Category: Books That Need To Be Republished

On Tour

~ Wendy-Marie ~ Leave a comment

The Noel Streatfeild kick? Still going strong…once this review is done? Off to e-Bay to see if any of her Susan Scarlet romances are available for a decent price! First, let’s take a look at volume two of Noel Streatfeild’s semi-autobiographical series, On Tour: An Autobiographical Novel of the 20’s.

Published in the UK as Away From the Vicarage, On Tour: An Autobiographical Novel of the 20’s shows us Victoria Strangeway as an adult. World War I has ended. It’s been a very rough time but the vicarage has survived. Victoria, Isobel and Louise have returned from their war work, younger brother Dick has been wounded but will be headed to university soon. The vicar is still a walking saint and Mrs Strangeway? She still can’t manage her household for beans even though the vicar has inherited property from his late parents. And there’s a new Strangeway, littlest sister (totally a surprise baby) Theodora. Who knew the vicar and Mrs Strangeway were still…well…you know…Theodora is charming, clever and wonderful and thanks to the age gap between her and the others, is almost an only child. Louise has dropped a bombshell, she’s getting married and moving abroad with her new husband. Is there a place for Victoria in all this change?

Turns out the answer is NO. So Victoria summons her courage and goes to train as an actress. Because of the general family reaction (actress=scarlet woman) Victoria decides to take the name Victoria Sonning. Her theatrical training is hard and she has little money but Victoria is determined to live life as much as possible and shake off the vicarage shackles. A reader used to Streatfeild’s children’s novels might get a little shock when you realize that Victoria is pretty much prostituting herself to get money and clothes from her suitors. She never goes the full nine yards but you get the feeling she’s come awful close a few times. And is it that much different from Louise marrying so young? But sisters are doing what they have (and who they have) to do to escape the confines of the vicarage. Their parents aren’t horrible people but vicarage life is confining and narrow for the eldest Strangeway children.

Victoria manages to survive her stage school and then plunges into the world of a professional actress. She gets work and travels all over but you get the feeling that her stage work doesn’t truly fulfill her. And she certainly doesn’t care for the narrow and grimy life in theatrical digs and the constant moving around. Africa is enchanting but being thought of a Jezebel and a man-eater thanks to a some less than brilliant behavior and two male members of the theater company dying casts a cloud and stain on her acting career. People will always remember the scandal over how good her performances are.

On Tour is such a sadder book than A Vicarage Family. The younger Victoria had a fire and a zest that not even the wartime death of her beloved cousin John could quench. The older Victoria? The rough patches in life really send her skidding. The spark that got her to pursue a theatrical career vs life as an unpaid curate/domestic slave to her parents dims the farther she gets from school. Her longing for a home and love leaps off the page and when she realizes her so called love isn’t truly “in love” it’s a cut that almost destroys her more than the scandals that plague her acting career.

The other issue that makes On Tour a much different experience than A Vicarage Family is how closed off Victoria is. In A Vicarage Family you feel all the injustices and joys of Victoria’s life. She crackles and blazes and jumps off the page. You understand exactly why Annie is drawn to her and defends her. Maybe it’s because of the upheavals of the war or the changes in society but On Tour Victoria holds back and only gives us glimpses into her life. Was Noel Streatfeild ashamed of her life and feelings then? What was so awful that she makes Victoria a pale shadow of the girl that intrigued us so? Is it because S-E-X rears it’s head?

You can almost feel the squirming when Streatfeild writes about the appearance of Theodora. Yes, Noel/Victoria was a product of a very Victorian upbringing (Her sister Louise had no clue why she was getting sick every morning only weeks after being married. Just how much if any talk did Mrs Strangeway have with her daughters?) You might be tempted to think what keeps Victoria from actually jumping into bed with her suitors during her training isn’t the consequences (Theodora/the village girls illegitimate babies) but the actual act of sex itself. She is certainly repelled by Louise’s husband Him. Maybe it’s this disgust of sex that keeps her with her “we shall have a white farmhouse” suitor for so long because it seems crystal clear to me that this suitor might be happier with Dick Strangeway than Miss Victoria Sonning. Then again I could just be having one of my Gwen’s Crazy Literary Theories. Because I find Victoria Strangeway an interesting character I want to read more about no matter who or what she loves.

