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My Dear Aunt Flora

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By Elizabeth Cadell

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I hope I have this right, but I listened to this on Audible so there is no way I can realistically check my facts. Our narrator, Jonquil, “Jonny” and Phyl grew up together in the same home headed by Aunt Flora along with Phyl’s brothers, George and Hugh. Flora was Jonny’s mother’s best friend and was taken in by her when her parents died. Jonny ended up marrying Hugh, and Phyl married Hugh’s best friend, Tom. Phyl and Jonny both were widowed at the same time due to an automobile wreck, and Jonny was left with two young children. Phyl and Jonny live together and the book begins when they decide to escape their dreary cramped apartment and move to “Rushing” a large but old and dilapidated cottage (it doesn’t even have an indoor toilet!) in the middle of nowhere.

This is what is known as a “slice-of-life” novel, which is a type of novel I read a lot of. It focuses on the largely unremarkable happenings and relationships of everyday life. Gentle humor, unusual characters, and the joy of living are key. At least in the novels of this type that I read. Needless to say, there is usually a satisfactory if understated romance which provides closure and a happy prospect for the characters we have come to feel invested in. Atmosphere and ambiance are key. The ones I read are usually set in the English or Scottish countryside and set at least 50 years ago. True to form, nothing much happens in this one until the previously mentioned George comes to stay at Rushing Farm. It’s not specifically stated what’s wrong with him, but he has been ordered by his doctor to “rest.” So I’m guessing nervous breakdown. George is a famous actor and something of a babe magnet. He is also spoiled, entitled, and a prima donna. The family loves George, but they don’t like him very much. They are confident that as soon as he gets a load of Rushing’s primitive conditions, he will quickly leave for less spartan accommodations far far away.

At first I was somewhat entertained by George and his angry incredulity over what he was asked to put up with at Rushing Farm. The women pretty much just take him in stride. They don’t know how to “just say no” but they are not complete doormats either. They know that George will not be able to stand being in the middle of nowhere for long and are not majorly inconvenienced by George’s whims and megrims. The stage is set on the first day when George confiscates Jonny’s son Paul’s bedroom for his own. To meet his standards, he then hijacks various pieces of furniture and decor from Phyl, Jonny, and Flora’s rooms. When they object, he bosses them and manipulates them into agreeing. But the more George complains, the happier the family is because the sooner he will leave. That is, until Angela ,the aunt of a summer guest of Jonnie’s daughter, comes to visit. She is gorgeous, sweet, down-to-earth and couldn’t be less interested in George, despite his glamor and fame. George, on the other hand, falls head over heels for the first time in his life.

All of the main characters were likable but boring. There are two romances involved, one was a foregone conclusion with no “will they or won’t they” tension to be had. George and Angela’s story had a little more suspense, but Angela deserved better even if the reader comes to understand and be reconciled to George a little more by the end. Jonnie, who I guess is our main character because everything is seen through her eyes, is the most boring of all. Her primary personality traits are competence, quietude, and inarticulateness. Phyl is charmingly lazy and Aunt Flora is wise, no-nonsense, and caring. A romance for Jonnie is threatened but is nipped in the bud by her disinterest. The book just kind of ends with the wedding of one of the characters which is a hair’s breath from ending in disaster. Or what would pass for disaster in this gentle world. There were some unanswered questions which are not my favorite. Why was Flora’s cousin so anxious to talk to her, what secret will he impart that threatens the family’s equanimity? We never know. If there ever was one. There were some amusing bits where I kind of chuckled. The most exciting and funniest part was near the end where Jonnie finally loses her temper. It was all very low-stakes. The quirky characters were not quirky enough. After I read this, I found out this was Cadell’s first book and I readily believed it. It explained a lot. Still it was lovely and charming enough to earn 3 stars from me.

Rating: 3 out of 5.

The Shuttle

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By Frances Hodgson Burnett

This was just a terrific book with an indomitable heroine who should be as famous and celebrated as…well, I can’t think of a universally famous one who is comparable to Bettina Vanderpoel. Not that there aren’t plenty of brave, cool-headed, perspicacious, kind-hearted, and public spirited heroines in literature, you understand. But I just can’t think of one that embodies all of those qualities at once. I reckon Hermione Granger comes closest. Except Bettina (Betty) is also beautiful, charming, charismatic and a gabillionaire. I could compare her with Philippa Somerville of the Lymond Chronicles but Philippa is as unfamous as Betty. Neither would make an official top 10 list of most admirable fictional female characters how ever much they deserve to. If Betty sounds like a heroine who is flawless and therefore not your cup of tea, I wouldn’t blame you. But let me assure you that she is up against a villain so repulsive and dastardly and is fighting for causes so righteous, that you will root for her every step of the way. Not to mention she has to live in a world (late Victorian England) in which the deck was stacked against women who dared to not suffer in silence. I did not begrudge her one ounce of her power whether it came from her beauty, character, or wealth. Because she needed it all. And even then all of her gifts may not have been enough to save a woman of substance’s most precious commodity of that or almost any era: her reputation.

