Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watkins

Google the title of this book and you’re hard pressed to come up with any results but the film from 2008 staring Frances McDormand and Amy Adams. There was, however, a book before the film and although I haven’t actually seen the film (but will asap), I’m willing to bet the book is better.

What a fun book. Seriously, I don’t know why it isn’t more widely read. You can find it on Amazon (but nothing else by Winifred Watkins) and I’m sure there are libraries which carry it, but I’ve never run across it before. It should be taught in schools to give younger children a way into literature, because it’s really just fun.

Miss Pettigrew is a vicar’s daughter who grew up prim, proper and prudish. Now, at 40, she has no qualifications to speak of and no one to take care of her. Hitherto, she has supported herself as a governess of questionable abilities, but is finding it more and more difficult to obtain a post as she ages. She has one last chance to gain employment before she is kicked out of her rooms and lands on the streets of London. Scared to death of the future, she knocks on the door of the only suitable position available and finds herself transported into a completely unknown world. By combining her upbringing with her ability to imitate her former employers, she manages to find her way in this new setting with amazing, and sometimes unintentional, alacrity. The situation challenges Miss Pettigrew to throw off her strict, Victorian upbringing and enjoy life for a day before the opportunity is revoked forever. The results are laugh out loud funny. It’s the ultimate underdog story in which you can’t help but root and be thrilled for the unlikely heroine while laughing at her exploits.

Why, oh why couldn’t we have skipped something else (The Great Gatsby springs to mind) and read this in school? Why didn’t they let Winifred write more like it? It’s brilliant. Loved it. Would have loved it as a teenager too. There are enough themes to discuss for a good few classes, so it’s not entirely frivolous, although it feels like it. It’s a book that makes you want to read more of the same. If you’re looking for a book to get you motivated to read classics, this is it. It’s a comedy, a drama and a love story all rolled into one. 5 out of 5 for this one.

The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy

I broke a promise to myself with this book. I had sworn I wouldn’t read any more Hardy because he’s depressing and has a fairly narrow-minded view of life. Granted, he lived during the latter half of the 18th century when people were more religious so he probably didn’t really fall out of the ranks, but I got a little tired of being preached at by him. So, why, you ask did I read this one? Well, it was all down to the narrator, Alan Rickman. I could listen to the man read me the phone book.

Do I regret it? No, for two reasons. The first is that I got to listen to Alan Rickman speak into my ear for something like 14 hours, always a plus, the second is that the story was quite good and a lot less of a moral diatribe than his others have been. OK, the characters are still hung up on what would seem right and proper, but it felt more like a story told in the set time than a Bildungsroman. The characters who suffered did so through their own stupidity and not because they were being punished for being amoral.

The book revolves around 4 young people. Clym Yeobright, his cousin Thomasin, Eustacia Vye and Damon Wildeve. Thomasin Yeobright is “jilted” at the alter by Damon Wildeve because of a technical problem with the licence. Damon, who is actually in love with Eustacia, with whom he had a love affair the year before, isn’t overly keen on marrying Thomasin and leaves her in a state of limbo for several weeks while he tries to persuade Eustacia to run away to America with him. Thomasin, in the meantime, realizes that her relationship with Wildeve was a mistake, but that she has no honourable way of reneging on the marriage without besmirching her name and sanguinely maintains she must now go through with it and make the best of the situation. Enter Clym who returns from Paris where he had a successful business, which he has given up in preference for a scheme to educate the heath folk’s children. His arrival on the Heath changes everything for all parties as decisions are made which affect the whole community.

According to Wiki, Hardy shocked Victorian England with his more or less open references to illicit sex. He also bowed to the public by adding on a happier ending than he originally intended to. Personally, had he stuck to his usual doom and gloom, I think this novel would never have become as popular as it did.

Hardy had actually wanted to become a poet and not a writer, but his prose was better than his poetry and the man had to make a living, ergo his novels. There were love scenes in this book which made it abundantly clear, or at least strongly hint at, why he never really succeeded as a poet. If his poetry was anything like his novels, the love scenes were sickly sweet to the point of being an emetic (even with, or perhaps because of, Alan Rickman reading them), but then tempered with a good dose of morality. It felt a bit like saying Love is Sweet and Wonderful, but only if conducted in a properly monitored setting with appropriate chaperones and in full light of day.

