Reviewing Elizabeth Goudge's "The Dean's Watch" and "Gentian Hill"

After discovering Elizabeth Goudge through Green Dolphin Street—originally the movie, then reading the book itself—I decided that this was definitely an author whose bibliography I would exhaust. Goudge’s writing is unique, complex, and thoughtful. The plots are secondary to the characters, almost each of which is developed in exquisite (sometimes excruciating) detail. The writing is dense, sometimes dry, and so her books aren’t given to binging several in a row.

As I’ve slowly made my way through her bibliography, I’ve finally made it far enough to start recognizing a pattern. Mentally, I can stack her books in distinctive piles:

There is, of course, the Wow I Can’t Believe This Book Actually Exists It’s Like the Holy Grail of Reading pile, which contains Green Dolphin Street and The Rosemary Tree.

Unfortunately, there is also the I Really Tried to Like This For Your Sake, Elizabeth, But Let’s Be Honest I Don’t pile…God So Loved the World, The Child of the Sea and The White Witch are hesitantly, tentatively placed here. A Book of Comfort is also here, not because I didn’t have parts that I enjoyed, but rather that there was just so much that was dull and humorless and failed to strike any chord with me, that I would forget that I’d even read if I hadn’t written a blog post about it!

Finally, there’s the Elizabeth You Have Betrayed Me pile, where the books are not only “meh” but downright impossible for me to think about with a trace of fondness. It’s a small stack, but one that seems to have a general rule that governs it: the children’s books. That’s right, Little White Horse and I Saw Three Ships. That’s where you belong!

And now I have two more books to add to their respective piles.

Hattie and Grandma: Two Book Series about The Olden Days

Re-reading old favorite children's books provides an interesting opportunity to revisit childhood experiences and evaluate them from an older perspective. This can sometimes backfire; I may have loved something as a child, but as an adult, the allure is replaced by an underwhelming sense as all its flaws are now more evident. However, I would say the majority of the time it's pleasant to re-read books from Way Back When, especially when it turns out that these books are "Actually pretty good." 

(Past-tense Me, being able to hear this approval from Present-tense Me, can't help but feel vindicated in her choice of literature when this happens.)

“The Swiss Family Robinson,” where the Flamingo and the Penguin Shall Dwell Together, Apparently

As a child, the Disney adaptation of The Swiss Family Robinson was one of my favorites movies my grandma had at her house. Because she only had one or two other VHS to choose from, I ended up watching this movie a lot. There’s just something alluring about a treehouse, and having wild animals as pets, and fighting off pirates.

My mom read the book aloud for school, but I only remembered one part where one of the boys, Ernst, asks to be left in solitude so he can pretend to be Robinson Crusoe, and his dad says he’s already gotten enough experience.

In re-reading it this year, I came to the unfortunate realization that there was a reason this was the only thing I remembered. The book is overall boring.

And, for those who like the movie and haven’t read the book, spoilers: there are no pirates.

Modern Medieval: The Literature of Chretien de Troyes

As I’ve written before--probably more than once--Erec et Enide is one of my favorite Arthurian stories. I was excited to begin reading other Arthurian romances by the same author, Chrétien de Troyes:

• Cliges
• Lancelot
• Yvain
• Perceval

And, for the most part, he lived up to the hype. One thing that de Troyes does (that I haven’t noticed much in other “original” Arthurian tales) is give his characters introspection. For instance, when Cliges first meets his true love, Fenice, de Troyes devotes several pages to each of them, relating their inner dialog in almost stream-of-consciousness fluidity.

Reviewing “Real Love in an Angry World” by Rick Bezet

Real Love in an Angry World: How to Stick to Your Convictions without Alienating People is about being a true Christ-follower and showing God’s love to a world that is full of conflict, hostility, and suspicion about Christianity (and a lot of other things). Looking to Jesus’ example, Pastor Rick Bezet discusses different specific ways Christians can relate to people in love, without judging them, while also not compromising their beliefs or condoning unbiblical behavior.

Basically, this book is about the biblical principle of “speaking truth IN LOVE.” First, it establishes that there is a universal truth, one that isn’t damaged or injured by people’s dismissing or disbelieving it. However, this truth is not a stark, judging, hateful truth. Because it cannot be hurt, it doesn’t need to go on the offensive to protect itself.

Reviewing Catherine Fisher's "Snow-Walker": Conclusion

I liked a lot of things about the Snow-Walker trilogy, and there were even more factors that I wanted to like. The concept is intriguing, but in execution the writing commits a major storytelling mistake: it tells more than shows. 

