Some Ebooks from the Trip

[osprey_archer]

I intended to use this trip to zoom through a lot of old books that have hung around my Kindle for AGES… which might have happened if I had not also downloaded the trilogy Some Experiences of an Irish R.M., Further Experiences of an Irish R.M., and In Mr. Knox’s Country, by Martin Ross (the pseudonym of writing duo Edith Somerville and Violet Florence Martin, who might have been a couple although apparently debate rages).

I knew the books were comedies and went into them expecting legal shenanigans, but in fact they are almost entirely hunting stories. I don’t believe I’ve ever read a hunting story before (at least not about sport hunting; I have read things like Hatchet where the hero hunts for food), and it was an interesting glimpse into an alien world, although a delicately minded modern reader may wish to know that lots of animals suffer in these books. Not just the hunted foxes etc.; there are an awful lot of kicked dogs and whipped horses.

My other three ebooks were more successful. Lucy Larcom’s A New England Girlhood is a childhood memoir (one of my favorite genres) about Larcom’s childhood in a seaside Massachusetts town and girlhood working at the mills in Lowell, where Larcom wrote for the famous Lowell Offering and began to develop into the famous poet she would become. Wonderful detail about life in Massachusetts from the 1820s-40s, and rich evocative descriptions of nature.

I’ve long meant to read more Kate Douglas Wiggin (best known for Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm), and I started with Timothy’s Quest. When their harsh, uncaring foster mother dies and the neighbors decide to send the children to an orphan home, eleven-year-old Timothy picks up his adoptive baby sister Gay and heads out on a quest to find her a family.

I am a sucker for children-on-their-own stories so I quite enjoyed this, although in this case the children spend much less time on their own than in, say, The Boxcar Children. Timothy finds a beautiful white house at the edge of a pretty country village (the chapter subtitle is “Timothy Finds a House in Which He Thinks a Baby Is Needed, but the Inmates Do Not Entirely Agree with Him”), and then Timothy and Gay slowly and surely knock over every adult heart like a set of ninepins.

I also read Josephine Scribner Gates’s The Story of Live Dolls, in which all the dolls in a town come to life for a month and have wonderful adventures with their girls. They have a picnic! They go to the seaside! They visit the grounds of the Doll Hospital, where doll clothes grow on trees, and every girl gets to pick out a complete new outfit for her dolly! Delightful. I love it. I really think that “wonderful magical good times with no setbacks or secret catch” is a genre that we should bring back.

Comments

[philomytha]

I read SO MANY hunting stories when I was a kid - they were a subgenre of pony books and I was absolutely indiscriminate when it came to pony books. The Pullein-Thompson sisters had zillions of them, I still have A Day To Go Hunting on my shelf somewhere for the epic whump in the middle of it. I remember loving a trilogy about a group of teenagers who take over the running of the local hunt and it all goes entertainingly wrong. We did still see the local hunt go past when I was growing up, on one memorable occasion they went over the fields behind my house. The noise they make is incredible.

[osprey_archer]

Oh, that's interesting! I wonder if there are lots in the UK that just never made it across the pond; hunting culture in America is VERY different.

[philomytha]

Oh, English foxhunting culture - the unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable - is very much its own thing. It's justly illegal now, they do trail hunting but can't apparently stop the foxhounds from chasing actual foxes (or don't try very hard) so there's pressure to ban that too, it's a hot local issue here. But for the post-war girls' pony books, hunting is an absolute staple of the genre. There's a whole other genre of English children's books from the point of view of the fox...

[copperfyre]

I also read a lot of hunting stories as a kid for the same reason! I devoured all pony books I could find and a solid chunk of them are definitely hunting stories. Or at least used to be, I suspect modern pony books (is there such a big pony book genre these days?) probably have less hunting in them.

[oracne]

Living dolls that are not creepy! Cool!

[osprey_archer]

I bet the later popularity of creepy living dolls came from bitter little boys who were NOT invited to the doll picnic. "Leave me out of the doll picnic, will you? I will write your story so everyone sees your TRUE MENACE."

[lauradi7dw]

I never read the books, but the Irish R.M TV adaptations had lots of other stuff going on, including romances and the ongoing fish-out-of-water aspects of the title character's life, moving to a very different culture and trying to be the embodiment of English justice in Ireland.

[osprey_archer]

Oh, there are definitely romances too! It's not high on my list, but I'd be interested to see some of the show sometime; I feel that it's a concept a later adaptation (post Irish independence) might have a VERY interesting take on.

[luzula]

You would probably enjoy the Swedish book Barnen från Frostmofjället! It's from 1907 and is about seven children in the mid-1800's whose parents die and they all of them go off (together with their goat) to find new homes for all the siblings. So the group gets smaller and smaller as they find homes...

Don't know if it's translated, though.

[osprey_archer]

That does sound fun! If you'll tell me the author I'll poke around a bit to see if it ever made it into English.

[luzula]

Laura Fitinghoff. Actually, Wikipedia provides: "In 1927 her book, Children from Frostmofjället, was translated into English as Children of the Moor by Siri Andrews."

[osprey_archer]

Oh, thank you! (Apparently there is a more recent picture book about the Brontes called Children of the Moors. An irresistible title apparently!)

[luzula]

"Moor" is a weird translation for "fjäll"...the etymologically related translation would have been "fell". Or they could have gone for "mountains".

[kore]

all the dolls in a town come to life for a month

//hides under bed

[osprey_archer]

These are nice dolls, who only want nice things for children! (Or at least for girls. The boys are NOT invited to the doll picnics.)

[rachelmanija]

I really think that “wonderful magical good times with no setbacks or secret catch” is a genre that we should bring back.

I totally agree and the doll book sounds so up my alley. I love the doll clothes on trees.

[osprey_archer]

I am not sure how to remind publishers/the public that this is a valid form of story, given how thoroughly American culture is currently imbued with the idea that Story = Conflict, but I think we would all be happier for a more elastic definition. Some stories are conflict! Some stories are the Doll Queen giving all the dolls adorable swimsuits right before they head out for their daylong frolic on the beach.