Paris in July: The Martha series by Margery Sharp

 

I thought I'd start Paris in July with a short, fun book. Margery Sharp's Martha in Paris fit the bill perfectly -- only 166 pages and it was one more I could cross off my owned-and-unread pile. However, when I bought this at Strand Books several years ago I didn't realize it was second in a series. Naturally I would need to read them in order, so I had to track down the first book and buy that one too, though it's set in London, not Paris.

Published in 1957, The Eye of Love is the first book of the Martha series. Set in 1932, it begins with Martha's aunt, who was christened Dorothy Hogg but now goes by the name of Dolores Diver. Miss Diver, on the wrong side of 30 and fading, has just been left by her longtime lover Mr. Gibson, who is about to become engaged to the daughter of an associate, in order to preserve his failing furrier business. Times are hard and during the Depression, furs aren't selling well. Mr. Gibson and Miss Diver are despondent, but there's nothing to be done. He must leave his Spanish rose to marry an annoying woman he doesn't love. The least he can do is pay the lease on their love-nest through the end of the year, and give her all the contents which they've accumulated.

Miss Diver is also the guardian of her orphaned niece Martha, now ten years old and obsessed with drawing -- so much so that she basically eludes school and spends all her time sketching trees, stoves, and anything that catches her fancy. One day while sketching a tree she meets Mr. Phillips, who is looking for new lodgings, and he becomes their boarder, but soon suspects Miss Diver has some money and decides to make a play for her. 

I love this pulp novel cover - so dramatic! 

Meanwhile, Mr. Gibson has merged his business with the charming and steadfast Mr. Joyce, his future father-in-law, and they soon develop a deep friendship -- much more so than with his future wife Miranda. He cannot bear the thought of marrying her instead of Miss Diver but doesn't see any way around it. Coincidentally, Mr. Joyce, a lover of art, also encountered young Martha while sketching and sees that she has talent. Naturally all the stories converge, and without going into too much detail, I'll only say that it's witty and charming and has a very satisfactory ending. 

I really enjoyed it and was also enchanted by the sequel, Martha in Paris. The story has jumped forward and Martha is now eighteen. Mr. Joyce is now Martha's patron and decrees that she MUST study in Paris. Martha is still obsessed with her drawing and resists at first, but then sees the advantages and begins studying art while staying with a widow and her daughter. She's very focused and is oblivious to everything else -- in once instance, she doesn't even realize that while sketching in the Tuileries Gardens, the nice young Englishman named Eric sitting next to her is asking her out on a date. In a very amusing turn of events, she turns his invitation to Friday night dinner with his mother into an opportunity for a really good bath in their renovated English-style tub. 

This book is equally witty and charming and surprisingly feminist for its time (first published in 1962). Martha is portrayed as an artist completely focused on her work, but she actually struck me as someone who today might be considered on the autism spectrum. She's completely obsessed with drawing and art, and really bad at picking up at social cues. I'm no expert but if the book were published today I think readers would really speculate about that. 

This cover is just SO WRONG it's laughable. 
Martha wouldn't be caught dead in stockings and black pumps.
It's so bad I had to include it. 

My one tiny quibble about this book is that if the first book starts in 1932, the second would be set squarely in WWII and the French occupation of Paris. There is not a single mention of this and people are traveling back and forth over the Channel from England,so clearly, this book is set in an alternate universe in which the war never took place (but now I'm nitpicking).

I don't want to give away too many details for fear of spoilers, but Martha in Paris ends on such a cliffhanger I absolutely had to find out what happened next, and I found a online copy of the final novella, Martha, Eric and George online and read the whole thing in a couple of hours. If I gave any but the loosest setup it would absolutely spoil the plot of the second book. The third books picks up immediately after the end of the second, and after a couple of chapters, jumps forward ten years later with Martha as a successful artist who has to finally deal with the fallout of her actions in the end of the second novel. I loved the third novel as well as the first two but I do think it ended rather abruptly. 

I love this retro cover.

Like the second novel, it's also very feminist for its time (1964). Like Martha, author Margery Sharp was very successful and focused on her work. I also wonder if Martha's devotion to her work was a reflection of Sharp's own feelings about women working. I'm guessing some people will find Martha unsympathetic but if she'd been a man no one would have raised an eyebrow at her absolute dedication to her work and confidence in her talent. 

I've now read a dozen of Margery Sharp's books for adults (she also wrote the Rescuers children's series adapted into two animated Disney movies.) I've really enjoyed all of them and I'm happy to report many have been reprinted, including six recent paperback editions by the Furrowed Middlebrow imprint of Dean Street Press. The DSP editions are available on Kindle for around $3 or $4 US, a real bargain, and I'm sure I'll be downloading some of them soon. 

1954 Club: Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit by P. G. Wodehouse

It is both amusing and amazing to me that P. G. Wodehouse was able to recycle his own plots and characters over the course of his seventy year writing career. By my count, I've now read 25 of his works, as novels and short story collections. Wodehouse tropes abound in Jeeves and The Feudal Spirit. I'm always looking for an excuse to read more Wodehouse, and the timing couldn't have been better as I could count it for Simon and Kaggsy's 1954 Club!  It runs this whole week from April 18 to 24. 