It’s been 12 years since Bettina had seen her older sister, Rosalie, after her marriage to an English Lord, Nigel Anstruthers. Bettina was 9 years old when Rosalie left New York City and went to live in England on his estate and virtually vanished from her and her loving parents’ lives. The first 4 chapters of the book are Rosalie’s. Thank God it wasn’t more, because reading of her life with Nigel was painful indeed. Debt-ridden Lord Anstruthers of course married naive and sweet Rosalie not for love, but for her considerable fortune. He starts to manipulate and gaslight the poor girl on the ship over as soon as she leaves her family’s protection. By the time we mercifully leave her and start to focus on Bettina, Rosalie, systematically crushed and isolated for years, is lying on the floor, a victim of a violent attack, fearing for her unborn baby, and about to lose control of her money to her scheming and merciless husband and his malignant mother.

Bettina never liked or trusted Nigel and had long planned, when she was old enough, to find Rosalie and make sure she was OK. Unlike her parents, Betty never believed that Rosalie had turned her back on her family after she became a grand titled English lady. We get a recounting of Betty’s maturation from a formidable child to a beautiful young woman and her formal and informal education. In addition to being educated at elite academies all over Europe, her father, seeing her intelligence and good sense, had her accompany him all over the United States while looking over his business concerns. She gained an invaluable education from him and he in turn came to trust her judgement and even seek out her advice. So when Betty finally feels she is in a position to rescue Rosy (if she even needs rescuing) she not only has her own gifts at her command but the respect and trust of her father, one of the most powerful and wealthiest men in America.

When Bettina gets to Stornham Court, Nigel’s estate, things are even worse for Rosalie and her disabled son than she imagined. Nigel has taken over control of Rosalie’s money and is living it up in the fleshpots of Europe. Both Rosalie and his estate are in shambles. During Nigel’s lengthy absence, Bettina sets about putting things in order on the estate and in the community at large. Under Bettina’s tender care Rosalie starts to recover her former bloom and what little spirit she had before her marriage. Her sister makes friends with both the high born and low born in the county, and prepares for Nigel’s inevitable return, which I began every chapter dreading. It happens in Chapter 33 (of 50). Now one would assume that Nigel would slither away without a peep in the face of Bettina’s powers. But he is clever, arrogant, entitled and kind of insane. Also he holds some powerful cards in his hands. Not the least of which is his position as a man and a titled one. And Bettina is secretly in love with the poor but proud owner of the neighboring estate, which makes her vulnerable. To extricate Rosie and her son Ughtred (why, Frances, why???) while preserving their reputations and futures as well as those of various innocent bystanders, the battle between Bettina and Nigel must be conducted with subtlety and finesse. A war of attrition rather than a no holds barred onslaught.

In its unabridged form this book is over 500 pages. In addition to the chess game between Nigel and Betty, we go into the background and character of Lord Mount Dunstan, the love interest, their beautiful romance, various country people on the estate or in the village, an American typewriter salesman, society balls and parties, and an outbreak of typhoid fever. Everything ties together and ends in a rousing climax, resolution, and fates well earned. I’ve focused on the plot in this review, but we also are treated to FHB’s descriptive passages and reflections, insights into the Gilded age and dollar princesses, and the qualities of America v. England. America wins. Great movies have been made of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s beloved children’s books A Little Princess and The Secret Garden. I even enjoyed the film based on one of her other adult novels, The Making of a Marchioness. Why not this one? This book has everything. Is it the title? I listened to this book on Audible read by Katherine Brooks who was very good.

Rating: 5 out of 5.

A Fair Barbarian

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By Frances Hodgson Burnett

This early novella by Frances Hodgson Burnett of The Secret Garden and A Little Princess fame, was very much in the tradition of those stories that feature a visitor from afar whose different outlook on life transforms a person, a family, or even a whole town for the better. In the stories (or films) I am talking about, the transformation is not mutual. The visitor remains steadfast, it is the people around her that change. Pollyanna by Eleanor Porter, Old Fashioned Girl by Louisa May Alcott, Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery. It’s been compared to Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons, but I haven’t read that one. And Maybe Silas Marner by George Eliot. Heck, what about Footloose or Sister Act?

I love the title of this book. Octavia Bassett is anything but a “barbarian.” If a little dashing and open-mannered, she is also well-behaved, kind, beautiful and classy. But she is from America, and in Slowbridge, “It was not considered in good taste to know Americans.” For sure not ones from “Bloody Gulch,” a small mining town in Nevada, where Octavia’s father made his fortune. She is a bit different from the young ladies in the small English enclave: she is self confident and unintimidated by the disapproval she encounters, particularly in the person of Lady Theobald, who rules insular Slowbridge with an iron hand. All of society must bend their behavior to her idea of what is gentile, proper, and correct. Particularly her sweet granddaughter Lucia. When Octavia arrives to stay with her meek and mild Aunt Belinda her effect on the town is much like a “tremor in the force.” Not that she does anything so shocking even by the standards of most of Victorian England, but it is how this town reacts to her. She wears beautiful gowns and jewelry, her hair is worn stylishly (curls on her forehead!), and she doesn’t just speak when she is spoken to but actually tries to have two-way conversations. She is not only seen but heard.

