Wednesday Reading Meme

[osprey_archer]

What I’ve Just Finished Reading

Wilkie Collins’ The Woman in White, which was a wild ride from start to finish. (Collins is clearly having a great time, especially when he’s writing Count Fosco’s self-aggrandizing closing narrative. Count Fosco is exactly the kind of villain who would love to write an extended account of How He Did It, including the totally unnecessary admission that he definitely would have killed Anne Catherick if she hadn’t conveniently died of natural causes. It tickles his vanity of his own wickedness to assure us that it is so!

However, I was a bit disappointed that the book didn’t feature more of the Heroism of Marian Halcombe. Perhaps it’s simply that various people have raved to me about Marian Halcombe over the years, till it built her up beyond what she could deliver. But Charlotte Bronte, I feel, would have found more for her to do, not to mention some way for her to have a final showdown with Count Fosco.



Also Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Racketty-Packetty House, a book about a set of dolls who live in an early Victorian dollhouse, which has been pushed to the side of the nursery now that their owner has a brand spanking new up-to-the-minute dollhouse of 1906. Although the dolls live in fear that their dollhouse may be burned at any minute, they are essentially jolly souls, always joining hands and dancing around in circles. One of the dolls from the new dollhouse yearns to come over and join in the fun… particularly if it means she can meet Peter Piper, who is always turning somersaults. A tale as old as time!

What I’m Reading Now

Traipsing gently onward in Sir Isumbras at the Ford. Young Anne-Hilarion is paying a visit to two elderly ladies who are friends of his father… or are they? I have a suspicion that they may be SPIES, attempting to wrangle details of his father’s secret mission out of innocent young Anne-Hilarion, who of course has no idea what they’re doing.

What I Plan to Read Next

Pining for my Vivien Alcock novels to come in at the library. (The Red-eared Ghosts and Stranger at the Window.) Surely someday soon…

Comments

[asakiyume]

Wow, we had the book Rackety-Packetty House somewhere in our house! I remember looking over all the illustrations--we had this version, that Project Gutenberg has I don't think I ever read it though, and I had no idea it was by Frances Hodgson Burnett wrote it! I remember this one in particular:
.

Oh the beautiful dress and accessories!

Speaking of books from the first decade of the 20th century, I'm enjoying the first Betsy-Tacy book very much ^_^

[osprey_archer]

Oooh, fascinating! The version I read was a recent reprint, with pretty illustrations by Wendy Anderson Halperin, but I love these older illustrations too. Judging by the style, I'd bet they're the illustrations from the original edition. Was it an older book, the one you had in your house?

I'm glad you're enjoying the first Betsy-Tacy! Have you gotten to the pink feather?

[asakiyume]

Yes, I'm sure it was--IIRC it was rather in the same condition as the actual Rackety-Packetty House, but maybe I'm inventing that memory retroactively because it fits so well.

Yes! I'm quite far along, and all their imaginary games are totally wonderful and totally believable. All the details are lovely.

[osprey_archer]

Yes, I'm so glad you're enjoying their imaginary games! Those games are the reason I thought you'd enjoy the books in the first place. And Lovelace does such a good job capturing the zaniness of childhood imagination, and its more ethereal qualities... and also the fact that it can occasionally be very petty. All the games where the five-year-old get to go off and have fun while the eight-year-olds are stuck doing chores!

[regshoe]

Yeah, I remember liking Marian Halcombe very much when I read the book but I agree that she didn't get as much to do as she might have done. The Woman in White as written by Charlotte Brontë, now there's a thought...

It is just possible those nice innocent little old ladies are not what they seem, yes... (Argh, that bit is so sinister—poor Anne-Hilarion!)

[osprey_archer]

Anne-Hilarion has just had a Sinister Dream during which someone asked him where exactly his father is going, and when he woke up, he heard a door quietly shut! Clearly one of those sweet little old ladies was hovering over his bed, asking him... Fortunately in his sleep he had more presence of mind than he did while he was awake, and didn't tell anything.

It occurs to me that there's a similarity here to Ewan's English interrogator listening to him talk in his sleep.

[ethelmay]

I remember reading and liking Racketty-Packetty House when I was little. It was published in a reprint along with a different story, more recent, I think, not by FHB, but I can't remember what. I think it was one of my Christmas or birthday presents, but I am not sure about that.

[osprey_archer]

Oh, interesting! I wonder if it was published alongside another living doll story.

[ethelmay]

I also had an anthology of doll stories it was in, but that was separate. There's an edition where it's paired with a version of Peter Pan, which is just bizarre. I am certain I did not have that one. I think it was Merry, Rose, and Christmas-Tree June, by Doris Orgel, which I definitely also owned and think was the one that was with Racketty-Packetty House. But I have not found evidence yet that this edition exists.

[kore]

"The Woman in White by Charlotte Brontë"

//sighs wistfully

[osprey_archer]

There is a non-zero chance that Marian Halcombe ends up marrying Count Fosco after he is suitably humbled --