Bertie Wooster and his valet Jeeves return for their eleventh adventure and with them some beloved returning characters and situations. Somehow Bertie just never learns to avoid young upper-class women who want to marry him and mold him into respectability, their jealous ex-fiancés who want to sock him, and devious aunts who want him to commit petty crimes. Naturally the faithful Jeeves with his superior brain power is there to save the day (and Bertie's skin).

In this installment, Bertie has been summoned to help Aunt Dahlia out of yet another scrape -- she's desperately trying to unload her women's magazine, Milady's Boudoir, to a wealthy publisher, and has enlisted Bertie to help wine and dine him, in London and at Brinkley Court, her country estate. She has also tasked Bertie with picking up a pearl necklace for her in London from a jewelry store. Little does Bertie know that Aunt Dahlia has made a cheap copy of some extremely valuable pearls, which she has subsequently pawned to infuse cash into her insolvent periodical. She is in a panic because her husband Tom is planning on showing off the pearls to another weekend guest, Lord Sidcup, a supposed expert of antiques and jewelry.

Hugh Laurie as Bertie Wooster and Nicholas Palliser as Stilton Cheesewright from the 1993 TV adaptation, the episode entitled "The Delayed Arrival." Jeeves does not approve of Bertie's mustache.

Bertie is also in the soup, so to speak, because the Brinkley Court guest list includes Florence Craye, a strong-willed young writer who has managed to entangle the unwitting Bertie into an unwanted engagement. She's on the rebound after jilting her overbearing fiancé, D'Arcy "Stilton" Cheesewright, who has appeared to have it out with Florence and wring Bertie's neck. It also includes the aforementioned publisher, Trotter; his social-climbing wife; and his stepson, Percy Gorringe, a playwright who is adapting Florence's novel for the stage, and is madly in love with her. 

You always know what you are getting with Wodehouse, and therein lies the charm. I don't really want to time-travel to aristocratic England between the wars, but it would be amusing to be a fly on the wall and observe the hapless Bertie in all his slapstick charm. It honestly doesn't bother me that Wodehouse recycles plots and character types -- they're so beautifully drawn and so funny, just the thing if you need a light read, and who couldn't use some diversion right now? 

And now time for a little bonus Wodehouse! If you like musical theater, I strongly recommend watching the upcoming TV broadcast of Anything Goes, airing in the US this May on PBS Great Performances. It had a short run on the big screen in US theaters in March and I was lucky enough to go see it. It's a professionally shot recording of the 2021 West End production starring Sutton Foster (currently starring on Broadway in The Music Man). Wodehouse co-wrote the original book, lyrics by Cole Porter. The plot is classic Wodehouse, about wacky characters on an ocean liner in the 1930s. There are mobsters, star-crossed lovers, a ridiculous English lord, and an American cabaret singer, giving ample opportunity for hijinks and great musical numbers. It was an absolute joy to watch and I can't wait to watch it again. I suspect I'll save it on the DVR so I can watch the fabulous tap dancing numbers again and again. 

Here's the preview from Youtube: 

So -- my first read for the 1954 Club! I have two or three more I'd like to read for this event, hopefully I'll get through them all. What are you reading for the 1954 Club?

The Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare

Last May I wrote this post in which I described my desire to complete reading all of William Shakespeare's plays in a year. At the time, I'd only read a dozen of the 37 plays definitively attributed to Shakespeare, and assumed I would easily finish the other 25 in a year. Riiiiiigght. It is now exactly 10 months later and I have only read another four plus I've just started the fifth. 

I have realized that I really prefer watching Shakespeare's to reading them -- which I don't think is terrible, because, honestly, they were meant to be watched! I have been lucky enough to attend several performances since then, including two plays at the Blackfriars Playhouse at the American Shakespeare Center in Staunton, Virginia. And I'm going back in April! In exactly one month I'm going to Staunton for a two-play weekend: Romeo and Juliet and The Comedy of Errors.

With that in mind, I decided to brush up my Shakespeare and give The Comedy of Errors another try on audio. I'd started listening a few months ago and just couldn't get into it, but I tried again, with an audio download from my library (I like the Arkangel Audiobook series). It's Shakespeare's shortest play and I easily finished listening to it in a day. 

For those who don't know the plot, it's basically a slapstick farce about two sets of twins and a lot of mistaken identity. Possibly Shakespeare's earliest play, it's set in Ephesus, Greece (now modern-day Turkey). Egeon, a merchant, has been arrested and has one day to raise bail or be executed for the sin of being a Syracusan who dared set foot in Ephesus (due to some bad blood between the two places). The Duke of Ephesus asks why he has taken such a risk, and Egeon gives us some back story. Many years before, Ephesus had a wife and twin sons, plus another set of twin boys, born the same day as his own children, that he had bought as bonded servants from their impoverished mother. However, one of each set of twins, with his wife, had been separated from him in a shipwreck and never seen again. He raised his son Antipholus and the servant Dromio, who have since gone off seeking their lost brothers. Five years later Egeon is searching for them when he arrives in Ephesus. 

