Review: THE FIRST VIOLIN by Jesse Fothergill

Original Publication Date: 1877

Genre: Romance

Topics: love, music, friendship, honor, fatherhood, coming of age, mysterious past














Review by Rachel S:

In the pre-internet era, when out-of-print books were difficult to find, my grandma would tell me about the books that she loved when she was growing up.  One of her favorites was First Violin by Jessie Fothergill. Of course nowadays this book, which seemed so impossible to locate when I was a child, is easy to access and completely free. I finally got around to reading it, and was very glad I did, because I thoroughly enjoyed it. If I had read it when I was a child or teenager, I can easily imagine it becoming one of my favorite books.

First Violin was originally published in 1877, and was quite popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Although it is rather G-rated by today’s standards, it was apparently somewhat controversial at the time, because it describes (but does not condemn) an affair by a married woman. The main plot line follows a handsome violinist with a mysterious past, Eugen Courvoisier.  Much of the tension in the book comes from slowly discovering his backstory.

The novel is narrated from the perspectives of May Wedderburn, an English girl who travels to Germany for musical training, and of Eugen’s friend Friedhelm Helfen, a fellow musician.  Although several main plot threads involve romantic relationships, Eugen’s love for his son and his friendship with Friedhelm are also central to the story. The following passage from the beginning of the novel gives a sense of the book’s general style. May is distressed here because her malevolent, much older neighbor is pursuing her romantically:

“Shuddering, dismayed, I locked the matter up within my own breast, and wished with a longing that sometimes made me quite wretched that I could quit Skernford, my home, my life, which had lost zest for me, and was become a burden to me. The knowledge that Sir Peter admired me absolutely degraded me in my own eyes. I felt as if I could not hold up my head. I had spoken to no one of what had passed within me, and I trusted it had not been noticed; but all my joy was gone. It was as if I stood helpless while a noisome reptile coiled its folds around me.” 

The prose tends towards melodrama, but May’s dismay and alarm here are not unreasonable given her situation. In general, although the book takes place in a world of heightened emotion, I found the characters’ reactions, descriptions, and conversations convincing.

Less believable are the improbable coincidences on which the plot hinges (several of which involve extreme weather).  It’s probably better not to give spoilers, because part of the fun of the book is finding out how various suspenseful situations resolve. I’ll just say that events are configured for maximum drama in several emotionally tense scenes, and that the book includes multiple highly unlikely encounters that strain credibility.

Nevertheless, I found the book as a whole compelling, with memorable, although somewhat flat, characters. The story raises some interesting questions on the meaning of honor, with the married-woman-affair subplot, dishonorable but utterly sympathetic, providing a counterpoint to Eugen’s rigid acceptance of the constraints of duty.  For the most part, though, it’s just a delightful read, one I didn’t want to put down until the very end.


Download The First Violin by Jesse Fothergill at Project Gutenberg|Librivox|GirleBooks|Internet Archive

Review: JEEVES AND WOOSTER by PG Wodehouse

Original Publication Date: 1934

Genre: Mystery, comedy

Topics: Society, love, no good deed goes unpunished












Review by Sharky & Smiles:

Imagine you’re a pleasant, helpful, not very clever member of the upper class. Imagine your friends aren’t even that clever or that pleasant and helpful. And they keep getting into trouble and expecting you to get them out of it. Of course, they’re your pals, so you do, mostly based on plans your incredibly intelligent valet makes up. Same thing applies when you mess everything up and get into even deeper trouble.

Sounds like a recipe for disaster, needlessly overcomplicating a simple problem.

Simple problem you say? Now imagine if X loves Y but can’t meet Y so Z goes to make sure Y doesn’t get stolen away by Y’s charming guest while pretending to be A because A is engaged to B and B’s relatives are expecting A to visit and A can’t make it.

... what...

That’s the BASE plot of the book we read. It just gets worse from there until everything collapses on itself like an abused soufflé. Somehow into a happy ending.

The pattern is broadly the same in each book in the series, but they’re all uniquely absurd in their own ways. The nice thing is you can probably just grab any Jeeves and Wooster book (and there’s a lot of them) and enjoy it as a stand-alone, without having to worry about sequence or whether you have to read five other things to know what’s going on.

You’ll likely never know quite what’s going on anyway, and that’s the fun of it. It’s another one of those wild rides where you just have to trust the author. And if you can’t do that, if you keep stopping to roll your eyes or object to how silly things are getting, you don’t enjoy. These are SILLY books. So silly. Complete, absurd, slapstick, screwball comedy narrated with a style I’m completely in love with.

Remember what we said about Hitchiker’s Guide being weird with amazing narration? This is very like that, but without the freedom of weirdness of being set in space among aliens. And if you think a non-magical, non-alien setting doesn’t give you much leeway to be silly and strange, boy are you wrong.

The characters are more like caricatures, the plots are basically ridiculous, and the narration keeps going off on its own tangents in the most amusing ways. Great descriptions, run on confusions and liberal use of ‘dash it all!’

I’m 100% behind the way things are narrated. But I tend to lose patience with the characters sometimes, they’re all such idiots. They’re supposed to be but that doesn’t always help.

I caught Sharky yelling oh my God just tell the truth already at the book.

Oh my God just tell the truth already it’s not that hard but you’re making it harder what is happening why is nobody making any sense.

It got worse for him when someone tried to tell the truth, it got over-exaggerated by someone else, and now nobody believes the original truth.

WHAT IS HAPPENING WHY IS NOBODY MAKING ANY SENSE.

But that’s why you have to hold on and just trust the author. Everything has to go horribly for the main character, Bertie, before things can get better for anyone else, and always in the most ridiculous ways. It would almost be tragic if it wasn’t so funny.

Unlike Sharky, Jeeves is actually helpful. And objectively the smartest person in every book.

But even the stupidest characters can be really sarcastic and witty, even if Bertie can never quote anything properly even when he’s trying to act clever.

Someone somewhere once said something very profound about comedy and tragedy being the same. Kind of. Broadly. Probably.

Now you know what to expect when Bertie quotes anything.

I like the setting. There’s something nice about spending time in a little bubble where the biggest problem tends to be ‘my aunt is angry at me and she’s very scary’. It reminds me of those books where kids could have adventures because they didn’t really have to worry about anything else. Despite the fact that these books are set between wars and during, we’re in a sunny little patch where things are good, money- and status-wise, but love and family is confusing and people are unreasonable and sometimes there isn’t time to dress for dinner and you feel out of place.

Just so you know, Smiles has been shaking in place, trying not to spend the entire review just spouting off quotations rather than talking about the book.

I just want to quote so many things! ... which I do with every book. Tell you what, between this review and the next one, we’ll do a mid-week upload with a quote from each of the books we’ve reviewed!

Wha- we didn’t discuss that!

Oh Sharky, when do I ever discuss what we’re going to do with you?




Download Right Ho, Jeeves by PG Wodehouse at Project Gutenberg|Librivox

Review: MASTER FLEA by ETA Hoffmann

Original Publication Date: 1822

Genre: fairy tale, fantasy

Topics: trust, love, friendship, coming of age, forgotten for a reason
 















Review by heidenkind:

Peregrinus Tyss is an odd duck. If he was living in the 21st century, he'd probably be diagnosed with Asperger's; but as it is, he lives in 19th-century Frankfurt and people just assume he's stupid.

