A Stranger Came Ashore – Mollie Hunter

On October 3, 2020September 27, 2020 By nymithIn British writers, Fantasy Fiction, Mermaids, Selkies and Others, Read Alouds, Set in Europe, Set in ShetlandLeave a comment

The cover makes this look fairly campy, but the actual story hearkens to North Sea folktales. Sign me up.

mollie hunter a stranger came ashore Title: A Stranger Came Ashore
Author: Mollie Hunter (1922-2012)
Original Publication Date: 1975
Edition: HarperTrophy (1995), 163 pages
Genre: Fantasy. Suspense.
Ages: 9-14
First Line: It was a while ago, in the days when they used to tell stories about creatures called the Selkie Folk.

It is a dark and stormy night on the Shetlands Islands when the Norwegian ship Bergen wrecks and a solitary man washes ashore in the isolated community of Black Ness. Calling himself Finn Learson, the good-looking young man secures shelter in the Henderson household, charming the family and their neighbours and quietly making himself indispensable while paying court to his hosts’ lovely daughter Elspeth. Only twelve year old Robbie Henderson finds it hard to trust the stranger. As omens appear in the funeral fire and Elspeth grows listless, Robbie begins to see something menacing behind Finn’s ready smile. Concerned for his sister, Robbie sets out to discover the truth about the stranger – and when he does, he will need to find help, or Elspeth will suffer a terrible fate…

https://thekelpiespearls.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/mollie_hunter2.jpg — Scottish author Maureen Mollie Hunter McIlwraith.

The first thing to understand about A Stranger Came Ashore is that it is deliberately written in the style of an oral folktale. Mollie Hunter was Scottish and she tried to recreate the feel of Shetland customs and concerns; as such, there is a distinct cadence to the writing, a pattern of speech rather than straight narrative. It makes the novel feel distinctly personal, as a tale told directly to you, yet it’s also distancing – this is a tale of a while ago and Hunter does not play up the drama. Even knowing what to expect, the effect is momentarily very strange and perhaps even a deal-breaker for those expecting the techniques of modern storytelling. However, once you grow accustomed to the style, it becomes both lilting and propulsive, such that I have more trouble deciding where to end my quotes than where to start.

So Robbie swithered and swayed in the opinion that was never asked, and meanwhile, Finn Learson was getting acquainted with all the rest of the people in Black Ness. Very easy he found this, too, for all that he was a man of few words, since there is nothing Shetlanders enjoy better than visiting back and forward in one another’s houses.
Sooner or later also, on such occasions, out will come the fiddle. All the young folk–and very often some of those that are not so young–will get up to have a dance; and the first evening that this was the way of things in the Hendersons’ house, Finn Learson showed the lightest, neatest foot in the whole company.
He was merry as a grig, too, clapping his hands in time to the fiddling, white teeth flashing all the time in a laugh, eyes glittering like two great dark fires in his handsome head. No amount of leaping and whirling seemed to tire him, either; and curiously looking on at this with Robbie and Janet, Old Da remarked,
“Well, there’s one stranger that knows how to make himself at home on the islands!”

Hunter laces this book with details of Shetland culture, including their holiday traditions, superstitions, social conventions, the tug of war between pagan and Christian customs, the threat of the press gang, and all the way down to floor plans and furniture: Old-fashioned beds for the islanders were made like a large box complete with a lid on top and a sliding door on one side. There were air-holes in the sliding doors, neatly pierced in the shapes of hearts and diamonds; the box beds themselves stood on legs that raised them above drafts… This gives A Stranger Came Ashore plenty of crossover appeal between kids who like the particular atmosphere of British fantasy and kids who enjoy historical fiction. In other words, I would have loved it growing up if I’d only known it existed.

https://i2.wp.com/dymusings.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/p1000277.jpg?resize=640%2C360 — A Shetland box bed.

The fantasy elements of A Stranger came Ashore are built on ancient motifs. The Great Selkie is drawn ashore by the gold of a young girl’s hair – he has the power to charm the girl and her family, but is bound to speak only truth. This makes Finn Learson a trickster who nevertheless offers recompense to the families he hurts as he willingly takes on the work of the village, and further insists that the Hendersons accept an ancient gold coin, “for it may still cost you more than you think to have me here.” His sea-magic is powerful, but opposed by other elements and Robbie’s role in the story is to be the messenger and summon those other elements. It’s fairly mythic for such a quick read.

Unfortunately, Robbie does have a tendency to be outclassed and upstaged from his own story, as does Elspeth, the damsel in distress who never even realises she’s in danger. Finn Learson, with his charming facade and careful words, owns the book – at least until the final third when Yarl Corbie shows up.