Reviewing "The Soul Thieves" - Book 3 of The Snow-Walker Trilogy

The first two books of The Snow-Walker Trilogy create a gradual climb in tension, leading to the ultimate showdown of Gudrun and Kari. When Gudrun puts a sleeping spell on the kingdom and steals the soul of their king’s fiancée, Kari sees it is a ploy to get him to come to her. Jessa, Kari and his warrior-guardian Brochael, Hakon (who is now training to be a warrior), and the poet Skapti set out into the forbidden north where the Snow Walkers live. 

Reviewing "The Empty Hand" - Book 2 of The Snow-Walker Trilogy

The Empty Hand retells Beowulf, which perhaps contributes to its being my favorite installment of the trilogy. In this novel, Gudrun has been banished from the kingdom, intent on having her revenge. She sends a magical, phantom-beast after her son Kari, eating anything and anyone who stands in its way. A secondary plotline follows Jessa as she tries to hunt down a thief, uncovering a treasonous plot in the process. Her cousin Thorkil is mentioned, but not seen again—perhaps because he was so boring in the first book he needed to be replaced. 

Review of "The Snow-Walker's Son" - Book 1 of The Snow-Walker Trilogy

In the first book of the Snow-Walker Trilogy, Catherine Fisher basically retells Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen in a Viking fantasy world. (But no, if you’re a rabid fan of Frozen you will not necessarily like this book, even if both stories are based off the same source material.)

The kingdom has been taken over by Gudrun, an evil sorceress of unknown origin, with white hair and icy eyes. Cousins Jessa and Thorkil are brought to the queen’s stronghold in order to sentence them to banishment. Why she doesn’t kill them, or has to bring them to be banished by her in person, I don’t know. Anyway, she banishes them not just into the wilderness, but to an abandoned castle where the queen’s own son (rumored to be a monster) has been held captive for over a dozen years. 

Perfect Little Protagonists: from Frances Hodgson Burnett’s “Little Lord Fauntleroy”

 Little Lord Fauntleroy is a quintessential rags-to-riches story of an American boy named Cedric becoming the heir to an English Earl. His father was the disowned son of the current Earl, a crotchety, proud, and selfish man. Through Cedric’s pure-hearted love and generosity, the Earl turns over a new leaf.

Basically, it’s Annie with a British Daddy Warbucks.

Perfect Little Protagonists: from E. Nesbit's "Harding's Luck"

As luck would have it, I began reading this book completely unaware of anything about it except its author—E. Nesbit. The copy I pulled (at random) from my mom’s bookshelf one night when I was desperate for more reading material (at the time my TBR pile was dangerously short for some reason) was an older hardcover with no dust jacket, no blurb on the back, or really any other indication of what sort of book it was. I’ve read several of Nesbit’s other books for children, so I was sort of hoping this one (it had gilt lettering on the spine) was for adults.

It was not, which I realized as soon as I opened it. This copy was full of illustrations that immediately exposed Harding’s Luck as following a boy protagonist through various adventures. Although disappointed that it wasn’t a more sophisticated story, I wasn’t so deterred from reading it. In fact, for the first several chapters I rather enjoyed it….

Dickie Harding is an Oliver Twist sort of character, a young orphan boy living in poverty with his “aunt” (really just his father’s landlady, who took Dickie in as a sort of ward/servant after his father died). Dickie is crippled, uneducated, and generally unloved. His only treasure is a possession given to him by his father, a silver rattle he calls “Tinkler.” Without really understanding what is missing from his life, Dickie longs for love, relatives, friends, and (on a more general note) beauty. 

Perfect Little Protagonists: from Edward Stratemeyer's "First at the North Pole"

In penning this volume I have had a twofold purpose in mind: the first to show what pure grit and determination can do under the most trying of circumstances, and the second to give my readers an insight into Esquimaux life and habits, and to relate what great explorers like Franklin, Kane, Hall, DeLong, Nansen, Cook, and Peary have done to open up this weird and mysterious portion of our globe.

~ Edward Stratemeyer, from his 1909 preface of First at the North Pole

This was the first novel I’d read by Edward Stratemeyer, and frankly it will probably also be the last.
First at the North Pole, or, Two Boys in the Arctic started out promising, introducing the main character Andy as an orphaned eighteen-year old in Maine, and his struggle to survive in a job recession and with the added dead-weight of his lazy Uncle Si. This uncle showed up out of the blue after his parents died, claimed he was his guardian, and settled into a drunken, loafish lifestyle all the while hypocritically cracking the whip over his honest-working nephew’s back. What’s worse, Uncle Si tries to keep Andy from befriending another orphaned youth, Chet, on the flimsy excuse that Chet’s father was accused of embezzlement and forgery, and had run off never to be seen again…which of course proved he was guilty!