The Duke takes pity on him and gives him one day to raise a thousand ducats or forfeit his life. Meanwhile, Antipholus and Dromio, both of Syracuse, have already arrived, not realizing that Egeon is looking for them, and more importantly, that both of their identical twins have been living there for years -- and are also named Antipholus and Dromio. (Apparently, the younger of each pair of twins remained with Egeon, and took his brother's name when they go out searching for their elder twins).

Since the older Antipholus and Dromio have lived for some time in Ephesus, they naturally have established relationships, including wives. Naturally this causes confusion and hilarity ensues when the second Antipholus and Dromio of Syracuse arrive. It's all very slapsticky and yet it never occurs to any of these people that there are two pairs of twins, including the pair that are literally looking for their lost twin brothers. And are they identically dressed? I'm extremely curious to know how this play is staged -- I'm guessing very few theater companies have been able to cast two actual pairs of twins in the principal roles. It was a little confusing the first time I tried to listen to the audio version -- you have to be able to remember which voice goes with which part but eventually I got it. I suspect it would be easier watching the play instead of just listening. 

I did like the play but it really doesn't have that much depth to it. It's one of Shakespeare's earliest plays, and you really don't get much of the metaphors and themes of the later works. But it is a pretty fun read if you like slapstick and mistaken identities. I'm very much looking forward to my weekend in Staunton when I can see it performed live.

The Blackfriars Playhouse at the American Shakespeare Center in Staunton, VA

This is my Pre-1800 Classic for the Back to the Classics Challenge; also my Turkish read for the European Reading Challenge.

Challenge Link-Up Post: Classic Humor or Satire

 

Please link your reviews for your Classic Humor or Satire here.  This is only for the Classic Humor or Satire category. This can be any novel that is humorous or satirical; since humor is subjective, it's up to the reader to decide. If you think Crime and Punishment is funny, go ahead and use it, but please explain why in your post.

If you do not have a blog, or somewhere public on the internet where you post book reviews, please write your mini-review/thoughts in the comments section.  If you like, you can include the name of your blog and/or the title of the book in your link, like this: "Karen K. @ Books and Chocolate (Three Men in a Boat)." 

1956 Club: French Leave By P. G. Wodehouse

 

I've been reading a lot of P. G. Wodehouse lately and it occurred to me that it was very likely that he had published a book in 1956 that I could read for Simon and Kaggsy's 1956 Club! I depend on Wodehouse to cheer me up whenever I need a light read, and once again he came through with French Leave, a slight and amusing novel. 

This one digresses from the normal Wodehouse setting of London or the English countryside -- it's mostly set along the French coast, in fictional resort towns of Picardy and Brittany. The characters are primarily American and French and I don't think there's even a single English character which is very unusual for Wodehouse. 

But here's the setup. The book starts in America, on Long Island. The three Trent sisters, Kate, Jo and Teresa (known as Terry), are trying to make a go of a farm, selling eggs, milk, and honey, and having a pretty hard time of it. Conveniently, they have a windfall of $2000 each, and the two younger sisters, Jo and Terry, decide to risk it all on a trip to France, in search of millionaire husbands. Eldest sister Kate is aghast and is determined to go along as a chaperone. Jo and Terry will each pose as a wealthy American, with her sister playing her maid, for a month each. Jo goes first in Picardy but is unsuccessful and returns home; Terry continues to try her luck in St. Rocque.

Terry does meet up with some genuine millionaires, but she also meets the slightly shady and very broke Nicolas Jules St. Xavier Auguste, the Marquis de Maufringneuse et Valerie Mauberanne, also known as Old Nick. Old Nick is an impoverished French nobleman who prefers living off wealthy wives (he's had at least three), questionable business deals, and his son Jefferson, from his first marriage to a wealthy American. Jeff mostly lived with his mother in America but fought with the maquis, the French resistance, and has a dashing scar on his face to show for it. He's now a struggling writer who refuses to marry for money but is willing to help his father out of a tight spot. In return, Old Nick decides to set up his son with the delightful Terry Trent, whom he believes is loaded with American cash. 

Unfortunately this plot also includes spending time on a yacht with some other wealthy Americans, including Old Nick's second ex-wife Hermione Pegler, who believes that Terry is an adventuress (technically, she is) who will mess up her plans to marry off her niece Mavis. Mrs. Pegler wants to pair Mavis, a fizzy-water heiress, with Freddie Carpenter, another fizzy water millionaire (Mrs. Pegler owns considerable stock in both water companies, and hopes that a marriage between the two would be of financial and personal benefit). She thinks that Terry is after Fred's money, but Terry and Jeff are instantly smitten. The fact that neither of them has any money and assume the other one does leads to misunderstandings, tears, and a lot of physical comedic moments. This being a Wodehouse novel, everything comes right in the end. I can absolutely imagine adapted as a classic screwball comedy from the early 1950s. I recently watched Some Like it Hot and there are some elements that are similar -- wealthy Americans on yachts, husband-hunting, and characters climbing out of hotel windows.)