Since Peregrin is an orphan and has no friends, every Christmas he picks one family and brings a bunch of presents to them dressed as Santa. But while delivering presents to a bookseller and his children, Peregrin is assaulted by a strange, beautiful woman who acts like she knows him. This lady is obviously Bad News (obvious to the reader, that is); fortunately for Peregrin, he's managed to collect Master Flea, whom the woman needs to keep herself alive. Grateful for Peregrin's protection, Master Flea helps him navigate the waters of social life among the muggles and the mythical beings that suddenly surround him.

I enjoyed Master Flea at first, but as the story went on it started to wear on me. First of all, the eponymous Flea doesn't even show up until the "Third Adventure," nearly halfway through the book! Before that, we are introduced to Peregrin, a femme fatale named alternatively "fair Alina," Dörtje Elverdink, and a mythical princess called Gamaheh of Famagusta; a guy named George Pepusch, who's actually the Thistle of Zeherit; Pepusch's bestie, Leuwenhock, who's actually a magician; Peregrin's lodger, who's Leuwenhock's nemesis and fellow magician; and et. al. I probably forgot a few people there, but you get the idea. This is the type of book where everyone has two or three names, like Lord of the Rings, only not as tolerable. And I was never able to get through Lord of the Rings, sooooooooo.

This is also the type of book where there's only one female character, and she's not really a character, more of a MacGuffin. Alllllllll the men in this story are after Alina/Dörtje/Gamaheh, for no reason I could see because she's a total bitch.  But she is beautiful, so I suppose that's all that matters.

There are some fun scenes in Master Flea, like when Master Flea gives Peregrin a glass that lets him see what people are *really* thinking when they talk to him (the glass, incidentally, is a small concave disk that fits over his eye, and to take it out he leans over and blinks very wide and it pops out and back into its box–so, ETA Hoffmann basically invented contact lenses). Naturally, whatever they're thinking is the exact opposite of what they're saying. But this went on for way too long and there was way too much of it.

The book also bounced around a lot and there was a ton of information about other fairies and mythical creatures, most of which I not only didn't care about but was annoyed with, considering keeping the thrice-named circus of the regular characters straight was exhausting enough.

Finally, I found the conclusion to be extremely irritating.

Master Flea a really weird book. Like, REALLY weird. It's over-the-top and all over the place. I probably wouldn't recommend this book to anyone, and I think I'm going to avoid ETA Hoffmann books in the future from now on. Sorry, ETA.






Download Master Flea by ETA Hoffmann at Project Gutenberg|Librivox

Review: Countess Vera, Or Oath of Vengeance by Mrs Alex McVeigh Miller

Original Publication Date: 1888

Genre: Dime Novel

Topics: Abandonment, secret marriage, bigamy, premature burial, REVENGE!








Review by : Chrisbookarama

Leslie Noble finds his wife of one day dead in her room. Dead! Unwilling to live with a man who does not love her, she committed suicide. Vera Campbell had agreed to marry him to escape her Cinderella-like life of servitude to her aunt Marcia Cleveland and cousin Ivy. After her father abandoned her and her mother, they had nowhere else to go and were dependent upon their ‘kindness.’ Seventeen years of heartbreak were too much for Mrs Campbell, with her last breath she begged Leslie to marry Vera. This was the result.

Shortly after her funeral, Vera’s father (now an Earl) has returned to claim his wife and child, who he mistakenly left to fend for themselves. Too late! Both are dead. But when he unearths his child to gaze upon her face one last time, he discovers that she isn’t dead at all. He whisks her off to England to make up for lost time.

Vera keeps the secret of her marriage to herself, vowing to never remarry. She of course falls in love with a wealthy American. Angst! Then it appears that her husband has died. Yay! But just when happiness is within her reach her father dies and commands her to make an Oath of Vengeance against her cruel aunt. REVENGE!

Chuck Norris approves of your Oath of Vengeance

I’ve never read a dime novel before, which is a shame because this one was fun! Dime novels were cheap entertainment for the masses in the late 1800s-early 1900s. They were a lucrative business at that time. Louisa May Alcott herself wrote a few to make ends meet. The plots were sensational and usually featured a young heroine in peril.

This heroine in peril is Vera Campbell. She doesn’t have much in the personality department, but she does have ‘dark flashing eyes’ and an Oath of Vengeance. Her Aunt Marcia is the worst. She is the most evil of aunts. She could rival Cinderella’s stepmother.

It's an Evil Off!

The writing is not great, and apparently neither was the editing. The transcriber has a list a mile long of spelling and grammar corrections. The plot is super soapy. It’s like Days of Our Lives but with an ending. It is bonkers with premature burials, bigamy, murder-plots, poisons, and kidnappings. I loved it.

Mrs Alex McVeigh Miller (not her real name) wrote at least 80 dime novels (12 found on Project Gutenberg). A look at the synopsises reveals that some are similar in plot. Reading them could get monotonous. So, I’ll proceed with caution and space them out.  Who can resist a title like The Fatal Birthday though?

If you can put up with third person past tense, cheesy dialogue and repetitive phrases (dark eyes everywhere), you’ll enjoy this potboiler.

Download Countess Vera, or The Oath of Vengeance by Mrs Alex McVeigh Miller at Project Gutenberg

Review: THE PASSENGER FROM CALAIS by Arthur Griffiths

Original Publication Date: 1906
 
Genre: Adventure
 
Topics: Rule of law, honor among thieves, travel, trains, love, motherhood, women























 
Review by heidenkind:

Lieut.-Colonel Basil Annesley, traveling to Lake Como for some R&R, hops aboard the train from Calais only to find that the train is completely empty of any other passengers, except for one small party consisting of a lady, her maid, and a baby. When he overhears the lady confessing to a theft, he decides she's bad news and that he's going to have nothing to do with her. After she tells him off for being a judgmental douche canoe, however, the Colonel abruptly realizes two things: 1. he IS being a douche canoe; and 2. he's totally in love with this woman and will do anything to help her, despite the fact that he still doesn't know who she is, what she stole, or why. Will the larcenous party be able to evade the private investigators on the lady's trail, and will the Colonel's feelings for her survive the trip?

I was so pleasantly surprised by The Passenger from Calais! It's a game of cat-and-mouse stretching across Europe in an extended chase that reminded me of Around the World in 80 Days–only better, because it includes several awesome female characters. There are fights, run-ins with the law, a slippery villain, double- and triple-crosses, and identity switches. The story takes an unexpectedly feminist turn in the middle, and I thought the ending was pitch-perfect despite an all-too-convenient death.

Even though the Colonel seems a bit dense at the beginning of The Passenger from Calais (his abrupt one-eighty in regards to the mysterious lady was enough to give me whiplash), as the book goes on he proves himself to be a clever and worthy adversary to the people chasing the woman. The story isn't only told from his viewpoint, however: we also hear parts of the story from Falfani and Tiler, the detectives, as well as the lady herself. The switching of viewpoints was confusing sometimes, especially listening to the book on audio, but that's my only real criticism of The Passenger.