Finally, having said that I don’t like Hardy’s preachy style, you could actually look at his books, not as a lesson in morals, but as a lesson in not fixating on the acceptable. The morals of the time dictated that Thomasin must marry Wildeve to save face, but had she bucked the trend, a lot of trouble and heartache would have been saved. So in a sense, his books could be looked on as a plea for common sense mingled with morals, even if that’s not what he intended.

All in all, I liked this one and would read it, or listen to it again. If you’re looking for an introduction to Hardy, try this one. It is the best I’ve read by him by far. For the record, Tess of the D’Urbervilles was good, but terribly depressing.

A Christmas Carol

This is actually a repeat of my post for last year. I can't really think of anything to add to it (well, I could, but it would probably really start to bore people because I tend to get a little excited about the book), or change, so I'm just re-posting. Bit of a cheat really, but at least I'm owning it.

What can I say? It’s one of my all-time favourite books and I read it every year at Christmas time. It’s a little on the kitschy side with Scrooge’s utter reversal of characters, but it’s cheery and Christmassy and it’s nice to think that there was a happy ending for all. I found out just this year that this work was responsible for a Christmas revival in England. Apparently many Christmas traditions had been dying out and the season was becoming a rather dreary one, but Scrooge helped turn it around and make Christmas a festive season again. It’s fantastic that one book, one written to pay off debts no less, is responsible for doing so much.

One aspect I like about the story is that it shows not only what Scrooge has become, but what he once was as well. When introduced to people and characters with negative attitudes or mean dispositions, we often assume this is the way they have always been. It’s like imagining that your mother was once young and careless, which seems so impossible when she’s become the complete opposite in the meantime. Scrooge was once a happy person who knew how to laugh and celebrate. He became, or let himself become, what he was as a result of his experiences and disappointments in life and not because he was born dour and mean. It’s a warning to us all not to let ourselves become our own enemies. Fred has it right when he says that Scrooge is the one suffering for all his misery and not the people around him. Looked upon in that light, Scrooge could be considered to be damned twice over, once in life and once after death.

Of course, you could argue that had Scrooge never known what it was like to be happy and make others happy, his “cure” would never have worked. It was all more of a revival of his old self than the creation of a new man. Again, this ties in with the revival of the Christmas spirit in the time. It was once and just needed to be revived.

Finally, I think this book must say quite a bit about its author. Dickens was apparently quite an odd man and possibly not as moral as he should have been, but he must have been an intrinsically good, compassionate human being to have been able to write a book out of which so much good came.

An easy and enjoyable read for all ages. Love it.

The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pile

Robin Hood is one of those “historical” characters who have managed to fascinate us to the point where multiple movies and television shows have been quite successful over the years. Everyone loves a good tale about Robin Hood. Since he really isn’t an historical figure in the sense that Merlin and Author aren’t really real, I began to wonder where all the tales came from. After all, Kevin Costner’s and Disney’s versions are quite different, so which is closest to the original? I’m not actually sure I have an answer to either after having read this book, but at least I know on what the characters and stories are based.

According to Wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Merry_Adventures_of_Robin_Hood), Pyle took the narrated stories and put them into a coherent tale (published 1883) which later became the basis for most of the Robin Hood material which has since reached the market. Indeed, as you read along, all of the usual characters make their appearance although not necessarily as you would expect them to.

The book is made up of many different short stories which tell how Robin became Robin Hood, why he is an outlaw, who the other characters are and why they joined him, plus recounts how Robin caused much gnashing of teeth and raising of bounties. If I had read this as a child, I probably would have been thoroughly enchanted with it, especially as I was quite the tom-boy. I can’t imagine any little boy who wouldn’t want to read it. It’s the typical swashbuckling good guy wins over bad guy story which I could imagine inspiring us to many a play adventure as kids – right up there with Peter Pan and his lost boys. Having read it as an adult, I was less enchanted with it, but it was good to read it anyway. Finally I know where it all came from and can see the connections between many of the stories. It was interesting from that standpoint in any case.

Can I recommend it? I can’t really answer that outright. If you’re a child, or interested in origins, or are young at heart and like children’s stories, yes. If you don’t care for swashbucklers in any way shape or form, then spare yourself.