Not French, it's the historic Del Coronado Hotel in San Diego, California. It was the filming location for Some Like It Hot (which is actually set in Florida). 

I enjoyed French Leave, though it isn't a classic Wodehouse -- I think I've read 17 books by him so far, and I wouldn't count it among his best. There are some characters that seem superfluous, and some definite loose ends that are never resolved. However, it's a fun, short novel, and can easily be finished a day or maybe even one sitting (it would be perfect for a vacation read) -- preferably in a resort town on the coast of France. 

Thanks again to Simon and Kaggsy for hosting this event, can't wait to do it again next time! 

Roughing It by Mark Twain: Tall Tales (and Some Racism) in the American West

Published in 1872, Roughing It is a semi-fictional account of Mark Twain's travels and misadventures in the American west during the 1860s. The story begins with Twain eagerly accompanying his brother Orion to the Nevada Territory, where Orion has been appointed Secretary. After an extensive stagecoach journey, he spends time in Nevada before visiting Salt Lake City, then failing as a miner in California. Twain begins to support himself by taking various writing and newspaper jobs, which eventually take him to Hawaii. 

This book is full of wry humor and amusing descriptions of life in the Wild West, including some tall tales and colorful characters. However, it's sprinkled throughout with a lot of racist comments -- Twain is particularly unpleasant about native Americans and Hawaiians, though he includes pretty much every non-white group in American at the time. I realize this was the prevailing attitude of the times, but honestly, there were some serious yikes moments for me. It was very disconcerting because there would be amusing chapters about ridiculous characters and situations  -- and some not so ridiculous, but downright scary, like the time Twain and his companions set off a massive forest fire. In another instance, Twain and his companions were trapped on a tiny island in the middle of an alkali lake after their boat drifted off. A storm was brewing and they narrowly escaped perishing (if the story is to be believed).

This was a slow book, and I listened to most of it on an audio download from my library. There are several editions available. Mine was read by Robin Field who is an excellent narrator, and I probably would have given up on the book much earlier if I had just been reading the print copy. 

Honestly, the only reason I read this book was because I'd bought a copy years ago and it was on my pile for the Big Book Summer Challenge, and also on my Classics Club list. If it hadn't been available on audio I probably wouldn't have stuck with it. Twain is good at spinning out an entertaining yarn, and if you like a dry and occasionally ridiculous style of humor, it's mildly amusing if you can skip over the racism. I also have a copy of Twain's Letters From Hawaii that I bought in Waikiki about ten years ago. It's much shorter and I may give it a go in a few months just to get it off the shelves and donate it to the Little Free Library on my street.

Something Fresh by P. G. Wodehouse: Silliness at Blandings Castle

 

After my visit to Second Story Books in Rockville last month, I realized that nearly all the unread P. G. Wodehouse in my home library were from his Blandings Castle series. I get twitchy about reading books in a series out of order (except for Zola), so I decided to track down the first novel, Something Fresh, first published in 1915 (titled Something New in the U.S.) It was available for digital audio download from my library, and since I was about to embark on a long car trip, it seemed like the perfect choice for a summer read. This book doesn't count for a single one of my reading challenges but it was a break from all the long books I'm reading this summer, and it is so delightful I had to write about it.

The story begins with a young man called Ashe Marson, a young writer of thrillers who is lodging in a cheap rental near Leicester Square in London (though I am sure it would shockingly expensive today). He has drawn the attention of a fellow lodger, Joan Valentine, because he is outside one morning doing calisthenics in the street. They get to talking and it is revealed that Joan is also a writer for the same cheap tabloid, and they both want to get out and do something more interesting (and profitable). 

Meanwhile, we are introduced to the hapless Freddie Threepwood, the second son of Lord Emsworth of Blandings Castle. Freddie is in a tizzy because he has recently become engaged to a young heiress, Aline Peters, daughter of an American businessman. His father is pleased with the engagement, but Freddie is worried that he may be served with a breach-of-promise lawsuit from a pretty chorus girl. Freddie never actually met her but sent her flowers, letters, and poetry, which may have included a proposal. He fears that he may be subject to blackmail or even legal action. 

Then we have Lord Emsworth, a gruff yet lovable but extremely forgetful man, who is liable to steal the silverware from a restaurant as most people would walk off with a cheap ballpoint pen. Whilst visiting his future in-law Mr. Peters, the absent-minded Lord has unwittingly absconded with a valuable Egyptian artifact, a precious Cheops scarab, from Mr. Peters' collection. Mr. Peters will stop at nothing to get it back, including a large reward, and places an ad in the paper for a young man seeking a well-paid adventure, which attracts the attention of Ashe. 

All these characters converge on Blandings Castle for a fortnight's holiday in which everyone is trying to get their hands on the scarab, with the addition of various relatives, hangers-on, secretaries, and servants, and hilarity ensues (and even a little romance). If you're familiar with the Jeeves and Wooster stories, this is definitely in the same vein, especially the classic novel The Code of the Woosters (which also involves an artifact being stolen back). There is even a brief mention of an Emsworth relative named Algernon Wooster -- a precursor of Bertie, perhaps? 