Even with it’s issues, On Tour is a must read. Even if many things are white-washed it still gives an interesting look at leaving a very moral and upright world for one with looser boundaries. And it makes you want to track down more of Streatfeild’s adult works. And exploring an author’s full writings is never a bad thing.

 

 

 

A Vicarage Family

~ Wendy-Marie ~ Leave a comment

I’m on a Noel Streatfeild kick so let’s look at the first volume in her semi-autobiographical series, A Vicarage Family.

Our Noel character is Victoria, the second eldest of the Strangeway children, the misunderstood child of the local vicarage. Poor Victoria can’t seem to do anything right in most people’s eyes with the exception of the maid Annie and her beloved cousin John. Without these two wonderful people? Victoria’s very soul would be crushed. Her father comes from a good family with some land but it’s a narrow living compared to his other siblings. Granted, looking at this Edwardian vicarage life with 2014 eyes, having servants, sending your children off to private school and the like seems pretty sweet indeed and not too bad even if the children can’t eat cake and ices at a birthday party because it’s Lent. A life with servants, even the skeleton crew that runs the vicarage is pretty darn awesome when you’re the person who has to do all the housework.

Reading A Vicarage Family, you see how Noel Streatfeild was able to make her books so true to life for her readers. Whenever you encounter a little girl whose growing out of her clothes and there just isn’t the money to replace them with something better, those velvets that have been let out and patched and have the velvet nap going in all directions (the Fossil girls, Harriet Johnson, etc) it’s something the Strangeway girls experienced. The feeling of horror and disappointment and shame the Streatfeild characters feel is so real, so vital that you can feel in your bones that the Streatfeild sisters endured this too. And if you’ve read the Bell family series (if you can get your hands on them? Do it. Seriously.) you’ll know why out of all the perfect Bell siblings, imperfect stocky Ginny jumped off the page and into your heart. Both Ginny and Victoria fight to be understood and loved for their talents in the same way the world showers love and attention on their siblings.

And A Vicarage Story gives something not found in the Shoe books. In the Shoe books, the parents/parent figures are loving and care deeply about their children. In Ballet Shoes, Garnie is willing to take in boarders to give her charges a decent life. Given the circumstances she has been raising the Fossil sisters in, taking boarders is a step down on the social ladder but it’s a step Garnie takes. Skating Shoes‘ Olivia and George do everything possible to restore their beloved Harriet back to health even if it means accepting financial help from their son Alec. The money for Harriet’s skates is found and Olivia extends her maternal care and love to Lalla Moore without a thought.  Sure Rachel and her adopted sister Hilary end up in the clutches of Cora Wintle after their mother dies but their mother scraped and scarified to make sure her adopted daughter could dance. And Pursey and their tutor are willing to stand up to Cora Wintle for Rachel. And even when Ginny messes up? Mrs Bell loves her.

Reverend Strangeway does care about his troubled daughter and tries his best to understand her. But Victoria is just one member of the extended flock he ministers to. And the elder Strangeways love Victoria and understand her life isn’t easy and try to give her both love and the tools to make her way easier. Victoria’s mother? Mrs Strangeway? If Victoria fell down a well or disappeared? Not a problem. It’s not that Mrs Strangeway doesn’t want to be a mother, she doesn’t want to be Victoria’s mother, yes she comes to have a better relationship with Victoria as she gets older but that’s as a confident or companion not as a mother.

Just try reading about Victoria’s birthday dessert or what happens when the family gets the flu. In Annie we understand why the loving and devoted servant is so important in the Shoe books. When you haven’t received love from your parent, a person who doesn’t have a blood tie can still love and cherish you no matter what.

If the Deaccession Squad came a’calling at the local library and I couldn’t convince the librarians to sell me A Vicarage Family and it’s sequel On Tour? I would combing Awesome Books UK, hoping against hope that they had copies of A Vicarage Family available even if it was a 1970s paperback reprint. And given the prices for the trilogy on-line? Would some kind publisher (coughcoughBloomsburyGroupViragoPersephone Classicscoughcough) please please please talk to the Noel Streatfeild estate and put out the Strangeway books in an omnibus? Pretty please?