Howard’s End by E.M. Forster

Set at the beginning of the 20th century, this novel revolves around the lives of the Miss Schlegels and the Wilcoxes. The Schlegels are a wealthy, although not exceedingly, but rather arty family who disregard many social prejudices and views of the upper classes. The Wilcoxes definitely belong to the upper class with all the trim and trappings, including the attitude of superiority over the rest of society. In rank, the families are much the same and therefore come into contact with one another frequently. There is also a mutual attraction among some of the family members which keeps the acquaintanceship going. However, their views being so different from one another often leads to much discussion and disagreement, especially with the elder son, Charles, who is most definitely a world class snob.

Enter in the Basts who are from the lower middle class and who struggle for a living. The Schlegels, with their liberal views, desire to help them, while the Wilcox’s would prefer them to just disappear. They feel that the existence and well being of someone on such a low rung the social ladder is of no consequence to them and therefore don’t bother much, even when their advice to the young clerk turns out to be quite disastrous. They feel no responsibility for having steered them in the wrong direction and leave them to get on as best they can. The Schlegels, on the other hand, feel so responsible that they are almost desperate to help them, whether the Basts want their help or not.

This is a book about extremes in social life. The Wilcoxes on the one end and the Basts on the other. The Schlegels are in the middle and feel the need to try and bridge the gap between the two. Unfortunately, they are a little naïve as to the ways of the world and neither realize how ill-used they are by the Wilcoxes nor how their attempts are doomed to damage the Basts.

Sadly I can’t remember who it was who reviewed this and mentioned that they didn’t care for it, but whoever it was, you were right. I had been looking forward to reading this, but was quite disappointed in the end. While the premises were good, the events taking place all seemed a bit contrived, almost like a Wooster and Jeeves adventure. It’s as if Forster said, “I want to obtain this” and then fit his story around his goals instead of writing the story as it came. As a medium for discussion about social ills, it serves its purpose, but I think the story itself got in the way of this becoming a truly great book. A little less P.G. Wodehouse would have served it better.

A Christmas Carol and Other Stories

Again another work by Dickens. I’ve already reviewed A Christmas Carol, so I won’t go into it again. The other novels were interesting in their own way, but much less Christmassy. The lacked a certain something, but I can’t really pin point what. Scrooge just made a better subject to write about. Having said that, I did quite like The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain. I suppose that might be because he’s a more Scrooge-like character than the rest. It’s interesting to see the effects of the bargain he struck with his ghost, especially as regards the effects of his new coldness on others. It kind of reminds me of the driver’s education videos we saw during my driver’s training courses where they show how one person who reacts kindly while driving causes others to react the same way, whereas the nasty ones make everyone miserable. He’s also given the chance for redemption, which he happily embraces and the story has a nice ending which gives you a warm feeling.

The other stories in the collection sometimes seemed a bit wordy and obscure, but I may re-read the book at some point, just to see if I can get a better grasp on them.

Little Dorrit

This is another one of Mr. Dickens epic works. I read it in audio book format, which ran 47 hours, so it’s not for people who like to finish books quickly.

I liked this book for many different reasons. It seemed a bit gentler than many of Dickens’ other works in that there wasn’t an out and out villain, as in Oliver Twist or Nicholas Nickleby. Even Rigaud wasn’t as evil as I was expecting him to be. I think Dickens was wise to tone down the exaggerations in his characters, otherwise they threaten to become quite boring in their wickedness.

It was, on the other hand, a more complicated story than the other books and I had to read many passages over again just to make sure that I had understood them correctly. Of course, the government at the time, especially its legal and financial departments, was anything but transparent. Even the people who should have known how it functioned had either given up trying to decipher it, or never bothered to try in the first place. Had he made the story too easy to understand, it would have detracted from that particular point, so I can forgive him for it.