The rest of this review is going to be spoilerific, so if you want to read The Passenger from Calais and still be surprised by some of the twists and turns, you may want to avert your eyes.



As for the mysterious woman on the train–whose name is Lady Claire Standish–I absolutely loved her. She's intelligent, capable, steady, and 100% principled even though she *did* steal something. The something that she stole is where the book takes that unexpectedly feminist turn I mentioned.

See, Lady Claire's sister, Henriette, married the vicious Lord Blackadder (cue Blackadder gifs), and several years later was just as unfairly divorced by him, resulting in a huge scandal. Naturally Blackadder got custody of their child, and made it known that he would never allow Henriette to see the little munchkin again. So, while her sister hied off to the Continent, Claire and her maid took her nephew from the house of Blackadder and planned to reunite mother and child in Italy.

So not only is the plot generated by the actions of two women, it centers around a woman's right to have access to her children as well as chose her own husband and maintain her own autonomy (Henriette was forced to marry Blackadder by her guardians, and the divorce hinged on rumors of infidelity sparked by her daring to socialize with men other than her husband). Not only that, but Annesley immediately and genuinely recognizes the women's plight as a just cause.

Blackadder is just as horrible as you can imagine. At one point he pulls the, "Do you know who I AM?!" card with a French official, which I think we can all recognize as a stupid move. The French judge's reaction to it, however, made the scene totally worth it.

And then there's Henriette. When we first meet her it's through the eyes of Colonel Annesley, and she's definitely a Difficult Woman. Completely unlike her sister, she is not cool, calm, and logical in the face of adversity. She's histrionic, temperamental, emotional, and refuses to listen to reason. Colonel Annesley thinks she's a harridan, actually, and when he's telling the story you can understand why Blackadder might have wanted to divorce her.

Lady Henriette is also very suspicious of men in general–understandable, all things considered, but not something I encounter a lot in older novels. Henriette and Claire are painfully aware of the power imbalance between men and women, and Henriette takes care to point it out (in the most annoying way possible, of course):

"Oh, how like a man! Of course you must have your own way, and every one else must give in to you," she cried with aggravating emphasis, giving me no credit for trying to choose the wisest course.

Why should she give you credit, dude? She don't know you. Lady Henriette is sick of doing what the goddamn patriarchy tells her to do. SICK OF IT.

What's interesting is that when Claire's telling the story, Henriette is still difficult and unreasonable, but much more sympathetic. And by the end Henriette redeems herself by taking the initiative to find the people who testified against her in the divorce trial and convince them to confess to the authorities they were bribed by Blackadder, which means everyone can to return to England.

Basically, Claire and Henriette each possess certain attributes of a classic femme fatale (that's certainly what I thought Claire would be when The Passenger from Calais started), but they're not the femme fatales–they're the heroines! Annesley really just provides a supporting role to their adventure.



Despite a few little too-convenient blips now and again, I really enjoyed The Passenger from Calais. I can imagine this book as movie directed by Wes Anderson, à la The Grand Budapest Hotel, and I loved that movie. I'd definitely recommend this novel!



Download The Passenger from Calais by Arthur Griffiths at Project Gutenberg|Librivox

Review: HER DARK INHERITANCE by Mrs. E. Burke Collins

Original Publication Date: 1892

Genre: dime novel

Topics: Love, secrets, beauty, economics, sins of the father, forgotten for a reason























Review by heidenkind:

On a dark and stormy night, Beatrix Dane is abandoned at the offices of Dr. Frederick Lynne, with a note promising an allowance for the doctor and his family if he raises the baby as his own. But when the money stops coming 17 years later, Beatrix faces resentment from her evil step-mom and -sister, as well as (even worse!) a horrible wardrobe. When a dashing cousin of Mrs. Lynne, Keith Kenyon, arrives on the scene, Beatrix is sure he's her prince charming. But Mrs. and Miss Lynne have other plans, especially after Dr. Lynne dies. Will Beatrix and Keith ever be together? And what was up with Beatrix's mom and dad?

Her Dark Inheritance is one of those books where being beautiful=good and unattractive=horrible person. Case in point: Beatrix is a shallow little bitch, yet I'm supposed to root for her because attractiveness. Mmmr, no. Keith also falls in love with her, seemingly just because she's beautiful. Meanwhile, Beatrix's "sister," Serena, is vilified largely because of her looks. Every single time she's mentioned in this book, the author takes care to point out that she's "ugly," "not very attractive," "ungraceful," and so on. Yet character-wise there doesn't seem to be much difference between Serena and Beatrix; at least Serena appears to be marginally more intelligent.

This would be bad enough, if I cared even a little bit about the characters or felt like the story had any connection to reality at all, but I didn't. I did like the beginning of Her Dark Inheritance, in a this-book-is-going-to-be-really-cheesy! sort of way, and I liked that it was clearly framed as a fairy tale (at one point early in the book, Beatrix thinks, "Oh, dear! I wish my fairy prince would come!"–literally, that is a direct quote–and a paragraph later Tall Dark and Handsome rides up on his trusty steed), but the story quickly descended into over-the-toppiness with a love triangle between Serena and Beatrix, and Beatrix going to live with some distant relative, who ALSO was involved in a love triangle in his youth and his now seeking revenge through Beatrix and Keith. It reminded me of Wuthering Heights in a way, although I gave marginally less fucks and thought it was way more stupid than Wuthering Heights, a challenge (not a fan of Wuthering Heights, incidentally).

And then there was the writing. Oh lordy lordy. Her Dark Inheritance is filled with long, tortured sentences that contain a whole lot of tell and not show. Another reason why it was impossible to connect to the characters on any level.

In the end, despite all the gossipy, juicy drama going on, I was really bored. If I had been reading the book I'd have skimmed to the very end; but since I was listening to it on audiobook I just DNF'd it.

But here's an interesting thing I discovered while I was trying to figure out when the heck Her Dark Inheritance was published: Mrs. E. Burke Collins was a very successful writer of dime novels for women. This was apparently a thing. A passage in a book I found on Google Books described her as, "one of the small band of women writers who earn more than $6,ooo a year." And says that, "Mrs Sharkey [Collins' legal name] is the only professional story writer in the far South and her salary is larger than that received by any other person in the state of Louisiana not even excepting its State officials."

Hard to believe. There were a bunch of other female dime novelists, too, of course. The American Women's Dime Novel Project contains some hip, retro covers from women's dime novels published between 1870 and 1934, but only a few links to where you can read them online and no discussion or critique of the books themselves, which is a bit disappointing.

There's also this article by Deidre A Johnson on Collins' short story, "Dare the Detective," and how it drew from her life experience.

Overall I get the impression Collins was following in the footsteps of Anna Katharine Green, only she wasn't as good of a writer. But I would be interested in exploring more dime novels from this time period, as long as they're not by Collins. Do you guys have any recommendations?