Yarl is both the best and worst thing about A Stranger Came Ashore. He’s a bitter wizard who lost his love to the Great Selkie years ago, and now grinds along as the village schoolteacher, terrifying his pupils and inspiring wild rumours of ancient magic. It’s easy to understand why Robbie is so reluctant to approach such an intimidating and possibly crazy man – and this also forms a smart contrast with the smiling, seductive Finn, for Yarl Corbie acts like a villain but in truth plays the hero. From his first appearance this book is his:

https://th.bing.com/th/id/OIP.-UBQ0Oxy_L7qY1kr7NpO-wHaDF?pid=Api&rs=1 — No idea why I thought of this guy…

To begin with, he had the nickname of Yarl Corbie, for that is the nickname the raven has in Shetland, and he looked like nothing so much as a huge raven.
His nose was big and beaky. His skin was swarthy. His eyes glittered in a sharp and knowing way. He was tall, but very thin and stooped, and he dressed always in black. Besides which, he always wore a tattered, black, schoolmaster’s gown that flapped from his shoulders like a raven’s wings. And like the raven, he was solitary in his habits.
There was yet another reason, however, for his nickname of Yarl Corbie. Long ago, it was said, in the days when this schoolmaster was still only an unchristened child, he had been fed on broth made from the bodies of two ravens. This, it was also said, had gifted him with all the powers of a wizard; and it was this, of course, which had given Robbie his idea.
Yet here was the snag of it all. Robbie was deadly afraid of Yarl Corbie; for Robbie, it has to be remembered, was twelve years old at that time, which was certainly not old enough for him to have lost his fear of wizards. It has to be remembered too, that Robbie was Shetland born and bred; which meant that deep, deep down in his blood and in his bones there lived the Shetlander’s ancient fear of the raven and its croaking cry of death.

The fact that this quote was pulled from page 98, over halfway into the novel, gives rise to the only significant problem I have with A Stranger Came Ashore. There is no earlier appearance by the schoolmaster, no brief cameo or reference to offer any hint that this man could hold a solution to Robbie’s problem. The lack of foreshadowing guarantees that his fortuitous knowledge of the Great Selkie feels like a deus ex machina rather than an organic part of the worldbuilding. He’s so cool that I didn’t really mind, but it’s a significant dramatic flaw that could have been cleared up with just one line, and I wish an editor had intervened on this point.

This is the only notable failing of the book and it’s not one likely to bother its intended young audience. Children who’ve enjoyed hearing folktales read to them will find here a longer fiction with the same feel, and Mollie Hunter’s style lends itself very well to reading aloud besides. There is menace and suspense, but it has none of the love for grotesquerie found in something like Coraline and is leisurely paced and intelligently written, like much of 70s middle grade. A fine addition to your family’s fantasy collection, especially if you prize a northern setting.

https://magdalenaperks.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/800px-crofthouse-shetland.jpg — Traditional homestead, looks like a postcard possibly.

See Also: Seven Tears Into the Sea for a defanged teen romance take on selkies. The Stones are Hatching for a nihilistic deconstruction of British folklore and boy heroes.

Parental Guide and spoilers for the ending.

Violence: Very mild. There are some eerie omens and a vision of Elspeth dressed for some deathly bridal. It is revealed that girls who go to the Great Selkie’s underwater palace eventually grow homesick and drown when they attempt to return to the land, which makes for some unsettling imagery.

One seaside brawl. Yarl Corbie has a knife he likes to wave around and he easily scares Robbie into keeping silent about his wizardry. In the end Yarl becomes a raven and blinds Finn in one eye, sending the Selkie back to the sea.

Values: Lots of Shetland folk traditions are included here, and given that it’s rather hard to find children’s books set on the Shetland Islands, that’s enough for a recommendation already. Although it’s not a retelling, it is a folktale by nature and so is pro family and tradition.

Role Models: Robbie is a good, imaginative boy but also timid and superstitious, and so the only way he can save his sister is to conquer his fears one by one – of the dark, the schoolmaster and the stranger. He rises to the challenge yet also feels compassion for his family’s defeated enemy at the last when he believes Yarl Corbie fully blinded the Great Selkie.

“But a selkie hunts with its eyes,” he exclaimed. “And so you might as well say you’ve doomed him to starve to death!”
“Would that be so bad?” Yarl Corbie asked.
“I don’t know,” Robbie admitted. “But it’s cruel, all the same.”
Yarl Corbie shrugged. “The thought does you credit, I suppose,” he said drily.

Educational Properties: It would springboard nicely into a research session on the Islands, whose history and culture is not well known, as well as selkie folklore.

End of Guide.

It will probably be a while before I come across any more of Hunter’s books – although a prolific writer, relatively few of hers have migrated to America and many appear out of print. However, she’s definitely on my list to watch out for.

The Magic Snow Bird and Other Stories – Enid Blyton

On December 23, 2019June 9, 2020 By nymithIn Adventure, British writers, Fairies, the Fair Folk and Little People, Fantasy Fiction, Set in England, Short Story CollectionLeave a comment

Charlotte Mason would have called this twaddle, and she’d have been right. However, twaddle is a necessary step on the road to literacy and Blyton’s contributions, seen in this sampling of her posthumous Popular Rewards short story anthologies, are so clean you can practically hear the squeak. These days, that’s refreshing.

Title: The Magic Snow Bird and Other Stories
Author: Enid Blyton (1897-1968)
Illustrator: Dorothy Hamilton (1906-)
Original Publication Date: 1989
Edition: Award Publications (1990), 192 pages
Genre: Short stories. Fantasy. Anthropomorphic fantasy. Realistic fiction.
Ages: 4-7
First Line: Once upon a time, Derry the dormouse hid a nice little store of cherry-stones in the hole of a hollow tree.