The plot thickens when Andy finds out that he has inherited some land in Michigan, which might prove valuable to the mining corporations who want to take control of that territory. Of course the wheedling Uncle Si snoops through his nephew’s things (after sending him out to find a job), and decides to try to sell it to the first land shark that conveniently shows up pretty much the same time he finds the deeds to the land. Andy discovers the plot and runs away into the Maine winter, taking refuge with his friend Chet while he tries to figure out what to do. They have a few adventures in the woods, trying to hunt to survive and so on, and Andy even manages to lose his papers in the vast expanse of snowdrifts.

So far, so good. The story establishes the protagonist as a “good guy” with an oppressive uncle and difficult challenges ahead. But here the story wavers, because Stratemeyer suddenly remembers the title of his novel, and needs to figure out a way to redirect the plot northward rather than towards Michigan. So he introduces a professor and an explorer. They meet the boys (again, conveniently), and during their conversation the idea of travelling to the North Pole comes up.

Read This, Not That: “With the Night Mail” vs. “The Clipper of the Clouds”

Although Rudyard Kipling’s With the Night Mail: A Story of 3000 A.D. would be a great resource for anyone researching the Steampunk genre, I wouldn’t recommend reading it for any other purpose.

Why?

Because there isn’t really much of a story. There are a few vague characters, the narrator is nameless and devoid of personality, the plot is nearly nonexistent, and the point is completely lost.

This book is entirely forgettable. I should know: I actually read this twice because I’d forgotten I’d read it the first time, and the only reason I realized I’d read it before was because I had highlighted a Oh So Very Steampunk Passage of the text in my e-reader copy.

The bare bones of the story is that the Nameless Narrator is a news correspondent who is shadowing the daily (that is, nightly) workings of an airship. Yes, according to Kipling, dirigible-type aircraft are the mode of transportation of the future. Global travel is so easy that the intertwining of nations has necessitated a universal language so the airships can communicate with one another. The airships run on electricity and some sort of semiprecious gem power. Airplanes, called “’planes” exist as well, but are considered outmoded and unfashionable.

Books and the Natural World

I recently finished reading two books about animals, the semi-fictional The Wolfling by Sterling North, and the coffee-table companion to the documentary series, Blue Planet II by James Honeyborne and Mark Brownlow.

Why do I do this to myself? I love animals, but reading about them is often depressing. Almost every
dog-centered novel ends with the dog dying and a little of my heart with it. Even nonfiction zoology
books aren’t immune to this, because endangered species make me feel so helpless and wish I could
change the world.

Sterling North is probably most famous for his excellent book Rascal, a memoir of one summer in his
boyhood when he raised a pet raccoon. North’s writing style is wonderful, not only artistic in his
descriptions of the natural world, but also exciting. In The Wolfling he goes back further than Rascal’s
setting of Wisconsin during World War I, and explores the life of a boy named Robbie in 1873.
Based in part on research and reminiscences of North’s father, The Wolfling is nevertheless fiction,
calling itself a “Documentary Novel.”

Reviewing Gerald Morris's "The Squire's Tales" Series

The Squire’s Tales series by Gerald Morris is one of my all-time favorite books. Aside from talking about the first book I read of this series, The Ballad of Sir Dinadan, however, I haven’t discussed it on my blog.

Until now!

To be fair to the reader, I thought it best to wait until I’d reread all ten of the books. Although, there was also the ulterior motive of wanting to read them again anyway, and also the bonus that I could read these VERY fast and thus make serious headway in my 150-Books-a-Year-What-Was-I-Thinking goal for 2018. And because for once I actually had all the series on hand (the previous time I read the entire series, I had to wait for the author to actually publish them, so had entire years of waiting and rereading the first installments), I binge-read them this time, which made for a roller-coaster of emotions…for reasons that will be made clear, if you aren’t already aware of how the original legends conclude.

In this series Morris has taken on the monumental task of retelling the Arthurian (and related medieval European) legends. Many other people have tried, and most fail utterly to do justice to the complexities of the plots, characters, and themes of these ancient stories. While retellings are never quite the same in tone or faithfulness to the original stories, Morris gets closer than most.

Elizabeth Goudge's "The Child from the Sea" and How I Got My Copy

How I came to possess Elizabeth Goudge’s The Child from the Sea was in a very roundabout way. It happened a few years back, while I was working as an administrative assistant at a furniture store. As part of the “staging,” there was a variety of old books that would be placed upon bookcases or other shelving.

Past experience has taught me that treasures can be hidden in the least probable places, so I went through the store reading over the various titles. Most of these books were not very interesting—mostly Readers Digest Condensed volumes and that sort of thing—but among them was a nondescript, black-bound hardcover with “GOUDGE” on the binding.