 

Tea by the Nursery Fire

~ Wendy-Marie ~ Leave a comment

During my mad “Oh My Great Tulu! The Deaccession Squad is taking away All The Books!” frenzy, I trolled the internet to find disappearing treasures and snapped up six books in a white hot heat including some titles I had lurking in Amazon wish lists. Strike while the iron (and the Awesomebooks UK coupon codes) are hot and all that. And among three grey bundles shoved into my mailbox with the stamp of the Royal Mail? Noel Streatfeild’s Tea by the Nursery Fire.

Why this book? Well, first I adore Noel Streatfeild and have read just about everything my library system can cough up by her (including <shudder> Thursday’s Child and The Children on the Top Floor) and second, as much as I long to re-read the Bell family series and get my hands on Beyond the Vicarage, my conscience and bank account aren’t willing to spend the money. But $5 Noel Streatfeild book about Victorian nanny? Sure why not?

Tea by the Nursery Fire: A Children’s Nanny at the Turn of the Century (also published as Gran-Nannie) is the story of Emily Huckwell, the nanny who raised Noel Streatfeild’s father and his siblings. For anyone fortunate enough to have read Noel Streatfeild’s semi-autobiographical novel, A Vicarage Family, this is the same old nanny who all the Strangeway aunts and uncles adore and has everyone racing up to the old nursery for Gran-Nannie’s strong beef tea (called “Golden Sovereigns”) the second they arrive at the family estate. However, don’t try and fit Tea by the Nursery Fire: A Children’s Nanny at the Turn of the Century in the Strangeways timeline because the Strangeway children are born in the 1890s vs Tea by the Nursery Fire: A Children’s Nanny at the Turn of the Century’s version of Isobel/Victoria/Louise who are born in the 1910s. Pop an Advil, pour yourself a nice cup of Lady Grey tea and consider Tea by the Nursery Fire: A Children’s Nanny at the Turn of the Century an alternate universe.

Another thing to consider, even though it just might be the aftereffects of diving into Tea by the Nursery Fire: A Children’s Nanny at the Turn of the Century after a nasty bout of sickness, but if you’ve read Flora Thompson’s Lark Rise to Candleford series, you might just forget which book you’re reading for a bit. The lives both Laura (Lark Rise to Candleford) and Emily/Nannie/Gran-Nannie lead are very similar especially in Tea by the Nursery Fire: A Children’s Nanny at the Turn of the Century‘s Part One-The Child. Both girls are the eldest child of a village family forced in the work world at an early age. Thanks to their father’s professions and mother’s service at the big house, both girls are raised a cut above the rest of the village children. They’re not the girls getting knocked up by farm hands in the hedgerows and doomed to a live in a tiny and overcrowded cottage popping out a baby a year. But instead of the post office, Emily/Nannie/Gran-Nannie goes off to raise other people’s children.

Even though the timeline and 100% accuracy of Emily story is in question (the back cover proclaims the the book is drawn on fact and family legend and my brain says more legend than fact), Tea by the Nursery Fire: A Children’s Nanny at the Turn of the Century gives an interesting (and brief) portrait of what life held for women at the time. You have Emily’s mother who trades brutal working hours for marriage and a narrow living even if it was better than most of her village contemporaries, Emily’s mistress (the spoiled daughter of a wealthy family who might have married a bit below her) with her lack of maternal instinct and caring only for herself and her oldest nursling John’s wife Alice (Victoria/Noel’s mother) who marries quite young and is implied she is marrying partly for love and to escape her family). Emily/Nannie/Gran-Nannie has a chance at love which is snatched away by an accident and spends her life raising children that aren’t hers biologically but might as well be for all the attention and love they get from their mother. And you have to wonder if Sylvia (the mistress of the house) ever wanted to boot out Emily/Nannie/Gran-Nannie because the children like her so much better than their biological mother.

