Recent reading
Oct. 8th, 2022 03:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
regshoeAh, it's one of those nice satisfying reading posts with three dates in three different centuries—I do like those.
The Vicar of Wakefield by Oliver Goldsmith (1766). Recommended by D. K. Broster via The Wounded Name! This pleasant, sentimental, morally edifying eighteenth-century tale follows the adventures of Doctor Primrose, the vicar of the title, a good and kind if somewhat silly man, and his wife and their six children. At the beginning of the book the Primroses lose their fortune and have to move their home and adjust to life on more limited means; later on they face even more challenges, from unscrupulous horse-dealers to seduction, from a house fire to imprisonment, and deal with these calamities according to their varying characters. Throughout all Doctor Primrose bears his misfortunes with patience and faith, and eventually, of course, he and his family are rewarded in suitable eighteenth-century fashion. I enjoyed it, though it's not the sort of thing that's easy to take completely seriously as a modern reader: fresh misfortunes pile one upon another in a fashion that becomes slightly ridiculous by the end, and there are plenty of happier contrived coincidences, long-lost relations and so on, to solve things. But it is good fun, and I liked the book's sense of humour. There was one moment of serious moral dissonance, where Olivia turning out to be actually married to the man who seduced her and tried to trick her into bigamy is presented as obviously a good thing and a happy ending for all concerned because it restores her reputation—although it sounds from the ending as though they're not living together, so perhaps that's not too bad an ending for Olivia as things go. And I never did figure out what Wakefield had to do with it; neither Doctor Primose's original neighbourhood nor the main setting sound anything like even a pre-Industrial Revolution Wakefield, and apart from a few context-free uses of the name it's never explained. Perhaps it's a fictional place with the same name?
The Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett (1896). Virtually all the late nineteenth-century American fiction I've read so far involves this tradition where wealthy residents of Boston, New York etc. spend a long summer holiday lodging in some pleasant rural retreat; it's clearly an important custom! The nameless narrator of this book is one such Bostonian; she is a writer who comes to spend her summer in the village of Dunnet Landing on the coast of Maine. Lodging with Mrs Todd, a local widow well-versed in the lore of herbs and folk remedies, she observes the landscape and the people of her temporary home, gets to know her neighbours and writes—taking over the village's schoolhouse in its summer holidays as her private writing room. The book does not have a plot as such; it consists of the narrator's accounts of various episodes in her life at Dunnet Landing and particularly in her developing friendship with Mrs Todd. She hears tales of the good old days of sea voyages from an old captain who visits her in her schoolhouse; she accompanies Mrs Todd on a visit to her mother and brother, who live by themselves out on an island; she goes to a celebratory gathering of a big local family and hears about its various members; and so on, and so on. The whole thing is beautifully written, and there's a quiet brilliance of observation and detail in Jewett's descriptions of both the human characters and the landscape and character of the setting, and a lovely, deepening sense of what this place is, in every way—its history, its people, the rhythms of its life, its scenery and weather and plants. It's really, really lovely. Very much worth reading, and I'll definitely try and check out more books by Jewett in future.
Portrait of Elmbury by John Moore (1945). This is Moore's autobiographical account of his early life in Tewkesbury in Gloucestershire (thinly fictionalised as 'Elmbury') in the years before the Second World War, and a portrait of a world which—he knew even while writing the book in 1945—had vanished never to return. It's full of interesting social-historical detail—I was especially struck by the descriptions of social-architectural jumble, with fine big Tudor houses next to slums in the town centre, and of the men making a living doing different 'odd jobs' throughout the year, with no fixed employment but apparently doing pretty well for themselves. We hear about the lives of farmers, the effects of the Great Depression on an English country town, the characters of different pubs, local politics and many other things. I did not think so much of Moore's actual writing. His prose is very good, but it has a sort of conscious polish to the style which feels somehow untrustworthy, and the perspective from which he writes is very much that of a relatively privileged man who really only ever considers his own point of view of other people's lives. I don't know if this throws any doubt on the historical aspects! I was hoping this book might make an interesting comparison with John Halifax, Gentleman, which is set in the same area a century or so earlier; in fact the two settings don't have a huge amount in common, although there are recognisable details here and there (Craik apparently didn't actually know Tewkesbury very well, and I think is generally more interested in broader points about Victorian Britain than in local specifics). Moore wrote two further books about Tewkesbury and its surroundings, which I may read at some point.
The Vicar of Wakefield by Oliver Goldsmith (1766). Recommended by D. K. Broster via The Wounded Name! This pleasant, sentimental, morally edifying eighteenth-century tale follows the adventures of Doctor Primrose, the vicar of the title, a good and kind if somewhat silly man, and his wife and their six children. At the beginning of the book the Primroses lose their fortune and have to move their home and adjust to life on more limited means; later on they face even more challenges, from unscrupulous horse-dealers to seduction, from a house fire to imprisonment, and deal with these calamities according to their varying characters. Throughout all Doctor Primrose bears his misfortunes with patience and faith, and eventually, of course, he and his family are rewarded in suitable eighteenth-century fashion. I enjoyed it, though it's not the sort of thing that's easy to take completely seriously as a modern reader: fresh misfortunes pile one upon another in a fashion that becomes slightly ridiculous by the end, and there are plenty of happier contrived coincidences, long-lost relations and so on, to solve things. But it is good fun, and I liked the book's sense of humour. There was one moment of serious moral dissonance, where Olivia turning out to be actually married to the man who seduced her and tried to trick her into bigamy is presented as obviously a good thing and a happy ending for all concerned because it restores her reputation—although it sounds from the ending as though they're not living together, so perhaps that's not too bad an ending for Olivia as things go. And I never did figure out what Wakefield had to do with it; neither Doctor Primose's original neighbourhood nor the main setting sound anything like even a pre-Industrial Revolution Wakefield, and apart from a few context-free uses of the name it's never explained. Perhaps it's a fictional place with the same name?
The Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett (1896). Virtually all the late nineteenth-century American fiction I've read so far involves this tradition where wealthy residents of Boston, New York etc. spend a long summer holiday lodging in some pleasant rural retreat; it's clearly an important custom! The nameless narrator of this book is one such Bostonian; she is a writer who comes to spend her summer in the village of Dunnet Landing on the coast of Maine. Lodging with Mrs Todd, a local widow well-versed in the lore of herbs and folk remedies, she observes the landscape and the people of her temporary home, gets to know her neighbours and writes—taking over the village's schoolhouse in its summer holidays as her private writing room. The book does not have a plot as such; it consists of the narrator's accounts of various episodes in her life at Dunnet Landing and particularly in her developing friendship with Mrs Todd. She hears tales of the good old days of sea voyages from an old captain who visits her in her schoolhouse; she accompanies Mrs Todd on a visit to her mother and brother, who live by themselves out on an island; she goes to a celebratory gathering of a big local family and hears about its various members; and so on, and so on. The whole thing is beautifully written, and there's a quiet brilliance of observation and detail in Jewett's descriptions of both the human characters and the landscape and character of the setting, and a lovely, deepening sense of what this place is, in every way—its history, its people, the rhythms of its life, its scenery and weather and plants. It's really, really lovely. Very much worth reading, and I'll definitely try and check out more books by Jewett in future.
Portrait of Elmbury by John Moore (1945). This is Moore's autobiographical account of his early life in Tewkesbury in Gloucestershire (thinly fictionalised as 'Elmbury') in the years before the Second World War, and a portrait of a world which—he knew even while writing the book in 1945—had vanished never to return. It's full of interesting social-historical detail—I was especially struck by the descriptions of social-architectural jumble, with fine big Tudor houses next to slums in the town centre, and of the men making a living doing different 'odd jobs' throughout the year, with no fixed employment but apparently doing pretty well for themselves. We hear about the lives of farmers, the effects of the Great Depression on an English country town, the characters of different pubs, local politics and many other things. I did not think so much of Moore's actual writing. His prose is very good, but it has a sort of conscious polish to the style which feels somehow untrustworthy, and the perspective from which he writes is very much that of a relatively privileged man who really only ever considers his own point of view of other people's lives. I don't know if this throws any doubt on the historical aspects! I was hoping this book might make an interesting comparison with John Halifax, Gentleman, which is set in the same area a century or so earlier; in fact the two settings don't have a huge amount in common, although there are recognisable details here and there (Craik apparently didn't actually know Tewkesbury very well, and I think is generally more interested in broader points about Victorian Britain than in local specifics). Moore wrote two further books about Tewkesbury and its surroundings, which I may read at some point.
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Date: Oct. 8th, 2022 05:06 pm (UTC)This one sounds lovely, a 'quiet book' (we need more of those) and I appreciate the casual, normal witchiness of the widow too.
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Date: Oct. 8th, 2022 11:44 pm (UTC)“I wish I could, and be done with it,” said I, trying not to be saucy.
“Then she gave me a long lecture on my sins, and told me to sit and think them over while she just ‘lost’ herself for a moment. She never finds herself very soon, so the minute her cap began to bob like a top-heavy dahlia, I whipped the Vicar of Wakefield out of my pocket, and read away, with one eye on him and one on Aunt. I’d just got to where they all tumbled into the water when I forgot and laughed out loud. Aunt woke up and, being more good-natured after her nap, told me to read a bit and show what frivolous work I preferred to the worthy and instructive Belsham. I did my very best, and she liked it, though she only said...
“‘I don’t understand what it’s all about. Go back and begin it, child.’”
“Back I went, and made the Primroses as interesting as ever I could. Once I was wicked enough to stop in a thrilling place, and say meekly, ‘I’m afraid it tires you, ma’am. Shan’t I stop now?’”
“She caught up her knitting, which had dropped out of her hands, gave me a sharp look through her specs, and said, in her short way, ‘Finish the chapter, and don’t be impertinent, miss’.”
“Did she own she liked it?” asked Meg.
“Oh, bless you, no! But she let old Belsham rest, and when I ran back after my gloves this afternoon, there she was, so hard at the Vicar that she didn’t hear me laugh as I danced a jig in the hall because of the good time coming. What a pleasant life she might have if only she chose! I don’t envy her much, in spite of her money, for after all rich people have about as many worries as poor ones, I think,” added Jo.
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Date: Oct. 9th, 2022 09:55 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: Oct. 9th, 2022 01:20 am (UTC)Glad you enjoyed The Country of the Pointed Firs! It's such a quiet interesting book, isn't it? I also enjoyed the chapters about the woman who became an island hermit because she was convinced that she had committed the unforgivable sin (not certain what her sin was, actually) and survived because people would throw things up on the beach to make sure she continued to have things like thread.
I'm sure I read something else that I liked by Jewett, but the only other thing I see on my journal is A Country Doctor, which was pretty dull... I think it was "The White Heron," a short story which also has that beautiful sense of place.
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Date: Oct. 9th, 2022 10:07 am (UTC)I got the recommendation from
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Date: Oct. 9th, 2022 02:02 am (UTC)It sounds lovely; thank you for calling it to my attention. I have read a couple of her short stories, but none of her novels, and the Maine sea-coast is relevant to my interests.
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