If you happened upon this particular volume out of a Blyton bibliography consisting of hundreds of books, you would find 19 stories inside of a durable hardback printed in the German Democratic Republic, with large type, plentiful illustrations and what appears to be surprisingly low-acid paper. The stories are taken in part from a 1951 collection with the same name while the rest possibly date from the same era. Of the stories, 13 are fantasy tales, 4 are realistic tales of little British children at play and 2 are anthropomorphic stories of field and farm animals. The shortest selections are 4 pages long, while the longest, ‘Bobbo’s Magic Stocking,’ runs to 50. There is a slight Christmas theme at work, in that the title story and ‘Bobbo’ both involve trips to the North Pole to visit Santa’s Workshop – however, the rest of the material lacks a proper winter theme and appears to be selected mostly for variety.

The book is trite, just as one would suspect given the cover art. The writing is simple and fond of exclamation points: How all the others laughed! Funny old Thomas–wouldn’t go out into the water with his brothers and sisters, but didn’t think twice about going up to his chin for his boat! The illustrations are not exactly subtle. The pixies sport names like Littlefeet and Scatterbrain. And yet, none of that matters because The Magic Snow Bird (and I suspect many other Blyton works) are absolutely perfect for early readers.

The stories each stand alone and are equipped with simple plots, light comedy and wholesome messages. Three basic topics are covered:

snow bird, blyton, hamilton — Snow bird and cargo.

1. Stories meant purely to delight. Fairy treats such as the titular snow bird, which takes two children to visit Santa, or a magic blackberry which grows into a whole pie. Others ignore magic and involve simple visits from wildlife, such as the story of a dormouse who decides to hibernate in a little girl’s dollhouse. These are all low-stakes adventures based on ideas that children would enjoy.

2. “Just so stories.” Blyton’s whimsical answers to questions like how holly got its spines and why the blackbird’s beak is yellow. “A pixie did it” appears to be a favorite answer.

3. Cautionary tales. Stories of foolish or naughty children learning the error of their ways, such as Bobbo, the greedy materialist who sneaks aboard the annual good children’s trip to the North Pole because elves don’t know how to do head counts. Blyton changes up the standard Santa mythology regarding such questions as how the reindeer fly:

Bobbo looked, and he saw a most enormous hill stretching up in front of the sleigh. It was very, very steep, but the reindeer leapt up it as easily as if it was level ground. The sleigh tilted backwards, and the children held on more tightly than ever. Up and up went the sleigh, right to the very, very top, and then, on the summit, drenched in moonlight, it stopped.
‘We’ve come to a little inn!’ cried one of the children, leaning out. ‘Oh, and here come six little gnomes, carrying something! What are they going to do?’
All the children leaned out to watch. They saw the gnomes come hurrying up, carrying pairs of lovely green wings. There were six pairs of these, and the gnomes knew just what to do with them.
Four of the gnomes went to the reindeer, and fastened a pair of wings on to their backs. The other two bent down by the sleigh, and the children saw that they had fastened two pairs of wings on to the sides of the sleigh as well!

cat, blyton, hamilton — Dormouse and interested neighbour.

For all that the writing is simplistic, I actually enjoyed Blyton’s imagery quite a bit. Her stories are of the halcyon 1950s and utterly reject anything approaching relevance even for the time period. Her children play hide and seek, sail toy boats and have dollhouses. Her families are automatically intact and her reference pool consists of pixies, brownies and gnomes alongside classic British plants like holly and primroses. It’s simple escapism, something for the child graduating from I Can Read books to chapter books, completely clean-cut and cuddly. I suspect Blyton was consistent in this regard – series like Malory Towers might be aimed at an older group of kids than these anthologies, but I highly doubt the content takes any darker shifts.

Now here’s where things get interesting, as librarians and educators have been waging a war against Enid Blyton for the past 50 years. It’s almost funny, given how innocuous a target she appears, and I suspect a large part of their continued bitterness against Blyton stems from the fact that she won. Her books are still massively popular, such that British publisher Hachette’s attempt to doctor the Famous Five books hurt sales so badly that they actually returned to their earlier edition in 2016. Educators and librarians fume but Blyton remains standing. Used bookstores in Britain feature whole shelves stuffed with her books (which I’ve seen firsthand) and there she stays, not on the strength of one canonized classic so much as her whole output.

Normally I would be inclined to sympathize with critics taking a stand against poor prose – however, these critics sit mute over much of the modern dross saturating the markets while insisting that bad old Blyton should be quashed. As such I suspect the “literary standards” argument was simply a handy cudgel in this instance, with the real objection being Blyton’s perpetual popularity. These heartlessly conservative and blindingly white books are still widely read today, while successive Carnegie winners and acclaimed intersectional efforts lapse into obscurity. The so-called experts have failed to turn public opinion against her for over 50 years. That’s gotta sting.

https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1320495328l/7095563.jpg — The bait-and-switch winner of 2010, perhaps?

To best illustrate why I so warmly recommend Blyton, have a quick look at the GoodReads reviews for The Very Little Princess, a Stepping Stones chapter book by Newbery Honor author Marion Dane Bauer. With its quaint title, sweet pink cover and Blytonian premise of a doll coming to life, what could possibly go wrong? Surely any parent could gift this to their daughter in full confidence and leave it at that! Yet this book ends with its young heroine being abandoned by her bipolar mother at her grandmother’s house – a grandmother she’d never met before. The packaging thus appears deeply subversive – bypassing parents and cutting them out of the conversation they should be having (and deciding when to have) with their children about such topics. And it’s not the first, the worst or the last of this trend.