Tea by the Nursery Fire: A Children’s Nanny at the Turn of the Century isn’t just for the Noel Streatfeild fanatics. Given the revival in interest of all things Victorian and Edwardian (hey there Downton Abbey and Gosford Park!), Tea by the Nursery Fire: A Children’s Nanny at the Turn of the Century should appeal to readers who want to know more about a vanished era. And of course, Tea by the Nursery Fire: A Children’s Nanny at the Turn of the Century would make a fine little BBC One film…

 

Celia’s House

~ Wendy-Marie ~ Leave a comment

Oh the curse of being a reader who loves old British novels. Either your beloved author is slowly be rediscovered or you’re stuck combing the libraries to find anything by that lovely author. I should consider myself fortunate D.E. Stevenson is in the rediscovery stage but it’s agony waiting for The Two Mrs Abbots and The Four Graces to come out as e-books and trade paperbacks. But while I wait for mid year 2014 to come around, I’m trolling the inter-library loan system to see if any other D.E. Stevenson books out there will enchant me as much as the adventure of Barbara Buncle did.

The stacks of my local library coughed up D.E. Stevenson’s Celia’s House, a 1943 novel (republished in the 1970s), a charming story about the Dunne family and their Scottish ancestral home Dunnian. The basic plot, ancient disappointed in love spinster Celia Dunne leaves her family home and fortune to her grandnephew Humphrey Dunne instead of her expected heir Maurie Dunne. The catch? Humphrey only has a life interest in Dunnian. After his death, Dunnian will pass to his daughter Celia (who isn’t even born left alone conceived) at this time. Old Miss Celia dies, the Humphrey Dunnes move and time passes focusing on the younger generation of Dunnes. Oldest son Mark learns to love the land, distant cousin Deb finds a home her flighty mother Joan can’t provide and the new Celia is born. The family survives World War I intact, hearts are broken and love is found in the 1920s/1930s and Dunnian faces World War II.

Celia’s House was a quick and cosy read while curled on Mr Couch with the January winds whipping around Moderate Income Apartments. As when the Dunne clan is preparing breakfast in the thick of World War II? Well, it felt perfectly decadent to be eating Aldi’s private label Double Chocolate Milano knockoffs while wondering if I should turn the rest of the challah bread into French toast. The Dunnes are getting ready to eat burnt porridge <cue Jane Eyre flashbacks> and tiny bit of bacon. And one of the characters actually likes Spam.

Besides making me feel like a truffle eating prize sow in my lovely warm living room while reading (Blacklight: “oink”), parts of Celia’s House seemed lifted right of out Miss Buncle Married. There’s no deep mystery needing to be solved or worrying if the now Mrs Abbot will be revealed as scandalous author John Smith. What we do have is the device of an elderly aunt making a will that favors a different relative than expected with unusual conditions (Miss Bunce Married: Jerry gets the estate if she isn’t married, Celia’s House: Humphrey gets the estate for his life only and then it goes to his daughter Celia). And the estate in question not being entailed so that the elderly female relation can do whatever she likes with the place. With certain males shaking their heads and thinking it’s a dashed shamed that the dear old place isn’t entailed. In Celia’s House, the reader is spared the scene of the expected heir finding out their beliefs are only castles in the air but I do rather wish we could have seen the Maurice Dunnes finding out the news versus just the devoted servant saying oh dear me, how upset they was and now they are gone. The similar scene in Miss Buncle Married is quite good and you can almost see the disappointed would be heirs forehead veins sticking out and the handkerchiefs being crumpled in rage.

What’s also gone? Remembering the book is called Celia’s House. Yes, it does get mentioned the young Celia is the true heir to Dunnian versus her brother Mark and we see her as a small child adoring and loving the dear old place but the bulk of the story belongs to Mark, his failed romance with gold digger Tessa and distant cousin Deb. It’s a shame because D.E. Stevenson leaves some nice little crumbs to imply the young Celia is the reincarnation of her great-great-aunt Celia. The young Mark sees a ghost which an old portraits implies is the late Miss Dunne. Alice (Mrs Humphrey Dunne) has a vision/visitation from the late Miss Dunne the night before Celia is born. The newborn Celia seems knowing of her surroundings from birth and is the spit of Miss Dunne. And for heavens sake, the end? Oh come on! Then again I would also love to see more of the late Miss Celia Dunne’s story too.

