and the two women, now in their mid 30s, remember their youth 20 years ago.
This edition has the pull-quote of how happy Anne is to return from being Anne of Green Gables to being Anne of Ingleside. Then on the back it tells of "insufferable Aunt Mary Maria visiting," and indeed Anne and her family are unhappy for close to a year because of Gilbert's aunt that he's too polite to tell to leave. The back cover also mentions Anne's fear that Gilbert no longer loves her, which doesn't come up until very late in the book, when she becomes jealous of his old college girlfriend.
In this story written on the eve of World War II, there's a sense that outsiders are bad. And yet, some of the worst problems Anne and the children face are due to what's inside. The Blythes, even sensible Gilbert when he's worrying over patients, let their imaginations run away with them and cause themselves and sometimes others misery.
An odd book to end the series with, full of a disquieting undertone. But overall, it's been a good journey, full of flowers and drama, good home-cooking and silliness, sewing and matchmaking.
L. M. Montgomery
Anne of Ingleside
Original price $2.95, purchase price $1.99
Worn paperback
B
This is the last "Anne" book Montgomery published before her death three years later, although it's #6 in the saga, going from just before Rilla's birth to just before Rainbow Valley. It focuses on Anne and her family, although my favorite parts were the gossipy quilting bee and Anne's memory of someone telling off the corpse at his funeral. The parts with the kids aren't too cutesy, although it bothers me how there are so many instances of "bad families" put in to contrast with the happy Blythes. I like that Anne visits Diana early in the story, and the two women, now in their mid 30s, remember their youth 20 years ago.
This edition has the pull-quote of how happy Anne is to return from being Anne of Green Gables to being Anne of Ingleside. Then on the back it tells of "insufferable Aunt Mary Maria visiting," and indeed Anne and her family are unhappy for close to a year because of Gilbert's aunt that he's too polite to tell to leave. The back cover also mentions Anne's fear that Gilbert no longer loves her, which doesn't come up until very late in the book, when she becomes jealous of his old college girlfriend.
In this story written on the eve of World War II, there's a sense that outsiders are bad. And yet, some of the worst problems Anne and the children face are due to what's inside. The Blythes, even sensible Gilbert when he's worrying over patients, let their imaginations run away with them and cause themselves and sometimes others misery.
An odd book to end the series with, full of a disquieting undertone. But overall, it's been a good journey, full of flowers and drama, good home-cooking and silliness, sewing and matchmaking.
Monday, May 21, 2012
The Code of the Woosters
1938, 1975 Penguin edition
P. G. Wodehouse
The Code of the Woosters
Bought used for $1.50, but "for copyright reasons this edition is not for sale in the U.S.A.," so I'm not sure where it came from.
Very worn paperback
B
This is the favourite Jeeves & Wooster novel for Alexander Cockburn and many others, and I'm baffled as to why. It is good to see Madeline and Gussie and Aunt Dahlia again, as well as to meet "Pop Bassett" and Roderick Spode the dictator, as well as Stiffy and Stinker. (Probably the funniest nicknamed couple in all of Wodehouse.) But there are no hilarious moments like in Right Ho, and the plot isn't jaw-dropping. It's just good solid work, like his short stories.
There's a reference to a plot in the Blandings Castle saga, but I've never been that fond of Wodehouse's other works, so I couldn't tell you about their chronology. This is set within a year of the summer of Right Ho, Jeeves, and with the "Black Shorts" that would seem to make it 1933 or later. Wodehouse doesn't get particularly political, but he's certainly as ready to mock fascists as he is to mock communists.
The cover art for this edition, by Ionicus, is frustrating because it captures a dramatic moment in the story, and yet Bertie has been illustrated as a plump, grey-haired man with pince-nez. Bertie at this point is in his early 30s and he's always been slender. He does not wear spectacles, although he does make them out of himself.
P. G. Wodehouse
The Code of the Woosters
Bought used for $1.50, but "for copyright reasons this edition is not for sale in the U.S.A.," so I'm not sure where it came from.
Very worn paperback
B
This is the favourite Jeeves & Wooster novel for Alexander Cockburn and many others, and I'm baffled as to why. It is good to see Madeline and Gussie and Aunt Dahlia again, as well as to meet "Pop Bassett" and Roderick Spode the dictator, as well as Stiffy and Stinker. (Probably the funniest nicknamed couple in all of Wodehouse.) But there are no hilarious moments like in Right Ho, and the plot isn't jaw-dropping. It's just good solid work, like his short stories.
There's a reference to a plot in the Blandings Castle saga, but I've never been that fond of Wodehouse's other works, so I couldn't tell you about their chronology. This is set within a year of the summer of Right Ho, Jeeves, and with the "Black Shorts" that would seem to make it 1933 or later. Wodehouse doesn't get particularly political, but he's certainly as ready to mock fascists as he is to mock communists.
The cover art for this edition, by Ionicus, is frustrating because it captures a dramatic moment in the story, and yet Bertie has been illustrated as a plump, grey-haired man with pince-nez. Bertie at this point is in his early 30s and he's always been slender. He does not wear spectacles, although he does make them out of himself.
The Silver Princess in Oz
1938, 1990 International Wizard of Oz edition
Ruth Plumly Thompson
Illustrated by John R. Neill
The Silver Princess in Oz
Original and/or purchase price unknown
Worn paperback
C+
OK, let's start with the pluses. This is the best of the Prince & Princess romances in the Thompson books. Randy has grown up from the 10-year-old in Purple Prince to a 16-year-old who's really 20, and therefore old enough to get married. He falls in love at first sight with Planetty, the Princess from Anuther Planet. (Not to be confused with Brother from Another Planet.) The Neill drawings of the couple are charming, whether they're making goo-goo eyes or storming a palace. Planetty's animal, Thun the Thundercolt, is (like her) metallic but (unlike her) silent and fiery. Randy is accompanied by Kabumpo, and this is probably the book where I find the elephant least annoying, since for once he's not scorning everyone they meet.
The minuses. I'm not crazy about the ending, since Planetty and Thun lose some of what makes them special in order to live on Earth. Most of the lands visited are forgettable, in particular Gaper's Gulch, as if Thompson needed to put in another lethargic kingdom after Pokes and Fix City in Royal Book. The land of tickling feathers, whatever it's called, is pointless, except to prove how strong Thun and Planetty are. The Box Wood is OK. And I like the concept of Nonagon Island, which sounds smaller than Octagon Island.
Randy and Kabumpo meet the aliens on their way to visit Jinnicky the Red Jinn. They come in the midst of a revolution. And here we get to the racism. Not only are Jinnicky's people slaves, they are black slaves, who speak and look like turn-of-the-century stereotypes of American blacks. The torn nature of this book is literally illustrated by the pictures on pp. 176-77. On the left, we have beautiful and brave Planetty and her noble steed attacking, and on the left we have two black men running away, their hair scraggly, their facial features grotesquely exaggerated.
Since I prefer innuendo greatly to racism, it's disappointing that Thompson put her energy for inappropriateness in this direction. The best she can come up with for suggestiveness is "the Red Jinn trying to beat off the fisherman with his puny hands."
The afterword, by Thompson's niece, of course doesn't address the racism, but it is notable that she refers to how Thompson lost her father at a young age, which is why she had to support her mother and siblings. Perhaps that's why fathers (and father figures) are so much more important than mothers in her Oz books, even in this book where a princess is born from a spring.
Ruth Plumly Thompson
Illustrated by John R. Neill
The Silver Princess in Oz
Original and/or purchase price unknown
Worn paperback
C+
OK, let's start with the pluses. This is the best of the Prince & Princess romances in the Thompson books. Randy has grown up from the 10-year-old in Purple Prince to a 16-year-old who's really 20, and therefore old enough to get married. He falls in love at first sight with Planetty, the Princess from Anuther Planet. (Not to be confused with Brother from Another Planet.) The Neill drawings of the couple are charming, whether they're making goo-goo eyes or storming a palace. Planetty's animal, Thun the Thundercolt, is (like her) metallic but (unlike her) silent and fiery. Randy is accompanied by Kabumpo, and this is probably the book where I find the elephant least annoying, since for once he's not scorning everyone they meet.
The minuses. I'm not crazy about the ending, since Planetty and Thun lose some of what makes them special in order to live on Earth. Most of the lands visited are forgettable, in particular Gaper's Gulch, as if Thompson needed to put in another lethargic kingdom after Pokes and Fix City in Royal Book. The land of tickling feathers, whatever it's called, is pointless, except to prove how strong Thun and Planetty are. The Box Wood is OK. And I like the concept of Nonagon Island, which sounds smaller than Octagon Island.
Randy and Kabumpo meet the aliens on their way to visit Jinnicky the Red Jinn. They come in the midst of a revolution. And here we get to the racism. Not only are Jinnicky's people slaves, they are black slaves, who speak and look like turn-of-the-century stereotypes of American blacks. The torn nature of this book is literally illustrated by the pictures on pp. 176-77. On the left, we have beautiful and brave Planetty and her noble steed attacking, and on the left we have two black men running away, their hair scraggly, their facial features grotesquely exaggerated.
Since I prefer innuendo greatly to racism, it's disappointing that Thompson put her energy for inappropriateness in this direction. The best she can come up with for suggestiveness is "the Red Jinn trying to beat off the fisherman with his puny hands."
The afterword, by Thompson's niece, of course doesn't address the racism, but it is notable that she refers to how Thompson lost her father at a young age, which is why she had to support her mother and siblings. Perhaps that's why fathers (and father figures) are so much more important than mothers in her Oz books, even in this book where a princess is born from a spring.
Margaret Sanger: An Autobiography
1938, 1971 Dover edition
Margaret Sanger
Margaret Sanger: An Autobiography
Original and purchase price unknown
Worn paperback
B
This is an autobiography that has few personal dates, missing those of Margaret's birth, her children's, and her first marriage. She was born in 1879, so she was almost sixty when this book was published, and at that point she had been a crusader for birth control for a quarter century. She would live until 1966. This book mostly focuses on the first decade of her campaign. As such, it's an interesting insider's view of a cause that is now both taken for granted and controversial. The most remarkable thing to a contemporary feminist, and perhaps to one at the time of this Dover edition, is that she was very much anti-abortion, considering it little better than infanticide. She does highlight the hypocrisy of, for instance, the Germans and Russians, who were more comfortable with abortion than contraception, because they felt that it would be wrong to put birth control in the hands of women rather than men.