For a cautious parent, researching every book you pick up for your child is an overwhelming task, which leads us back to Blyton. With her, you’re off the hook. Children love her and parents can relax around her. Oh, the horror!

Check out the Parental Guide and see what I mean.

Violence: In one story, a duckling is angry at the mean ducks on the farm and so he goes to the farmer demanding that all the ducks be killed. Mr. Farmer laughs and tells him to come back in eight weeks, since he might change his mind by then – a bit of folktaleish cynicism on display here, though it’s obvious the farmer does not intend to follow through with the duckling’s idea. The duckling is ridiculed as a fool for wishing harm on his own while seeing himself as exempt.

No other stories go near the concept of death. There are some references to scary goblins, but they never actually appear.

Values: Blyton likes to tell her audience not to be idiots. Don’t be greedy. Don’t make assumptions. Don’t lose your temper. Don’t bite your nails. Don’t be like that duckling. Meanwhile, her good children are always helpful, generous and provide shelter for local wildlife.

Role Models: Naughty children learn the error of their ways. Good children visit Santa.

Educational Properties: A fine option for reading practice.

https://www.egmont.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/enid-blyton.jpg — Enid Blyton and dog.

As I said, this book is being recommended on faith as a stand-in for much of Blyton’s work, as the odds of finding specific titles here in America seem small. She’s not great literature – and she doesn’t have to be. She gave children stories they loved.

Up Next: A wintry children’s classic and Dutch travelogue all rolled up in one for the Christmas season: Mary Mapes Dodge.

Flower Fairies of the Spring – Cicely Mary Barker

On December 16, 2019January 12, 2020 By nymithIn British writers, Fairies, the Fair Folk and Little People, Fantasy Fiction, Poetry, Read AloudsLeave a comment

Given that the Flower Fairy books are A: standalone, B: poetry and C: have no plot between them, I will be reviewing this series in whatever order and at whatever speed I am able to acquire them. Nothing like a dream of spring in the depths of winter…

Title: Flower Fairies of the Spring
Author: Cicely Mary Barker (1895-1973)
Illustrator: Cicely Mary Barker
Original Publication Date: 1923
Edition: Frederick Warne (2002), 42 pages
Genre: Poetry. Fantasy.
Ages: 3-8
First Line: The World is very old;
But year by year
It groweth new again
When buds appear.

Nursery rhymes are a tremendous learning tool for small children, conveying obvious skills such as memorization and predictive language, along with the specialized knowledge of how to read poetry in the first place – something of a lost art among today’s schoolchildren. Articles about the declining interest in poetry and what to do about it are a dime a dozen, and librarians are forever extolling the virtues of the trendiest middle-grade novels in verse, when the simplest remedy would be to avoid letting a child’s natural proficiency and enthusiasm for Mother Goose atrophy in the first place, via a fairly straightforward progression of English poets.

By providing the natural stepping-stones of Milne, Lear, Kipling and Stevenson, a gradual link would then be made to the classic narrative verse of Browning’s ‘Pied Piper of Hamelin,’ Rossetti’s ‘Goblin Market‘ and Tennyson’s ‘The Lady of Shalott,’ which are themselves not so far removed from romantics like Coleridge and Keats (and once a young person can read those poets, they would be able to progress both forwards and backwards in time from there with no real difficulty). Aside from the Classical Christian website, I couldn’t find a single educator advising this obvious curriculum to get kids reading poetry, probably because it would be way too white for today’s classrooms – thus they deny heritage to some children while offering mediocrity to all. In fact, educators love these new novels in verse specifically because the word count is lower and therefore they can be used to encourage “reluctant readers.” Now picture someone saying that Paradise Lost is simpler than Moll Flanders or that The Waste Land is an easier read for students than The Great Gatsby and you can imagine how topsy-turvy this whole educational trend really is.

https://thewesterncornerofthecastle.home.blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/52f10-05windflower.jpg — The Windflower Fairy.

This leads me to the Flower Fairy books of Cicely Mary Barker, which could easily fit on a young child’s poetry curriculum. Barker was an artistic invalid who took correspondence courses to become a painter while her older sister supported the family by opening a kindergarten in their house. Taking inspiration from Kate Greenaway and the Pre-Raphaelites, Barker began a series of children’s poetry books, most famously on the subject of fairies. Fairies were all the rage in the 1920s, enjoying heightened publicity thanks in part to the Cottingley Fairy photographs – and of course the Pre-Raphaelites hadn’t been immune to the lure of fairies either, which made it a natural subject for a book of botanical children’s poems. Queen Mary herself admired the results. At some point I will find a complete set of the little books, but for now this first one will have to suffice.

Every open page of this pocket-sized book contains a portrait of a fairy child with the flower he or she represents and on the facing page an ode to the flower in question. Her fairies were modeled by interested children from the household kindergarten, giving each character an individual appearance which combine over the book into a harmonious image of the English schoolchild of the 1920s. They are bright and happy, yet shy. They are impudent and proud and pleasant. They are beautiful, they are the generation who would grow up to endure the Second World War, and they are captured here fancifully and forever.

https://www.bing.com/th?id=OIP.A29LuxycpoD6TG5w_0VL8AHaLa&pid=Api&rs=1 — The Dandelion Fairy.