There is not a lot of action. The big climax occurs when a garden party is arranged without Lady Theobald’s blessing. Meanwhile Lucia has found some backbone thanks to Octavia’s example and influence. She has fallen in love with an unsuitable suitor while Lady Theobald is arranging a more conventional marriage for her. Unfortunately her first choice seems to have fallen under Octavia’s inevitable spell. The writing, descriptions, and the Austen-like satiric and humorous tone are the attraction here. I was also reminded of The Miss Buncle Books by D.E. Stevenson.

Satisfactory outcomes were had by all including an unhappy one for Lady Theobald. There was a slightly unexpected twist in the quickly wrapped up end. Or maybe it just seemed too quickly wrapped up because I just wanted more of Octavia Bassett. The narrator, Anne Hancock, of this Audible book perfectly voiced our main character. It reminded me of the raspy distinctive tones an old movie star, Jean Arthur, whose voice, as described by Edward G. Robinson, “grated like fresh peppermint.”

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Sarah’s Cottage

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By D. E. Stevenson

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This was a perfectly enjoyable DES which pretty much picks up where Sarah Morris Remembers leaves off. Sarah and Charles are married and have built a cottage near Sarah’s grandparents on some land that they gifted to them.  I listened to this on Audible and the new narrator made the choice of losing Charles’ Austrian accent which was so much a part of his personality in “Remembers.” Sarah’s father who was so important in the preceding book stays in London and is very much on the back burner which was A-OK with me. At the end of Sarah Morris Remembers, the good vicar made me very angry by discounting Sarah’s frantic and confused insistence that she had seen her beloved Charles whom she feared dead. No matter how passionately she tried to convince him, he refused to believe her, which added to her pain and confusion. After Charles and Sarah are reunited at her grandparents house in Scotland (where she was sent to basically recover her sanity), I thought it was pretty significant that her father was not included in the joy of their reunion, nor even told, at least on the page, of Charles’ miraculous return.

A lot happens in this book, which spans, as near as I can make out, around 13 years. But there are two main plot threads. Sarah and Charles take Lottie and Clive’s neglected child, Freddy, under their wing. Lottie never wanted her (in SMR she wanted an abortion!) and treats her accordingly–only concerned with her own pleasure-seeking. Her father is not a bad man but  a non-entity in his daughters’ life whose only concern is running his business. Sarah and Charles only see Freddy  on some holiday breaks from her boarding school (Saint Elizabeth’s of Charlotte Fairlie!), but it is enough to guide her, give her safety, security, and what she most needs, love. A lot happens with Freddy, including her transformation from an ugly duckling to a swan and her almost falling victim to a cad and a fortune hunter.

The second is Charles becoming obsessed with writing a fictionalized account of his life. It totally takes over his life for about 6 months  and frankly he behaves like an asshole, neglecting and ignoring Sarah. To my relief, although she is vexed and frustrated, Sarah makes the best of it by developing friendships and having an adventure or two on her own. One of the friendships that she develops is with Deb and Mark of Celia’s House. And Celia herself to a lesser extent. Their children becomes Freddy’s playmates when she can come to them at Craignethan. (Although the title of this book is Sarah’s Cottage, The final almost half of the book is set at her grandparents’ large home, the cottage largely forgotten). Once his manuscript is finished, Charles gets back to normal (the book was basically therapy for his difficult life in Austria). But once he got everything out on the page, he refuses to have anything to do with it, giving it to Sarah. “ Do what you like with the wretched thing—burn it if you like!” What she does with it forms another satisfying story line.

Sarah didn’t always do or act the way I wanted her to. At times she came across as a little, as the British say, “wet.” She often excuses Lottie’s destructive and manipulative behavior and the harm she is doing to Freddy. There was a lack of insight and urgency to act. After 18 year old Freddy finally lays all of Lottie’s cruelties over the years on the line, and explains to Sarah why she wants nothing more to do with her mother, it’s “Oh Freddie, she does love you! I know she seems neglectful but that’s just her way. She cares for you, darling.” Uh No, Sarah, she does not. Honestly, I wanted to throttle her.  Freddy recounts even more horror stories, and finally Sarah gets it. I wanted a more dramatic and cathartic resolution, but in the end Sarah and Charles acted with wisdom and restraint in regards to Freddy. 

All in all this was almost equal to Sarah Morris Remembers. Sarah and Charles rarely disappointed me. I often feared how they would react to certain challenges, but if they let me down, it was only briefly and they always did the right thing in the end. It was quite episodic and I was often confused as far as the timeline. Sarah’s never having any dearly wanted children was never addressed sufficiently.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Sarah Morris Remembers

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By D. E. Stevenson

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Although I did anticipate enjoying this very much, the real reason why I chose this one, in the still many Stevenson titles I have left to read, is that it leads up to Sarah’s Cottage, one I have reason to believe might be a favorite. Fingers crossed.