This was the perfect book for a car trip, and I found myself laughing out loud multiple times. It was brilliantly narrated by Frederick Davidson, who does all the voices and accents beautifully (except for a few slips in his attempts at an American southern twang). Davidson also narrated the audio version of Les Miserables that I downloaded earlier this year, and his reading was a big part of keeping my interest for the 56 parts of the novel. He was a prolific narrator of more than 700 audiobooks and I think I could listen to him read a telephone book, if they still exist. 

I'm looking forward to more Blandings novels and maybe even the TV series, which I have yet to watch. Has anyone seen it? And which Wodehouse novels do you recommend? I've read several of the Jeeves and Wooster novels and some of the stand-alone novels. Next up in the Blandings series is Leave it to Psmith, which is #4 in that series, so I don't know if I should go back and start with Psmith #1 and jump back into Blandings. Does it really matter?

Classics Spin #18: Whisky Galore: More Scottish than Outlander

I was delighted by the most recent Classics Club Spin selection. I had been actually hoping to visit Scotland this summer (after my trip to London to see Hamilton) but since we decided to visit Jane Austen country, reading Whisky Galore by Compton Mackenzie would have to suffice for my Scotland fix. It includes so many of my favorite bookish requirements: Mid-century -- Check! Scotland location -- check! Quirky characters -- check! I am sorry to say most of what I know about Scotland comes from reading and watching Outlander (which I realize was written by an American). This has a lot more drinking and a lot less kilts and steamy Scotsmen -- and no time-travel.

The setup: loosely based on actual events of the 1940s, this comic novel is set during WWII and is the story of the residents of Little Todday and Great Todday, two fictional islands in the Outer Hebrides. Of course there is rationing due to the war, but what hits everyone hardest is the lack of whisky -- as the story begins there hasn't been any Scotch for weeks, and everyone is rationed to one beer every other day. They are all miserable.  

The tale opens with the return of Sergeant Odd, a forty-something English solider who had been previously assigned to the island, and fallen in love with a local girl, Peggy Macroon, before he shipped off to Africa. He's ready to get married but her father keeps putting off the wedding. The locals tell him they can't possibly host a reiteach, a traditional Gaelic engagement party, when there's no whisky to be had. The first third of the book mostly deals with Odd visiting various locals so the reader is introduced to the various quirky locals. 

Finally, a miracle occurs -- a steamer called the Cabinet Minster is wrecked on a reef between the two islands, and it seems like manna from heaven when the locals realize the hold was filled with 15,000 cases of premium whisky bound for the United States (apparently much of the whisky has been diverted to sell to America to pay for the war effort -- it's not clear if the Americans have entered the war yet). The shipping company writes off the loss and the residents get busy salvaging what they can before the excise men arrive, and the engagement party is back on.

Hilarity ensues when the resident self-important gentry, Captain Wagget, decides that everyone is flaunting the law (and enjoying themselves), so he tries to get the police and military involved. There are also some really funny bits with the local school master, George Campbell, whose domineering mother is trying to prevent his engagement. 

I really enjoyed this book. I do think it started out a bit slow, and I had a little trouble with Gaelic references and some of the dialect written phonetically into the dialogue. It's not what I'd describe as a rip-roaring yarn but more of a simmer -- perhaps I would have enjoyed it more if I'd been sipping a wee dram myself while I'd been reading it! It was definitely worth sticking with. I feel like I got a real flavor of the islands, so to speak, and I enjoyed all the colorful characters. I really wish now that I had been able to visit Scotland this summer. 

Eddie Izzard as Captain Wagget

There have been two film adaptations of Whisky Galore -- the first one from 1949 starred Gordon Jackson (Hudson from Upstairs, Downstairs) as Mr. Campbell and is a classic comedy from the British Ealing studios.  The 2016 remake stars Eddie Izzard as Captain Wagget which I think is brilliant -- I love his stand-up and he's wonderful in almost every film and TV role. Sadly neither version is available from Netflix or at my library so I'll have to see if I can get one via inter-library loan, or I may just suck it up and see if I can find a cheap copy on the internet. 

Bloggers, has anyone seen either version? And how did everyone do with their spin picks? 

Pomfret Towers: A Comfort Read Set in Downton Abbey (Plus a Bad Book Cover)

Nice cover on this Virago Modern Classic edition. It reminds me of a vintage travel poster. 

I started reading Angela Thirkell's Barsetshire series last fall, when I was in dire need of a comfort read. Beginning in 1933, Angela Mackail Thirkell (sister of Denis Mackail, who wrote the charming Greenery Street) wrote 29 novels set in the fictional county of Barsetshire, the same county as Trollope's novels. So far I've read five of the first six and have found all of them mostly delightful.  If the words "English country house party in the 1930s" pique your interest as they do mine, then this is quite possibly the book for you.