Sanger, whose mother's health was ruined by eighteen pregnancies, was a remarkable woman but definitely not flawless. She was sympathetic to the poor but she was racist, as shown in her reference to a "darky" and in some of her remarks about India. Also, she seems to have equated homosexuality with transvestism, and disapproved of both. I do like seeing her observations from her travels around the world, including the changes in Japan from the early 1920s to the early '30s.
She also held some grudges, and although she tries to be fair to her colleagues, she does point out times when they disagreed and/or disappointed her. I was amused to see she chose Sinclair Lewis as her favorite American writer but she considered his hero Mencken to be unadventurous. She presents a very different view than Lewis did of the socialist etc. New York intellectuals of the period just before and during World War I.
She's insightful in pointing out how dictators and other leaders eager for war wanted more cannon fodder. She also shows the objections that some Catholics and other conservatives had/have to birth control. And there's a poem she quotes:
"Professor East, though you may try,
You fail to rouse my fears,
For I don't dream that even I
Will live a hundred years;
But do not think I view with mirth
Five billion folk (assorted)
Five billion tightly packed on earth
Who cannot be supported."
The current population, less than 75 years later, is at seven billion. So, yes, this book is still worth reading.
Margaret Sanger
Margaret Sanger: An Autobiography
Original and purchase price unknown
Worn paperback
B
This is an autobiography that has few personal dates, missing those of Margaret's birth, her children's, and her first marriage. She was born in 1879, so she was almost sixty when this book was published, and at that point she had been a crusader for birth control for a quarter century. She would live until 1966. This book mostly focuses on the first decade of her campaign. As such, it's an interesting insider's view of a cause that is now both taken for granted and controversial. The most remarkable thing to a contemporary feminist, and perhaps to one at the time of this Dover edition, is that she was very much anti-abortion, considering it little better than infanticide. She does highlight the hypocrisy of, for instance, the Germans and Russians, who were more comfortable with abortion than contraception, because they felt that it would be wrong to put birth control in the hands of women rather than men.
Sanger, whose mother's health was ruined by eighteen pregnancies, was a remarkable woman but definitely not flawless. She was sympathetic to the poor but she was racist, as shown in her reference to a "darky" and in some of her remarks about India. Also, she seems to have equated homosexuality with transvestism, and disapproved of both. I do like seeing her observations from her travels around the world, including the changes in Japan from the early 1920s to the early '30s.
She also held some grudges, and although she tries to be fair to her colleagues, she does point out times when they disagreed and/or disappointed her. I was amused to see she chose Sinclair Lewis as her favorite American writer but she considered his hero Mencken to be unadventurous. She presents a very different view than Lewis did of the socialist etc. New York intellectuals of the period just before and during World War I.
She's insightful in pointing out how dictators and other leaders eager for war wanted more cannon fodder. She also shows the objections that some Catholics and other conservatives had/have to birth control. And there's a poem she quotes:
"Professor East, though you may try,
You fail to rouse my fears,
For I don't dream that even I
Will live a hundred years;
But do not think I view with mirth
Five billion folk (assorted)
Five billion tightly packed on earth
Who cannot be supported."
The current population, less than 75 years later, is at seven billion. So, yes, this book is still worth reading.
Rebecca
1938, 1971 Avon edition
Daphne du Maurier
Rebecca
Original price $1.25, purchase price 25 cents
Worn paperback
B+
I bought this book sometime in the last six or seven years, but I think this is already my third reading of it. Yes, it's derivative of Jane Eyre, and, yes, there are no appealing characters in it, with the "hero" a murderer and the "heroine" a spineless paranoid nonentity (with no first name). But the book is, despite a slow start, a page-turner. Part of it is that there's a rotten core to seemingly perfect Rebecca de Winter. We never find out what her dark secret is, but it seems similar to that of the first Mrs. Rochester, sexual perversion, in Rebecca's case probably bisexuality, definitely promiscuity. She's also cruel, to everyone from a feeble-minded poor man to her posh husband. Even her lover/cousin Jack is treated with dishonesty and scorn. And yet, nearly everyone loves her and/or is obsessed with her. The narrator herself falls under Rebecca's spell, months after Rebecca's death.
Rebecca developed cancer but told no one. Then she taunted her husband Max into thinking she was pregnant by Jack, maddening him till he shot her. The trusting second wife seems to feel Max was justified in killing Rebecca, even before she knows all the facts. And he gets away with it, until Mrs. Danvers burns the houses down.
Ah, Mrs. Danvers. It's pretty clear that she's in love with Rebecca herself, and she punishes the second Mrs. de Winter for taking the place of the first. Mrs. Danvers certainly isn't likable, but she is interesting. My favorite character though is Bea, Max's tactless but kind sister, particularly how she'll take off part of her costume, like a beard or a veil, at a fancy-dress party. An apt symbol for this mysterious novel that's not at all a traditional mystery.
This is a poor edition in that it has many typos and the cover illustration gives the heroine a Harpo Marx hairdo. Not to mention that Manderley burning in the background is a bit of a spoiler, despite the hints dropped in the early chapters.
Daphne du Maurier
Rebecca
Original price $1.25, purchase price 25 cents
Worn paperback
B+
I bought this book sometime in the last six or seven years, but I think this is already my third reading of it. Yes, it's derivative of Jane Eyre, and, yes, there are no appealing characters in it, with the "hero" a murderer and the "heroine" a spineless paranoid nonentity (with no first name). But the book is, despite a slow start, a page-turner. Part of it is that there's a rotten core to seemingly perfect Rebecca de Winter. We never find out what her dark secret is, but it seems similar to that of the first Mrs. Rochester, sexual perversion, in Rebecca's case probably bisexuality, definitely promiscuity. She's also cruel, to everyone from a feeble-minded poor man to her posh husband. Even her lover/cousin Jack is treated with dishonesty and scorn. And yet, nearly everyone loves her and/or is obsessed with her. The narrator herself falls under Rebecca's spell, months after Rebecca's death.
Rebecca developed cancer but told no one. Then she taunted her husband Max into thinking she was pregnant by Jack, maddening him till he shot her. The trusting second wife seems to feel Max was justified in killing Rebecca, even before she knows all the facts. And he gets away with it, until Mrs. Danvers burns the houses down.
Ah, Mrs. Danvers. It's pretty clear that she's in love with Rebecca herself, and she punishes the second Mrs. de Winter for taking the place of the first. Mrs. Danvers certainly isn't likable, but she is interesting. My favorite character though is Bea, Max's tactless but kind sister, particularly how she'll take off part of her costume, like a beard or a veil, at a fancy-dress party. An apt symbol for this mysterious novel that's not at all a traditional mystery.
This is a poor edition in that it has many typos and the cover illustration gives the heroine a Harpo Marx hairdo. Not to mention that Manderley burning in the background is a bit of a spoiler, despite the hints dropped in the early chapters.
Friday, May 18, 2012
Handy Mandy in Oz
1937, 1990 International Wizard of Oz edition
Ruth Plumly Thompson
Illustrated by John R. Neill
Handy Mandy in Oz
Original and/or purchase price unknown
Worn paperback
B-
For a change, Thompson has a female main character, with the boy prince only a minor character. Handy Mandy is brave and funny, as well as seven-handed. She's sort of a Swiss miss, although she lives on Mt. Mern and Neill makes her look Dutch. Apparently, in Pirates in Oz or one of the other Thompsons I'm missing, Ruggedo was transformed into a jug, and there was a prophecy about a seven-armed Mernite being the only one who could free him. Uh oh. At the end of this story, he's transformed into a cactus, and no Royal Historian has disenchanted him yet.
Nox the Ox is one of the less obnoxious animal characters, and he and Mandy team up to free little Prince Kerry. Along the way, they run into Hookers, men with hook-noses, and Topsies, spinning characters who are black with woolly hair (see Uncle Tom's Cabin). Because, you know, it wouldn't be a Thompson book without innuendo and/or racism. And, yes, there's Scraps-bashing, in order to make the Scarecrow look good in comparison.
As with Captain Salt, Neill is in his 1930s renaissance, sometimes using two-page illustrations and generally seeming a lot more inspired by the stories than he has in over 15 years. There's an old-school Neill castle but there's also an action-shot of an underground "scenic railway." If I remember correctly, his pictures in the next Oz book are gorgeous, and it helps to offset Thompson at her most racist.
Oh, and while this book still has the Munchkins in the West, Thompson has learned to spell "Gillikin."
Ruth Plumly Thompson
Illustrated by John R. Neill
Handy Mandy in Oz
Original and/or purchase price unknown
Worn paperback
B-
For a change, Thompson has a female main character, with the boy prince only a minor character. Handy Mandy is brave and funny, as well as seven-handed. She's sort of a Swiss miss, although she lives on Mt. Mern and Neill makes her look Dutch. Apparently, in Pirates in Oz or one of the other Thompsons I'm missing, Ruggedo was transformed into a jug, and there was a prophecy about a seven-armed Mernite being the only one who could free him. Uh oh. At the end of this story, he's transformed into a cactus, and no Royal Historian has disenchanted him yet.
Nox the Ox is one of the less obnoxious animal characters, and he and Mandy team up to free little Prince Kerry. Along the way, they run into Hookers, men with hook-noses, and Topsies, spinning characters who are black with woolly hair (see Uncle Tom's Cabin). Because, you know, it wouldn't be a Thompson book without innuendo and/or racism. And, yes, there's Scraps-bashing, in order to make the Scarecrow look good in comparison.
As with Captain Salt, Neill is in his 1930s renaissance, sometimes using two-page illustrations and generally seeming a lot more inspired by the stories than he has in over 15 years. There's an old-school Neill castle but there's also an action-shot of an underground "scenic railway." If I remember correctly, his pictures in the next Oz book are gorgeous, and it helps to offset Thompson at her most racist.