Sarah Morris Remembers traces our heroine’s life as a child growing up with her loving parents, her two brothers, and a younger sister in their country vicarage home. It starts some years prior to WWII and takes us through the end of the war and Sarah’s reunion, after their separation, with the love of her life. We see her family and the world through her eyes as she is writing down her memories with help from her diaries.

When I started this story of my life I unpacked the diaries which I had kept in a large tin box and, as I turned over the pages, all sorts of things came back to me – things I had forgotten – and I realised I had plenty of material for a family chronicle. I had intended to write the story to amuse the family but I hadn’t got very far before I saw that I was faced with a difficult choice: either I could write a story about the family, suitable for the family to read, or else I could write a true story about everything that had happened to us all.…I saw quite clearly that the story would be no good unless it was true in every detail. I would write it for myself, for my own satisfaction; no eye but mine should ever see it and perhaps when I had finished it I should be able to see some sort of pattern in my life.

Although not a beauty like her kind and gentle mother and her little sister, Sarah is smart and spirited. And, nurtured by her parents, she has a very highly developed sense of morality. She is a very good girl. Sometimes a little too good to my liking, to be honest. But that is true of all DES heroes and heroines. It’s part of their charm and the comfort and joy of the books. Sarah, at least, is spunky and sensible to the last page. She and her siblings have an idyllic childhood: Lewis, the oldest, is handsome, smart, and their parents’ fair haired boy. Willie, like Sarah, is a bit of a rebel, and her little sister Lottie is pretty like a little doll and cossetted as the baby of the family. As the children grow up, Lottie becomes friends with a wealthy schoolmate whose family has her for weekends and vacations and she ends up more influenced by them than her own family. Although Lewis has a hankering to choose a military career, he complies with his mother and father’s wishes (especially his mother) and goes to Oxford. Willie and Sarah stand up against their well-meaning parents and fight for and follow their own dreams. One day, when Sarah is a young teen, Lewis brings home a good friend, Charles, who is Austrian. Although nothing untoward happens or is even hinted at, Sarah is drawn to him and, though he is 5 years older (possibly more), it is mutual. WWII is still a few years away, but Hitler is on the rise. We follow Sarah as she makes her way through her teens, while keeping tabs on the rest of her family and their highs and lows.

Sarah and Charles’ connection eventually leads to an engagement, but before they can be married Charles must come to the rescue of his noble and wealthy Austrian family who are threatened by the Nazis. He mysteriously and alarmingly disappears. Sarah bravely carries on with her father in war torn London, doing their bit, while waiting for her beloved Charles to return to her (hopefully).

This Stevenson is very romance-forward even though Charles and Sarah are separated throughout much of the book. Their love and passion (yes, passion in a D.E Stevenson!) are consummated before Charles leaves for Austria albeit with the belief he will return in a few weeks in time for their wedding. That has got to be a first for DES, and I thought it was worth mentioning. True to her original intent, Sarah tells the truth regardless of the foibles and weaknesses of herself, her parents, her brothers, and especially Lottie (Hoo Boy!). Even Charles comes across as a bit of an ass in one part, even though Sarah worships the ground he walks on. And Sarah rarely let me down.

Of course, because this is D.E.S., we spend some time in Scotland where her grandparents live near good ol’ Ryddelton. And yes, a certain ghostly carriage can sometimes be heard by certain people on certain nights. I’m hovering between 4 and 5 stars, so I’ll go with 4 1/2, leaving some room in case I like Sarah’s Cottage even more.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

Celia’s House

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By D. E. Stevenson

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Of all of the D.E. Stevensons I have read, this one is right up there. I almost didn’t choose this book to listen to. I usually wait 4 or 5 months between Stevensons and I had just read one last month. But I knew I didn’t want to read another contemporary romantic comedy because the last one I read was so good, nothing else could measure up. I was still on hold for the scary book of my choice at the library and I had just read a domestic thriller and a Georgette Heyer. And some books I just like to read the words, not listen to them.

This one is a little different from most Stevensons because it moves through the years and the stories of various members of the Dunne family. We start in 1905 with Celia Dunne, in her 90s, who has decided not to bequeath her home and estate to the childless (and insufferable) son of her oldest brother who has every expectation of inheriting. Instead, she has settled on a more distant connection, her great nephew, Humphrey, who is a struggling Lieutenant Commander in the Navy with a young and growing family. She leaves her estate to the astounded and confused Humphrey on the condition that Dunnian will eventually go, not to his oldest son, Mark, but, extraordinarily, to a daughter, yet to be born, whom he will name Celia.