Pomfret Towers is #6 in the series and was published in 1938. The story begins with an invitation to a weekend house party. (I kept imagining it set in pre-war Highclere Castle AKA Downton Abbey, which I just visited in the UK; I'll post about it soon). The elderly Lord Pomfret is having a group for the weekend and is looking for some young people, so he invites Guy and Alice Barton, the young adult children of one of his tenants. Mr. Barton is a successful architect and his wife is a successful writer of historical novels. Guy works for his father and Alice, shy and delicate, is terrified of the idea of spending a weekend with a lot of smart and fashionable people. She warily accepts after Lord Pomfret tells her to bring along her friends Roddy and Sally Wicklow. Rowdy works for Lord Pomfret's agent, and Sally is a quintessential country girl who loves dogs and horses and is quite jolly. 

The house party gets under way and Alice is taken under the wing of the beautiful Phoebe Rivers, a sort of cousin to Lord Pomfret, who is visiting with her brother Julian, a rather spoiled artist-type, and their overbearing mother, Hermione, another novelist. Mrs. Rivers' primary purpose in the visit is to get Phoebe paired off with Lord Pomfret's heir apparent, Giles Foster. The house also party includes Mr. Johns, one of the partners of Mrs. Rivers' publishing firm, who is not convinced that the income from her books is worth the trouble of putting up with her. 

Most of the story is taken up with the possible pairings-off between the various young people and the chagrin of Mrs. Rivers when these silly youths don't follow her wishes. There are also some very funny bits about writers and publishers. Our omniscient narrator gives us some of Mr. Johns' more amusing thoughts, as well as Lady Pomfret's steadfast secretary Miss Merriman, in whom the unbearable Mrs. Rivers has met her match.

. . . [Mrs. Rivers] was forced to fall back on the interesting subject of herself and tell Miss Merriman how many signed photographs she gave away last year. If Miss Merriman had had real tact she would have asked whether Mrs. Rivers could possibly spare her one, but she merely remarked that she must get one of Mrs. Rivers' books from the library as soon as she had time to do some reading, and that Lady Pomfret had had Mrs. Rivers' last book on the [waiting] list ever since it came out but hadn't got it yet. Whether Miss Merriman knew how annoying this was to Mrs. Rivers, who have liked the libraries to buy enough copies for all the subscribers, we are not in a position to say. (p. 129)

I really enjoyed this book -- it was light and funny, if a bit predictable. It was pretty easy to guess who was going to end up with whom, though there were some amusing minor plot twists. Also, in previous Thirkell books there have been occasional racist remarks which made me uncomfortable (though I do realize anti-Semitism was pretty common among the middle and upper classes during that period); this book, thankfully, didn't have any that I remember. 

And now for some alternate book covers! 

This cover is from the 1980s. Is that supposed to be Deborah Kerr? Whoever she is, she looks far too old and glamorous unless she's supposed to be Mrs. Rivers. And what is that bizarre cord wrapped around her shoulder and bosom? is she being lassoed by the guy hiding in the bushes? It's all very strange.

I suppose this one is better, it's the Moyer-Bell edition from 2007. Their covers are generally good (though I have found some egregious typographical errors in the text). I don't know enough about fashion history to know if this dress is period-appropriate. I don't have this edition so I don't know the source of the cover image.

The original cover. I do love how it explains Thirkell is the "author of 'August Folly' and other delightful novels.' Even her own publisher thinks her books are delightful, so it must be true!

Anyway, of the five Thirkell novels I've read so far, this was definitely my favorite and I'm very much looking forward to the next 24 (!) books in the series. I already own about a dozen in Moyer-Bell editions that I picked up at Half-Price Books back in Texas, though there are a few volumes in the series which are difficult to find and can be pricey.

After considering, I have decided to count this as my Classic by a Woman Author -- Thirkell wrote this book eighty years ago and it's still in print, so I'm calling that a classic. That makes ten books read for the Back to the Classics challenge, only two left to go!

Victorian Children Clearly Need Supervision

Also known as The Wouldbegoods by E. Nesbit. Inspired by Better Book Titles, I've decided to title my book reviews to better reflect what I really think about a book. (Also I feel like I need to liven up my reviews a little bit, as they've been feeling a bit stale lately. I may actually go back and retitle some of my previous posts). 

Anyway, The Wouldbegoods is essentially a turn-of-the-century version of Junie B. Jones with better writing -- children who do all the things that real children would like to do, but really know better (one hopes). Published in 1901, this book is full of what I would call Teachable Moments which are hilariously funny. The Bastable children from the delightful book The Story of the Treasure-Seekers have returned in another installment, this time in the country over the summer holidays. Since they can't stay out of trouble in London, the six children been sent to stay in the country with two other children Dennis and Daisy, supervised (in theory) by Albert-Next-Door's-Uncle, the writer, who seems to be so engrossed in his writing he pays little attention to eight children. The children have all vowed to be Good and create a Secret Society called The Wouldbegoods, for which they will do Good Deeds and Help People. Naturally, hilarity ensues because nothing ever goes as planned.

