Rachel Ray by Anthony Trollope

Among the twenty books by Anthony Trollope that I own is Rachel Ray.  It's not one of his most famous books compared to the Barchester series, the Pallisers books, or even The Way We Live Now, which is a shame, because it is mostly delightful, with one quibble.  It is also blessedly short, just about 400 pages, compared to some of his 800 page chunksters.  

Rachel Ray is 18 and lives in Baselhurst with her widowed mother and her sister Dorothy, who is ten years older and also widowed.  Both widows were previously married to clergymen, and Dorothy is very devout and evangelical.  Trouble starts one night when she reports to her mother that she has seen her younger sister doing something scandalous . . . walking alone with a man!!!  Shocking!  

This young man is in fact Luke Rowan, who is a guest of the Tappitt family.  Rowan is the heir to a portion of the local brewery, and came to Baselhurst to try and work out an arrangement with Mr. Tappitt.  Mrs. Tappitt had great hopes that he would marry one of the three unwed Tappitt daughters, who are friends of Rachel.  Rachel was visiting her friend Cherry Tappitt, and was walking home when he overtook her and caused this minor scandal.  

Meanwhile, Mr. Rowan has all kinds of ideas about improving the brewery and the beer.  Mr. Tappitt thinks he is a young upstart, and Mrs. Tappitt is smarting because Luke had the nerve to fall in love with Rachel instead of one of her daughters.  Luke is a little hotheaded, and he Mr. Tappitt can't get along.  Meanwhile, there's a local election which causes the town to start taking sides, partly based on the whole Rowan/Tappitt feud, and poor Rachel is caught in the middle.  The story follows the courtship of Rachel and Luke, and is a social satire about gossip, hypocritical evangelicals, and local politics. 

I mostly enjoyed this book.  The characters are charming and interesting, and Trollope gets in some good digs, especially about the overly pious Dorothy and a suitor who is mostly interested in her money.  The only part of the novel I didn't enjoy was an aspect of the local election -- the current MP is challenged by a local businessman who is -- gasp -- a Jew.  He's not a bad character, but some unpleasant comments are made about him by other characters (mostly his political opponents) which made me uncomfortable.  I'm not sure if Trollope himself was anti-Semitic, or was just trying to make a point about people of this time period, but I really wish it hadn't been included.  But it's otherwise a nice portrait about life in a small town during Victorian period, and a very easy read.  

I'm counting this as my 19th Century Classic for the Back to the Classics Challenge.

The Blue Castle by L. M. Montgomery

Okay, quick survey. . .  what is the worst cover of a book you've read so far in 2014?

And how does it compare to this one:

Honestly, is this not the CHEESIEST book cover you've ever seen????  (Unless, of course, you are a regular reader of paperback romances, or the illustrator of this cover, in which case I apologize in case I've offended you. )

And my next question is this:  I know that book covers will attract readers to books, but have you ever been so put off by a book's cover that you actually refused to read it?  I ask this, because I bought this book more than six years ago after reading rave reviews by some of my favorite bloggers.  However, I could never bring myself to read it because I was too embarrassed.  Seriously!!

I finally decided I'd give it a try the other day -- I honestly wanted something from my TBR shelves that was short, and that was the complete opposite of Moby-Dick, which I had just finished, after six weeks of listening to the audio in the car.  I had also started reading a Zola novel which just wasn't doing anything for me.   

This is the story of Valancy Stirling, who lives somewhere in Canada with her mother and aunt, and is completely cowed and browbeaten by her entire extended family.  At twenty-nine, she is an old maid, and her family will never forget it.  When I  actually started reading it, I still didn't crack my lousy mass-market paperback -- I read the first chapter or so via the e-book version from Project Gutenberg Australia.  

I was pretty much hooked when I read this paragraph in Chapter I:

Aunt Wellington, of whom Valancy stood in abject awe, would tell her about Olive's new chiffon dress and Cecil's last devoted letter. Valancy would have to look as pleased and interested as if the dress and letter had been hers or else Aunt Wellington would be offended. And Valancy had long ago decided that she would rather offend God than Aunt Wellington, because God might forgive her but Aunt Wellington never would.