Given that Celia’s House was written in wartime and if I’m not mistaken had a limited print life due to wartime printing restrictions, could this have made D.E. Stevenson wrap up her novel sooner than the story should have been wrapped up? The ending, while quite heartwarming and lovely, feels very abrupt. Even one little chapter more would have balanced the story quite nicely.

Hopefully, given the D.E. Stevenson rediscovery and the last reprinting of Celia’s House being the Holt, Rinehart and Winston  1977 edition, perhaps Sourcebooks Landmark could try and acquire the rights to add Celia’s House to their D.E. Stevenson reprints. Even with it’s flaws (more reincarnated Celia, less Edith please because I don’t care a fig for her), Celia’s House is a charming book crying out to be read by more than just D.E. Stevenson fanatics.

 

 

 

The War Workers

~ Wendy-Marie ~ Leave a comment

So I’m visiting the Kindle Store wondering how best to spend a $10 Amazon gift certificate from Company X. Remember I need to get maximum reading value from my money. And as I’m sighing over how expensive the Bloomsbury Reader Kindle editions for E.M. Delafield are, I notice two titles with the magic price of $0.00. Of course I snap them up thinking they’ll be good reading for our trip to Texas next year. But you know that’s like me saying I’m going to parcel out my stash of classic Aero bars or Lindt Almond truffles. Last night I was plundering Mr Kindle for something to read and clicked on E.M. Delafield’s The War Workers.

Now if you do know who E.M. Delafield is, it’s most likely for her most famous book, 1930’s Diary of a Provincial Lady. Which is a lovely and charming book and if you haven’t read it and you adore a cozy read? Track it down! I’ll wait here with an Aero bar while you snap it up from the Kindle Store. But remember there’s more to E.M. Delafield besides our friend the Provincial Lady.

The War Workers focuses on a supply depot in World War I Britain run by Charmain Vivian, known as “Miss Vivian” to the women who toil under her iron fist. Working at the supply depot isn’t easy and the ladies run themselves ragged to tend to the troops coming through on trains and Miss Vivian’s extremely high standards. There are people in the supply depot who feel guilty for taking their well deserved lunch if Miss Vivian doesn’t stop for breaks. If Miss Vivian says “jump”, the ladies say “how high Miss Vivian?”.  The supply depot staff (with the exception of Miss Vivian) when they’re not at the office, train station or manning the military canteen after a long and full day of work, all live in a cramped hostel run by very well meaning and kind manager who tries her best. Our depot ladies range from Miss Vivian devoted secretary Miss Delmege who can’t ever stop singing Miss Vivian praises (no one likes her) to the sweet friendly to everyone girl (Tony-played my head by the very young Deanna Durbin), the distressed Mrs Potter, the always running late Miss Marsh and Welsh newcomer Grace Jones (yes it took more than a few pages to NOT picture Grace Jones the model/singer/actress-this Grace Jones is tidy and well scrubbed and sensible as they come with the tiny exception of getting faint at the sight of blood, of course the dogsbody secretary Miss Delmege loathes her) who butts heads with Miss Vivian.

Oh good golly Miss Molly. Miss Vivian. In my head, Miss Vivian is played by Emma Thompson at her most brittle and nasty. You can almost hear her supply depot staff scraping and bowing and curtseying as she enters a room. At one point her devoted staff think of her as being very much like Queen Elizabeth I. I kept wondering where Charmain Vivian falls on the autism spectrum. And at a few times, how she would rank on the psychopath test. She’s well born (the Vivian family are the local gentry), she has had all the advantages in life and her elderly father adores her. But she’s colder than a marble statue smack dab in the center of the Arctic Circle and has no regard or feeling for her family or the women who are working themselves sick to meet her demands.

At one point, Miss Vivian is forced to stay at the hostel with her staff. The manager of the hostel, Mrs Bullivant gives up her own rooms so Miss Vivian can have as much comfort and a splendor as the hostel can give, the supply depot ladies toil to make the tiny rooms as bright and cheery as can be. There is war on. And the hostel isn’t The Ritz but they make it cozy and even give up some of their own few treasures for Miss Vivian. Heaven forbid Miss Vivian not have a perfect mirror or her very own teapot. Their fearless leader’s reaction? To complain to her former governess in a letter about the horrid conditions and plot to leave as soon as possible. But those same horrid cramped conditions? Just fine and dandy for our supply depot ladies.