Oh, and while this book still has the Munchkins in the West, Thompson has learned to spell "Gillikin."
Thursday, May 17, 2012
Captain Salt in Oz
1936, 1990 International Wizard of Oz edition
Ruth Plumly Thompson
Illustrated by John R. Neill
Captain Salt in Oz
Original and/or purchase price unknown
Worn paperback
B-
Set four years after Pirates in Oz, which came out in 1931, this marks the return of a bunch of characters whose earlier adventures I've never read. Not only that, but nobody, not even Captain Salt is actually "in Oz," since it's all set in the Nonestic Ocean. There are references to Oz and Ozma though, and Capt. Salt is on a colonization mission because Oz is overpopulated. Since when? Even in the Thompson books, there are still stretches of undeveloped land, or places where lonely travelers must travel for hours before finding a farmhouse. After all, the population of the Emerald City isn't much larger than it was in the sixth book. Yes, nobody dies (often) or ages (much), but it's not like there's been a baby boom. In any case, apparently it's OK with Thompson for Ozma (or with Ozma for Thompson) to encourage conquest.
True, the colonization is done in a mostly peaceful manner, mainly consisting of planting Oz flags and telling the "conquered" that they are now under the beneficent rule of Queen Ozma. (Side-note, in some books she's a princess, in others she's a queen; Baum wasn't very consistent about this either.) Some of the islands are unpopulated, so that makes it even easier.
Meanwhile, there's a whole other continent, Tarara, with two major countries and various tribes. A young king has been kidnapped by the bad guys, and then he's kidnapped by the title character. OK, he's pressured into becoming a cabin boy, but still.
And it's a no-women-allowed voyage, although female creatures like a motherly hippo are OK. Inevitably, this leads to slashy subtext between Salt and Ato, a king turned cook: "'What a tremendous fellow he was,' sighed Ato, sinking dreamily back in his hammock and half closing his eyes. 'I'll never forget how high and handsome he looked...'" (p. 23). Salt returns soon after, to take Ato on another voyage, promising, "Only over my prone and prostrate body shall another man enter my galley to shuffle my rations, sugar my duff or salt my prog!" That's devotion!
Thompson does a fine job creating the various lands that the crew visit, and Neill's illustrations are his best in ages. Perhaps exploring new territory is as liberating for them as for the captain and the cook.
Ruth Plumly Thompson
Illustrated by John R. Neill
Captain Salt in Oz
Original and/or purchase price unknown
Worn paperback
B-
Set four years after Pirates in Oz, which came out in 1931, this marks the return of a bunch of characters whose earlier adventures I've never read. Not only that, but nobody, not even Captain Salt is actually "in Oz," since it's all set in the Nonestic Ocean. There are references to Oz and Ozma though, and Capt. Salt is on a colonization mission because Oz is overpopulated. Since when? Even in the Thompson books, there are still stretches of undeveloped land, or places where lonely travelers must travel for hours before finding a farmhouse. After all, the population of the Emerald City isn't much larger than it was in the sixth book. Yes, nobody dies (often) or ages (much), but it's not like there's been a baby boom. In any case, apparently it's OK with Thompson for Ozma (or with Ozma for Thompson) to encourage conquest.
True, the colonization is done in a mostly peaceful manner, mainly consisting of planting Oz flags and telling the "conquered" that they are now under the beneficent rule of Queen Ozma. (Side-note, in some books she's a princess, in others she's a queen; Baum wasn't very consistent about this either.) Some of the islands are unpopulated, so that makes it even easier.
Meanwhile, there's a whole other continent, Tarara, with two major countries and various tribes. A young king has been kidnapped by the bad guys, and then he's kidnapped by the title character. OK, he's pressured into becoming a cabin boy, but still.
And it's a no-women-allowed voyage, although female creatures like a motherly hippo are OK. Inevitably, this leads to slashy subtext between Salt and Ato, a king turned cook: "'What a tremendous fellow he was,' sighed Ato, sinking dreamily back in his hammock and half closing his eyes. 'I'll never forget how high and handsome he looked...'" (p. 23). Salt returns soon after, to take Ato on another voyage, promising, "Only over my prone and prostrate body shall another man enter my galley to shuffle my rations, sugar my duff or salt my prog!" That's devotion!
Thompson does a fine job creating the various lands that the crew visit, and Neill's illustrations are his best in ages. Perhaps exploring new territory is as liberating for them as for the captain and the cook.
Anne of Windy Poplars
1936, 1992 Bantam edition
L. M. Montgomery
Anne of Windy Poplars
Original and/or purchase price unknown
Worn paperback with corners torn off
B-
Although written so much later than most of the rest of the series, this is #4 in the chronology, filling in Anne's three years of running a small school and waiting for Gilbert to finish his medical training. As such, it feels a bit disconnected from the rest of the series, with a very different cast. Even when Anne goes to visit Green Gables, we don't hear much about Marilla and the other locals. Diana, once Anne's dearest chum, has "other interests," so we don't even hear from her, and not much of her.
Most of the book is Anne matchmaking and otherwise playing Mary Worth to the residents of Summerside. Some of the problems are more interesting than others. Anne herself has some problems as principal but, not surprisingly for Montgomery, we don't actually hear much about the school.
After reading so many Thompson books, I'd forgotten that while RPT is mistress of the unfortunate names and accidentally suggestive phrasing, Montgomery is the go-to early-20th-century children's writer for "Even in context, that's pretty weird," such as the "shameless orgies of love-making and ecstasies of adoration" in Anne's House of Dreams. In this story, Anne babysits eight-year-old boy & girl twins, and has to punish them separately. When they're reunited, they call each other darling and "embrace and kiss passionately." There is one deliberately suggestive joke, about a man kissing his wife in an "improper place," meaning the church steps.
The book contains anachronisms, the most obvious being a reference to the 1906 earthquake, when this would have to be the late 1880s.
L. M. Montgomery
Anne of Windy Poplars
Original and/or purchase price unknown
Worn paperback with corners torn off
B-
Although written so much later than most of the rest of the series, this is #4 in the chronology, filling in Anne's three years of running a small school and waiting for Gilbert to finish his medical training. As such, it feels a bit disconnected from the rest of the series, with a very different cast. Even when Anne goes to visit Green Gables, we don't hear much about Marilla and the other locals. Diana, once Anne's dearest chum, has "other interests," so we don't even hear from her, and not much of her.
Most of the book is Anne matchmaking and otherwise playing Mary Worth to the residents of Summerside. Some of the problems are more interesting than others. Anne herself has some problems as principal but, not surprisingly for Montgomery, we don't actually hear much about the school.
After reading so many Thompson books, I'd forgotten that while RPT is mistress of the unfortunate names and accidentally suggestive phrasing, Montgomery is the go-to early-20th-century children's writer for "Even in context, that's pretty weird," such as the "shameless orgies of love-making and ecstasies of adoration" in Anne's House of Dreams. In this story, Anne babysits eight-year-old boy & girl twins, and has to punish them separately. When they're reunited, they call each other darling and "embrace and kiss passionately." There is one deliberately suggestive joke, about a man kissing his wife in an "improper place," meaning the church steps.
The book contains anachronisms, the most obvious being a reference to the 1906 earthquake, when this would have to be the late 1880s.
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Little House on the Prairie
1935, 1963 Scholastic edition
Laura Ingalls Wilder
Illustrated by Garth Williams
Little House on the Prairie
Original and purchase price unknown
Worn paperback
B-
Although this is the book that the whole series takes its name from, it's very different from both Big Woods and the later books. The Ingallses head out West from the woods, but the prairie they settle on for a year has nothing to do with the settings of later novels. I think Mr. Edwards will make a welcome return but otherwise the few people the family encounters are never seen or heard from again. There's a moment where they talk about mailing a letter that will get to the Big Woods relatives in the winter, with possibly a reply in the spring. That's how isolated they are.
Other than Mr. Edwards and a white couple, the main people they encounter are Indians and, yes, this book is arguably racist. At the least, it shows the attitudes of the white settlers towards Indians. (And I'm arguably racist for calling them "Indians," but it's like calling blacks "Negroes" in discussing novels of this same time period. There are more offensive terms, and there are more p.c. terms, so I'm splitting the difference.) Pa is the only character who doesn't seem racist, and even he seems to feel that the whites have the right to settle the Indian Territory.
Late in the book, the Indians must move on, and Laura wants to adopt a "papoose." There's a subtext that tomboyish Laura wants the freedom that the Indians represent, despite Ma's insistence on the girls becoming "ladies." If I remember correctly, this subtext runs through later novels as well. The sunbonnet is a symbol of this conflict.
There is surprisingly a character who is neither white nor "red." The unsubtly named Dr. Tan is a black physician who cares for the Ingallses when they have ague. Wilder the narrator points out that no one understood malaria then. She doesn't make any similar comments like, "No one sympathized with the Indians at that time." But, yes, she does get points for showing more complexity to the racial situation than expected.
Another thing that strikes me about the book is that Laura does a lot of chores for a little girl of about six. This is even stranger when you consider that in real life she was only about three. The incident of Laura dragging Mary, Carrie, and the rocking chair away from the fire probably didn't happen, but it serves to show Laura-the-character's strength and bravery. Baby Carrie by the way starts to have a bit more personality than the lump of the first book, although I find the Shirley-Temple do Williams gives her distracting.
This is not his best work. The people look more simply drawn than before, and the animals have less personality. Similarly, Wilder's prose is sometimes redundant and could've used better editing.
What this book has that the first two didn't is the beginning of the saga of what it's like to go out into the wide world and start all over again. We see Pa build the house and furniture, dig a well, and so on. (Ma doesn't do much except cook and try to keep the family civilized.) I think the later books are more interesting because there's more sense of community, including the girls going to school. But we shall see if my memories match up to the reality. I don't even think of the Indians when I haven't read this book in awhile, so obviously I was too influenced by the TV show or something.