Things get very interesting when something absolutely life-changing happens to Valancy.  Without telling her family why, she decides to take matters into her own hands and live her life the way she wants, without giving a fig about what other people think.  This completely shocks her family and most of the population of her small town, and the reactions of her family members are pretty hilarious.  I don't want to give too much away, but this part of the book is full of wry observations and some laugh-out loud moments.

This book was written by L. M. Montgomery, the beloved writer of the Anne of Green Gables series.  I discovered Anne fairly late in life -- I never read it as a child because I somehow got it confused with Pollyanna, and I assumed Anne would be a sickly-sweet goody two-shoes.  I never read Heidi either.  Still haven't.  (If there are any Heidi and Pollyanna fans out there, please tell me if I should reconsider). The Blue Castle is Montgomery's only book meant for adults, and it does remind me a bit of what Anne would have been like as a grown-up, though I can't for a minute imagine her as browbeaten as Valancy is in the beginning of the book -- so, really, Valancy is like Anne after she takes charge of her own life.

Anyway, this book is funny and charming, and there's a nice little love story, though the ending is a bit unrealistic.  But it's a fun fast read, just over 200 pages in most editions.  It's a great summer read if you can get past the horrible cover.  Clearly, the publishers never actually read it, because the couple on the front look nothing like Valancy and the love interest.  I only wish I'd bought a later edition with this cover:

or even this one: 

(Also cheesy, but not nearly as bad as the first one.)

Or even this one:

This one's better, but to be fair, Valancy's mother and aunt would faint dead away before they let her near a window with this much skin showing.  And don't get me started on the makeup -- this book was published in 1926.   

Anyway -- what books repelled you before you even opened the covers?  And has anyone actually read Pollyanna and liked her, or does she make your teeth ache?  

Giants in the Earth by O. E. Rolvaag

Back in 2000, we moved to Nebraska, a state about which I knew absolutely nothing, except that it was surrounded by six other states which I'd not yet visited, and that they grew a lot of corn.  I did not know that it was full of kind and charming people, that the weather was lovely eight months of the year (I won't lie: winters were long and often harsh) and that it was within driving distance of several major cities, including Kansas City and St. Louis.  It turned out to be one of the nicest places in which I would ever live.

Anyhow, not long after our arrival, an old college friend came for a visit, bringing a hostess gift of two books about life on the prairies:  My Antonia and Giants in the Earth.  I did finally read My Antonia with a book group while living right there in the heartland (and I've accumulated another stack of books by Willa Cather) but somehow, Giants in the Earth kept getting packed and unpacked for the next three moves (it did not even cross the ocean for our assignment in Japan; it was relegated to storage for three years).  When I made this year's TBR Pile Challenge List, I buckled down and committed to reading it after schlepping it unread for thirteen years.

So, finally, I finished this book last week, while on vacation in Michigan -- not so much corn in suburban Detroit, but the weather was pretty nice and I had lots of spare time to read.  And I was pleased to discover that after all these years of waiting around and moving this book from house to house, I did enjoy this book.  It's the story of a Norwegian pioneer family after the Civil War:  Per Hansa; his long-suffering wife Beret; and their three (soon to become four) children.  

First published in Norwegian back in 1927, Giants in the Earth starts out as the family is alone on the prairie, trying to catch up with some other Norwegian families who have left Minnesota and are going to start a new settlement in the Dakota territories (not Nebraska, but relatively close to where I eventually lived in Omaha).  Per Hansa et al have become separated from the group and are lost on the prairie; Beret is pregnant and terrified of what will happen if they don't get their bearings and meet up with the rest.  Everything they own is stuffed into the wagon drawn by their two oxen, and it's like a giant sea of grass.  

Eventually, they catch up with the rest and all seems well.  The rest of the story is several years in the life of the family; basically, it's like Little House on the Prairie, but from the point of the view of the adults.  Seriously, what was it really like for Ma out there, all alone in the Dakota territory, living in a sod house?  They were miles from anyone else -- can you imagine giving birth all alone like that?  And living in a house made of dirt?  And the winters -- well, winters in Nebraska are long and hard.  I love the change of seasons, but I really enjoy the Texas winters -- it's rare if it drops below the thirties, much less snow.  Winter in Omaha can last about five months, and the wind whips over the plains, and boy, it is cold.  I loved living in Omaha but I don't know how people did it 150 years ago, miles from anyone else for days or weeks at a time.  And don't get me started on outhouses in the winter -- I haven't been camping for years, and it was in the summer.  I like my modern conveniences!