As always, Nesbit's writing as the voice of a child is spot-on:

You read in books about the pleasures of London, and about how people who live in the country long for the gay whirl of fashion in town because the country is so dull. I do not agree with this at all. In London, or at any rate Lewisham, nothing happens unless you make it happen; or if it happens it doesn’t happen to you, and you don’t know the people it does happen to. But in the country the most interesting events occur quite freely, and they seem to happen to you as much as to anyone else. Very often quite without your doing anything to help.

Clearly, Victorian children ran amuk with little or no supervision, and the adults are shocked -- shocked, I say! when they get into all kinds of trouble, much of it requiring vast expenditure to make right. (I suspect family's newfound fortunes from previous book are squandered to pay these bills). The results are often laugh-out-loud funny but also shocking to a modern adult -- there are chapters including stranger danger, a kidnapping, and a loaded firearm! After the first couple of episodes, you'd think that either the adults or the children would start to learn from their mistakes, but this is a book meant for children so nobody does (otherwise, it would make for a very dull story). But I enjoyed the heck out of it and found myself alternately snorting with laughter or yelling "Noooooo!" while reading. 

The Wouldbegoods is sadly out of print, but used copies are available and it's also in the public domain. I've now read six of Nesbit's books for children, and I've decided I really prefer those with little or no fantasy elements. I find the antics of children in our world much more amusing than those in fantasy lands. I also own a copy of Nesbit's book for adults, The Lark, which has been newly reprinted by the Furrowed Middlebrow imprint of Dean Street Press (readily available via Amazon and The Book Depository).  It's making quite a stir in the blogosphere, thanks to the Furrowed Middlebrow blog and also by Simon at Stuck in a Book. I hope it will be equally delightful. 

I'm counting this as my Children's Classic for the Victorian Reading Challenge. 

The Pastor's Wife by Elizabeth von Arnim

Another beautiful Virago cover.
I thought it was Seurat but it's actually "La Couseuse" by Theo van Rysselberghe.

The other day I was looking for audiobooks set in other countries that I could download for the European Reading Challenge, and I came across one of my all-time favorites, The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim. I definitely want to read it again (or listen) but it occurred to me that Elizabeth von Arnim spent much of her life in Germany and set many of her books there, and that I could choose one of those toward both the European Reading Challenge. Also, many of them are available for free digital download -- another win-win!

I downloaded three or four of her books, and randomly chose The Pastor's Wife, published in 1914. Here's the setup: young Ingeborg Bullivant, aged 22, is alone in London, sent by her family to visit the dentist. Her father, a rather overbearing bishop, has given her ten pounds and insisted she has a bad tooth dealt with; Ingeborg has been miserable for days and unable to help her father. Though taken for granted at home, she is an indispensable, unpaid secretary for her father, chaperone for her beautiful young sister, and basically does everything for her mother, who doesn't seem to get up off the couch much.

The dentist solves Ingeborg's problem at once and all of a sudden she's alone in London (supposedly chaperoned by an aunt) with 10 pounds burning a hole in her pocket. On a whim, she signs up for a week's vacation tour to Lucerne, Switzerland, where she meets Robert Dremmel, the pastor of a rural German church. He promptly falls in love with her and after an unconventional proposal, they are engaged -- honestly, I think she's just too polite to turn him down. To the dismay of her family, she marries this unsuitable German and leaves home, where her new husband benignly ignores her and is obsessed with improving the soil for the local farmers. She really only gets his attention when she's producing babies. After several years of this stifling life, Ingeborg meets a visiting artist who is quite taken with her and tries to tempt her into running away with him to Italy.

I really enjoyed this book but parts of it were much darker than I expected. Some of the situations are quite funny and others are incredibly heartbreaking. All the men in Ingeborg's life take her for granted and assume they know what's best for her -- they think of Ingeborg only as how she can be useful to them, and not one iota of what she wants and needs. Von Arnim also had quite a bit to say about women and pregnancies in the Edwardian era -- there's a lot of discussion about procreation that I wasn't expecting. I would not be surprised if it wasn't rather shocking for the time period (much like my previous read, The Wreath by Sigrid Undset).

One thing I didn't like about this book was how naive Ingeborg was. I realize that she had a very sheltered upbringing as a bishop's daughter, and was then stuck in a small town as a pastor's wife, but she read books and newspapers, and would had some idea about the morals of the time. And the way the men in this book treated Ingeborg made me want to throw the book across the room.

I've now read three of Von Arnim's works of fiction, and I've noticed a recurring theme of women who are breaking the boundaries of conventions. In Love, the main character shocks everyone by having a love affair with a man young enough to be her son; in The Enchanted April, the four women break free and go off by themselves to rent an Italian villa for a month (not so shocking, really, but pretty gutsy for the time). Elizabeth Von Arnim was actually married to a German aristocrat and had a rather unhappy marriage. I don't know many details of her life but I do know some of her early works are semi-autobiographical and I wouldn't be surprised if Herr Dremmel was loosely based on her own husband.

I'm counting this as my German read for the European Reading Challenge. 

Sprig Muslin by Georgette Heyer

After my previous read for the Back to the Classics Challenge (a nonfiction memoir about life in a Russian gulag), I was in dire need of something fun to read. When the going gets tough, the tough need comfort reads! I'm not a big romance reader, but I've read a few of Georgette Heyer's Regency romances, and her books are fun, frothy light reads. 