What I particularly liked about the story was its portrayal of the debtor’s prison, the Marshalsea. The description is fairly vile, but Dickens makes a few good points about it. The first of which is that while Mr. Dorrit really isn’t happy to go to prison, the very act of being shut away brought him a sense of peace. He no longer had to live in dread of what would happen to him, he no longer had to fear his creditors and he was basically taken care up at public expense. His relief at being locked away, safe from the public brings to light the contradiction of locking a man up and paying for his bare minimum, when he could be out working to pay for himself and to pay off his debts. Debtor’s prisons were, in fact, a sort of governmentally sanctioned kidnap of the person in order to ransom him for the sum of his debts since the aim was to move his family and friends to pay the debtor’s debt for him. In a case such as Mr. Dorrit’s, where no such means were available, locking him in prison was pointless and only served to make his children idol and base by not allowing them amongst people who might set better examples.

Typically Dickens, was the presence of kind-hearted people throughout the story who were willing to help the Dorrit family, and later Mr. Clenham, out in their state of dire need. Both inmates and non-inmates alike were there to help Little Dorrit out in her bid to keep her family from falling apart completely. Basically, there was enough goodness to go around to help balance out the enmity of life, so the all around tone of the book was a positive one.

Of course there were the silly characters one loves to hate like all of the Dorrits, except Amy, Mrs. Clenham, and Flora, who were all annoying to one extent or the other. There were also the villains like Rigaud and Flintwich to spice the story up a bit, so it never got boring despite not keeping up with the pace of Oliver Twist. I quite liked this book and can recommend it to anyone.

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

I read this book for two reasons. The first being that as a child, I thought the title sounded interesting, but nearly keeled over when I saw the shear size of the book. The second is because a friend told me I would like it. Oh yes, and a third reason is that I used an Audible credit to buy it and 48 hours of book is a lot of book for one credit (yeah, good reason, I know).

I was a little worried that it would be one of those depressing ones where the suffering is never ending. Fortunately, Dumas didn’t let that part of the book go one for too long. There were also several features of the story that helped sidetrack one from the misery of the situation. - Just thinking of rotting in jail for all of those years is bad enough. I can’t imagine living through them. It’s horrible to think that things like this did actually happen. Guilty or not guilty, some things just shouldn’t be allowed. –

The second “part” of the story returns Dantés to life outside of the Château D’Ife and fortune seems to be making up for all his years of misery. However, simply returning to life was really not enough for Dantés and he is provided with the means to both reward his friends for their faithfulness and punish his enemies for their evil acts against him. What seems quite natural, leaves quite a lot of room for discussions of morality. Is revenge evil? If not, how far is too far? Dantés often seems like he’s teetering on the edge of a moral downfall which would ultimately put him on the same level as his persecutors. Even though he’s the hero of the story and the reader’s sympathies are directed towards him, he often reaches a point where he is about to lose respect rather than gain it. In some instances, he actually does lose my respect, e.g. when he believes he is justified in allowing all of Villefort’s family to be poisoned. Yes, he is punishing Villefort, but should a Valentine or her brother, who has yet to prove his ultimate worth as a human, or the completely innocent Sante-Mérans, be allowed to die for Dantés revenge? Granted, his father did die of starvation, but by putting himself in a position to decide that one death deserves another, or two or three others is tantamount to playing God.

Ultimately, Dantés does realize that he has gone too far with his vengeance. He’s has become so consumed with the thought of other’s destruction, that he no longer has time to seek happiness for himself. It makes one wonder if all the years of plotting and planning revenge were worth it. Surely he did many things with his life, and surely he was able to live in wealth and luxury, but when you look back on his life, there isn’t much there which wasn’t dominated by either treachery or revenge. Obviously he must have suffered and that would take it’s toll on a person, however, spending your life fixed on revenge instead of in the pursuit of happiness does seem to double the sentence of suffering and pain rather than alleviate it. This might not be the conclusion Dumas was looking for when he wrote the book, but despite the relatively happy and possibly justified ending to his characters, he does give cause to think about whether there wouldn’t have been another, better route to happiness and tranquillity.

There are a million things you could discuss with this book – it’s a long book, if he didn’t introduce several topics, it would have become rather boring – so basically there’s something in it for everyone. It can be read either as food for thought or just as an adventure story and be equally rewarding for either type of reader. The one thing I will add, is that the ending is really, really sappy and I had to put the playback speed on fast (quicker pace of reading, but still comprehensible) just to get through it without becoming instantly diabetic from the sugar sweetness of it all, but then, I’ve never been one for sappy romance.