Laura Ingalls Wilder
Illustrated by Garth Williams
Little House on the Prairie
Original and purchase price unknown
Worn paperback
B-
Although this is the book that the whole series takes its name from, it's very different from both Big Woods and the later books. The Ingallses head out West from the woods, but the prairie they settle on for a year has nothing to do with the settings of later novels. I think Mr. Edwards will make a welcome return but otherwise the few people the family encounters are never seen or heard from again. There's a moment where they talk about mailing a letter that will get to the Big Woods relatives in the winter, with possibly a reply in the spring. That's how isolated they are.
Other than Mr. Edwards and a white couple, the main people they encounter are Indians and, yes, this book is arguably racist. At the least, it shows the attitudes of the white settlers towards Indians. (And I'm arguably racist for calling them "Indians," but it's like calling blacks "Negroes" in discussing novels of this same time period. There are more offensive terms, and there are more p.c. terms, so I'm splitting the difference.) Pa is the only character who doesn't seem racist, and even he seems to feel that the whites have the right to settle the Indian Territory.
Late in the book, the Indians must move on, and Laura wants to adopt a "papoose." There's a subtext that tomboyish Laura wants the freedom that the Indians represent, despite Ma's insistence on the girls becoming "ladies." If I remember correctly, this subtext runs through later novels as well. The sunbonnet is a symbol of this conflict.
There is surprisingly a character who is neither white nor "red." The unsubtly named Dr. Tan is a black physician who cares for the Ingallses when they have ague. Wilder the narrator points out that no one understood malaria then. She doesn't make any similar comments like, "No one sympathized with the Indians at that time." But, yes, she does get points for showing more complexity to the racial situation than expected.
Another thing that strikes me about the book is that Laura does a lot of chores for a little girl of about six. This is even stranger when you consider that in real life she was only about three. The incident of Laura dragging Mary, Carrie, and the rocking chair away from the fire probably didn't happen, but it serves to show Laura-the-character's strength and bravery. Baby Carrie by the way starts to have a bit more personality than the lump of the first book, although I find the Shirley-Temple do Williams gives her distracting.
This is not his best work. The people look more simply drawn than before, and the animals have less personality. Similarly, Wilder's prose is sometimes redundant and could've used better editing.
What this book has that the first two didn't is the beginning of the saga of what it's like to go out into the wide world and start all over again. We see Pa build the house and furniture, dig a well, and so on. (Ma doesn't do much except cook and try to keep the family civilized.) I think the later books are more interesting because there's more sense of community, including the girls going to school. But we shall see if my memories match up to the reality. I don't even think of the Indians when I haven't read this book in awhile, so obviously I was too influenced by the TV show or something.
It Can't Happen Here
1935, 1970 Signet edition
Sinclair Lewis
It Can't Happen Here
Original price unknown, bought used for $1.50
Very worn paperback
C+
While Lewis's idea of a very American form of fascism, with a folksy President, is intriguing, and it's fun to see how he imagines everyone from FDR to the Hearst newspaper writers reacting to it, unfortunately this novel contains his worst characterization so far. Even at the most cartoony, like parts of Babbitt, there's always been a sense of real human beings, with plausible thoughts and emotions, inside the caricatures.
To take a small but representative example, the hero Doremus Jessup is supposed to be very fond of his grandson, and yet the grandson does nothing endearing, and acts more like five or six, rather than eight to ten. They have no bonding moments, and all we hear of the lad is that he wants to grow up to be a M.M. (one of the "Minute Men," the thugs the government employs, like a Brown Shirt). Add to that the most lackluster romance of any Lewis novel-- I was more invested in Elmer/Juanita!-- between Doremus and Lorinda, which isn't even brought up till about 100 pages in, and it's hard to believe in any of the relationships or feelings in the book. Only Doremus's elder daughter, Mary, with her suicidal assassination, seemed to have believable emotion, and she of course is crazy with grief.
Doremus's younger daughter, Sissy, flippantly jokes about rape, at the same time that the narrator is reporting rapes of offstage characters. Most of the horrors are offstage, till Doremus and nearly every other "good" male character goes to jail. That part is better done, although of course unpleasant to read.
Lewis, who fifteen years earlier, in Main Street, seemed to realize that homophobia is more dangerous than homosexuality, makes the main villain-- Lee Sarason, the power behind the throne-- a decadent homosexual, and there are some effeminate gay M.M.s earlier.
When I first read this book, during the Reagan 1980s, I thought it could happen here, and it was wonderful to read of someone long ago pointing out the dangers of homegrown fascism. Now I think that while it could hypothetically happen, I think it less and less would happen in this way, particularly with changes in technology, most notably the Internet. In the painfully dated introduction by Jay Richard Kennedy, he says, "Dig it," and wants you to realize how prescient Lewis was. But the days of Huey Long, and those of George Wallace, are long gone. So even if I think, "Hm, 'almost a dwarf, yet with an enormous head, a bloodhound head, of huge ears, pendulous cheeks, mournful eyes....a luminous, ungrudging smile,' sounds a little like Ross Perot," that doesn't mean that I think Perot or any politician is Buzz Windrip.
This novel inspired both a Frank Zappa song and the miniseries V.
Sinclair Lewis
It Can't Happen Here
Original price unknown, bought used for $1.50
Very worn paperback
C+
While Lewis's idea of a very American form of fascism, with a folksy President, is intriguing, and it's fun to see how he imagines everyone from FDR to the Hearst newspaper writers reacting to it, unfortunately this novel contains his worst characterization so far. Even at the most cartoony, like parts of Babbitt, there's always been a sense of real human beings, with plausible thoughts and emotions, inside the caricatures.
To take a small but representative example, the hero Doremus Jessup is supposed to be very fond of his grandson, and yet the grandson does nothing endearing, and acts more like five or six, rather than eight to ten. They have no bonding moments, and all we hear of the lad is that he wants to grow up to be a M.M. (one of the "Minute Men," the thugs the government employs, like a Brown Shirt). Add to that the most lackluster romance of any Lewis novel-- I was more invested in Elmer/Juanita!-- between Doremus and Lorinda, which isn't even brought up till about 100 pages in, and it's hard to believe in any of the relationships or feelings in the book. Only Doremus's elder daughter, Mary, with her suicidal assassination, seemed to have believable emotion, and she of course is crazy with grief.
Doremus's younger daughter, Sissy, flippantly jokes about rape, at the same time that the narrator is reporting rapes of offstage characters. Most of the horrors are offstage, till Doremus and nearly every other "good" male character goes to jail. That part is better done, although of course unpleasant to read.
Lewis, who fifteen years earlier, in Main Street, seemed to realize that homophobia is more dangerous than homosexuality, makes the main villain-- Lee Sarason, the power behind the throne-- a decadent homosexual, and there are some effeminate gay M.M.s earlier.
When I first read this book, during the Reagan 1980s, I thought it could happen here, and it was wonderful to read of someone long ago pointing out the dangers of homegrown fascism. Now I think that while it could hypothetically happen, I think it less and less would happen in this way, particularly with changes in technology, most notably the Internet. In the painfully dated introduction by Jay Richard Kennedy, he says, "Dig it," and wants you to realize how prescient Lewis was. But the days of Huey Long, and those of George Wallace, are long gone. So even if I think, "Hm, 'almost a dwarf, yet with an enormous head, a bloodhound head, of huge ears, pendulous cheeks, mournful eyes....a luminous, ungrudging smile,' sounds a little like Ross Perot," that doesn't mean that I think Perot or any politician is Buzz Windrip.
This novel inspired both a Frank Zappa song and the miniseries V.
Monday, May 14, 2012
Right Ho, Jeeves
1934, 1985 Penguin edition
P. G. Wodehouse
Right Ho, Jeeves
Original price $3.95, purchase price unknown
Very worn paperback
A-
This came out the same year as Thank You, Jeeves, but it can't be set the same year because it takes place in late July, early August, shortly after the return of Bertie, his Aunt Dahlia, and his cousin Angela from two months in Cannes. It's set after both "Clustering Round Young Bingo" and "Jeeves and the Yule-Tide Spirit," but since several summers are spoken for, I'll put it in 1932. Actually, I think the novel is also set after "The Ordeal of Young Tuppy," since I believe that's the one where Tuppy's Pekinese-hat insult first crops up, and I put that short story in 1931. So, yeah, the summer of 1932.
Whenever it's set, it's a great story, the first Wodehouse I read and in many ways still my favorite. There is a joke about Uncle Tom (Dahlia's husband) turning black and playing the banjo, but the novel is much less racist than its predecessor. And it's much funnier, particularly Bertie's turns of phrase. If I have to narrow it down, I love the plate of well-kicked sandwiches, anything about tigers, and Gussie's drunken prize-giving speech. The Fry & Laurie television version does justice to these and so much of the book.
Bertie, resenting people's preference of Jeeves's advice to his, takes it upon himself to mend two romances, that between Tuppy & Angela, and that between two new characters. He of course bungles it, but once again Jeeves saves the day. The newbies are not the typical couple who pass through and then disappear (e.g. Sippy and Elizabeth), but they actually return to complicate Bertie's life in future novels. They are two geeks, Gussie Fink-Nottle the newt-fancier and Madeline Bassett the amateur poet. Madeline thinks Bertie is in love with her, while he thinks she's incredibly soppy.
"'Every time a fairy sheds a tear, a wee bit star is born in the Milky Way.' Have you ever thought that, Mr. Wooster?'"
I never had. Most improbable, I considered, and it didn't seem to me to check up with her statement that the stars were God's daisy chain. I mean, you can't have it both ways.
Add in Anatole the French chef who speaks American and British slang, Uncle Tom griping about paying his taxes, and of course the fuss about Bertie's white mess jacket, and so much else, and, well, it's one of my favorite books by anyone, not just Wodehouse.
P. G. Wodehouse
Right Ho, Jeeves
Original price $3.95, purchase price unknown
Very worn paperback
A-
This came out the same year as Thank You, Jeeves, but it can't be set the same year because it takes place in late July, early August, shortly after the return of Bertie, his Aunt Dahlia, and his cousin Angela from two months in Cannes. It's set after both "Clustering Round Young Bingo" and "Jeeves and the Yule-Tide Spirit," but since several summers are spoken for, I'll put it in 1932. Actually, I think the novel is also set after "The Ordeal of Young Tuppy," since I believe that's the one where Tuppy's Pekinese-hat insult first crops up, and I put that short story in 1931. So, yeah, the summer of 1932.
