Wednesday Reading Meme (Christmas edition)

[osprey_archer]

Merry Christmas! I thought I might break tradition and post Wednesday Reading Meme on Thursday on account of Christmas, but no, here I am.

What I’ve Just Finished Reading

P. G. Wodehouse’s Right Ho, Jeeves, which is not technically a Christmas book, but I feel that all Jeeves and Wooster stories are Christmas-adjacent in that they are very jolly.

Also Annie Fellows Johnston’s Miss Santa Claus of the Pullman, which is about two small children (Libby and William, seven and four) who are riding a Pullman car to be reunited with their father and meet their new stepmother… and while on the car, they meet a girl who they are convinced is Santa Claus’s daughter! She tells them a story that helps them bond into a real family. A sweet Christmas story.

And Sara Crewe; or What Happened at Miss Minchin’s, Frances Hodgson Burnett’s original serialized story that she later expanded into A Little Princess. No Becky, no Lottie, a good deal less Ermengarde, but the bit about the starving beggar girl outside the bun shop to whom Sara gives five of her six buns is still the same, and the ending where the bun shop lady has adopted the beggar girl.

What I’m Reading Now

In The Life of Charlotte Bronte, Charlotte has just begun attending Roe Head school, where Mary Taylor just told her that she was very ugly which somehow cemented their friendship for life.

What I Plan to Read Next

Alas, I did NOT manage to read Janice Hallett’s The Christmas Appeal in time for Christmas. However I have decided that I would rather read it relatively close to when I read The Appeal rather than wait for next Christmas, so as soon as it returns to the library I’ll check it out this winter.

Comments

[troisoiseaux]

Charlotte has just begun attending Roe Head school, where Mary Taylor just told her that she was very ugly which somehow cemented their friendship for life.

Yeah, somehow that vibes with my impression of Charlotte by way of Jane Eyre.

[osprey_archer]

Yes, Charlotte definitely seems like someone who cares more whether a friend is honest than whether they are what the rest of us might call "nice." Is it nice to lie to a friend's face? Charlotte demands. Well... those of us who are made of less stern stuff might prefer it... but Charlotte has no truck with that sort of trimming.

[regshoe]

Merry Christmas! I am boggling at the idea of A Little Princess with no Becky, but it must be very interesting to get to compare the different versions of the story like that! (I'm reminded of Sir Isumbras at the Ford, where the original short story version is one out-of-context chapter from the eventual novel with none of the surrounding main plot there yet.)

[osprey_archer]

Sara Crewe jumps into the story pretty much when Sara's father loses all his money, so all the bits beforehand where Sara is building up the friendships that will sustain her once she's downgraded from parlor boarder to maid of all work were beefed up for the book.

Oh that's fascinating about Sir Isumbras at the Ford! Do you have a link to the original short story?

[regshoe]

Here you go!

[ethelmay]

Lavinia really should have graduated by the end of the longer version.

[osprey_archer]

I truly could not care less.

[ethelmay]

Oh, I don't care either. It just kind of amuses me.

[lucymonster]

Merry Christmas! I admire your thematic choices. <3

[osprey_archer]

Nothing in the world as jolly as Jeeves & Wooster!

[pauraque]

Merry Christmas! This is me commenting to say that I've friended you, as requested. :) We have some mutuals in common and I love hearing about books, so I hope that is okay!

Somehow I'm not surprised to learn that the beggar girl was in the story from its earliest version. That part had such a big impact on me as a kid and it still gets me emotional when I re-read.

[osprey_archer]

Hello, and welcome! I post a lot about books, so you've come to the right place.

It was so interesting to see what was there from the beginning and what wasn't. I wasn't surprised that Lottie was a later addition, but I was surprised that Becky wasn't there from the start.

[asakiyume]

(Merry Christmas!)

Does it explain how Mary Taylor's calling her very ugly cements their friendship? Is it something like promising to stab you if you become a dictator? Is it the shining character that's revealed by failure to flatter? Or is it some then-period humor?

[osprey_archer]

I think it's the shattering honesty, which seems to have been one of Mary Taylor's leading character traits. Much later, after Charlotte published Shirley, Mary sent her a letter scolding her for not standing up more firmly for women's need for more occupational choices: "You are a coward," she told Charlotte, which most of us would not appreciate hearing from a friend, but Charlotte seems to have appreciated the bluntness.

[lokifan]

I feel that all Jeeves and Wooster stories are Christmas-adjacent in that they are very jolly.

Absolutely!

Wild to think of no Becky in A Little Princess! And I'd miss Ermengarde terribly. But I like that the bun shop girl and the lady are still there, and it makes sense as part of the heart of the story: Sara's kindness and the kids who need help eventually getting some.

[osprey_archer]

There is a little bit of Ermengarde, but not nearly as much as in A Little Princess. Overall there's a definite expansion of the theme of Sara's kindness, and the sort of fairy tale way that it comes back around to help her when she's in trouble herself.