I've been a military spouse for 18 years, and since 1995 we've had six major moves, including one overseas.  They're always incredibly stressful, even in modern times with real beds, real toilets, and professional packers and movers.  I don't know how pioneer women did it back then.  These women had to deal with the cold and the dirt and they were lucky to see a midwife, much less a doctor.  And the stress of worrying about crops -- these people are dealing with plagues of locusts just like the Ingalls family in LHotP.  We've got some giant bugs in Texas but nothing like what they had to deal with.

Anyway, it's a really interesting book if you're at all curious about pioneer life.  It's an easy read (though many of the characters are named Per or Ole or Hansa) and my biggest quibble is how abruptly the book ended.  Afterward I realized that it's the first of a trilogy, so you find out what happens to the family in subsequent books, though they're harder to find.  I don't know that I enjoyed it enough rush out and track down the next two books right away but you never know, I might look for them after I've made some more progress on the TBR piles. 

This book counts for my 2013 TBR Pile Challenge; my 2013 Chunkster Challenge; and it's book #29 in my Classics Club Challenge.  

The Odd Women by George Gissing

Before the Victorian Celebration, I wanted to read at least one book by an author that was new to me.   I had two novels by George Gissing on the TBR shelf, and they weren't too long, so I thought one of them would be a good choice.  I chose The Odd Women because it was the shorter of the two, and because I'd seen some interesting reviews on the blogosphere in the last few months.

From the title, I thought it was about strange or unconventional women, but then I thought it was going to be about Victorian spinsters -- i.e., odd as in unattached, unpaired.   The beginning of the book seems this way, with six sisters who are suddenly placed in genteel poverty.  The book then focuses on three of them, Alice, Virginia, and Monica.  Alice and Virginia, the eldest, are eking out an existence working as a paid companion and a teacher; the youngest, Monica, starts working as a drapers shop at 15.  Then the action jumps forward several years when Alice and Virginia get a letter from an old friend, Rhoda Nunn, who is living in London.  She's employed at a business school for young women that teaches them typing and office skills.  She urges the women to invest in a typewriter and try to make a better living for themselves, and to get Monica away from the exhausting hours she's working as a shopgirl.

In the beginning, it seemed that this book was going to be about Alice and Virginia and their desperate lives as Victorian spinsters with few job prospects, but then the focus of the book changed.  The story is really mostly about two different women:  Rhoda Nunn, who's intelligent and unconventional; and the youngest sister Monica, who is tempted by a very traditional (though loveless) Victorian marriage for her security.  Things don't work out exactly as planned for either woman.  

What really surprised me about this book was how unabashedly feminist it was, especially for a book written by a Victorian man in 1893.  Gissing creates some very forceful arguments about the plight of women and marriage during that time.  Some of his characters must have been extremely revolutionary for this time, and I'm sure it was pretty shocking.  

I really liked this book.  The characters end up being quite interesting and I got really invested in how this was going to turn out -- not how I expected at all!  Other than the complete shift in focus, the only minor criticism I have about it was that a few sections got kind of preachy and started to drag.  A couple of the characters really lecturing each other about feminism and women's roles and while I understood the point, it did come off as rather didactic and really slowed the book down for me.

The writing style was also extremely readable -- a lot of the Victorians tend to be slow reading, but this one was actually pretty speedy compared to Dickens and Eliot.  George Gissing doesn't get much attention among Victorian writers but I'm very glad I discovered this book.  I also have another of his books, New Grub Street so I'm looking forward to reading that one too.

Mrs. Craddock by W. Somerset Maugham

I'm very pleased to have finally finished Mrs. Craddock.  I'm a big fan of W. Somerset Maugham, and a couple of years ago I bought this one on the recommendation of Amanda from Ramblings.  We're in the same real-life classics book group at the library and we both love Maugham.  Our group read The Painted Veil back in 2009 and I loved it, and we're also discussing Of Human Bondage in June -- I read it years ago and it was one of the first classics I read for pleasure, so I'm really looking forward to re-reading it.

