Book Review: Dido and Pa

[osprey_archer]

I am happy to report that Joan Aiken had mercy after all, and started Dido and Pa with the reunion between Dido and Simon which she denied us at the end of The Cuckoo Tree. At long last they see each other again! They are delighted to be reunited and have a lovely supper at an inn.

However, their reunion is short-lived, as Dido hears a song that reminds her of her father’s tunes. She goes out to investigate (musing all the time that her father never played for her, not once, in her entire childhood) and runs into her father, who informs her that her sister is extremely ill! and wants to see her! so just get into this carriage and stop asking questions!

You will be unsurprised to hear that Dido’s sister is not ill. Indeed, Dido’s father has no idea where Dido’s sister is. He is kidnapping Dido to make her take part in another wicked Hanoverian plot. This plot has been slightly complicated by the fact that the last Bonnie Prince Georgie just died, oops, so the Hanoverians no longer have a contender to the throne, but never fear! They will come up with a way to plot wickedly anyway.

(I was reading a history book the other day which mentioned Hanoverians and I needed to pause a moment to remember that Hanoverians are (a) real and (b) not constantly wickedly plotting in real life.)

Dido’s father starts this book as a terrible father and only goes downhill from there. He is also music master to the Hanoverian ambassador and actually a wonderful musician and composer, which causes Dido painful confusion. How can he be such an awful person and such a wonderful artist? I feel you, Dido. If only the two were incompatible, things would be much easier for us all.

But he continues to be the worst, up to and including walking whistling away from a burning building with over a hundred children in the basement, while also being such an amazing musician that his music actually has healing properties. (Pity Queen Ginevra in The Stolen Lake didn’t discover the life-extending properties of music rather than porridge made from the bones of children.) Beneath the barmy plots, Joan Aiken is a stone-cold realist about the contradictions of human nature.

Comments

[sovay]

(I was reading a history book the other day which mentioned Hanoverians and I needed to pause a moment to remember that Hanoverians are (a) real and (b) not constantly wickedly plotting in real life.)

(Fair.)

Dido and Pa and its immediate sequel Is were where I tapped out on this series, so I will be interested to hear about the later-written books.

[osprey_archer]

I'm curious to get to them! Also curious about the switch in heroines, but that's really par for the course of Joan Aiken Does What Joan Aiken Wants.

[mme_n_b]

Are you absolutely sure about (b)?

[osprey_archer]

To be fair, I know very little about real-life Hanoverians, so who knows what they might be up to. I do however feel confident that they never plotted to put St. Paul's cathedral on rollers and slide it into the Thames during a coronation to take out the entirety of the English ruling class.

[mme_n_b]

Yeah, that's more of a Stuart thing.

[rachelmanija]

This book really got to me. It's one of only two novels I can think of that are largely about the contradiction between being a great artist and a terrible person that don't AT ALL EVER suggest that the great art excuses the deeds, or means they're not entirely bad, or anything along those lines. (The other one is Charles de Lint's Memory and Dream. It also involves an older male artist and a young female protagonist, in this case in a mentor/teacher relationship.)

[osprey_archer]

I expected that at some point in the book Mr. Twite would show some redeeming personal qualities, because as you say, in most books about great artists who are terrible people, they usually do. But nope! Rather than discover that Mr. Twite has a very (very, very) secret heart of gold, we discover that he is actually even worse than we imagined. Great artist, and bad all the way through.

[sovay]

Rather than discover that Mr. Twite has a very (very, very) secret heart of gold, we discover that he is actually even worse than we imagined. Great artist, and bad all the way through.

It's not the identical archetype, but Anya Seton's Foxfire (1950) contains a similarly deliberate aversion which I really appreciate because the characters lampshade it themselves and the character still turns out to be, to the disappointment of everyone on and off the page, a realistically drawn irredeemable jerk.

[asakiyume]

A stone-cold realist who has it in for children! Leaving them in burning buildings, grinding their bones for life-extending porridge... maybe she realizes that all children fear that this is what life might have in store for them?

(I was reading a history book the other day which mentioned Hanoverians and I needed to pause a moment to remember that Hanoverians are (a) real and (b) not constantly wickedly plotting in real life.) LOLLL! Like realizing Masons are real, or Opus Dei (though maybe the latter really always are plotting? Hmmm.

[osprey_archer]

Dido and company rescue the children from the burning building! So they are saved despite Pa's callous indifference. However, there were definitely centuries of children who died for the life-extending porridge, so we cannot accuse Aiken of undo mercy.

My grandpa was a mason so I knew the masons were real, and the surprise was realizing that some people thought they were always plotting. Opus Dei, though! I was sure Dan Brown made them up for the book. The members have to be pretty mad to be presented like that.

[littlerhymes]

I am glad we got to meet Dido's sister again, after she was used as a DECOY.

I'm going to side-eye Hanoverians henceforth. Sorry to them but I have to.

[osprey_archer]

When Dido pronounces her sister's name Penny-lope, I've never been able to decide if the last syllable is supposed to rhyme with soap.

No smoke without fire, right? Sorry, Hanoverians! You must be up to SOMETHING.

[rachelmanija]

Definitely.

[thisbluespirit]

How can he be such an awful person and such a wonderful artist? I feel you, Dido. If only the two were incompatible, things would be much easier for us all.

<3

I'm still very fond of this one as well.

[osprey_archer]

I can't believe I forgot to mention the introduction of Is, as well as the reentry of the WOLVES. In larger, fiercer packs than ever!