Download Her Dark Inheritance by Mrs. E. Burke Collins at Project Gutenberg|Librivox

Review: LAVENDER AND OLD LACE by Myrtle Reed

Original Publication Date: 1902

Genre: Romance

Topics: Love (obvs), spinsters, small town life, battle of the sexes

Proposed alternate title: The Women Who Waited            


















Review by heidenkind:

Ruth, a big city journalist, travels to a small coastal town to visit her long-lost Aunt Jane. When she gets there, however, she finds Aunt Jane has left abruptly for a trip abroad. The only thing she sends Ruth is a mysterious letter instructing her to light a candle in the attic every night. Because no story ever began with, "And then she minded her own business," Ruth starts poking around. Does Aunt Jane leave the candle in the window for a long-lost lover? Or does it have something to do with her aunt's BFF, Miss Ainslie, who super duper loves lavender?

Someone on Goodreads described Lavender and Old Lace as Anne of Green Gables grown up, and that's a pretty good description of the feel of the book. Everything is quaint and country; there's not a lot of conflict going on; and the obvious love interest is REALLY obvious. I'm not a huge fan of Anne of Green Gables (I watched the mini-series on PBS like everyone else but never had any desire whatsoever to read the books, which should tell you all you need to know there), but I found myself charmed by the story in Lavender and Old Lace anyway. Up until the final quarter of the book, that is.

The positives first: I really liked Ruth. I liked that she was prickly and standoffish and knew what she wanted. She kind of reminded me of Lady Mary from Downton Abbey, actually, if Lady Mary had grown up as an orphan in the US rather than as a British aristocrat.

I also liked Carl Winfield, even though his internal monologue was interminably annoying and I had to roll my eyes when he showed up because it was COMPLETELY OBVIOUS this was the guy Ruth was going to end up with. No sense of narrative tension or mystery at all. She's a journalist, he's a journalist. She's the only single female under forty who can read within a 20-mile radius, he's the only single male under forty who can read within a 20-mile radius. You get the picture. The saving grace was Ruth's prickliness matched against Winfield's earnest charm–they did have chemistry and I enjoyed their scenes together, which had plenty of snappy dialog.

So I was liking Lavender and Old Lace in a lackadaisical sort of way, up until Aunt Jane returned from her travels. That's when things started getting hairy for my inner feminist.

See, Ruth was right and Aunt Jane did have a long-lost lover, a sailor who proposed before leaving and promised to return and marry her. She believed him so much she bought a wedding dress and had it all fitted and everything! Thirty years later, he still hadn't shown up. Then right before Ruth's visit, what should Aunt Jane hear but that her beau was living, unmarried and unconcerned, in Italy. I'm sure we can all imagine her reaction.

Something like this, perhaps?

Instead of falling into a pity spiral, Aunt Jane hies off to Italy and drags the bastard back for her wedding. Go Aunt Jane!! But Myrtle Reed apparently doesn't think a woman who Gets Things Done and goes after what she wants is a good thing. Reed consistently presents Aunt Jane as a foolish, jealous, self-righteous, and ridiculous harridan, and her now-hubby as the poor hen-pecked man who has to put with her.

This would be bad enough, but Aunt Jane is noticeably contrasted against Miss Ainslie, whose story is almost exactly the same: she also fell in love with some loser sailor who promised to return from the sea and marry her. ("Oh Brandy! You're a fine girl! What a good wiiiife you would be. But my life, my love, my laaaaaaaady is the sea...") Three guesses as to how that turned out.

Miss Ainslie continues to wait and wait for decades, her love for Sailor Guy never wavering Then Carl–who has the same last name as Sailor Guy and looks almost exactly like him, coincidence?–shows up and it becomes rather obvious that while she was waiting ALONE in the ass-end of nowheresville, her childbearing years wasting away, Sailor Guy married someone else and had kids. The bastard couldn't even send a note. Unlike Aunt Jane, however, Miss Ainslie's reaction to this turn of events is to give up on life. Seriously, she's like, "Whelp! Might as well die now." And Reed glorifies this! Miss Ainslie is continually described as saintly and beautiful and angelic, a woman to look up to and emulate.

And don't get me started on the scenes between Miss Ainslie and Carl, which all things considered are extremely weird and awkward. Miss Ainslie's always asking about him, and wondering if he'd find it "indelicate" if she wore low-cut dresses, and making him sit in her room at night and hold her hand. It's all crowned by the final scene, which is like something from Eyeroll Incorporated. Reed tries to convince us Miss Ainslie's feelings toward Carl are purely maternal, but I was not getting a mother-son vibe from those two. Nope.

Basically, by the end of Lavender and Old Lace I was fairly annoyed and a bit creeped out. It's not a bad novel–if I was a young girl I might have even found it credibly romantic. But then I wouldn't really recommend a young girl read it either, so. There are a lot of better books about spinsters out there, in my experience.


PS–I think the person who wrote the Wikipedia page for Lavender and Old Lace is a fangrl/boi:

It tells the story of some remarkable women, each of whom has a unique experience with love. The book follows in Reed’s long history of inciting laughter and tears in her readers through provocative prose.

Yeahhhhhhhhh. Decline to comment.



Download Lavender and Old Lace by Myrtle Reed at Project Gutenberg|Librivox

Review: THE GHOST, A MODERN FANTASY by Arnold Bennett

Original Publication Date: 1907

Genre: Gothic

Topics: Love, opera, coming of age, ghosts















 
Review by heidenkind:

Newly minted doctor of medicine, Carl Foster, visits a long-lost cousin who just happens to be friends with the owner of an opera house. While Carl and his cousin and his cousin's wife are enjoying an opera starring two of the greatest opera singers in the world–Signor Alresca and Rosetta Rosa–the primo uomo, Alresca, suffers a mysterious accident on stage and Carl is called on to care for him. As Alresca recovers, it becomes apparent that his malady is tied somehow to Rosa. Will Carl be able to save Alresca–and himself, now that he's fallen in love with Rosa?

The Ghost is another random Librivox find. It's a bit like Phantom of the Opera Lite: it's not as fun and delicious with the drama, but it's in the same wheelhouse. As a pure entertainment read, it was enjoyable, although the ending with the "ghost" part was seriously anticlimactic.

Our narrator, Carl, is a tough character not to like. When the story starts he's not very confident and, as we're reminded frequently, very young. The latter's an important point because it's the excuse for every stupid thing he does during the course of the novel. He's not TSTL, but after awhile one does start to notice a pattern with these things. Even so, he's smart enough and not judgmental or egotistical. Plus, he doesn't go into freak out mode when confronted with the strange and unusual–a useful skill to have in this book.

Then there's the glamorous world of the opera, which Arnold Bennett uses to infuse the story with a sense of mystery and danger. Opera also provides a great excuse for Carl to travel all over Europe, from Bruges to Paris to London to Italy. I think the traveling around and opera scenes were my favorite part of the book.

As for the female characters, I found them well-drawn with their own motivations. Not that The Ghost would pass the Bechdel Test or anything, but there is more than one female character. Huzzah! Naturally the star of the show (both literally and figuratively) is Rosa, who OF COURSE is a gorgeous, misunderstood prima donna with a captivating voice. I actually didn't find her that annoying, but the woman is obviously Bad News. Trouble follows her around like the worst cold in the history of mankind. First Alresca tumbles off the stage, then there's his long-running illness, train accidents, boat accidents, poisonings, etc. Danger, danger Will Robinson.

