Book Review: The Friendly Young Ladies
Jan. 23rd, 2021 12:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerYou guys. You guys. You guys. I finished Mary Renault’s The Friendly Young Ladies, and you guys, what IS this book?
So the plot is as follows: when teenaged Elsie falls ill, the attending doctor is Peter, who I complained about last week as the doctor thinks it’s therapeutic to make his patients fall in love with him. Young Elsie falls hard and, longing to impress him (and also to get away from her perennially bickering parents), runs away from home to live with her sister Leo, who ran away from home long ago.
Leo, it turns out, lives on a houseboat with her friend Helen. (Leo and Helen are lovers but Elsie never quite figures this out.) Elsie, enchanted by this bohemian life, writes to Peter in hopes of impressing him. Peter comes to visit and is even more impressed than Elsie hoped! But mostly because he instantly figures out that Leo and Helen are lovers and goes “Ooooh, an interesting psychological case. Obviously if I can convince them to make out with me, they will be Cured of their Complexes!”
Impressively, Peter did not end up being the most distressing aspect of this book.
I am happy to report that my prognostications were inaccurate and neither Leo nor Helen end up with Peter. (Neither does Elsie. Elsie does figure out he never really loved her and concludes, crushed, that she is unlovable and Will Never Be Loved. It’s hard to be seventeen.)
I am much less happy to report that Leo gets together with her friend Joe. Until this actually happened I thought he was a preferable alternative to Peter; Leo and Joe are both writers (Leo writes potboiler westerns, Joe literary novels, but they’re both respectful of each others work) and also enjoy canoeing, mountain-climbing, etc., and generally have a lot in common…
But then they get together and Joe suddenly develops a gigantic streak of possessiveness - he writes her a letter where he’s like “If we get together, I will destroy your independence! That would be terrible! We should still get together though.” Like… he feels bad but not bad enough not to do it? What. What is this, Joe.
However, apparently this note is catnip for Leo, because at the end of the book she’s packing up her possessions to leave the houseboat and go join Joe. The last we see of her, she’s sobbing over her clothes.
As the book ends before she actually leaves the houseboat, I have decided that within the next half hour or so, after a good cry, Leo realizes that she doesn’t want to throw away her happy life with Helen for Joe. He was a good friend, but now that they’ve slept together he’s gone off, and it’s sad to lose him but it would be SADDER to lose herself, so… she stays in the houseboat with Helen and they are very happy together.
Within a few weeks or at most months, Joe will undoubtedly see that this decision was for the best. Possibly eventually he will get over himself and they can be friends again? His loss if he can’t.
While I’m fixing the ending, I’ve also decided that Elsie will eventually get over her disappointment with Peter, possibly by joining the war effort in some way? The book is set in 1937; the poor girl would have to wait a few years if I make her wait for the war. She gets over him through the natural healing resilience of youth, and joins the war effort to get away from her bickering parents for good. In her war job, her confidence blossoms and she meets a nice young man and after the war they are very happy together.
And Peter… what is a good fate for Peter? Peter falls madly in love with a girl who doesn’t like him back. Possibly a girl who pretends to like him back out of pity for his god complex? Anyway, when he realizes that she does not and never will return his feelings, he collapses in despair. He comes out of it a chastened and better man who never tries to make his patients fall in love with him again.
Alternately, he gets hit by a truck. That works too!
So the plot is as follows: when teenaged Elsie falls ill, the attending doctor is Peter, who I complained about last week as the doctor thinks it’s therapeutic to make his patients fall in love with him. Young Elsie falls hard and, longing to impress him (and also to get away from her perennially bickering parents), runs away from home to live with her sister Leo, who ran away from home long ago.
Leo, it turns out, lives on a houseboat with her friend Helen. (Leo and Helen are lovers but Elsie never quite figures this out.) Elsie, enchanted by this bohemian life, writes to Peter in hopes of impressing him. Peter comes to visit and is even more impressed than Elsie hoped! But mostly because he instantly figures out that Leo and Helen are lovers and goes “Ooooh, an interesting psychological case. Obviously if I can convince them to make out with me, they will be Cured of their Complexes!”
Impressively, Peter did not end up being the most distressing aspect of this book.
I am happy to report that my prognostications were inaccurate and neither Leo nor Helen end up with Peter. (Neither does Elsie. Elsie does figure out he never really loved her and concludes, crushed, that she is unlovable and Will Never Be Loved. It’s hard to be seventeen.)
I am much less happy to report that Leo gets together with her friend Joe. Until this actually happened I thought he was a preferable alternative to Peter; Leo and Joe are both writers (Leo writes potboiler westerns, Joe literary novels, but they’re both respectful of each others work) and also enjoy canoeing, mountain-climbing, etc., and generally have a lot in common…
But then they get together and Joe suddenly develops a gigantic streak of possessiveness - he writes her a letter where he’s like “If we get together, I will destroy your independence! That would be terrible! We should still get together though.” Like… he feels bad but not bad enough not to do it? What. What is this, Joe.
However, apparently this note is catnip for Leo, because at the end of the book she’s packing up her possessions to leave the houseboat and go join Joe. The last we see of her, she’s sobbing over her clothes.
As the book ends before she actually leaves the houseboat, I have decided that within the next half hour or so, after a good cry, Leo realizes that she doesn’t want to throw away her happy life with Helen for Joe. He was a good friend, but now that they’ve slept together he’s gone off, and it’s sad to lose him but it would be SADDER to lose herself, so… she stays in the houseboat with Helen and they are very happy together.
Within a few weeks or at most months, Joe will undoubtedly see that this decision was for the best. Possibly eventually he will get over himself and they can be friends again? His loss if he can’t.
While I’m fixing the ending, I’ve also decided that Elsie will eventually get over her disappointment with Peter, possibly by joining the war effort in some way? The book is set in 1937; the poor girl would have to wait a few years if I make her wait for the war. She gets over him through the natural healing resilience of youth, and joins the war effort to get away from her bickering parents for good. In her war job, her confidence blossoms and she meets a nice young man and after the war they are very happy together.
And Peter… what is a good fate for Peter? Peter falls madly in love with a girl who doesn’t like him back. Possibly a girl who pretends to like him back out of pity for his god complex? Anyway, when he realizes that she does not and never will return his feelings, he collapses in despair. He comes out of it a chastened and better man who never tries to make his patients fall in love with him again.
Alternately, he gets hit by a truck. That works too!