But back to Mrs. Craddock.  This is one of Maugham's lesser-known works -- in fact, I'd never even heard of it until Amanda recommended it.  My library didn't even own a copy, hence the purchase.  I think that's a real shame because I thought it was excellent.  And short -- it's only 268 pages, including footnotes.  If you're looking for a good short classic, look no further.

Basically, Mrs. Craddock is the story of an unhappy marriage in the late Victorian period. Young Bertha Leys returns to England after the death of her father, with whom she lived abroad for many years.  She's living with her Aunt Polly at the family estate, Leys Court, and falls in love with an attractive young man from her childhood -- it's one of the tenant farmers, Edward Craddock.  Despite the class differences, she is determined to have him.  There's a bit of grumbling from the family doctor and some snide comments from the neighbors, but Edward is a good, solid young man, and there aren't many other prospects for headstrong young Bertha, who is madly in love.

What follows is the breakdown of their marriage, at least from Bertha's point of view.  I wouldn't say this book is defending the arguments about marrying outside one's class, but more about how hard it is to marry someone with whom one has essentially nothing in common.  After the initial sexual attraction begins to wear off, these two people really have nothing in common.  Edward is a good man, but he's not very educated, and not interested in books or music or travel or anything that Bertha likes.  He wants to be the country squire, which he does successfully.   Of course, now that they're married, everything belongs to him.  She tries to make the best of things but is faced with one heartbreak after another.

This sounds really sad, and parts of it are, but the writing in this book is just wonderful, so I hope I haven't discouraged anyone from reading this book.  And surprisingly, parts of this book are actually really funny -- Bertha's Aunt Polly has quite a sharp tongue and she is the queen of the one-liners.  I'd love to see her go head-to-head with the Dowager Countess of Grantham on Downton Abbey (also known as Maggie Smith).  In fact, Countess Violet would have been nearly the same age as Aunt Polly 30 years before, when the book begins, so there you are.  

Here's a couple of great lines from Aunt Polly.  Every time I read them, they sound just like Maggie Smith:

On marriage:  "Most people when they get married fancy they're doing quite an original thing.  It never occurs to them  that quite a number of persons have committed matrimony since Adam and Eve."

On class differences:  ". . . each set thinks itself quite as good as the set above it and has a profound contempt for the set below it.  In fact the only members of society who hold themselves in proper estimation are the servants.  I always think that the domestics of gentlemen's houses in South Kensington are several degrees less odious than their masters."

This book counts towards two challenges:  The Classics Challenge 2012 and the TBR Pile Challenge 2012.  I guess I could even count it towards the Victorian Challenge, since it was technically written in 1900 (though not published in 1902, so maybe that's dubious).  

The Go-Between by L. P. Hartley

"The past is a foreign country.  They do things differently there."  Another of the best first lines ever.  [I didn't include this book in that post, as I hadn't finished it yet.]  But another great line, and a great book.  But it just broke my heart.

This is the story of young Leo Colston, a twelve year old boy spending the summer holiday with a school friend on a country estate.  It's set in 1900, at the very end of the Victorian era.  As an adult in his sixties, Leo finds the journal he kept that summer, and he's reminiscing about this summer and how it changed his life.

Leo is at Brandham Hall, a country estate, as a companion to his school friend Marcus Maudsley.  Unfortunately, a few weeks into the summer, Marcus falls ill with the measles and is quarantined, so Leo has to amuse himself for several weeks; he and Marcus were the only children and all the other guests much older .  He's befriended by Marcus' older sister, Marian, a beautiful young lady of about 18, whom Leo worships.  The family hopes that she'll soon be engaged to Viscount Trimingham, from whom they are leasing the estate -- he's titled but low on cash, and the Maudsley family are rich but untitled.  So, a match between Marian and the Viscount would solve everything beautifully.  Of course, things don't go as planned.  Leo is befriended by Ted, one of the tenant farmers, and soon Leo is passing messages between Ted and Marian -- hence, the title.

This book has a lot to say about Victorian ideas of class and station, snobbery, and loyalty.  Leo's pretty middle-class, and he's a little out of his depth with all of these wealthy people.  He's very aware of the class differences.  He's also friendly with Ted but is very aware that he's not the same class, being just a farmer.  He realizes he's caught in the middle of something and is trying desperately to get out of it without offending anyone, especially Marian, on whom he has a tremendous crush.

