Wednesday Reading Meme

[osprey_archer]

What I’ve Just Finished Reading

Susan Coolidge’s What Katy Did Next, the third book in the What Katy Did trilogy, in which Katy goes to Europe, travels about, nurses a sick girl, and - spoilers I suppose, but how else is a 19th century novel series about a young girl going to end? - finds love.

It cuts off before the wedding, which I thought was a little mean: I wanted to see Katy all in orange blossom, and sailing off to new adventures with her husband the navy officer! Oh well. But then again there is yet ANOTHER sequel (Clover), so I may yet have my wish. And probably see Katy’s little sister Clover married too.

What I’m Reading Now

I’m working on Alice Hoffman’s Nightbird, which is almost but not quite a thing I love - a portrait of a town, in this case a New England town, and a mildly uncanny one at that, and all in all it should be right up my alley but the town just doesn’t feel quite well-realized enough to me. It doesn’t feel solid. The attempted uncanniness is in peril of slipping into twee.

And I’m nearly done listening to Eleanor and Park. ELEANOR’S STEPFATHER IS THE WORST THE WORST THE ACTUAL WORST, although honestly her mother is pretty awful too; I just can’t get over the fact that her financial situation (along with all her other life situations) actually got worse after she married this horrible man. There is literally no excuse!

She tells Eleanor “Oh, I need a husband because otherwise when you kids are grown up I’ll be all alone,” but (1) the youngest of her pre-remarriage children is FIVE, she has more than a decade in which to figure things out, and (2) I can only hope that her new husband will get die in a not-so-tragic accident with a trash compactor and then all her children will abandon her the moment they turn 18 because they can't forgive her for ruining their lives by marrying that awful horrible man. It would be poetic justice for her to end up all alone when she threw her kids under the metaphorical bus in a desperate attempt to avoid it.

I’ve also been reading another Sara Jeannette Duncan (someday I’m going to convince someone to join me in reading Sara Jeannette Duncan, the most archly sarcastic writer in late nineteenth-century Canada), A Voyage of Consolation. Even the title of this book is sarcastic. The narrator Mamie embarks on a “voyage of consolation” to Europe after her engagement breaks, even though she is notably lacking in any need of consolation whatsoever.

Once in Europe, she runs into Mr. Dod, a young man whom she has known since childhood - who is attempting to romantically pursue an English girl named Miss Portheris. (“Miss Portheris only came out two months ago,” remarked Mr. Dod, with the effect of announcing that Venus had just arisen from the foam.)

However, an Englishman - who proposed to Mamie in a previous novel - is also attempting to win Miss Portheris’s hand! Mamie attempts to deflect his attention. This leads to exchanges between the Englishman and Mamie like -

”Marriage in England is such a permanent institution.”

“I have known it to last for years even in the United States,” I sighed.

At the moment my money is on Mamie & Mr. Dod ending up together. They were trapped in the catacombs together for hours! In the company of Mrs. Portheris, Miss Portheris’s formidable mother, who resorted to nibbling a tallow candle for sustenance during their seven hours ordeal, which perhaps makes the whole thing a comic rather than romantic interlude. But still.

What I Plan to Read Next

God, so many things. My next audiobook will be Roald Dahl’s Going Solo, which is a memoir of Dahl’s time as a World War II pilot (how could I say no to that?) AND is read by Dan Stevens, who played Matthew in Downton Abbey and more recently Dickens in The Man Who Invented Christmas, which I liked a lot - I don’t think I’ve ever seen Dan Stevens in anything I disliked - anyway, I expect he’ll be a fabulous audiobook reader.

And my next book-to-read-on-my-computer-at-work is Cornelia Meigs’ The Windy Hill, which was a Newbery Honor award winner in 1922. (Meigs went on to win the Newbery Medal in 1934 with Invincible Louisa, her biography of Louisa May Alcott.) 1922 is the first year the Newbery Medal was awarded and, because of the vagaries of copyright law, the only year for which some of the books are available free online, so after this I’m going to have to throw myself on the tender mercies of Interlibrary Loan, I guess.

Or I could start reading the Honor books from the most recent years instead of the most far-distant. That might be a better plan.

Comments

[sovay]

Katy goes to Europe, travels about, nurses a sick girl, and - spoilers I suppose, but how else is a 19th century novel series about a young girl going to end? - finds love.

I had to recalibrate this sentence for the nineteenth century and realize she did not in fact find love with the sick girl, even though that's a perfectly classic way of meeting your true love in many novels. How did she meet the naval officer instead?

[osprey_archer]

The naval officer is the sick girl's uncle! He rushes to his sister's side when her only child falls ill in Rome, and falls in love with Katy because she's such a gentle and patient nurse, and also because she has a real Valkyrie moment when she shouts at the hotel owner who wants to kick them out of the hotel even though being moved would probably kill the sick child.

[thisbluespirit]

Oh, I'd be interested to know what happens in Clover. I think I always wanted to read it, but we only had the first three. (I have this weird feeling that there might be more still, but I don't know if that's right?)

When I was young and I first read What Katy Did Next I got so annoyed because she went to England in November and then complained that the weather wasn't as nice as Nice and she didn't like it, and I was very put out. I mean, if you go to London in the middle of November, what do you expect? She should have gone to Nice in November and England in the summer!

[osprey_archer]

There's a fifth one too, which might involve marrying off the younger children in the family. I'm not sure if I'll read it; that might be spinning the series out too far, after all the juice is gone, you know? But I'll wait until I've read Clover before I make up my mind.

[thisbluespirit]

Aha, I thought there was one. And probably, but it always annoyed me to know that it existed but I couldn't have it!