I also thought Rosa falling in love with Carl was a little too convenient–I mean, I get why Carl, an opera fanboi, would fall for a beautiful opera singer with the voice of an angel, but what's the appeal for her? She's used to hanging out with international men of mystery, which Carl is definitely not. Their relationship was the most obvious deus ex machina in the book.

Aside from that, though, I was really enjoying The Ghost until the last couple of chapters, when the eponymous ghost finally came to the forefront of the story instead of just lurking in the background menacingly. I wanted–and expected–something super creepy and scary. I didn't get it. The ghost, its so-called powers, and the manner in which it was got rid of were really lame and predictable. The conversation at the very end between Carl and Rosa was just odd.

That being said, for the most part I did like The Ghost. I'm glad I read it, even though I'll probably never reread it. Definitely a book for people who enjoy pulpy, vaguely gothic, old-timey novels with a bit of romance.




Download The Ghost, A Modern Fantasy by Arnold Bennett at Project Gutenberg|Librivox

Review: CHIP OF THE FLYING U by BM Bower

Original Publication Date: 1906

Genre: western

Topics: Love, belonging, nature, art




















Review by heidenkind:

When Della Whittemore moves to her brother's Montana ranch, The Flying U, Chip and the rest of the hands aren't expecting much. Chip specifically predicts she'll either be a prissy “sweet young thing”, an annoying cowgirl, or an old maid who wants to drag him to church. But Della immediately surprises him and earns the respect of Chip and the other ranch hands with her quick wit and easy-going nature. Now all that's left is for Chip to man up and admit his feelings for her.

I tend to avoid westerns. I read one Louis L'Amour when I was a kid, and the only thing I remember about it is that it was distinctly unmemorable. There are hardly ever any women in westerns, either, and when they are in them they demonstrate an alarming tendency to be kidnapped by Indians. It's just not my thing. But when I asked for romance novel rec's in Melody's Public Domain Google Group, Chip of the Flying U came highly recommended and I decided to give it the barest briefest hint of a try, just in case it didn't suck. Well, it absolutely didn't–Chip of the Flying U grabbed me in the first chapter. It was so much fun that I slowed down reading it when I got near the end, to drag the story out as long as possible.

First of all, BM Bower is a really good writer. She's very much with the show-and-not-tell. For example, by the end of the first chapter we know The Flying U ranch hands have a deep appreciation of irony. Shorty's not short and Happy Jack is morose–something's that inferred through dialog, not exposition.

And speaking of the ranch hands, the real strength of Chip of the Flying U are the quirky western characters, like JG Whittemore's housekeeper, the Countess, who constantly speaks in aphorisms; the pretentious Dunk; and of course the "Little Doctor" herself, Della.

But my favorite character is Chip! He's so well-drawn and layered: a combination of smart, snarky, defensive, and sensitive that's absolutely irresistible. But most of all I loved the fact that he's clearly based off the famous painter, "the cowboy genius" Charles M. Russell. Let's do a quick comparison, shall we?

• Chip has no formal art training and has always enjoyed sketching. Ditto Charlie Russell.
• Chip's paintings are based on his life as a ranch hand in Montana. Charlie Russell's paintings were based on his life as a cowboy in Montana.
• The first painting by Chip that captures public acclaim is titled "The Last Stand," which shows, "A poor, half-starved range cow with her calf which the round-up had overlooked in the fall, stood at bay against a steep cut [snow]bank. Before them squatted five great, gaunt wolves intent upon fresh beef for their supper." The first work by Charlie Russell that captured public attention was "Waiting for a Chinook," which shows an emaciated cow in the snow surrounded by hungry wolves. In both cases, the painting was of something the artist saw himself.
• Chip's nickname before he came to The Flying U was Kid. Russell's nickname when he was a cowboy was Kid Russell.
• Chip signs his work with a "brand," or glyph, and his name. Russell famously signed his work with a buffalo head brand and either his initials or his name.
• Finally, it's Della who pushes Chip to show others his work and sell his paintings because she believes in his talent. Likewise, it was Russell's wife, Nancy, who pushed Russell to charge high prices for his work and managed his career. "[S]uccess came tapping at the [Russells’] door or, rather, Nancy dragged success in, hog-tied and branded," the Russells' nephew once said.

So that was fun! But even without those references, Chip of the Flying U was a really good read. It can be classified as a romance–and the relationship arc between Chip and Della is really well-done–but it's more of a coming of age story for both the main characters. Della grows into her role as a doctor and Chip discovers his true talent. In between, there are round-ups, western dances, ranch hijinks, and a horse named Silver is saved.

I definitely recommend Chip of the Flying U if you're in the mood for a fast, entertaining, and well-written read.




Download Chip of the Flying U by BM Bower at Project Gutenberg|Librivox

Review: THE BLACK MOTH by Georgette Heyer

Original Publication Date: 1921

Genre: Historical, adventure

Topics: Love, honor, betrayal, #eighteenthcenturyaristocratproblems

















 
Review by heidenkind:


Several years ago, Jack Carstares took the blame when his brother, Richard, cheated at cards. Now Richard manages the family estates and Jack, exiled in shame from society, roams the roads of England as the most bespoke and gentlemanly highwayman in the land. What earthly force could possibly make Jack leave behind his life of adventure, admit his brother was the actual cheater, and return to the fold? Love of course!

The Black Moth was Georgette Heyer's first novel, and is the only one of her books in the public domain. It's also the first Heyer novel I've managed to read (I tried one or two, but I have to admit my heart wasn't in it and I returned them to the library unfinished), and I was shocked at how much I enjoyed it. I was expecting it to be a rather dull romance novel, but it's not—it's an adventure that is SUPER DRAMATIC.

Heyer wrote The Black Moth to entertain her brother during a long illness, and if his taste in books was anything like mine is, she definitely succeeded. The Black Moth has EVERYTHING: kidnapping, highwaymen, cheating, a villain you love to hate because he's the only character with a sense of humor, secret earls, a shrieking harpy of a wife, heiresses, star-crossed lovers, duels, sword fights, fashion, a put-upon manservant/sidekick, love affairs... I could go on. Is it crazy over-the-top? YES. Does it go too far at times? YES. Do I think it's Heyer's best work? I certainly hope not. BUT—did I enjoy the hell out of it? YUP.

My favorite character by far was Tracy Belmanoir, the eponymous "black moth" and brother-in-law to Richard Carstares. It was Tracy who discovered Richard cheating at cards, and he's been using that knowledge to coerce Richard into all sorts of things ever since. It's also Tracy who drives the action through much of the book. He's a boss! He gets all the best lines and mopey Richard hates him so much it's hard not to be fond of the guy.

