Wednesday Reading Meme
Apr. 13th, 2022 08:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerWhat I’ve Just Finished Reading
Margery Sharp’s Miss Bianca, which was a delight. Through the power of her impeccable good manners and nerves of steel, the mouse Miss Bianca saves the little human girl Patience from the dread Diamond Palace where she is held in bondage as the Duchess’s maid-of-all-work. A lively fairy tale with a deliciously arch voice and beautiful illustrations by Garth Williams.
I also finished Violet Jacob’s Flemington, which alas I struggled to get into. The main relationship of the book is between characters who basically never see each other again after the first few chapters, and while this happens for extremely solid plot reasons, it meant that my attention kept wandering. (Oddly the only part of the book that gave me a really shippy vibe was the end, when Flemington turns himself in to Callandar… and requests that Callandar should be his jailer… and Flemington and Callandar play cards together every night, and Callandar is the man who orders the firing squad to fire…
Look, I’m just a sucker for this sort of thing, and for the “loyal soldier with a well-hidden sense of humor” type. Callandar is the Costis of the ‘45, is what I’m saying.
And I finished Angela Brazil’s A Patriotic Schoolgirl, in which patriotic schoolgirl Marjorie signally fails to catch the German spy right under her nose. She believes that the spy is her cranky form mistress, BUT IN FACT it’s her very own best friend, Chrissie Lang(e)!
Interesting both for its snapshot of Britain on the home front during the Great War and for Marjorie’s sensational ability to get crushes: “She had worshipped by turns her kindergarten teacher, a little curly-headed boy whom she met at dancing-class, her gymnasium mistress, at least ten separate form-mates, the Girl Guides' captain, and a friend of Nora's,” the narrator notes, and her schoolmates tease her for her ability to have multiple crushes going at once: "Marjorie is a pagan," laughed Rose Butler. "She bows down to many idols."
At this point in the book Marjorie’s idols include Chrissie Lang (not yet revealed as a spy, of course); the Head Girl, Winifrede; and a soldier she accidentally ran into in the train station, and then accidentally ran into AGAIN in the hospital, and then it turns out that he’s a friend of her brother’s so it is all right for her to crush on him, probably! But unlike the others, this crush is STRICTLY SECRET, because although the headmistress smiles on schoolgirl friendships (she “beamed rather than frowned on those who walked arm in arm”), the school frowns severely on girls having crushes on boys.
What I’m Reading Now
I’ve begun Frances Hodgson Burnett’s T. Tembaron. So far, she’s speedrun the hero’s entire hardscrabble orphan childhood in the first chapter, and now Mr. Tembaron has a crack at doing the society page for a newspaper in New York.
In The Last Hawk, Elizabeth Wein’s characters read and reread Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s memoir of his life as a pilot in the interwar years, Wind, Sand and Stars, and even though I am the only person alive who didn’t care for The Little Prince, their enthusiasm about this memoir made me want to read it myself. So far it seems promising!
What I Plan to Read Next
This is not high on my priority list, but if I happen across any of Margery Sharp’s other Miss Bianca books I’m definitely going to read them.
Margery Sharp’s Miss Bianca, which was a delight. Through the power of her impeccable good manners and nerves of steel, the mouse Miss Bianca saves the little human girl Patience from the dread Diamond Palace where she is held in bondage as the Duchess’s maid-of-all-work. A lively fairy tale with a deliciously arch voice and beautiful illustrations by Garth Williams.
I also finished Violet Jacob’s Flemington, which alas I struggled to get into. The main relationship of the book is between characters who basically never see each other again after the first few chapters, and while this happens for extremely solid plot reasons, it meant that my attention kept wandering. (Oddly the only part of the book that gave me a really shippy vibe was the end, when Flemington turns himself in to Callandar… and requests that Callandar should be his jailer… and Flemington and Callandar play cards together every night, and Callandar is the man who orders the firing squad to fire…
Look, I’m just a sucker for this sort of thing, and for the “loyal soldier with a well-hidden sense of humor” type. Callandar is the Costis of the ‘45, is what I’m saying.
And I finished Angela Brazil’s A Patriotic Schoolgirl, in which patriotic schoolgirl Marjorie signally fails to catch the German spy right under her nose. She believes that the spy is her cranky form mistress, BUT IN FACT it’s her very own best friend, Chrissie Lang(e)!
Interesting both for its snapshot of Britain on the home front during the Great War and for Marjorie’s sensational ability to get crushes: “She had worshipped by turns her kindergarten teacher, a little curly-headed boy whom she met at dancing-class, her gymnasium mistress, at least ten separate form-mates, the Girl Guides' captain, and a friend of Nora's,” the narrator notes, and her schoolmates tease her for her ability to have multiple crushes going at once: "Marjorie is a pagan," laughed Rose Butler. "She bows down to many idols."
At this point in the book Marjorie’s idols include Chrissie Lang (not yet revealed as a spy, of course); the Head Girl, Winifrede; and a soldier she accidentally ran into in the train station, and then accidentally ran into AGAIN in the hospital, and then it turns out that he’s a friend of her brother’s so it is all right for her to crush on him, probably! But unlike the others, this crush is STRICTLY SECRET, because although the headmistress smiles on schoolgirl friendships (she “beamed rather than frowned on those who walked arm in arm”), the school frowns severely on girls having crushes on boys.
What I’m Reading Now
I’ve begun Frances Hodgson Burnett’s T. Tembaron. So far, she’s speedrun the hero’s entire hardscrabble orphan childhood in the first chapter, and now Mr. Tembaron has a crack at doing the society page for a newspaper in New York.
In The Last Hawk, Elizabeth Wein’s characters read and reread Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s memoir of his life as a pilot in the interwar years, Wind, Sand and Stars, and even though I am the only person alive who didn’t care for The Little Prince, their enthusiasm about this memoir made me want to read it myself. So far it seems promising!
What I Plan to Read Next
This is not high on my priority list, but if I happen across any of Margery Sharp’s other Miss Bianca books I’m definitely going to read them.
no subject
Date: 2022-04-19 07:13 pm (UTC)