What I liked best about this book was Hartley's ability to write in the voice of a child.  I've read other books in which the narrator is a child, and a lot of them just didn't ring true -- they seemed so precocious, and much older than their years.  For example, I'm thinking about Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird, one of my favorite books of all time.  I love this book, but Scout doesn't sound like any child I've ever known, and I have two girls of my own.  (Other than this, I think it's perfect).  I didn't get any hint of that in Hartley's novel.

My one complaint is [contains spoiler! highlight if you want to read this section] that Leo has no clue about sex -- which I find pretty unbelievable for a 13-year-old boy, especially one who attends a boy's school.  I am sure that some other schoolmate would have known something and talked about it!  Seriously.  There would have been boys with older siblings or who had been on a farm or something.Anyway, I just found that terribly unrealistic.  But still, it's a great book, beautifully written.  Hartley is also very skilled at descriptions -- I could absolutely imagine myself right there with Leo.   There's an detailed chapter about a cricket match between the villagers and the residents and guests up at Brandham Hall -- I don't know anything about cricket (or much about any other sports, for that matter) but Hartley made it both interesting and full of tension, just like a real sporting event.  It takes a talented writer to get me interested in sports, believe me!  And the ending -- well, I couldn't possibly spoil it, but it's pretty dramatic, I couldn't stop reading.  This is one of those great classics that I think is sadly unappreciated.


This review is also posted at Our Mutual Read.

Daddy Long Legs and Dear Enemy by Jean Webster

Somehow I managed to grow up an avid reader yet never read some of the classic coming-of-age tales such as A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and Anne of Green Gables. This has fueled one of my current reading obsessions, the children's classics. Of course it's possible I appreciate them more as an adult. I recently discovered a new favorite that I just loved, Daddy Long Legs by Jean Webster. Well, I'm calling it a children's classic simply because it seems to be marketed towards children. More on that later.

A quick synopsis: Set in the early 20th century, young Jerusha (Judy) Abbott has grown up in a not-quite-Dickensian orphanage (another orphan -- children's literature is rife with them!) and at 17, they're ready to put her out on the street. Luckily, some of her schoolwork has attracted the attention of one of the wealthy trustees, so she now has an anonymous benefactor who offers to finance her college education. The only condition is that she write a monthly letter to the mysterious, nameless trustee, whom she dubs "Daddy Long Legs" after she sees a glimpse of his shadow. Judy chronicles her college years through these letters to her patron. We learn about her life, her friends, and of course, the identity of the mystery man before the resolution. Also includes cute little cartoony illustrations by the author.

This is a charming coming-of-age story. It's witty and sweet and not the least bit saccharine or sentimental. All I could think while I was reading this book, which I tore through on a plane ride, was "Why isn't this book better known and/or more popular?" It was very popular when it was first published (in 1912) and had multiple stage and screen adaptations, including one starring Leslie Caron and Fred Astaire, both of whom sound terribly miscast. I can only surmise that it's not really a children's book, and today's adults may find it lacking in sex and violence. Probably teenagers as well, since it lacks the requisite vampire/supernatural element.

Since I enjoyed it so much, I rushed to the bookstore to see if I could find my own copy. The Penguin classics edition also includes the sequel, Dear Enemy. . Amazingly, I must have purchased the only copy in the entire metro area. (Seriously. I checked both mega-book store chains' websites. Not a single copy left in the whole city!).

Anyhoo, Dear Enemy is the sequel, or maybe the companion volume, since it's actually the story of Judy's roommate Sallie McBride, who takes over as director of the dreary John Grier Home. Again, the story is told in letters, mostly to Judy, her politician swain in D.C., and to the grumpy resident physician, Dr. MacRae (the eponymous enemy). Again, it's delightfully breezy yet intelligent, but with a more serious undertone, since Sallie is dealing with social reform, orphan welfare, nature vs. nurture, etc. Plus, Sallie is a grownup, struggling with her own romantic feelings. This book deals with far more adult themes than Daddy Long Legs, and I can't imagine this as a good read for a child. I really don't know any teenagers but from what I observe in the library and the bookstore they're mostly obsessed with the supernatural. My library doesn't have a copy, so I don't know how it's typically cataloged. Either way, they are both very enjoyable reads.