Each costume for the fairies was based around the flower to be illustrated, which Barker would faithfully paint from real specimens. The costumes were where true flights of fancy would occur, and Barker created physical costumes and wing miniatures to paint, drawn from the different parts of the plant with rewarding detail. As an American, the flower I was most familiar with in this book was the dauntless dandelion and so it was his costume I most closely examined, discovering botanical inspiration from cuffs to shoes to the very shades of green and gold. Every portrait has this level of care, and the result really does have the feel of Pre-Raphaelites for toddlers.

Barker’s artwork is only half the volume, and the accompanying poems are every bit as enjoyable, particularly for parents who are big fans of Victorian poets. I could read this book aloud dozens of times and the poems would only become more engaging due to their mellifluous and leisurely rhythm. This is a book that rewards repetition.

https://www.bing.com/th/id/OIP.V2EcwpaQ-aaJhRwq0VgdDQHaLS?pid=Api&rs=1 — The Daffodil Fairy.

I’m everyone’s darling; the blackbird and
    starling
Are shouting about me from blossoming
    boughs;
For I, the Lent Lily, the Daffy-down-dilly,
Have heard through the country the call to
    arouse.
The orchards are ringing with voices
    a-singing
The praise of my petticoat, praise of my
    gown;
The children are playing, and hark! they are
    saying
That Daffy-down-dilly is come up to town!

This collection is best suited for nature-oriented families, those with English gardens or wildflowers of their own to hunt and observe, for the poems are not narrative, meaning Barker will always be more niche than someone like Beatrix Potter. Nevertheless, these pages cover a variety of imaginative ground, some simply descriptive of the flowers themselves while others take to their viewpoint, like that of the cheerful daffodil. ‘The Song of the Lords-and-Ladies Fairy’ ends with a fierce warning likely to stick in its young audience’s mind and keep them from getting poisoned:
And my berries are a glory in September.
(BUT BEWARE!)

Meanwhile the Willow-Catkin admonishes:

To keep a Holy Feast, they say,
They take my pretty boughs away.
I should be glad– I should not mind–
If only people weren’t unkind.

Oh, you may pick a piece, you may
(So dear and silky, soft and grey);
But if you’re rough and greedy, why
You’ll make the little fairies cry.

There’s star imagery in the Windflower Song, there’s a little Mother Goose to Sing a song of Larch trees and the shortest poem in the lot is the humble ode to the Lesser Celandine. Over it all hang the twin centerpiece of the King and Queen of Spring, who are unfortunately not placed side by side in the middle of the book as they should be by rights. The Primrose has a simple charm and grace while the Bluebell (Wild Hyacinth in this case, not Scottish Harebell) is proud and superb.

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/ae/f8/55/aef8556c9c149bfe6be2ed6bb6947708.jpg — The Bluebell Fairy.

My hundred thousand bells of blue,
    The splendour of the Spring,
They carpet all the woods anew
With royalty of sapphire hue;
The Primrose is the Queen, ’tis true.
    But surely I am King!
            Ah yes,
    The peerless Woodland King!

Loud, loud the thrushes sing their song;
    The bluebell woods are wide;
My stems are tall and straight and strong;
From ugly streets the children throng,
They gather armfuls, great and long,
    Then home they troop in pride–
             Ah yes,
    With laughter and with pride!

Out of curiosity I made a list of the poems to see how often the rhyme schemes and templates repeated, to find that there were no exact replicas. When Barker reused a rhyme scheme she would change the number of stanzas, ensuring that every rhyme had its own face. I expect some repetitiveness would start to appear in the seven companion volumes but for now everything is very fresh, and in truth I would be very surprised if the artistic quality of subsequent installments ever dropped. Highly recommended to all English and Anglophile families.

Parental Guide, with no spoilers for once.

Violence: Completely inapplicable.

Values: English country flowers, landscape, children and folkways. Pre-Raphaelite influences.

Role Models: The children depicted are idealized, which is one of the chief purposes of art that has now been forgotten – to inspire.

Educational Properties: Memorization, recitation and elocution. Use for inspiration to plant and tend an English garden or to take a nature walk (in the right parts of the world) to hunt for the flowers – I’ve seen a number of them here in New England. Families who make their own doll costumes or other textile or artistic crafts might want a copy even if they hate poetry.

End of Guide.

I hope to acquire a complete set of the Flower Fairy books sometime soon, at which point I will make a full review series. I’m very happy to have stumbled upon this English gem I missed in my Anglophile childhood.

Up Next: Staying British with Enid Blyton.

Fantasy: The Stones are Hatching

On September 30, 2019 By nymithIn British writers, Fantasy Fiction, Horror, Poison Pills, Young AdultLeave a comment

Nine pages from the end and the whole magnificent edifice comes crashing down into the sea… Hey, do you remember classic Twin Peaks? “How’s Annie?” It’s kind of like that, only, you know, for kids.

Title: The Stones are Hatching
Author: Geraldine McCaughrean (1951-)
Original Publication Date: 1999
Edition: HarperCollins (2000), 230 pages
Genre: Fantasy. Horror.
Ages: 15-17
First Sentence: Phelim had always thought there must be more to magic than rabbits or handkerchiefs–that if it existed at all, it would be too large to palm or to hide up your sleeve.