Humphrey is a good and loving father although we are told he does not have a sense of humor. His wife Alice is beautiful and sweet but is not too bright (as we see evidence of throughout their story.) We soon realize that the main focus of the story will be their oldest son Mark whom we first meet when he is 5 1/2. We spend a good deal of time with the growing family. Humphrey and Alice add a son, Billy and, sure enough, a daughter, Celia, to their brood. They also take on the care of a cousin, Deb, who comes to live with them when her disinterested mother remarries and moves to India. Unlike her cousins, she is plain and shy. As the children grow to adulthood the Dunne’s story starts to mirror Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park. Deb is devoted to Mark, and Mark is in love with a scheming and manipulative neighbor. Eventually Deb, who eventually blossoms, is pursued by her brother, a bit of a rake. Other parallels emerge with other members of the family. But curiously, we see little of the youngest daughter, Celia, except for a few anecdotes that show that she is an unusual child: lovable, spirited, and with a mind of her own. Rather like her namesake, as a matter of a fact. Sprinkled throughout are some mysterious coincidences and ghostly sightings which hint of a guiding hand from beyond. After Deb and Mark’s fate is settled, we skip ahead to 1932, where we get a another peek at Celia, in her early 20s. She is still uninterested in marriage. She is waiting. When she was 13, we had learned that she didn’t care to get married unless it was to someone “quite different”: Someone like Lochinvar “out of the west.” Quickly, we skip ahead 10 years to 1942. Mark and Billy are doing their bit in the war, while still unattached Celia and newly pregnant Deb are keeping the home fires burning with retired Admiral Humphrey, now in his 70s. There is only one chapter to go. How Celia finally meets “the one” in that last chapter moved me to tears.

I had read the follow up to this one, The Listening Valley before Celia’s House, and that was probably a good thing. Had I read it first, I would have been so anxious to learn more about what became of Celia and Dunnian, that I wouldn’t have been able to concentrate on the first half of our heroine, Tonia’s, story. She does not land in Ryddelton, where Dunnian house is located, until midway through the book. In The Listening Valley, we also are filled in more about the original Celia’s younger years and the ties that bind her to her young namesake’s love story. To anyone interested in trying D.E. Stevenson, you couldn’t do better than Celia’s House, followed by The Listening Valley.

Rating: 5 out of 5.

The Tall Stranger

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By D.E. Stevenson

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**Spoilers**

This was a delight from beginning to end. In addition, the narrator, Candida Gubbins, was terrific. I enjoy D.E. Stevenson’s books greatly but often with reservations. Sometimes her abrupt endings are a little too abrupt leaving loose ends untied. She often avoids drama like it is something to be ashamed of, so that the most interesting and looked for scenes happen off stage. Her heroines are too often too obtuse, passive, or too averse to pursuing their own happiness or doing what needs to be done for their own good. Sometimes to the point that they cause others to suffer along with them (until it all comes right in the end, of course.) Not so with this one!

Our heroine, Barbie France, has been very ill and has been hospitalized, but is getting worse, not better. Her good friend and roommate, Nell, decides that the atmosphere in London, and lack of peace in the hospital is to blame for her friend’s depression, and maneuvers matters with the help of her doctor/boss to get her to Barbie’s loving aunt at her country home, Underwoods, where she can recover. It does the trick, and soon Barbie is fully recovered under the loving care of her Aunt Amelie and her companion, Penney. Nell has a story too, and there is a secondary romance.
Barbie’s London career as an Interior Decorator (she’s awesome. She loves her job and is great at it) is on hold. While at Underwoods, she attends the wedding of a childhood playmate, and meets a tall stranger at the reception. They are immediately drawn to each other and Barbie invites him to tea the next day. Strangely, he stands her up, and Barbie is very angry and wonders why she feels so upset by such a relatively unimportant snub by someone she hardly knows. Meanwhile, Edward Steyne, Aunt Amalie’s beloved stepson, and her childhood friend appears on the scene. Edward is a charmer and a gadabout. Aunt Amalie seems relieved that he appears to finally be settling down to a respectable job in the city. It’s not long before Edward proposes marriage and Barbie accepts. Partly because she and Edward have always been fond of each other, partly because she thinks it would make Aunt Amalie happy, and partly because Aunt Amalie has told her that her late husband was very insistent that Barbie inherit Underwoods upon her death, not his own son, Edward, and she feels bad about that. Also, why did he want his beloved Underwoods in his nieces hands rather than his own son?

The reader has already picked up on some clues as to Edward’s true character and on the way back to London, Edward unintentionally reveals his true self to Barbie. To my amazement, having been disappointed too often in the past with Stevenson’s heroines, Barbie acts decisively and doesn’t back down. I was thrilled.

We spend some time back in London where we meet up with Nell again, get to know a bedraggled little 8 year old and her floozy mother, and see Barbie settling back into her career in London. It will not be a surprise to anyone even vaguely familiar with D.E. Stevenson’s novels that Barbie is sent to a Scottish castle on a decorating job. It will also not be a surprise that the Wedding Guy just happens to be visiting his sister, Barbie’s client, there. Yes he is her destiny. Henry is just as nice and upstanding as he was at the Wedding, and when he explains what happened to cause him to ghost her, Barbie is even more disgusted with Edward. I had some concerns about Henry when he tried to rush her into a quick marriage. He started to seem as wheedling and manipulative as Edward was except he had a good heart and really loved her. But that impression was put to rest when he was happy for Barbie to continue her career even after marriage. Also, Barbie had already proven her strong-mindedness and steely character. It was no surprise that her common sense and caution prevailed.