Whenever it's set, it's a great story, the first Wodehouse I read and in many ways still my favorite. There is a joke about Uncle Tom (Dahlia's husband) turning black and playing the banjo, but the novel is much less racist than its predecessor. And it's much funnier, particularly Bertie's turns of phrase. If I have to narrow it down, I love the plate of well-kicked sandwiches, anything about tigers, and Gussie's drunken prize-giving speech. The Fry & Laurie television version does justice to these and so much of the book.
Bertie, resenting people's preference of Jeeves's advice to his, takes it upon himself to mend two romances, that between Tuppy & Angela, and that between two new characters. He of course bungles it, but once again Jeeves saves the day. The newbies are not the typical couple who pass through and then disappear (e.g. Sippy and Elizabeth), but they actually return to complicate Bertie's life in future novels. They are two geeks, Gussie Fink-Nottle the newt-fancier and Madeline Bassett the amateur poet. Madeline thinks Bertie is in love with her, while he thinks she's incredibly soppy.
"'Every time a fairy sheds a tear, a wee bit star is born in the Milky Way.' Have you ever thought that, Mr. Wooster?'"
I never had. Most improbable, I considered, and it didn't seem to me to check up with her statement that the stars were God's daisy chain. I mean, you can't have it both ways.
Add in Anatole the French chef who speaks American and British slang, Uncle Tom griping about paying his taxes, and of course the fuss about Bertie's white mess jacket, and so much else, and, well, it's one of my favorite books by anyone, not just Wodehouse.
Thank You, Jeeves
1934, 1989 Harper & Row edition
P. G. Wodehouse
Thank You, Jeeves
Bought newish for $7.95
Slightly worn paperback
B-
As Wodehouse says, in another of his delightful Prefaces, this is the first Jeeves novel. It's set in a surprisingly specific time period, July of 1931. This is clear not only because Bertie says it's July, but because a policeman speaks of crime statistics for 1929 and 1930. Therefore, the short story "Jeeves and the Greasy Bird" must be Christmastime 1932.
The most obvious way the book is dated, aside from a reference to Janet Gaynor, is the unfortunate and recurring use of the N-word, in reference to minstrels. Bertie takes up banjo-playing and he hopes to get some tips from the troupe who are performing in Chuffnell Regis. He and Sir Roderick Glossop both end up in blackface by the end. Not only is it offensive, but it's not particularly funny.
Other than that, the first full-length Bertie scrape is fairly well-done. Sir Roderick is gradually denemesised, to be replaced by rich, bullying American J. Washburn Stoker as the scariest of Bertie's prospective fathers-in-law. Bertie got engaged, offstage, back in April to Stoker's daughter Pauline, but now she wants to team up with his friend Chuffy. (Real name Marmaduke, which to a late-20th-century person like myself immediately conjures up the image of a not-so-great Dane.) However, as Jeeves remarks, Bertie is "one of Nature's bachelors." This doesn't mean that Bertie is gay, although I have a theory that he's closeted to himself. "The attitude of fellows towards finding girls in their bedroom shortly after midnight varies. Some like it. Some don't. I didn't."
Another odd thing about this book is Brinkley, or rather two odd things. Jeeves understandably doesn't want to be cooped up in a country cottage with Bertie playing the banjo. (Harper & Row do awesome covers for their books, and this one, although not strictly matching the text, captures Jeeves's annoyance perfectly.) So Bertie gets a new man, who has the same name as his aunt's manor. Mr. Brinkley dislikes Bertie, who for some reason thinks this makes Brinkley a Communist, although there's no textual evidence.
P. G. Wodehouse
Thank You, Jeeves
Bought newish for $7.95
Slightly worn paperback
B-
As Wodehouse says, in another of his delightful Prefaces, this is the first Jeeves novel. It's set in a surprisingly specific time period, July of 1931. This is clear not only because Bertie says it's July, but because a policeman speaks of crime statistics for 1929 and 1930. Therefore, the short story "Jeeves and the Greasy Bird" must be Christmastime 1932.
The most obvious way the book is dated, aside from a reference to Janet Gaynor, is the unfortunate and recurring use of the N-word, in reference to minstrels. Bertie takes up banjo-playing and he hopes to get some tips from the troupe who are performing in Chuffnell Regis. He and Sir Roderick Glossop both end up in blackface by the end. Not only is it offensive, but it's not particularly funny.
Other than that, the first full-length Bertie scrape is fairly well-done. Sir Roderick is gradually denemesised, to be replaced by rich, bullying American J. Washburn Stoker as the scariest of Bertie's prospective fathers-in-law. Bertie got engaged, offstage, back in April to Stoker's daughter Pauline, but now she wants to team up with his friend Chuffy. (Real name Marmaduke, which to a late-20th-century person like myself immediately conjures up the image of a not-so-great Dane.) However, as Jeeves remarks, Bertie is "one of Nature's bachelors." This doesn't mean that Bertie is gay, although I have a theory that he's closeted to himself. "The attitude of fellows towards finding girls in their bedroom shortly after midnight varies. Some like it. Some don't. I didn't."
Another odd thing about this book is Brinkley, or rather two odd things. Jeeves understandably doesn't want to be cooped up in a country cottage with Bertie playing the banjo. (Harper & Row do awesome covers for their books, and this one, although not strictly matching the text, captures Jeeves's annoyance perfectly.) So Bertie gets a new man, who has the same name as his aunt's manor. Mr. Brinkley dislikes Bertie, who for some reason thinks this makes Brinkley a Communist, although there's no textual evidence.
Friday, May 11, 2012
Farmer Boy
1933, post-1981 HarperCollins edition
Laura Ingalls Wilder
Illustrated by Garth Williams
Farmer Boy
Original price $4.95, bought used for unknown
Worn paperback
B
In a way, this is a prequel to the Little House books about Laura, since her future husband is not quite nine at the start, and so Laura herself is not yet born. But this book is sometimes considered #3 in the series. (And you thought the book order of Narnia was tricky.) In any case, it came out only a year after Big Woods and is set "sixty-seven years ago," just after the Civil War, although no mention is made of that even during the political discussions.
I'd put it on a level with Big Woods. It's certainly more eventful than the first book, but I miss the Ingallses. Not that the Wilders aren't interesting, but they're just not as likable. It is notable that Almanzo's childhood is less primitive than Laura's, since he grows up on a farm near an established town (Malone), with a railroad and a town square.
The most shocking part of the book is how the "big boys" threaten the schoolteacher. They've actually killed one of the past teachers! (Well, the teacher was injured so badly that he died later.) No one calls in the law for some reason. Instead, Mr. Corse borrows Mr. Wilder's whip and literally whips the big boys out of school. I can't imagine this happening in the "Laura" books. And it definitely wouldn't have happened in Avonlea.
As before, Williams does well with both humans and animals. Almanzo trains a pair of young oxen, but he dreams of having his own colt. As the cover shows, the animals have as much personality as the people. My favorite drawing of a human is of the elvish-looking cobbler.
This edition came out at a time when Harper was heavily promoting the prequels and sequels by modern writers, so there's a list of, for instance, "The Rose Years" books. I couldn't make it past the first few chapters of the "Martha" book, about Laura's Scottish great-grandmother. At least this book has the Wilder style and messages (such as, work is important but so is having fun), although it's a different part of the family. Still, I do appreciate the family tree, even if it feels odd that Almanzo doesn't get more detail in his own book. According to Wikipedia, LIW collapsed the age differences of the Wilder siblings, so that Royal is only four years older rather than a decade, and she omits two of the real-life siblings.
Laura Ingalls Wilder
Illustrated by Garth Williams
Farmer Boy
Original price $4.95, bought used for unknown
Worn paperback
B
In a way, this is a prequel to the Little House books about Laura, since her future husband is not quite nine at the start, and so Laura herself is not yet born. But this book is sometimes considered #3 in the series. (And you thought the book order of Narnia was tricky.) In any case, it came out only a year after Big Woods and is set "sixty-seven years ago," just after the Civil War, although no mention is made of that even during the political discussions.
I'd put it on a level with Big Woods. It's certainly more eventful than the first book, but I miss the Ingallses. Not that the Wilders aren't interesting, but they're just not as likable. It is notable that Almanzo's childhood is less primitive than Laura's, since he grows up on a farm near an established town (Malone), with a railroad and a town square.
The most shocking part of the book is how the "big boys" threaten the schoolteacher. They've actually killed one of the past teachers! (Well, the teacher was injured so badly that he died later.) No one calls in the law for some reason. Instead, Mr. Corse borrows Mr. Wilder's whip and literally whips the big boys out of school. I can't imagine this happening in the "Laura" books. And it definitely wouldn't have happened in Avonlea.
As before, Williams does well with both humans and animals. Almanzo trains a pair of young oxen, but he dreams of having his own colt. As the cover shows, the animals have as much personality as the people. My favorite drawing of a human is of the elvish-looking cobbler.
This edition came out at a time when Harper was heavily promoting the prequels and sequels by modern writers, so there's a list of, for instance, "The Rose Years" books. I couldn't make it past the first few chapters of the "Martha" book, about Laura's Scottish great-grandmother. At least this book has the Wilder style and messages (such as, work is important but so is having fun), although it's a different part of the family. Still, I do appreciate the family tree, even if it feels odd that Almanzo doesn't get more detail in his own book. According to Wikipedia, LIW collapsed the age differences of the Wilder siblings, so that Royal is only four years older rather than a decade, and she omits two of the real-life siblings.
Thursday, May 10, 2012
Ojo in Oz
1933, 1986 Del Rey edition
Ruth Plumly Thompson
Illustrated by John R. Neill
Ojo in Oz
Original price $5.95, bought used for $3.48
Worn paperback
B-
There are two main things to talk about with this book: innuendo (of course) and history. Of the latter, Thompson calls it not just hoztry but Oz hoztry. Are there other kinds of hoztry? Wouldn't the history of Ev be called hevtry? And what of Mo-ology? Thompson still has a bad habit, a dozen years into her royal-historianship, of tacking "Oz" onto or into words as if to make them more authentic. The worst example is "ozade." If lemonade is made with lemons, limeaid with limes, and Gatoraid with--
OK, back to hoztry. In the previous book, Glinda was celebrating a century of ruling the Quadlings. Does this include the time of the Quadling king? Was that mysterious man actually a consort, that died or divorced?