The constant hammer of the guns of World War One has caused the Stoor Worm, a monster meant to sleep for centuries, to stir. Its harbingers are the Hatchlings, creatures forgotten in British folklore now spreading across the unsuspecting countryside, for the old ways are no longer practiced and people are helpless before the onslaught of merrows, corn wives, ushteys and other creatures too terrible to contemplate. Eleven year old Phelim is thrown out of his own house by strange invaders who insist that he is Jack o’ Green, the only one who can save Britain and slay the Worm. Scared and miserable, with his sister’s mocking voice ever echoing in his head, he sets out with a Fool, a Maiden and a Horse to the place where the Stoor Worm lies…

Discussing The Stones are Hatching without the ending is very difficult, as without those final pages this is an excellent dark fantasy novel for teens, rooted in history and folklore, with horrible monsters roaming across beautiful landscapes. Think of the film Princess Mononoke and you have an idea of what to expect. Geraldine McCaughrean has immense talent at her disposal, and she’s not afraid to make use of it. I first became interested in her oeuvre when she used her 2018 Carnegie acceptance speech to draw the world’s attention to the fact that publishers now set limits on what words authors can use in books for little kids, nixing any material considered too demanding and setting off a domino effect into the upper reading levels:

https://lemonwire-lthfr4usl8x.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/geraldine-mccaughrean-wins-carnegie-childrens-book-prize.jpg — Geraldine McCaughrean.

“The only way to make books – and knowledge – accessible is to give children the necessary words. And how has that always been done? By adult conversation and reading. Since when has one generation EVER doubted and pitied the next so much that it decides not to burden them with the full package of the English language but to feed them only a restricted diet, like invalids, of simple words…
Worst and most wicked outcome of all would be that we deliberately and wantonly create an underclass of citizens with a small but functional vocabulary: easy to manipulate and lacking in the means to reason their way out of subjugation, because you need words to be able to think for yourself.”

This won me over to her right away, even though I don’t agree with all of her opinions in that speech (subjects for another time!) and unboxing my copy of The Stones are Hatching rapidly convinced me that she is one of the finest stylists currently contributing to the field of children’s literature. By itself, this makes me want to recommend this book, as her descriptive skills enliven a classic hero’s journey, one that is rendered darker than average by returning the tale to its unbowdlerized roots in Celtic folklore. Seven pages in and Phelim is faced with his first creature of nightmare:

He pictured an Alsatian outside, broken loose from its kennel, maltreated perhaps and starving. He thought of the police, but they were ten miles away in Somerton. The dog’s breath rasped in its throat like a hacksaw; its claws scrabbled paint off the door in crackling sheets. When it barked, the glass of the wall lights shook. Five, six, seven times it hurled itself against the door and then, when the bolts held, fell back and prowled around the house, slavering over the spilled dustbin, setting small plant pots rolling, clawing at the brittle tarpaper covering the cellar door. Phelim felt his own shanks shaking, his feet and palms melting like butter…
…
Phelim knew he had to move. He knew he had to do more than wait for the dog to scratch or climb its way into the house and come ravening down the stairs. He rushed up the staircase on hands and feet, sobbing with the exertion, and threw open both bedroom doors to check that the windows were shut tight. He went over and pressed his face against the dirty glass, trying to catch a squinnying glimpse of the dog below–the hound besieging his sister’s cottage. Good thing she was away; Prudence was not fond of animals at the best of times.
But Phelim could not see; the dog was too close in against the house, clawing at the brickwork. All he could see was the overturned chicken house crushed into splintery shards, the chickens lying about like torn-off scarlet dahlia heads.

https://mythology.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Black-Dog-Ghost-380x240.jpg — Artist’s impression of Black Dog.

No good or even ambiguous creatures hatch from the Stoor Worm’s eggs; they are all vile monsters, repelled by commonplace items – from marigolds to spilled blood to hot cross buns – but otherwise pitiless and unstoppable. Nightmare fuel is a constant throughout the book as the apocalyptic scenario unfolds. It’s one of the finest examples I’ve come across of fantasy as social metaphor (something often poorly executed), as World War One was essentially an apocalypse, with lasting social and psychological damage to this very day, and making it trigger a literal end of the world is fitting and powerful. The shadows of the dead men hang over everything, from Mad Sweeney’s twisted nursery rhymes to Phelim’s run-in with the Washer at the Ford, washing the shirts of the dead and the soon-to-die, Phelim’s own among them. Knowing what it means makes Phelim’s journey that much harder:

Alexia was pinning her hopes on him. If Jack o’ Green died, seemingly nothing could save humankind from the Stoor Worm’s brood of Hatchlings. And the more he thought about that, the more he despaired. After all, he already knew their journey was futile. He was going to get killed. He was traveling toward his own death. And yet he kept on going. Why? It must have been like that for the soldiers in the trenches, he thought. Plain common sense and logic told them they would die if they went one more time into no-man’s-land. And yet they knew they would go. The only taboo was to speak of it, to admit to the fear.

https://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3575/3493445311_ae005a0bb5_b.jpg — Phelim is accompanied by the Obby Oss, seen here in the traditional Obby Oss Festival in Padstow, Cornwall.