Published in 1956, Sprig Muslin is a charmingly silly screwball comedy set in the Regency era. After his fiancee died in a tragic accident years before, Sir Gareth Ludlow put off marrying until his older brother dies, leaving him the heir apparent. On his way to make an offer of marriage to the quiet and steady Lady Hester Theale, he stops at an inn and encounters a young girl, Amanda, whom he soon realizes is running away from her family so she can elope with her young swain, an Army officer. Sir Gareth knows that she's out of her depth and needs protecting, but with completely noble intentions. He takes her along to Lady Theale's estate, where naturally her family assume young Amanda is his paramour. Naturally there are lots of mistaken intentions, escape attempts, and snarky comments about the fashionable Regency set. Of course all comes right in the end. 

Heyer's books are frequently recommended to fans of Jane Austen, and though the settings are in the same era, the similarities end there. Heyer is no Jane Austen, and after six or seven of her novels, I'm starting to see basic characters and situations repeating themselves -- the charmingly impetuous ingenue who is running away (often from an arranged marriage); a loyal young man who befriends the ingenue to get her out of a jam; a handsome, eligible bachelor (with a title, naturally) who saves the day; and a patient, quiet woman who ends up marrying the hero. 

Bits of it became a little tedious -- Amanda is really headstrong and spoiled, and she can't stop making up stories to convince people to help her -- and she gets away with everything because she's so pretty, which is truly annoying. That's not to say I didn't enjoy this book. I don't know if it's the best book I've ever read by Heyer (so far I think The Grand Sophy and Sylvester are my favorites so far) but it was very enjoyable. 

I don't usually read romances but sometimes one needs a break from reality -- and I'd much rather read one of Heyer's comedies than yet another Jane Austen knockoff. Heyer wrote more than 40 historical novels, many of them set in the Regency era, and a dozen detective novels. They are usually funny and Heyer did extensive research into Regency history and society, so her descriptions and references to Regency life are very accurate.   I also own a recent biography of Heyer that I found at the Half-Price Books last year and I'm hoping to get to that soon. 

Has anyone else read a good romance by Georgette Heyer? What romances are you reading for the Back to the Classics Challenge? 

Plum Pie by P. G. Wodehouse

For my Back to the Classics Challenge, I needed a volume of short stories, so I turned to my own TBR shelves. Lately, I've been in dire need of fun, escapist reads, and P. G. Wodehouse has never let me down. I chose Plum Pie, a collection of nine stories. First published in 1966, it just made the cutoff for the challenge.

Wodehouse had an amazingly long publishing career -- his first novel The Pothunters was published in 1902; his last complete novel, Aunts Aren't Gentlemen was published an astonishing 72 years later, in 1974. Though Plum Pie is late in the Wodehouse oeuvre, it still has some stellar moments, and include some of his classic bits, including Jeeves and Wooster, a golf story, a Blandings story, and an Ukridge story.

By far my favorites from the collection were the first story, "Jeeves and the Greasy Bird," in which Jeeves and Aunt Agatha manage to disentangle Bertie from an unwanted engagement once again (seriously, how many times has Bertie inadvertently been betrothed?) and the final story, "Life with Freddie," which is really a 70-plus page novella about Freddie Threepwood of the Drones club. That one involves three different romantic entanglements on a cruise ship; smuggling an expensive diamond necklace to avoid paying stiff import taxes; and Freddie's attempts to land a dog biscuit account with a large department store executive. It's all very slapstick and silly and naturally it ends well for the majority of the characters (well, at least the ones I was rooting for).

Hugh Laurie as the hapless Bertie Wooster and Stephen Fry as Jeeves in the brilliant ITV adaptation from the early 1990s.

I love Wodehouse but some of these stories seemed a bit tired and not very memorable, and I'm quite sure at least one of the stories had a recycled plot about a dog that was given away and had to be stolen back (I swear I've seen that story with Bertie Wooster and a Scottish terrier on the TV adaptation. Is it technically considered plagiarizing if a writer copies his own work?) And when will the members of the Drones club ever learn that it's a very bad idea to bet money on horse races -- especially money that they don't actually have?  However, even if the plots and themes are the same, Wodehouse nearly always manages to amuse me.

Most of the stories in this volume were previously published in magazines; also, there are some bits and pieces between the stories which I believe are excerpts from newspaper columns Wodehouse published in the U.S. They really didn't add much to the collection. However, lesser Wodehouse works are still funnier than most books and stories, so it wasn't a waste of time.

Overall, I'd say this is worth reading if you are a die-hard Wodehouse fan. If you're a Wodehouse beginner, I'd stick with some of the earlier Jeeves collections, like Very Good, Jeeves or The Code of the Woosters, both of which is are just brilliant. I've only read about a dozen of Wodehouse's works so I have plenty of books left before I run out, in which case I will start over from the beginning.

Bloggers, are any of you Wodehouse fans? Which are your favorites?