At the time I hadn’t read anything by Elizabeth Goudge myself, but as she’s one of my mom’s “target” authors and collects all of her works, I mentioned it to her. I remember my mom being a bit horrified that a book like that should be collecting dust, unread and forgotten in a furniture store. She said about as much to one of my coworkers one day when she visited me at work.

This happened to be around Mother’s Day, and my coworker, with the generosity of giving away something that didn’t necessarily belong to him, immediately handed it to her as an early gift.

(Lest anyone accuse either him or my mother of stealing, I “donated” one of my books to take its place upon the shelf—A Geological Survey of Syria or something along that line.)

Dissing Gissing: An Angry Review of "New Grub Street"

"It happened to catch my eye in the paper yesterday that someone was to be hanged at Newgate this morning. There’s a certain satisfaction in reflecting that it is not oneself."

This is how Jasper Milvain is introduced in New Grub Street, making pleasant conversation over breakfast with his sisters and mother. One-third through the book, I wished that Jasper was hanged at Newgate. Two-thirds through the book, the I wished I was hanged at Newgate.

There are books (few though they may be) that I actually dislike. And among that handful, New Grub Street ranks high as one I truly despise on myriad levels. I’m reviewing it for two reasons: to warn anyone who is reading this to avoid this book at all costs, and to be able to delete it from my e-reader with the satisfaction of first venting my grievances against it.

In essence, this is a story about writer’s block. Not that this is Gissing’s intended theme--which is something to do with the corruption of writing as an art by publishers and critics into something commercial and petty--but because the majority of the page count is devoted to people having writer’s block, that’s what it really is about.

A Losing Streak: Three Recent Reads

This January I set a goal of reading 150 books in 2018. This total is unprecedented for me, and about four months in it’s still a bit too early to tell whether I’ll succeed. However, at finishing three books a week, so far I’ve been able to stay on track.

One downside to reading at such a pace is that if I’m halfway through a book and start disliking it, I feel obliged to finish anyway or else admit the 50% I did read was a waste of time. Fortunately, most of my books have been “keepers,” or at least weren’t books I regretted reading once I’d finished them.

This lucky streak did not hold true last week, where all three of my books were duds.

They Were Strong and Good is a book by Robert Lawson, an author I enjoyed as a kid reading the historical fictions Ben and Me, Mr. Revere and I, and Captain Kidd’s Cat. These books are narrated by animals that follow the exploits of historical figures: Most obviously Captain Kidd and his cat, Paul Revere and his horse, and—before Pixar’s Ratatouille made it cool for rats to go around hiding in human’s hats—Benjamin Franklin and a rather opinionated rodent. Lawson is also author of the Rabbit Hill books; in fact, he’s probably best known for these books, although personally I haven’t read them.

They Were Strong and Good intrigued me because in this book Lawson talks about his family and how they experienced American history—and were part of it. It also had the benefit of being rather short, which was good because I was running a bit behind this week. But its brevity turned out to be the only positive thing I could say about this book.

Reviewing Anthony Hope's "The Prisoner of Zenda"

One of my favorite books—and perhaps my favorite of any adventure/swashbuckler—is Anthony Hope’s The Prisoner of Zenda. I began reading this book completely ignorant of its genre or plot. In fact, I believe it was one of the books I’d had on my shelf for a decade or so, and had originally purchased at a library used book sale just because I liked the cover and thought the title intriguing.

As it turns out, this book is one of those action-packed, romantic, larger-than-life plots set in a fictional, vaguely European country and peopled by beautiful heroines, dastardly villains, and chivalrous heroes.

Rudolph Rassendyll is an Englishman visiting the land of his ancestors, Ruritania. His visit coincides with the coronation of a distant cousin of his, also coincidentally named Rudolph. And, coincidentally, they happen to look exactly alike. All these coincidences are coincidentally fortunate because King-to-be Rudolph’s jealous brother Michael drugs the heir apparent and has him kept prisoner in a castle in the town of Zenda (hence the title).

Reviewing "Marie" by H. Rider Haggard

 

Pretty early on in reading this Allan Quatermain novel I considered stopping. More than any of the other Quatermain adventures I’ve read, Marie is rife with racism, both in the characters’ dialog and the overall narrative.

This was not simply racism of Europeans against Africans (although there was certainly plenty of that!), but of different ethnicities of the same color. The French hate the English, the Dutch hate the English, the English hate the both of them, and all them hate—or at least mistreat—the Africans. There is even a jab at Jews—even though there aren’t any Jewish main characters to be seen!

Is it right to read a book with racism in it? Or does it seep into one’s thoughts and attitudes? On the other hand, does pretending that racism doesn’t exist leave one open to ignorance? Is it possibly helpful to read a book one doesn’t agree with, to mentally argue with it, and thus sharpen one’s mind and feelings against occurrences of racism in the real world?