They were trapped in the catacombs together for hours! In the company of Mrs. Portheris, Miss Portheris’s formidable mother, who resorted to nibbling a tallow candle for sustenance during their seven hours ordeal, which perhaps makes the whole thing a comic rather than romantic interlude. But still.

Well, I'm sold anyway. Except I doubt there is easy offline access to such things, but one day I will have an e-reader and maybe even more brain.

[evelyn_b]

You could start with the most recent Honors and see how far back you can get without ILLing! I'd be a little curious as to the answer.

2018 is still the Year of Making No Promises, but I've been meaning to read Sara Jeannette Duncan for a long, long time.

[osprey_archer]

That's probably very sensible! I've already started reading one of the ones I found free online, but there is literally only one year of Newbery books where this is possible - this is SO frustrating to me, by the way, I would love to read more widely in mid-twentieth century children's literature but so much of it is just not available, UGH.

It seems unlikely, but in the event that I ever run across a physical copy of a Sara Jeannette Duncan book in the wild, I will send it to you at only slightly less than the speed of light.

[littlerhymes]

I LOVE WHAT KATY DID NEXT!

I think the next 2 books are... better left unread, tbh. But I totally understand if you want to satisfy your curiosity! They're such a charming family.

[osprey_archer]

There's a scene in What Katy Did Next where Katy visits Jane Austen's grave and the caretaker is politely unbelieving that she was a great author, because after all it's only ever Americans who visit her grave. Apparently the American love affair with Austen long, long predated Colin Firth.

If I read Clover and I'm filled with sadness, at least I'll know to come to you for commiseration! At any rate I don't think Susan Coolidge could possibly so anything crueler than Seven Little Australians, so it ought to be comparatively safe.

[littlerhymes]

Gosh, no, it's nowhere near as tragic as Seven Little Australians! No, it's just a bit boring and irons out much of the quirkiness and charm of Clover. Book 5 does the same thing but even more so, for multiple siblings!

[lilysea]

I loved Eleanor and Park so much!

But oh ye fishes and little gods, her stepfather and her mother! :(

They reminded me SO MUCH of my own parents... :( :( :(

[missroserose]

Oh man. A friend of mine who has a somewhat strained relationship with her stepfather was telling me about his Christmas visit (she's close with her mother but her mother won't visit over the holidays without her stepfather), and...well, without divulging too much personal drama, my friend ended up informing her mother that her stepfather was no longer welcome. She intended to inform her stepfather of this too, but her mother's words were (according to her), "Don't say anything to him, it'll just make things worse for me." Which...pretty much says it all right there. I've met her mother and I like her, but man, I have so much trouble understanding the mindset of "it's better to be with someone abusive than it is to be alone." Being alone isn't always great, but it has its upsides! Not least of which is "there's nobody belittling you and threatening to blow up and forcing you to walk on eggshells at every moment."

“Miss Portheris only came out two months ago,” remarked Mr. Dod, with the effect of announcing that Venus had just arisen from the foam.

*snnnrrrrrk* Okay, I'd never heard of Sarah Jeanette Duncan before but I may have to look into her. I'm quite fond of that kind of dry sarcasm, although I hope it's tempered with fondness (rather than contempt, which is sadly common amongst sarcastic/satirical writers) for her characters.

[osprey_archer]

"It's better to be with someone abusive than to be alone" is one of those mindsets where, in the abstract, someone can explain to me the thought/emotional process that would lead someone to feel that way and I can understand it... but I have a really hard time sympathizing with people who stay in relationships (or worse, get into relationships) for that reason, particularly if they have young children. It's not just failing to protect their children, it's actually putting their kids in a dangerous or at least painful situation in order to at least partially gratify their own desires.

[missroserose]

Yeah, it's a pretty profoundly selfish act. Even my friend, who's of age and lives independently of them, has no small amount of stress where their relationship is concerned; obviously she cares for her mother, so being constantly afraid for her is tough.

It's kind of amazing how blind we can be to our own relationship dynamics and their effects on others. :/

[ladyherenya]

I wish What Katy Did Next hadn't ended so abruptly too - because that ending was not clear enough for 8-or-9 year old me, and I was confused as to exactly what Katy did next! A wedding would have quickly and satisfyingly cleared things up.

I suspect I was just too young all round for What Katy Did Next. Judging from my vague memories of it, it was more serious than the first two books, and one of the things I'd adored about the first two books was the games Katy plays.

I'll be interested to hear what Clover's like, if you read it. I haven't.

[osprey_archer]

Katy spends much of the first book paralyzed, so I'm not sure I'd call What Katy Did Next more serious exactly. But there are definitely less games in it. Even in the parts where she's looking after a little kid there aren't many games.

[lemon_badgeress]

I'm already in the middle of a binge on Angela Brazil, and next up I apparently have to finally read the Katy books so I can read Clover, but AFTER THAT what Sara Jeannette Duncan do you recommend for starters?

[osprey_archer]

WELL, that depends. If you want light-hearted funtimes, then An American Girl in London (to which A Voyage of Consolation is the sequel) is probably a good place to start. If you want something a meatier but also weirder and potentially more harrowing, A Daughter of To-Day is about women in the arts and bohemia in general.

I've also been meaning to read A Social Departure: How Orthodocia and I Went Round the World by Ourselves, which is a thinly fictionalized memoir about two young women going around the world together in 1890. As I haven't read it yet, I can't vouch for it, but it looks delightful.

[lemon_badgeress]

Oh, thanks for warning me Voyage is a sequel!

Costs me nothing to load them all into iBooks, I'll pick when I get there. Thanks!