In this book we find out that Ojo's grandfather ruled the southern part of the Munchkin Country (which has moved back to the west), and had Seebania as the capital. When Ozma became queen and was able to select rulers of the quadrants, the royal family was left with only Seebania, while presumably the Ozure Islanders took over rule of the Munchkins, or at least the north half. Ojo's grandfather was overthrown by Mooj the Magician, who then imprisoned Ojo's parents. Ojo's father, Ree Alla Bad, was released on condition that he not free his wife or ask anyone else to free her. So he became Realbad the bandit.
He didn't know his queen was pregnant, but later his uncle Stephen hid the baby away in safety, and we know that pair better as Unc Nunkie and Ojo. Ojo, by the way, is "ten." I have no idea how much time is supposed to have passed.
This is not the Ojo of Patchwork Girl, since he's much less graver, although I suppose his spirits might've improved after so long in the Emerald City. Neill doesn't draw him with dark hair as he did twenty years earlier, although Realbad has curly black hair in text and illustrations. Realbad also has a very dashing mustache.
Thompson does a good job showing the connection between Realbad and Ojo, even before it's revealed that they're father and son. The queen, however, just shows up at the end and, much more than in Giant Horse, is a very vague character. Thompson seems to have been a lot less interested in mothers than fathers, but then her cast tends to be more male than Baum's was.
The other main character is the bear Snufferbux. (Snuff her bucks? I hardly know her!) He and Realbad fight over Ojo and other matters at many points in the book, but of course become friends.
He meets Ojo in a Gypsy camp, and I have to say that Thompson doesn't miss a stereotype for this thieving, fortune-telling, cruel but charming, swarthy pack. Even Realbad's bandits are portrayed more sympathetically. At the end of the story, Ozma deports the Gypsies to Southern Europe, and I try not to think about the fate of Gypsies in Northern Europe in the following decade.
Moving on to the lighter topic, this is unquestionably the most innuendous Thompson book so far, maybe ever. In Lost King, she had a character named Humpy, and here we get Humper, but that's minor compared to this line when Realbad meets a unicorn in the fog: "To his dismay and consternation the pointed end of his rod immediately embedded itself in a soft, yielding body."
And even that is nothing next to the dizzying chapter "Dorothy in Dicksy Land." Yes, I know that "queer dick" means roughly "odd duck," but that doesn't mean that all the uses of "queer" and "dick" in this chapter can be glossed over. How about this, which manages to get in a drug reference as well: "'Here we are all Dicks together. I am the Dick with the queer hat band. That's my peculiarity. To what are you addicted?'" Or what of "Dorothy decided that [there were no female Dicks] because men were queerer than women"? (I think Sinclair Lewis might disagree about that.) Then in the next chapter, the Cowardly Lion asks, "Do you mean to tell me that every Dick in Dicksy Land is perfectly satisfied?" Toujours gai Scraps remarks, "This is a queer country. I'll come back some time and spend my life."
The Pointless Dorothy Side-Plot this time is possibly more pointless than ever. Ozma, Nunkie, and the Wizard are already going to get Glinda's help in rescuing Ojo from the Gypsies. But Scraps, who gets hushed two or three times of course, wants to rescue Ojo, and Dorothy and the Lion go along. Mooj transforms them into clocks, and you could take this subplot out of the book and lose nothing.
I do really like Unicorners. It's as if after dicking around for 180 pages, Thompson finally decided to write a good story. The concept and execution of this little kingdom are well done, and not coincidentally the other aspects of the story improve for the last 60 pages or so. Neill's best artwork in the book is of the unicorns.
Of course, some of his worst artwork is in the penultimate chapter, specifically the worst hairstyles since Glinda of Oz (1920). After a few pictures of Ozma with her traditional long hair, she's got some horrible proto-late-1980s geometric do on p. 241. And Queen Isomere sports a similar style. I find it hard to believe that this was popular in 1933. (Even Vanessa's hair on The Cosby Show was less ridiculous.)
I'm missing the next couple Thompson books, including the one with the most overtly drug-related title: Speedy in Oz.
Ruth Plumly Thompson
Illustrated by John R. Neill
Ojo in Oz
Original price $5.95, bought used for $3.48
Worn paperback
B-
There are two main things to talk about with this book: innuendo (of course) and history. Of the latter, Thompson calls it not just hoztry but Oz hoztry. Are there other kinds of hoztry? Wouldn't the history of Ev be called hevtry? And what of Mo-ology? Thompson still has a bad habit, a dozen years into her royal-historianship, of tacking "Oz" onto or into words as if to make them more authentic. The worst example is "ozade." If lemonade is made with lemons, limeaid with limes, and Gatoraid with--
OK, back to hoztry. In the previous book, Glinda was celebrating a century of ruling the Quadlings. Does this include the time of the Quadling king? Was that mysterious man actually a consort, that died or divorced?
In this book we find out that Ojo's grandfather ruled the southern part of the Munchkin Country (which has moved back to the west), and had Seebania as the capital. When Ozma became queen and was able to select rulers of the quadrants, the royal family was left with only Seebania, while presumably the Ozure Islanders took over rule of the Munchkins, or at least the north half. Ojo's grandfather was overthrown by Mooj the Magician, who then imprisoned Ojo's parents. Ojo's father, Ree Alla Bad, was released on condition that he not free his wife or ask anyone else to free her. So he became Realbad the bandit.
He didn't know his queen was pregnant, but later his uncle Stephen hid the baby away in safety, and we know that pair better as Unc Nunkie and Ojo. Ojo, by the way, is "ten." I have no idea how much time is supposed to have passed.
This is not the Ojo of Patchwork Girl, since he's much less graver, although I suppose his spirits might've improved after so long in the Emerald City. Neill doesn't draw him with dark hair as he did twenty years earlier, although Realbad has curly black hair in text and illustrations. Realbad also has a very dashing mustache.
Thompson does a good job showing the connection between Realbad and Ojo, even before it's revealed that they're father and son. The queen, however, just shows up at the end and, much more than in Giant Horse, is a very vague character. Thompson seems to have been a lot less interested in mothers than fathers, but then her cast tends to be more male than Baum's was.
The other main character is the bear Snufferbux. (Snuff her bucks? I hardly know her!) He and Realbad fight over Ojo and other matters at many points in the book, but of course become friends.
He meets Ojo in a Gypsy camp, and I have to say that Thompson doesn't miss a stereotype for this thieving, fortune-telling, cruel but charming, swarthy pack. Even Realbad's bandits are portrayed more sympathetically. At the end of the story, Ozma deports the Gypsies to Southern Europe, and I try not to think about the fate of Gypsies in Northern Europe in the following decade.
Moving on to the lighter topic, this is unquestionably the most innuendous Thompson book so far, maybe ever. In Lost King, she had a character named Humpy, and here we get Humper, but that's minor compared to this line when Realbad meets a unicorn in the fog: "To his dismay and consternation the pointed end of his rod immediately embedded itself in a soft, yielding body."
And even that is nothing next to the dizzying chapter "Dorothy in Dicksy Land." Yes, I know that "queer dick" means roughly "odd duck," but that doesn't mean that all the uses of "queer" and "dick" in this chapter can be glossed over. How about this, which manages to get in a drug reference as well: "'Here we are all Dicks together. I am the Dick with the queer hat band. That's my peculiarity. To what are you addicted?'" Or what of "Dorothy decided that [there were no female Dicks] because men were queerer than women"? (I think Sinclair Lewis might disagree about that.) Then in the next chapter, the Cowardly Lion asks, "Do you mean to tell me that every Dick in Dicksy Land is perfectly satisfied?" Toujours gai Scraps remarks, "This is a queer country. I'll come back some time and spend my life."
The Pointless Dorothy Side-Plot this time is possibly more pointless than ever. Ozma, Nunkie, and the Wizard are already going to get Glinda's help in rescuing Ojo from the Gypsies. But Scraps, who gets hushed two or three times of course, wants to rescue Ojo, and Dorothy and the Lion go along. Mooj transforms them into clocks, and you could take this subplot out of the book and lose nothing.
I do really like Unicorners. It's as if after dicking around for 180 pages, Thompson finally decided to write a good story. The concept and execution of this little kingdom are well done, and not coincidentally the other aspects of the story improve for the last 60 pages or so. Neill's best artwork in the book is of the unicorns.
Of course, some of his worst artwork is in the penultimate chapter, specifically the worst hairstyles since Glinda of Oz (1920). After a few pictures of Ozma with her traditional long hair, she's got some horrible proto-late-1980s geometric do on p. 241. And Queen Isomere sports a similar style. I find it hard to believe that this was popular in 1933. (Even Vanessa's hair on The Cosby Show was less ridiculous.)