The darkness of The Stones are Hatching is very consistent and (eventually) rings hollow. Having an eleven year old British boy drawn into a hidden fantasy realm makes a Harry Potter comparison inevitable, although this book was clearly meant for an older audience from the start. Magic is unpleasant here and there is no logic, charm or comfort to be had in learning about it. Nor is Phelim’s role in saving the world explained to him beyond a bare outline. The stakes are high from the start, Phelim doesn’t know what to do and his bound companions are strange and off-putting – the Maiden thinks he’s an idiot, the Fool is a madman, and the Horse is what you see above. He can’t just shake off the years of psychological abuse from his only relative either, and he is unsurprisingly sullen and scared, with a continuously bad attitude – yet he does the work regardless. In spite of the treatment he’s received from his sister Prudence, the poor boy retains good instincts and is protective of Alexia (and indeed all the women of Britain when the time comes). When the big moments arrive, he steps up and does the right thing and is on a steady road to improvement, to true heroism – beginning when he recognises what a hero does:

“[Hatchlings] could be bought off, they could,” said the Oss in its soft Cornish burr. “Folks could hold they off with bribes; a child, spilled blood, a drowning. … But folks have forgot. Forgot the price. Forgot how to pay it…”
“They shouldn’t pay! … Not with blood and children and suchlike! It’s vile! It’s blackmail!” retorted Phelim hotly. “It’s giving in to blackmail. Like sending twelve men and maidens to feed the Minotaur. Theseus didn’t. Theseus refused. Theseus went and fought the Minotaur and killed it rather than go on paying the tribute.”

All of this positive character growth is then chucked off a cliff nine pages from the end. It doesn’t come entirely out of nowhere though – I simply discounted the warning signs from a desire to trust McCaughrean. The biggest clue of what’s coming is how she continuously falls back on the tired horror trope of “anyone can turn on you.” Phelim and his companions are off to save the world, yet the people within that world are constantly shown as not worth saving, even if they’re blood kin. The flashbacks even hold this view, with Alexia’s parents shipping her off to a school for the dark arts (in the most traditional “deal with the devil” fashion) while Mad Sweeney fought in the Napoleonic Wars and almost got executed by his own side for cowardice. In the present, ordinary humans are as much of a danger as the Hatchlings are – worse, because Phelim constantly misplaces his trust in them. Even in the early scene with soon-to-perish reapers (nice working-class blokes, mostly schoolboys and old men) who are as close to good folk as McCaughrean gets, she still inserts a line of schoolmarmish scolding to cheapen their innate worth – when Phelim explains he’s been locked out of his own house by strangers, “that’ll be Gypsies,” said the driver bigotedly. Nice use of the adjective for a man who’s about to die horribly. The poetic detriment done by this treatment of humanity is considerable.

https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/images/h5/h5_50.130.14.jpg — Reapers Resting in a Wheat Field, 1885 oil-on-canvas by American artist John Singer Sargent (1856-1925).

A related problem involves the way McCaughrean bypasses Christianity, or indeed any spiritual element at all – in a book where Old Scratch has a cameo and hot cross buns can ward off hidden enemies. The question just sits unanswered, all the while Phelim’s name means “Ever-good” and legends are told of the ancient hero Assipattle who first vanquished the Worm. There are no positive influences or allies to be found as Phelim and his companions travel toward the end game – which is not the case in any old folktales, whether of the Pagan or Christian era. For instance, McCaughrean includes the horrifying nuckelavee but ignores the Orcadian legend it is a part of, in which the monster is confined in the summer months by the good Sea Mither, a feminine spirit locked in constant struggle with her masculine counterpart Teran, who represents the storms of winter. I did not even know about this legend until I’d read The Stones are Hatching and was doing my research, but I did feel that the novel had a slightly hollow ring to it even before reaching the finish line.

Now I have to discuss the ending. If you think the book sounds like something you really want to read for yourself, you should stop here and come back later.

Massive spoilers ahead!

Phelim saves Britain. To do so he has to kill the Stoor Worm in its sleep, which effectively genocides its Hatchlings. That they would have done the same to humanity doesn’t matter to Phelim – he feels soiled. Throughout the book, Phelim’s mysterious magic has been tied to his “goodness” and he tries in the aftermath to explain to Alexia that he is no longer “ever-good” and that his name is now false. However, his magic has not faded, so by the rules of the Old Ways he is clearly in the right for what he did.

He then returns home to his sister, who reveals that when Phelim was little she had his father (the real Jack o’ Green) committed to an asylum for seeing things, for being a drunkard and a pacifist. Phelim responds by using his magic to summon up an ushtey (a water-horse), which he helps his sister to mount. She is then swept off to be drowned and he is relieved to be no longer burdened by goodness, magic or heroism. Ever-good Green had committed his first act of wickedness, and his magic was guttering out like a spent candle.

Punchline is, the boy tracks down his father and it turns out Jack o’ Green didn’t even mind being in the asylum all this time because he really is a lazy good-for-nothing, twirling his green thumbs while his pint-sized son had to save the world in his place. The hero’s journey is upended in a world never shown worth saving, all for some cheap attempt at moral equivalency. Phelim’s hatred and anger went with [the water-horse], sucked out of him like the nests out of the hedgerow. He was left with the same kind of emptiness as after killing the Worm. Oh right, no difference there.

So that’s what McCaughrean spent her considerable talents on in 1999. I neither see the point of The Stones are Hatching as a meaningful story nor do I have any idea who its intended audience is. Kids who actually like straight-up nihilistic horror fiction can doubtless find far bloodier books for their entertainment. Kids who enjoy fantasy – even dark fantasy – are unlikely to be entertained by this, because fantasy is an ancient and idealistic genre at heart, where big concepts like good and evil still manage to matter. There is of course an appreciable purpose to writing characters that deconstruct heroism, such as Special Agent Dale Cooper and Ned Stark, but the stories of these fallible men are A: intended for adults and B: do not peddle moral relativism like it’s some kind of revelation about humanity.

https://i0.wp.com/images4.fanpop.com/image/photos/17200000/Ashitaka-princess-mononoke-17253113-853-480.jpg — Ashitaka, from Princess Mononoke (1997), directed by Hayao Miyazaki.