It all comes together in a very satisfactory conclusion. The mistreated little London child even gets a happy ending and Edward’s true character is exposed to all who matter. Unfortunately, that includes Aunt Amalie and I was saddened by her sorrow and disappointment. **4 1/2 stars**

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

My Friend, The Professor

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by Lucilla Andrews

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‘Nurse, you are holding a hypodermic syringe, not brandishing a harpoon. And look what you’ve done to that needle! Possibly you might be able to use it as a crochet-hook ‒ you can certainly never use it again for an injection. Put it all away now and make a linseed poultice. You have just time to get one made before the test ends.’

I found this one on my Kindle while looking for another title. I have no idea why I originally downloaded it. Probably due to a long ago recommendation or maybe related to my flirtation with Betty Neels a while back. Published in 1960, it is a real nugget of social history and of the nursing profession the way it used to be. Contrary to many readers, the age gap between the two male and female leads (22 years) did not bother me. What did bother me was his constant cigarette smoking! He was a real fiend!

Frances Dorland is our heroine, a new student nurse, learning on the job. I guess you didn’t have to get a degree in Nursing back then, at least in England. Apparently you learned on the job while attending classes on the side while living at the hospital with your “set.” Most of the book is about her and her friends challenges navigating the political gauntlet of dealing with the Nurses (or Sisters) that outrank them. Which is everybody. Always obedient, eyes down, never explain or give excuses, or be anything less than subservient at all times. It was very eye-opening. Nursing back then appeared to be mostly cooking and cleaning and keeping their patients company.

She becomes best friends with a very rich debutante, Estelle Dexter, who has eschewed her former shallow life to do something substantial and meaningful and nursing is in her blood. Her other good friend is “The Professor” whom she meets by chance on the hospital grounds. He is a loyal and wise advisor whom she mostly communicates with via letters. Every so often, not very often, they meet in person. But nevertheless, despite his age and lack of sex appeal, it is not long at all before she begins to fall in love with him. I honestly didn’t blame her. I would have too. Later in the book, Frances becomes the target of gossip and hostility on the part of some of her peers and superiors and undeserved deference in others. This mystery fuels much of the latter part of the book. Frances thinks it is because of her close relationship with Estelle, her rich friend whose grandfather is a large benefactor of the hospital. It turns out that it is not that relationship that is the source of all the speculation and gossip.

I thought the romance was very sweet. I would have loved to see them as an established couple navigating their differences and dealing with the reactions of others in their circles. they had an interesting dynamic. There is a secondary romance between Estelle and a young doctor trainee as well, whom the professor thinks is interested in Frances and vice versa. And I liked Frances who was very down to earth and was just spirited and irreverent enough to mitigate some of the meekness that was required with her superiors . The book is told in First Person and I liked her breezy, humorous and forthright tone. Unfortunately, the book suffers from an excess of not very memorable characters who I had a difficult time keeping straight as Frances is transferred to different posts in the same hospital. Also there was way too much out of date and specialized terminology tossed around which even Google couldn’t help with, that were like little speed bumps on a road. And also some out of date British slang was mildly irritating. All of the young medical students persist in referring to Estelle’s wealth as her “cash” or “lolly” . As in “Why can’t you just forget her cash, and treat her like a human being?” I don’t know it just took me out of the story. Not really the book’s fault.

The author, Lucilla Andrews, was one of those unsung female heroines who had to step up to the plate when the going got rough and at a time where women were, in our more enlightened eyes, discounted and scorned unless in their prescribed traditional roles. She began nursing during WWII and married a doctor who turned out to be a drug addict. When her husband was institutionalized, she turned to writing to support herself and her little daughter. In 1952, she sold her first short story for 25 guineas, equivalent to a month’s pay as a staff nurse. From then on she became an author of “hospital fiction.” One of her 37 books was autobiographical, No Time for Romance, about her experiences nursing in London during the Blitz. The Booker Prize winning British Novelist, Ian McEwen, based part of his 2001 Novel Atonement ( the basis of the Academy Award Winning movie), on her “superb reportage”. Even though he duly credited her in the acknowledgements, in some circles he was accused of plagiarism. Ms. Andrews was amused when she learned of his indebtedness to her memoir. Her reaction? “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.” According to her Obituary, Lucilla Andrews was “strong-minded, considerate, kind and great fun. She made friends wherever she lived…. She was fond of both whisky and cigarettes…and was famed for her elegance and enthusiasm for hats.”

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Auntie Mame: An Irreverant Escapade.