The way women are presented in The Black Moth is also pretty refreshing. You've got Lavinia, Richard's wife, who's a nitwit and constantly talks in exclamation marks. It's! Very! Annoying! But you also have several women characters who are powerful and smart and get things done, like Lady O'Hara, who's very sexually aggressive and awesome. Diana Beauleigh is the damsel in distress, but she's also willing to press the issue of Jack's affections. Her aunt, Elizabeth, is a super-smart older lady who could give Miss Marple a run for her money.

Is The Black Moth a perfect book? Hells no. But if you can enjoy it for what it is—a fun, silly historical romp—you'll get a kick out of it.

Download The Black Moth by Georgette Heyer at Project Gutenberg|Librivox|University of Pennsylvania Library

Review: THE DOCTOR'S WIFE by ME Braddon

Original Publication Date: 1864

Genre: Sensation, kinda.

Topics: books, temptation, good vs. evil, society, love, marriage


















Review by heidenkind:

Isabel Sleaford is an usual young girl who reads copious amounts of sentimental poetry and fiction, and rarely cares to venture into society. It is this very quality—and also the fact that she's really pretty—that attracts the attention of George Gilbert, a lower-middle-class country doctor who proposes marriage after he discovers Isabel's father is dead and she's been forced to take up employment as a governess. Isabel doesn't exactly say yes, more like, "Mmm, that doesn't sound too bad." But then she marries George AND IT IS THAT BAD, IT TOTALLY IS. Bored out of her mind, Isabel escapes even deeper into the world of books. Her favorite book of all the times is an obscure collection of (objectively bad) verses titled The Alien, which she thinks are just soooooooooooooooo romantic. I bet you can guess what happens when Isabel meets the author of The Alien, Roland Landsdell, who just happens to be young, brooding, dark, handsome, and exceedingly rich.

It's something like this.

I loved every trashy, soap opera-y minute of Lady Audley's Secret, so I thought The Doctor's Wife would probably offer the same entertainment value. Boy, was I wrong.

The Doctor's Wife is a much different novel from Lady Audley's Secret. It has all the elements of a sensation novel—adultery, criminals, curses, back-stabbing bitches—but they feel like a minor part. Overall, The Doctor's Wife is much more self-consciously literary than one would expect from a sensation novel. According to all the synopses I've read online, this is Mary Elizabeth Braddon's response to Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary. Perhaps if I'd read Madame Bovary I would appreciate it more, but I haven't and have no intention of doing so in the foreseeable future.

Even aside from The Doctor's Wife literary inspiration, there's a lot of book talk going on in the novel. Isabel an insatiable reader, her and George's mutual friend, Sigismund Smith, writes penny dreadfuls; and Roland is of course a writer. The characters talk and think about books a lot, how books should be and what their ideal book is. Braddon takes pains to show us how the books Isabel reads affect her view of the world, what she expects from life and how she interprets people's actions—if she ever takes a moment from her reading to notice other people, that is.

I actually liked that part of The Doctor's Wife. The novel is also a lot more cynical than Lady Audley's Secret. There are no good guys or bad guys, love doesn't conquer all, and there's no such thing as happily ever after. This is not a romantic novel, either in the literary or genre sense.

I kind of liked that part of The Doctor's Wife, too. As for the characters, Isabel would probably annoy some people, but personally I found her likable and extremely sympathetic. Partly because Braddon spends a considerable amount of time and energy making her so, but also because I recognized a lot of Teenage Me in Isabel, too.

So with all these points in the book's favor, why did I not enjoy The Doctor's Wife that much? First of all, it is WAY too drawn-out for what it is. It is a long walk getting to anyfreakingthing in this novel. For example, we know pretty early on that there's a secret about Isabel's father that she's trying hide (that's the plot, basically), but Braddon kind of forgets all about it until the very very end, when it's employed as a deus-ex-machina to get Roland out of the picture. In the meantime, Braddon's concerned with explaining Isabel's woeful life to us, but here's the thing: I might like and sympathize with Isabel, but she's not terribly interesting. I don't need to spend THAT much time with her to get a good picture of her psychological makeup, you feel me? Even the death scenes were dragged out to the inth degree. Where's the homicidal Lady Audley when you need her??

Just die already, dude.

As for the whole adultery thing, MOST BORING LITERARY LOVE AFFAIR EVER. Like I get that love really isn't the point of this whole exercise, but I would think some sort of emotional resonance or stakes would only help make Braddon's point, not to mention keep me as a reader engaged. Instead, George was a saint and I hated the oblivious bastard, so I didn't care about Isabel betraying him at all. But I also didn't feel like Isabel loved Roland in any substantial way. She loved what he stood for and his lifestyle, but as far as wanting him sexually or even as a friend, no (and speaking of sex, I have my doubts George ever went there. He seems like the type of Victorian guy who would marry a girl and then neglect to mention the whole sex thing because he'd see it as indelicate). Likewise, Roland seemed to "love" Isabel only because she thought he was a literary genius and because she was pretty. Sigh and yawn.

I didn't hate The Doctor's Wife, but it was a bit of a haul with not much of a payoff. If you want to jump into the Victorian sensation genre, I'd recommend starting with Lady Audley's Secret or Wilkie Collins' The Moonstone, instead.



Download The Doctor's Wife by ME Braddon at Project Gutenberg|Librivox|Girlebooks

Review: Fraulein Schmidt and Mr. Anstruther - Elizabeth von Arnim

Original Publication Date: 1907

Genre: Literature, Germany, England 

Topics: Gender roles, friendship, epistolary, feminist

Review by: Liz Inskip-Paulk from Just One More Page.

Being an ongoing fan of Elizabeth von Arnim’s writing, I had read quite a few reviews of this epistolary novel on-line, and thought it’d be a fun read. It was – it was also quite a bit more serious overall than I had been expecting, but that’s not a criticism at all. Now, having completed it, my overall opinion of this novel was that it was a perfect balance of emotions and a very real consideration of how relationships can evolve over time, whether you want them to or not. (Plus – there are occasional sharp instances of wit sprinkled throughout the book.)

As mentioned, this is an epistolary novel but only from one perspective. It’s a collection of letters from the forthright Rose-Marie Schmidt, a young German woman with whose family Roger Anstruther, a fairly well-off English young man stays as he completes language lessons from Rose-Marie’s grumpy father. Rose-Marie’s mother, now dead, has been English and so in many ways, Rose-Marie considers herself English. (She’s a little too emotionally honest to be a true English person though. ) J

I know no mood of Nature's that I do not love—or think I do when it is over—but for keenness of feeling, for stinging pleasure, for overflowing life, give me a winter's day with the first snow, a clear sky, and the thermometer ten degrees Réaumur below zero.

Just before Roger leaves their house to return to England, the reader learns that the pair had confessed their love for each other, but due to class differences et al., they had sworn to keep their love secret until Roger has told his father. The structure used by von Arnim to only show the letters of Rose-Marie to Roger (and not his replies) works extremely well as you, as the reader, become much more aware of how one-sided the relationship is at times. Rose-Marie is a literate and eloquent writer, who has  been raised in a small town in Germany to be honest and plain-spoken. Her mother has died, her father is a grumpy SOB and together, they have a good-natured housekeeper with a boyfriend who is a keen (but poor) trumpet player. (One of the strands of the plot reveals that the family ends up having to ask the boyfriend to leave the trumpet at home when he visits his girlfriend, the maid. The trumpet playing had turned into a very loud reflection of how their romance was going, and when it was going downhill, it got very noisy!)