When Miss Vivian’s true nature is revealed? Her once devoted staff lose their blinders and find better lives with people who deserve their devotion with the exception of only a few people who you know will never give up their hero worship of Miss Vivian, not even if she stabbed a puppy right in front of them.

Miss Vivian is such a toxic force reading parts of The War Workers dealing directly with her is a chore. I might have wanted to bundle Miss Vivian into a trunk and stick her on a train headed straight for France and the trenches. When Lady Vivian (Miss Vivian’s mother) says she should have whipped the very young Charmain, I wanted to stand up and shout “here here” in my very best George from Blackadder Goes Forth voice. Lady Vivian is a voice of reason and a novel written around her story with Charmain in the very edges would have been quite lovely. She’s not a saint and her open dislike and handling of Charmain after a tragedy is a breath of fresh air. Charmain can take a situation or leave it in her mother’s eyes and you can almost feel the relief flooding through Lady Vivian when Charmain makes her choice.

If you’ve read Angela Thirkell’s World War II era Barsetshire novels (Cheerfulness Breaks In, Northbridge Rectory, Marling Hall, Growing Up and The Headmistress) and want something in a similar vein with a bit more bite? Get thee to your local used bookstore or the Kindle Store and grab E.M. Delafield’s The War Workers. And be very, very grateful your boss isn’t Miss Charmain Vivian.

Private Demons

~ Wendy-Marie ~ Leave a comment

There are biographies that make Blacklight scream in terror when he stumbles in the living room and finds me curled up on Mr Couch reading (i.e. Eric Myers’ Uncle Mame: The Life Of Patrick Dennis but I think it’s because Blacklight is terrified of the Patrick Dennis in the tub picture on the back cover). And then there are biographies I’ve checked out of the local library so many times that the darn book spends more time at my house then on the library shelf, the ones I would own if only they weren’t out of print and didn’t cost more than a tank of gas or a month’s groceries or even <shudder> the electric bill. Private Demons: The Life of Shirley Jackson by Judy Oppenheimer is firmly in the second category.

So what makes Private Demons: The Life of Shirley Jackson something that has me seriously wondering if Blacklight would object to me feeding him spaghetti and baked ziti for dinner for a month vs his usual boneless loin pork chops so I can buy the like new hardcover copy from Amazon? Judy Oppenheimer has done the hardest trick in the biographer’s tasks, she not only makes Shirley Jackson come to life but makes you want to visit the house with the pillars and spend an evening with the Hymans circa 1954. Anything could and did happen with Shirley. Imagine being at the Hyman’s on a night when Shirley got up from the table, went into the study, pounded out a story and then read it to the group, took the editing suggestions and had said story ready for submission by morning?

But Shirley Jackson was more than a machine for cranking out perfect tales to chill your soul or warm your heart. Oppenheimer draws back the facade that Shirley Jackson constructed through her writing to the public, friends and family to reveal the different facets making up such a creative soul. There’s the ungainly girl who never could win her mother’s approval even to her dying day. A devoted mother. A wife who almost waited on her literary critic/professor spouse hand and foot while supporting the household on her writing fees. A women who didn’t seem to care about her appearance but spends oodles of time tracking down a pair of elegant shoes. A mother who fiercely loved her children but didn’t seem to notice when they needed bath time and a good long shampoo.

Some of the very best parts of Private Demons: The Life of Shirley Jackson are when Oppenheimer steps back and allows Jackson’s children to speak about their mother. It’s interesting and very heartbreaking to know how Jackson’s older daughter felt like she was an offering to her grandmother and how the younger daughter felt pressured into being her mother’s shadow/double. Did the pressure of being Jackson’s daughter rob us of another literary light? Do Jackson’s sons feel like their mother loved them less or more than their sisters?

So if you hear Blacklight wondering why baked ziti or pancakes or scrambled eggs are on the menu every night, be assured I’ve broken down and ordered Private Demons: The Life of Shirley Jackson from Amazon or Thriftbooks. Track down Private Demons: The Life of Shirley Jackson from your library, spend some time curled up on the couch reading and you might find yourself doing the same.