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By Patrick Dennis

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It’s been many many (many) years since I have reread this mid-century classic gem and old favorite of mine. I’ve read a few of Patrick Dennis’s books, many now very hard to find and undeservedly out of print. Two of the three books that are still readily available are (strangely) ones that I haven’t read and have no desire to. I guess that means my taste in novels by Patrick Dennis must be a little off. Around the World with Auntie Mame is still available and is now on my TBRR (To Be Re-Read) list. I’ve also read Guestward Ho, The Loving Couple, and The Joyous Season, which is one of my favorite books of all time, surpassing even this, his most well-known work. The Joyous Season is out of print and rarely mentioned when the subject of Patrick Dennis and his books come up in my poking around the internet. The reason why has always been confounding to me. I absolutely adored the 10-year-old narrator Kerry and his 6-year-old sister Missy whose upper-crust Manhattan parents’ marriage blows up one disastrous and hilarious Christmas Day. Besides the laughs on every page, I loved the romantic comedy aspects to it. I’ll stop there because otherwise this review of Auntie Mame will turn into trying to convince readers to read The Joyous Season instead. (But then read Auntie Mame, because it is a comedy classic and the basis for an award winning Broadway play and Hollywood movie for good reason.)

I listened to this on Audible and the narrator, Christopher Lane, was fine, although I would have wished for a more youthful voice as the book is narrated by Patrick whose adventures with his eccentric Aunt start when he is orphaned in 1929 at 10-years-old and ends around 3 years after his graduation from University. Mame Dennis’s guardianship is abruptly curtailed early on by his conservative trustee when young Patrick is discovered in an avant-garde school where all of the students and two teachers are racing around naked. From then on Mame only gets her “depraved” hands on him Christmases and summers.

I have seen the movie quite a few times and fairly recently. Most of the scenes play out much the same, with the book having the advantage of Patrick’s loving but sometimes acerbic narration and commentary on his and Mame’s life together. And of course the hilarious if sometimes harrowing episodes in their lives are unabridged. The first 3 chapters about Patrick’s and Mame’s first meeting up to when he is shipped off to boarding school for his own protection are pretty much the same. After that we are only favored with Patrick and Mame together only sporadically, while Patrick fills us in on what he knows about her adventures while he is safely at school. With the stock market crash and Auntie Mame “ruined, ruined, ruined!” (not by a long shot), she is forced to keep up with her expenditures by relying on her considerable social contacts for gainful employment. Her adventures on the stage with her great friend, Broadway star Vera Charles, down to her adventures selling roller skates at Macy’s, are almost identical to the movie. It is at Macy’s that she meets the love of her life, the fabulously wealthy Beauregard Pickett Burnside III, one of the “big, genial, easygoing, lovable” southerners. The movie only slightly curtails her clash with the old-time southern culture of Beau’s family and friends in the horsey set revolving around Peckerwood, Beau’s Georgia plantation. However, in the book, (trigger warning) horses die. I had forgotten that. After Beau’s untimely death (kicked in the head by a horse rather than falling off a mountain) Auntie Mame, as his widow, inherits all and is free to indulge her eccentric and lavish lifestyle once again. Upon Patrick’s prep school and then college years things start to diverge from the movie in plot, but not in spirit. The Agnes Gooch affair is much longer and set in Apathy, Massachusetts, home of Patrick’s St. Boniface Academy. Patrick is up to his neck with Agnes while trying to keep her and his aunt isolated from the school authorities to avoid possible expulsion. Agnes’s fate is a much happier one in the book. While in College (Ivy League, of course) we have Patrick entangled with a stripper named Bubbles, and Mame trying to recapture her youth by adopting Patrick’s social set as her own. Patrick’s engagement to the caricature of shallow wealthy WASP-dom, Gloria Upson, and her even more offensive family in the Connecticut suburbs are almost word for word. Except that in the book, they are even more racist, ridiculous, and pompous. Patrick as a young man is not as lovable as Patrick as a child. He takes way too long to rid himself of Bubbles, and to wake up to Gloria and her family. How he ever got engaged to her is a mystery other than she is beautiful and “stacked.” Wouldn’t be the first time, I guess. Moving on to WWII, Auntie Mame takes in some British War Orphans who are nothing more than thugs and reprobates who leave her with a permanent white streak in her hair. This is not in the movie at all, and Patrick’s meeting with his future wife, Pegeen, is completely different. Book Pegeen is a hoot. Patrick was a lucky guy, and sorry to say, given his history with women, I was somewhat amazed he had the good sense to nab her. As in the movie, everything comes full circle with Auntie Mame “kidnapping” their son Mike for an educational summer in India(Ha!).

Mame and Patrick become entwined with any manner of humanity likely to be ensconced in New York or environs from 1929 to 1945. And all are skewered in equal measure be they elite or common, liberal and avant-garde or conservative and stuffy. Some with affection, some not. Only two escape Patrick Dennis cynical wit: Beau, Mame’s late husband, and Pegeen (and maybe her father, Mickey the Mick.)