Just like the protagonist of “Elizabeth and her German Garden” (1898) and the women in “Enchanted April” (1922),  Rose-Marie is witty and clever academically (although with little chance for continuing education apart from books). Although she is portrayed as something of a rural outsider, she is emotionally intelligent, much more so than Roger, and it is she who really holds the reins of their friendship right from the beginning (once the blossom of young love has faded). She is a few years older than Roger, and once their engagement fades, she takes on the mantle of being an older sister type for him, telling him details of village life and proffering him advice about life. (As we are not privy to Roger’s perspective, we don’t know how he receives this, but the correspondence continues so it must have been acceptable.)

Papa was delighted, I must say, to have had at last, as he told me with disconcerting warmth, at last after all these months an intelligent conversation… (when Mr. Anstruther pays surprise visit to house in Jena).

Rose-Marie is not the traditional wilting heroine of the literary world. She is independent, she designs her own life in her own way (only limited by money, really), and she has a caustic wit which surfaces frequently throughout the novel. I really admired her no-nonsense approach to the impractical Roger and his roller-coaster emotions, and so when I came to the end of the book, the ending was perfect for how the story and the characters had been built. I turned the last page and sighed with satisfaction. That good.

Just loved this one.

Download Fraulein Schmidt and Mr. Anstruther by Elizabeth von Arnim at Project Gutenberg|Girlebooks

Review: THE GREAT SECRET by E. Phillips Oppenheim

Original Publication Date: 1908

Genre: spy/thriller

Topics: honor, love, secrets (obvs), resurrection, Germanic horde



















Review by heidenkind:

Hardross Courage is a professional cricket player. His name is LITERALLY courage (this would be more amusing if his personality was the opposite of that, but no). When playing a cricket match in London, Courage checks into the worst hotel ever, where he meets a man named Guest. HIS NAME IS LITERALLY GUEST. You following me here? It turns out Guest is dying, and there are a bunch of nasties who want to force him to tell them some sort of secret before he kicks off. When a beautiful American woman with an annoying dog convinces Courage to help Guest by letting him spend his final days at Courage's country estate, Hardross can't say no, even though he has a sneaking suspicion he's about to become embroiled in a very sticky situation.

The Great Secret is not to be confused with The Great Impersonation, also by E. Phillips Oppenheim. The man apparently really liked the word great! I thought The Great Secret a much better book than The Great Impersonation, which is crazy because I enjoyed the hell out of The Great Impersonation. Despite the annoying Courage/Guest naming, The Great Secret had a more complex plot than The Great Impersonation, well-rounded characters, and went in a direction I totally wasn't expecting.

My favorite part of The Great Secret was about halfway through the book. I really want to talk about it, but since it's pretty far into the novel, it's a little spoilery. So avert your eyes if you don't want to know...

Still there? Okay, so after Guest dies, Hardross decides to go to America to investigate. It just so happens the woman from the hotel, Adèle, is heading back to America on the same boat! And her matchmaking auntie immediately likes Courage because he's related to a bunch of muckity-muck aristocrats and pretty rich. So he's invited into their circle and discovers that one of Adèle's suitors, M. de Valentin, claims he's the rightful King of France and wants all these wealthy Americans to fund his return to the throne. And no one says, "But isn't France a republic now?" Because 'Merica. In return, de Valentin promises to turn all the wealthy Americans into dukes and duchesses and earls and stuff. They're eating this stuff up with their silver-plated spoons and Hardross is all like:

But politely, because he has the hots for Adèle and doesn't want to tell her her friends and relatives are cucking frazy. And somehow it all leads back to an evil German plot, so there ya go!

Speaking of Adèle, she's 100x better than Rosamund, the love interest in The Great Impersonation. She's like something out of an Edward Gorey illustration—very dark and unapproachable and mysterious. I'm a sucker for Edward Gorey, so I immediately liked her. But it was when she told Hardross that she'd never been in love, never wanted to be, and that his blandishments were annoying her that I decided she was awesome. Of course, she changes her mind about Hardross inexplicably just so he can pine after her once he returns to England to save Europe from the Germanic horde; but at least at no point in the story does Hardross describe her as childlike.

I also really liked Hardross, despite his stupid last name. He's not exactly the sharpest, but he is likable and has a heart of gold.

The extremely meandery plot of The Great Secret started to lose me in the last third of the novel, and the ending is really abrupt, but overall this is a pretty damn entertaining thriller novel. My goal now is to read every Oppenheim book with the word "great" in the title.

Download The Great Secret by E. Phillips Oppenheim at Project Gutenberg|Librivox

Review: Lady Into Fox by David Garnett

Original Publication Date: 1922

Genre: Fantasy, Folklore

Topics: metamorphism, foxes, animals, love, marriage, loyalty

Review by Chrisbookarama :

Lady Into Fox by David Garnett is a weird little story. When I heard the premise, a lady turns into a fox, I thought that it was just bonkers enough to be worth reading. I thought there would be humourous shenanigans, but what I got from it was so much more.

David Garnett presents the story as a true story, one that he heard from the witnesses of the event.

Newlyweds Richard and Sylvia Tebrick are out for a walk in the woods one day, when Sylvia suddenly turns into a fox, instantly, like one second she's a woman and then BAM! She's a fox. There is no explanation for her change. It just is. The author says there was nothing to indicate that Sylvia would become a fox, although her hair is reddish and her maiden name is Fox. Be careful Jamie Foxx, this could happen to you!

Richard sneaks his foxy wife back into his home. He doesn't want anyone to know about Sylvia's change so he fires the servants and shoots his dogs (luckily he doesn't shoot the servants). At first, Sylvia continues to act like a lady, wanting to be fully clothed and eat at the dining room table, but over time her animal instincts take over and she becomes a fox completely.

Although Sylvia goes through this dramatic metamorphosis, it was Richard's change that affected me most. Of course at first, he's shocked and confused by it. He tries very hard to keep Sylvia from giving into her new animal personality. At times he even scolds her, but eventually he comes to accept what she is becoming. When Sylvia wants to be free, he lets her go, though it breaks his heart and he fears what may happen to her.

Now in cold blood he began to reflect on what he had done and to repent bitterly having set his wife free. He had betrayed her so that now, from his act, she must lead the life of a wild fox for ever, and must undergo all the rigours and hardships of the climate, and all the hazards of a hunted creature.

Richard becomes a misanthrope, he shuns the company of all humans. He only wants his fox-wife to come back to him. In the beginning, he waited for her to return to her human form, but later he doesn't even think of her as the woman she was, he accepts and loves her as she is.

No, all that he grieved for now was his departed vixen. He was haunted all this time not by the memory of a sweet and gentle woman, but by the recollection of an animal; a beast it is true that could sit at table and play piquet when it would, but for all that nothing really but a wild beast.

Richard himself becomes more and more animal-like. He lets his beard grow, becomes filthy, neglects the housekeeping, and spends much of the time in the woods.