I'm missing the next couple Thompson books, including the one with the most overtly drug-related title: Speedy in Oz.
archys life of mehitabel
1933 sort of but 1938 doubleday edition
don Marquis
illustrated by george herriman
archys life of mehitabel
original price unknown bought used for three bucks
worn hardcover
b
the copyright page goes from 1916 to 1933
but then the title page says 1938
but wotto hell
there are flappers and the great depression
and a few other sort of topical things
like hollywood and free verse
in this book of archy the cockroach
and his pal mehitabel the cat the latter
making for comparison and contrast
with ann vickers
although no crusading reformer like
miss vickers mehitabel is also
a free spirit and unwed mother
who cant live with or without mr wrongs
despite her ambitions for a career
in her case as an artist
of unspecified path
the illustrations are by the
krazy kat guy which is ironic
considering he cant draw cats without
making them look like pointy eared dogs
however there is a classic pic on page 61
of ellis island officials armed with
everything from a magnifying glass to
a telescope quote investigating her morals
unquote which are happily nonexistent and
which Miss Vickers would probably
get a kick out of
gee boss its not easy typing without
punctuation or capitals as poor archy
has to do due to being so small
wonder what hed make of keyboards
and the interwebs and all that stuff
but its not just a gimmick and theres
some nice philosophy and gags that
have aged pretty well not just from the
early twentieth century but from when
i picked up this book as a kid because
it was illustrated and wotto hell
wotto hell
toujours gai
don Marquis
illustrated by george herriman
archys life of mehitabel
original price unknown bought used for three bucks
worn hardcover
b
the copyright page goes from 1916 to 1933
but then the title page says 1938
but wotto hell
there are flappers and the great depression
and a few other sort of topical things
like hollywood and free verse
in this book of archy the cockroach
and his pal mehitabel the cat the latter
making for comparison and contrast
with ann vickers
although no crusading reformer like
miss vickers mehitabel is also
a free spirit and unwed mother
who cant live with or without mr wrongs
despite her ambitions for a career
in her case as an artist
of unspecified path
the illustrations are by the
krazy kat guy which is ironic
considering he cant draw cats without
making them look like pointy eared dogs
however there is a classic pic on page 61
of ellis island officials armed with
everything from a magnifying glass to
a telescope quote investigating her morals
unquote which are happily nonexistent and
which Miss Vickers would probably
get a kick out of
gee boss its not easy typing without
punctuation or capitals as poor archy
has to do due to being so small
wonder what hed make of keyboards
and the interwebs and all that stuff
but its not just a gimmick and theres
some nice philosophy and gags that
have aged pretty well not just from the
early twentieth century but from when
i picked up this book as a kid because
it was illustrated and wotto hell
wotto hell
toujours gai
Ann Vickers
1933, 1994 University of Nebraska Press edition
Sinclair Lewis
Ann Vickers
Original price $15.00, bought used for $7.49
Slightly worn paperback
B
This is the first book I own to acknowledge the Great Depression, but that's far from the only bit of realism. The title character (who keeps her maiden name even after marriage) grows from a tomboy to a popular but controversial college student to a suffrage campaigner to a prison reformer to a prison administrator to, well, the ending leaves that a question mark. Along the way, she loves and/or marries a few Mr. Wrongs. She becomes pregnant twice, the first time having an abortion, which she almost immediately regrets, the second time having a child by her lover, the married judge, while being quite honest to her husband that she's only staying married to him so that the baby will have a father. When Barney the judge is sent to prison for taking bribes, Ann ends her marriage and waits for Barney to be free, which he becomes in the last few pages, thanks to another judge, another ex-boyfriend.
Ann is definitely a flawed character, in different ways of course from Martin Arrowsmith. It says a lot that she imagines that the child she doesn't bear during wartime would've been named Pride. It says an equal amount that she thinks the qualities that make Russell a bad husband would make him a good father. To some extent, Ann is more self-aware than other Lewis protagonists, except for maybe Dodsworth, but she does have blind spots. She sees that Barney is the sort of man that she's been rebelling against all her life, but she's devoted to him anyway.
Lewis takes a lot of jabs at radicals in this novel, but I don't think he's any harsher than he was to the Republicans in Babbitt and elsewhere. Much of Ann's disillusionment comes from the contrast of ideals, her own and others', with reality. There are only two sets of villains in this book who are shown with no nuance or complexity. The first of these are, not surprisingly, the people who run Copperhead Prison.
The second set is lesbians. It feels weird to use the "LGBT" label on a book that's so homophobic, but homosexuality, particularly female, keeps coming up so that I can't ignore it. (Then why not retroactively go back and put "African-American" on Pudd'nhead Wilson? Well, I never claimed the labels are all encompassing. Think of them as helpful rather than definitive.) While other Lewis books mention homosexuals, they aren't as significant as they are here. Is this because the main character is female and single?
I think it's more to do with that she's based partly on Lewis's second wife, Dorothy Thompson, who was bisexual. Lewis was uncomfortable with her "romantic friendships," and so he makes Ann recoil from lesbians, whether in college, the New York intellectual scene, or prison. While Ann gets fed up with men sometimes, both politically and romantically, she can see why they are the way they are, and she doesn't even hold much of a grudge against the soldier who seduces and abandons her. But the most horrific relationship in the book is that between Ann's friend Eleanor and Dr. Isabel, who belittles and isolates Eleanor to the point of suicide. Then within hours of the two of them finding Eleanor's dead body, Isabel suggests she and Ann run off to Europe together!
That said, Ann's most significant, though strictly platonic, relationship is with another female doctor. Dr. Malvina helps her with both pregnancies, in two very different ways, stands by her when she stands by Barney, and generally is the good loyal friend.
Apparently, the 1933 movie version, while pre-Code, changes and omits quite a bit, including Ann's marriage to Russell. I think book-Ann would chuckle and then sigh wearily at that.
Sinclair Lewis
Ann Vickers
Original price $15.00, bought used for $7.49
Slightly worn paperback
B
This is the first book I own to acknowledge the Great Depression, but that's far from the only bit of realism. The title character (who keeps her maiden name even after marriage) grows from a tomboy to a popular but controversial college student to a suffrage campaigner to a prison reformer to a prison administrator to, well, the ending leaves that a question mark. Along the way, she loves and/or marries a few Mr. Wrongs. She becomes pregnant twice, the first time having an abortion, which she almost immediately regrets, the second time having a child by her lover, the married judge, while being quite honest to her husband that she's only staying married to him so that the baby will have a father. When Barney the judge is sent to prison for taking bribes, Ann ends her marriage and waits for Barney to be free, which he becomes in the last few pages, thanks to another judge, another ex-boyfriend.
Ann is definitely a flawed character, in different ways of course from Martin Arrowsmith. It says a lot that she imagines that the child she doesn't bear during wartime would've been named Pride. It says an equal amount that she thinks the qualities that make Russell a bad husband would make him a good father. To some extent, Ann is more self-aware than other Lewis protagonists, except for maybe Dodsworth, but she does have blind spots. She sees that Barney is the sort of man that she's been rebelling against all her life, but she's devoted to him anyway.
Lewis takes a lot of jabs at radicals in this novel, but I don't think he's any harsher than he was to the Republicans in Babbitt and elsewhere. Much of Ann's disillusionment comes from the contrast of ideals, her own and others', with reality. There are only two sets of villains in this book who are shown with no nuance or complexity. The first of these are, not surprisingly, the people who run Copperhead Prison.
The second set is lesbians. It feels weird to use the "LGBT" label on a book that's so homophobic, but homosexuality, particularly female, keeps coming up so that I can't ignore it. (Then why not retroactively go back and put "African-American" on Pudd'nhead Wilson? Well, I never claimed the labels are all encompassing. Think of them as helpful rather than definitive.) While other Lewis books mention homosexuals, they aren't as significant as they are here. Is this because the main character is female and single?
I think it's more to do with that she's based partly on Lewis's second wife, Dorothy Thompson, who was bisexual. Lewis was uncomfortable with her "romantic friendships," and so he makes Ann recoil from lesbians, whether in college, the New York intellectual scene, or prison. While Ann gets fed up with men sometimes, both politically and romantically, she can see why they are the way they are, and she doesn't even hold much of a grudge against the soldier who seduces and abandons her. But the most horrific relationship in the book is that between Ann's friend Eleanor and Dr. Isabel, who belittles and isolates Eleanor to the point of suicide. Then within hours of the two of them finding Eleanor's dead body, Isabel suggests she and Ann run off to Europe together!
That said, Ann's most significant, though strictly platonic, relationship is with another female doctor. Dr. Malvina helps her with both pregnancies, in two very different ways, stands by her when she stands by Barney, and generally is the good loyal friend.
Apparently, the 1933 movie version, while pre-Code, changes and omits quite a bit, including Ann's marriage to Russell. I think book-Ann would chuckle and then sigh wearily at that.
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
Excerpt from "The Cat"
1933
Colette, translated by Antonia White
Excerpt from The Cat
B
A young man is more in love with his cat than with his fiancée. It is a love of the senses and the spirit, but it's not sexual. (I think.) A well-done character sketch, as well as an unsettling union of two of Colette's favorite subjects. Unlike The Last of Chéri, I'd actually like to read more.
And this is the last of Colette I'll see for over a decade, when she'll return with four contributions, including Gigi, and outdo herself for the longevity record.
Colette, translated by Antonia White
Excerpt from The Cat
B
A young man is more in love with his cat than with his fiancée. It is a love of the senses and the spirit, but it's not sexual. (I think.) A well-done character sketch, as well as an unsettling union of two of Colette's favorite subjects. Unlike The Last of Chéri, I'd actually like to read more.
And this is the last of Colette I'll see for over a decade, when she'll return with four contributions, including Gigi, and outdo herself for the longevity record.
Murder on the Orient Express
1933, 2000 Berkley [sic] edition
Agatha Christie
Murder on the Orient Express
Original price $5.99, purchase price $3.00
Tattered paperback
B-
This is more focused than Hazelmoor, since there's only one detective, Hercule Poirot in his tenth book, and the very limited setting of the snowbound train. The twist of everyone being in on the murder has probably lost some shock value after almost 80 years. Since I usually can't figure out mysteries even on the second reading, I wasn't particularly surprised, or bored, either time. Because Christie seems pretty good to me, you can see why I considered but didn't keep reading her mysteries. This one is perhaps the most famous, and I'd like to see the 1974 movie with Lauren Bacall, Ingrid Bergman, Sean Connery, Anthony Perkins, etc. But, again, I don't feel any urgency about it.
Agatha Christie
Murder on the Orient Express
Original price $5.99, purchase price $3.00
Tattered paperback
B-
This is more focused than Hazelmoor, since there's only one detective, Hercule Poirot in his tenth book, and the very limited setting of the snowbound train. The twist of everyone being in on the murder has probably lost some shock value after almost 80 years. Since I usually can't figure out mysteries even on the second reading, I wasn't particularly surprised, or bored, either time. Because Christie seems pretty good to me, you can see why I considered but didn't keep reading her mysteries. This one is perhaps the most famous, and I'd like to see the 1974 movie with Lauren Bacall, Ingrid Bergman, Sean Connery, Anthony Perkins, etc. But, again, I don't feel any urgency about it.