Despite their devotion to each other, Patrick is under no illusions as to Mame’s foibles and sometimes foolhardy impulses, And this applies to Mame’s insights into Patrick’s youthful follies and sometimes unfortunate tendencies. But the bottom line is that she raised a good man which we know by reading between the lines. Despite his understandable frustrations and complaints, he is always there for his Auntie Mame, and she for him (although as a master manipulator she is too wise to always lay all of her cards on the table.)

Rating: 5 out of 5.

His Official Fiancée

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By Berta Ruck

After listening to the dodderings and drivels and despairs of girls who aren’t cold, I’m rather thankful that I am. At least I can be fond enough of people in a sensible sort of way. I could be of Sydney. I suppose it will end in my getting him to marry me….But not yet. I haven’t even got his address!

If a girl were the least bit inclined to fall in love with Billy Waters—and I see now that some girls might be; though not, of course, any girl of my type, capable of this kind of frank friendship that puts anything else out of the question!—well, if she were, she’d find it much easier to complete the process here at Porth Cariad than anywhere else that I can imagine him. Some men—generally the nicest—are so much more themselves in the depths of the country. He is.

It is important to remember that this book was written and set in 1913, shortly before WWI. Otherwise the actions and feelings of our heroine make little sense. More than once, I wanted to box her ears. I didn’t get her passive aggressive resentment of her likable fake fiance. I didn’t understand her fits of umbrage that led her to sulk and goad him with constant microaggressions hidden behind a sweet and humble facade. Especially since she was otherwise such a likable and rather admirable girl. Monica is a formerly wealthy society girl, who due to her late father’s debts and her brother’s profligacy is now forced to work for a living. She calls her change of fortune “The Smash.” She is just one of a typing pool and known as a hard-worker but not all that good at her job, though popular enough. When the boss, William Waters, known by the girls as “Still Waters” due to his reserved and formal “fault-finding automaton” personality calls her in to his office, she (and everyone else) assumes she is going to be fired. Instead, he has quite the proposition to put in front of her. He needs a fiance for a year for an unspecified reason, and he offers Monica 500 pounds to put herself at his disposal and take on the purely business assignment. For a girl slaving away for 25 shillings a week this is quite the temptation. I looked it up and it is as someone scraping by on 125 pounds a week was offered almost 50,000 pounds. Even so, Monica plans to refuse because such a proposition is beneath her dignity and quite improper. But when her irresponsible brother calls her from South Africa and tells her he has gotten into hot water (again) and needs 100 pounds desperately, she agrees to Waters’ proposition.

The book is in first person and I found Monica’s tone to be quite modern: open, confiding, and humorous. She shares her more rebellious thoughts with the reader about her situation while outwardly putting on a demure and proper facade. She does not understand William Waters, and doesn’t particularly like him because he is so different from the rich and idle young men she grew up with. That all starts to change when she is invited to stay with his family in the country so they can get to know her. It turns out that his mother is warm, lovely, and welcoming and far from the steely aristocratic matron she had envisioned He also has two sisters who are bright and lively and who immediately take to Monica (or Nancy, as they know her-William told his mother he was engaged to a girl from his office but since he did not even know Monica’s name, he just said her name was Nancy, when he was asked.)

While there at Sevenoaks, his family home, she starts to realize that there is more to “Still Waters” than she originally thought. Although she won’t admit it to the reader or herself, he compares quite favorably with the man she was almost engaged to in her other life. When her father died and “The Smash” happened, Sydney Vandeleer “coincidentally” went off with his mother to Europe, never sealing the deal with the suddenly poor Monica. At the beginning of the novel, she still has hope that he may still come up to scratch. He does seem to still pine for her, but she soon realizes, as she spends more time with “Billy” and his family that he is nothing but a weak artsy-fartsy dilettante.
She is happy being back in the kind of comfortable household she was raised in, with all of the little luxuries, but it adds to her resentment of William because it is only a temporary respite from the hardscrabble life she will have to go back to once the year is up. Also his family is so nice that she is embarrassed to have to lie and deceive them. Finally, William gets tired of her games and they have a showdown with the result that they agree to be friends and work together. She is invited along on a family vacation to the Welsh seaside where she finally falls in love with “Her Official Fiance,” though she won’t admit it. That is, until she thinks she might lose him to a pretty flirty French girl.

I picked this up because I like vintage novels and this one was described as having a very modern feel, and rather unconventional for the times. I saw that right away and was rather enjoying it, but it was easy to put down. I took about a 2 month break in the middle to read other books and during that time, I happened to re-watch the movie, A Room with a View. That movie, a real favorite, was set during this exact time period with the same class of people, and the same type of environment.It helped me to picture the world and relate to the ways of the characters in this novel a little better. In the context of the movie, I returned to the book having a better understanding of and liking for Monica and I happily finished it in a couple of days. It must have been a very popular book in the day, because in 1919 they actually made a Hollywood movie out of it. It was Berta Ruck’s (Mrs. Oliver Onions) first novel and she was to go on to write 89 more. Born in 1878. she lived for a 100 years. In 1970, she was interviewed by the BBC and you can find the interview on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pv6V1… I recommend it.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5.