All this disorder fed a malignant pleasure in him. For by now he had come to hate his fellow men and was embittered against all human decencies and decorum. 

Richard stays true to his wife, even though the neighbours think he's lost his marbles. They all believe she ran off with someone. One thing I found strange was that even though they think he's crazy, no one considers that maybe he murdered his wife and that's why she disappeared. No one calls the magistrate! I mean, that's the first thing I would think of doing.

Lady Into Fox is actually a beautiful story of love and accepting the people you love as they are. Garnett does a fantastic job of placing the reader into the mind of Richard. All his pain and anguish is real even though the idea of a woman turning into a fox is ridiculous. It seems perfectly acceptable that a man should love a fox. The only problem I had with the novella was the abrupt ending, though I think that is the standard for these kind of stories at the time.



Download Lady Into Fox by David Garnett at Project Gutenberg|Librivox|

Note: I recommend downloading the epub with images. The woodcut illustrations, by Garnett's first wife Rachel Alice, are charming and added so much to my enjoyment of the book.

Review: I'VE COME TO STAY: A LOVE COMEDY OF BOHEMIA by Mary Heaton Vorse

Original Publication Date: 1918

Genre: romantic comedy

Topics: love, free will, battle of the sexes






















Review by heidenkind:

Ambrose is a writer living in Greenwich Village, right on the edge of Washington Square. Despite the fact that he rarely has two pennies to scrape together, he has a fine wardrobe, wonderful friends, and only writes when he feels like it. Ambrose is living the dream, in other words. But when he adopts an orphan named Sonya (or is it the other way around?), Ambrose can sense his glorious life slipping away into one of conventionality and obligation. Will Ambrose be able to hold on to the life he wants while still doing the right thing?

Books like I've Come To Stay are the entire reason I started this blog. This novel is totally obscure and completely delightful, and I can't wait to tell everyone about it! In tone it reminded me of Gigi, or perhaps a 1910s American version of Notting Hill. In other words, I loved the hell out of it.

I've Come To Stay is a unique take on the romantic comedy. First of all, the people that populate it are fun and quirky, as one would expect from a book set in Greenwich Village. I'm a total sucker for stories that capture avant-garde communities and time periods like this, and I've Come To Stay does it perfectly. It's filled with people who've deliberately rejected the idea of being conventional and decided to become dancers, artists, writers, fashion designers, and political dissidents. They're not necessarily ambitious—Ambrose certainly isn't—except when it comes to freedom and self-expression. For instance, Sonya, the orphan who decides Ambrose is going to adopt her, was raised by her grandfather:

...to express her individuality fully. If she feels like catching a ride on a hearse, she does it. Instead of the Bible she has had Nietzsche; instead of the catechism, Max Stimer; instead of geography she was from the cradle taught to dance by a fat, old Italian ballerina...

Another example is Camilla, the woman Ambrose is sweet on. She longs to escape her "horrible blue-serge youth" in the country, and accordingly has no interest in settling down, getting married, or being a mother, especially to Sonya. Will Ambrose be able to convince her that marrying him doesn't mean becoming a boring and conventional hausfrau?

There's a theme of obligation and responsibility running through I've Come To Stay that intersects with a subtly played out battle of the sexes. As Ambrose's Aunt Adelaide tells him, "It's that awful maternal instinct run rampant." Adelaide's theory is that women make men miserable by treating their husbands and boyfriends like children. But men do the same thing to women, as Camilla discovers when she's caught in her own web of obligation.

I wouldn't call I've Come To Stay a strict romance—most of the scenes and storylines have to do with Sonya messing up Ambrose's life, not the relationship between him and Camilla—but it is SO, SO FUNNY. The dialog between Ambrose and Camilla is sharp and clever, and Ambrose himself is droll and completely charming. His interactions with Sonya are also pretty amusing, since she's an insane, tiny drill sergeant ("When I'm one minute late to school I feel as if I had wasted my whole life") who's constantly trying to get him to toe the line.

When I got close to the end of I've Come To Stay, I honestly wasn't sure if Camilla and Ambrose would end up together, and I was more than a little worried they'd both settle down and decide to "grow up" or become normal. This novel could have gone in so many different directions, but the conclusion Mary Heaton Vorse writes is absolutely perfect and delightful.

If you like comedies, romantic or otherwise, I really hope you'll give I've Come To Stay a try. I loved it and predict it will be one of my favorite books of the year. I want to read all of Vorse's other books now!




Download I've Come To Stay: A Love Comedy of Bohemia by Mary Heaton Vorse at Archive.org|Librivox

Review: THE GREAT IMPERSONATION by E. Phillips Oppenheim

Original Publication Date: 1920

Genre: Mystery

Topics: Espionage, Germanic horde, WWI, love, civilization vs savagery





 













Review by heidenkind:

Sir Everard Dominey, living in self-exile in Africa, wakes up after a night of drinking too much whiskey to find himself the guest of Leopold von Ragastein, his doppelganger. The two have many similarities beside their appearance: they both have a natural gift for languages, and Ragastein is also in exile after killing his mistress' husband in a duel. The only major difference between them is that Ragastein is German and therefore EVIL. After spending the night prying into the life of Everard Dominey, Ragastein and his friend, Dr. Schmidt, send Dominey out into the African desert with no water and nothing but extremely salty food, never to be heard from again. Then, taking on the identity of his double, Ragastein goes to England, where he, impersonating Everard Dominey, is in the perfect position to be the greatest and most insidious German spy of all time. But will he have the heart to do what the Kaiser asks of him? And is Everard Dominey really dead?

I decided to read The Great Impersonation after I "overheard" Melody from Redeeming Qualities and Evangeline from Edwardian Promenade talking about it on Twitter. I'm so glad I did! The Great Impersonation is an absolutely great story, good enough for me to overlook the constant references to Rosamund Dominey, Everard's homicidally insane wife, as "childlike" (yes, his wife is insane and homicidal, YET CHILDLIKE. You're hooked now, aren't you?).

As soon as "Dominey" returns to England, the reader is sure two things are going to happen: Leopold's going to fall in love with Dominey's wife, and the real Everard Dominey is going to show up and spoil everything. Of course, this should be something the reader wants to happen, since Leopold is GERMAN and therefore EVIL. But in actuality, Leopold is kind of upstanding and honorable, and—now that he's in England—demonstrates some divided loyalties between England and Germany. It's almost enough to make one think The Great Impersonation might be the only book in all of 20th century English literature where there's a good German character. Almost.

I also liked how The Great Impersonation is a cross between several genres. Yes, you have the whole spy/WWI plot; but it could also arguably be classified as a gothic mystery, what with the ominous Dominey homestead (filled with secret passages, hauntings, superstitious locals, and an adjacent cursed forest, OF COURSE) and the disappearance of Roger Unthank; as well as a coming of age tale.

Basically, if you're looking for an entertaining, fast-paced novel with mystery, romance, and twists, you can't go wrong with The Great Impersonation. I'll definitely be reading more of E. Phillips Oppenheim's work in the future!




Download The Great Impersonation by E. Phillips Oppenheim at Project Gutenberg|Librivox