Monday, May 7, 2012
Little House in the Big Woods
1932, 1981 HarperCollins edition
Laura Ingalls Wilder
Illustrated by Garth Williams
Little House in the Big Woods
Original and purchase price unknown
Hardcover with broken spine and marker stains
B
The Little House saga begins with Laura as a small girl of 4 going on 5, but already the recognizable heroine of the later books. Preschooler Laura is smart, brave, and kind, particularly to animals. She's jealous of her golden-haired goody-goody older sister Mary. (Baby Carrie is more of a prop at this age, with Jack the dog and even Susan the cat having more memorable personalities.) And Laura adores her parents, especially tough but sympathetic Pa, whose stories and music make the family's isolation, even in the winter, more bearable.
There's not a lot of plot or conflict in this first almost idyllic story, and I think the vocabulary is simpler than later. This seems appropriate for Wilder's memories of her very early girlhood, but it does make the book weaker than it could be. Still, yeah, weak Wilder is better than weak Thompson. I was more gripped by the stories of cooking and sewing than I was by Purple Prince Randy accidentally stabbing a combinoceros. Even though I'm one of the least handy or domestic people I know, I like how in the Little House books we're shown step by step how to make, for instance, bullets and maple candy. And it's funny and charming to see little Laura's excitement when she first goes to town, a place that sounds smaller than Scandia Crossing, the hamlet of sixty-seven inhabitants that Carol's maid Bea comes from in Main Street.
Garth Williams, who would've turned 100 last year, is one of my favorite illustrators, so I was tempted to leave this book for 1953, when he drew these pictures. Gordon Campbell says, "In Stuart Little, Charlotte's Web, and in the Little House series...Williams['s] drawings have become inseparable from how we think of those stories." And indeed, Williams's warm, realistic drawings of Laura's friends and family are an integral part of this series. But I think it matters more that the book opens, "Once upon a time, sixty years ago...." None of the books I've reread so far have mentioned the Great Depression, but I think Wilder wanted 1930s children to take inspiration from her family, who got through hard times, even if in this first book the wolf at the door is more likely to be literal and easily scared away by a gun or a dog.
I will note that Pa sings a song that has the word "darkey" in it, but racism is less of an issue here than in later books, partly because Laura doesn't really encounter much of the world outside her extended family.
Laura Ingalls Wilder
Illustrated by Garth Williams
Little House in the Big Woods
Original and purchase price unknown
Hardcover with broken spine and marker stains
B
The Little House saga begins with Laura as a small girl of 4 going on 5, but already the recognizable heroine of the later books. Preschooler Laura is smart, brave, and kind, particularly to animals. She's jealous of her golden-haired goody-goody older sister Mary. (Baby Carrie is more of a prop at this age, with Jack the dog and even Susan the cat having more memorable personalities.) And Laura adores her parents, especially tough but sympathetic Pa, whose stories and music make the family's isolation, even in the winter, more bearable.
There's not a lot of plot or conflict in this first almost idyllic story, and I think the vocabulary is simpler than later. This seems appropriate for Wilder's memories of her very early girlhood, but it does make the book weaker than it could be. Still, yeah, weak Wilder is better than weak Thompson. I was more gripped by the stories of cooking and sewing than I was by Purple Prince Randy accidentally stabbing a combinoceros. Even though I'm one of the least handy or domestic people I know, I like how in the Little House books we're shown step by step how to make, for instance, bullets and maple candy. And it's funny and charming to see little Laura's excitement when she first goes to town, a place that sounds smaller than Scandia Crossing, the hamlet of sixty-seven inhabitants that Carol's maid Bea comes from in Main Street.
Garth Williams, who would've turned 100 last year, is one of my favorite illustrators, so I was tempted to leave this book for 1953, when he drew these pictures. Gordon Campbell says, "In Stuart Little, Charlotte's Web, and in the Little House series...Williams['s] drawings have become inseparable from how we think of those stories." And indeed, Williams's warm, realistic drawings of Laura's friends and family are an integral part of this series. But I think it matters more that the book opens, "Once upon a time, sixty years ago...." None of the books I've reread so far have mentioned the Great Depression, but I think Wilder wanted 1930s children to take inspiration from her family, who got through hard times, even if in this first book the wolf at the door is more likely to be literal and easily scared away by a gun or a dog.
I will note that Pa sings a song that has the word "darkey" in it, but racism is less of an issue here than in later books, partly because Laura doesn't really encounter much of the world outside her extended family.
The Purple Prince of Oz
1932, 1986 Del Rey edition
Ruth Plumly Thompson
Illustrated by John R. Neill
The Purple Prince of Oz
Original price $5.95, bought used for $3.00
Waterlogged paperback
C+
It may be partly that I didn't pick this up as early as the other Thompsons, but I think this is one of the most forgettable of her books. In fact, within hours after reading it, I thought, "I wonder when I'll get back to Thompson." It's odd because it does mark the return of many of the Kabumpo characters, with Pompa and Peg Amy now the proud parents of a four-year-old baby. (Do Oz babies age slowly, too?) And it's the return of the Red Jinn of Ev, glimpsed briefly in Jack Pumpkinhead. But it's yet another story about a young prince who must complete some tasks.
I suppose I should note what I didn't with Pumpkinhead, that the Red Jinn has black slaves. I assume Thompson did this to add to the exoticism, but it is unpleasant, if perhaps less so (because briefer) than the racism in Royal Book. And the Red Jinn is supposed to be a sympathetic character, so no one judges him for being a slave-owner. If I remember correctly, it's most offensive in Silver Princess, due partly to Neill's illustrations. (I'm restraining myself from going and looking, so I can judge Silver P at the proper time.)
Oh, the Thompsonian Innuendo Prize goes not to the King and Queen of Stair Way, Kumup and Godown, since the names are sort of to be expected, but to the Red Jinn for crying, "Oh! Oh! Oh! He's the best and only boy friend I have ever had!"
But, yeah, otherwise, not too memorable a book.
Ruth Plumly Thompson
Illustrated by John R. Neill
The Purple Prince of Oz
Original price $5.95, bought used for $3.00
Waterlogged paperback
C+
It may be partly that I didn't pick this up as early as the other Thompsons, but I think this is one of the most forgettable of her books. In fact, within hours after reading it, I thought, "I wonder when I'll get back to Thompson." It's odd because it does mark the return of many of the Kabumpo characters, with Pompa and Peg Amy now the proud parents of a four-year-old baby. (Do Oz babies age slowly, too?) And it's the return of the Red Jinn of Ev, glimpsed briefly in Jack Pumpkinhead. But it's yet another story about a young prince who must complete some tasks.
I suppose I should note what I didn't with Pumpkinhead, that the Red Jinn has black slaves. I assume Thompson did this to add to the exoticism, but it is unpleasant, if perhaps less so (because briefer) than the racism in Royal Book. And the Red Jinn is supposed to be a sympathetic character, so no one judges him for being a slave-owner. If I remember correctly, it's most offensive in Silver Princess, due partly to Neill's illustrations. (I'm restraining myself from going and looking, so I can judge Silver P at the proper time.)
Oh, the Thompsonian Innuendo Prize goes not to the King and Queen of Stair Way, Kumup and Godown, since the names are sort of to be expected, but to the Red Jinn for crying, "Oh! Oh! Oh! He's the best and only boy friend I have ever had!"
But, yeah, otherwise, not too memorable a book.
Brave New World
1932, 1963 Time Incorporated edition
Aldous Huxley
Brave New World
Original price unknown, bought used for $3.95
Worn paperback
B-
As Huxley himself admits in his 1946 Foreword, this is a flawed novel, with faults of characterisation, setting, and plotting. It does differ from other dystopias that I own in that here sex and even promiscuity is encouraged, as part of the destruction of individuality. (Huxley points out that in '46 there are American cities in which the number of divorces equals the number of marriages, gasp!) In a way, the mass production of "twins," sometimes nearly 100 identical beings in one litter, is more plausible than it was 80 years ago. And while we don't have feelies, there was Smell-o-Vision by 1963, and movies have become more surrounding and sensory. The references to radio and even television make the novel less dated, but it is definitely dated in its vision of the future. The whole "noble savage" idea, here ironically embodied in a young man who quotes Shakespeare (hence the title), is definitely passe.
I do like what Huxley does with mass media and advertising. The book starts out well. But by the time we have Mr. Savage flogging his would-be girlfriend and then hanging himself, enough is enough. Like the more optimistically futuristic Cold Comfort Farm, this book wears out its welcome before the end, and deliberately leaves more of a bad taste. In CCF, a Ford is a chance to escape the farm, while here Ford is Lord of an automated society.
One of my favorite Mystery Science 3000 jokes, on the Catalina Caper episode, references this novel.
Aldous Huxley
Brave New World
Original price unknown, bought used for $3.95
Worn paperback
B-
As Huxley himself admits in his 1946 Foreword, this is a flawed novel, with faults of characterisation, setting, and plotting. It does differ from other dystopias that I own in that here sex and even promiscuity is encouraged, as part of the destruction of individuality. (Huxley points out that in '46 there are American cities in which the number of divorces equals the number of marriages, gasp!) In a way, the mass production of "twins," sometimes nearly 100 identical beings in one litter, is more plausible than it was 80 years ago. And while we don't have feelies, there was Smell-o-Vision by 1963, and movies have become more surrounding and sensory. The references to radio and even television make the novel less dated, but it is definitely dated in its vision of the future. The whole "noble savage" idea, here ironically embodied in a young man who quotes Shakespeare (hence the title), is definitely passe.
I do like what Huxley does with mass media and advertising. The book starts out well. But by the time we have Mr. Savage flogging his would-be girlfriend and then hanging himself, enough is enough. Like the more optimistically futuristic Cold Comfort Farm, this book wears out its welcome before the end, and deliberately leaves more of a bad taste. In CCF, a Ford is a chance to escape the farm, while here Ford is Lord of an automated society.
One of my favorite Mystery Science 3000 jokes, on the Catalina Caper episode, references this novel.
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