It’s a real shame. My advice is to skip The Stones are Hatching and go watch Princess Mononoke instead – that has beauty alongside the ugliness and its hero Ashitaka (who also desires to find a peaceful solution to conflict between an ancient natural order and modernizing humans) doesn’t just throw in the towel and embrace evil when things don’t go his way.

Spoilers continue into the Parental Guide.

Violence: A constant. Gruesome imagery abounds, from skinless demons to Alexia’s bones being used to make a witch’s ladder after she’s been killed. Monsters are described in a visceral manner, as when Phelim discovers the corn wives in the wheat field:

Then the curve of the blade clanged against something hollow and metallic and black.
A woman’s rib cage.
No white-clothed beauty, this. At close quarters he could see the rust-red eyes, the adze-shaped chin, the nose as curved as a billhook. Her long, black skirt was pale with dust, but not the shiny black of her iron upper body. Her long, flue-black, iron breasts had blunted countless sickle blades as she stood amid the wheat, waiting for her victims to blunder into her. She held a long-handled scythe, but she and her sisters had not come to harvest wheat.
Only the reapers.

Many of the old myths gave monsters sexual characteristics and this is not bowdlerized. It’s even a plot point when the faeries choose to invade Britain with the sole intent of stealing its women now that most of the men are dead. Phelim doesn’t seem to feel bad about wiping out their invading fleet, either; possibly because they are sentient, whereas most of the Hatchlings are beasts.

Values: Obviously not heroism, which is deconstructed in a most neurotic fashion. In fighting [the Worm], he could only become what she was: malevolent, destructive. … Phelim thought of Assipattle slicing and slashing with his sword, and it was not so much the preposterousness of the myth that struck him (one man fighting this subcontinent of a beast) as the violence, the kill-or-be-killed pettishness of it all. So the boy rejects heroism because being one means killing the enemies of those you are a hero to defend.

Family isn’t worth anything at all in this book either – family members are simply in a more advantageous position to betray both Phelim and Alexia. I think the end appearance of Phelim’s absent father is meant to be a positive moment, but it feels decidedly hollow given how cheerfully inactive the old man has been this whole time.

While modernity, as represented by Prudence and the Great War, is certainly not shown in a positive light, the Old Ways are nothing to miss, given that the people who hearken back to them turn into frenzied mobs looking for human sacrifices. Christian ministers don’t come to the aid of the people, but the one guy who takes up the pagan ways ends up causing Alexia’s death for no reason. Even the hokiest modern values like “just believe in yourself” come to nothing. By subverting the heroism of Phelim, this entire book is washed of all meaning, other than a possible anti-war sentiment if you squint.

Role Models: As if. “I couldn’t bring myself to die on the moral high ground, sparing thousands of monsters bent on eviscerating mankind, so I’m going to murder my sister. That’ll show em’.”

Educational Properties: A parent-child fantasy bookclub discussing the rich soup of symbolism, folklore, metaphor and poisonous philosophy within the novel is really your only hope in this regard. It could even be time well spent depending on how much research you want to do, but there really are much better choices for British fantasy out there.

End of Guide.

At least I can console myself that this weird artistic misfire wasn’t a trilogy. It turns out that The Stones are Hatching is the real reason I started this blogging project, because almost none of the reviews I’ve found discuss the ending or the themes, so I hope I’ve helped someone by this holistic method. Sadly, my early enthusiasm for McCaughrean’s oeuvre is now significantly tarnished, although that won’t stop me from her giving her another try down the road.

Up Next: Let’s just go back to Tom Sawyer and Mark Twain’s continued bids to make money off him. As long as Tom doesn’t murder Aunt Polly, I’m up for anything.

Historical Fiction: The Scarlet Pimpernel

On May 4, 2019May 2, 2019 By nymithIn 1000 Good Books List, Adventure, British writers, Classics, French Revolution, Historical Fiction, Romance, Set in England, Set in Europe, Set in France1 Comment

A Hungarian Baroness writes a love letter to all things British starring a French heroine and incidentally creates one of the greatest swashbucklers of all time all without recourse to a single swordfight. This is why we read classics.

Title: The Scarlet Pimpernel (The Scarlet Pimpernel #1)
Author: Baroness Emmuska Orczy (1865-1947)
Original Publication Date: 1905
Edition: Puffin Classics (1997), 323 pages.
Genre: Historical. Romance. Swashbuckler.
Ages: 12-14
First Sentence: A surging, seething, murmuring crowd of beings that are human only in name, for to the eye and ear they seem naught but savage creatures, animated by vile passions and by the lust of vengeance and of hate.

One has to admire the effort taken by a publisher like Puffin. Their line of classics, complete and unabridged, gives a gentle yet firm admonishment to today’s parents: children, when competently taught and engaged, are highly capable readers and, once given a foundational vocabulary and cultural knowledge, many of the classics would appeal to them just as they did to previous generations. Teens looking for unsightly horror once sought out Frankenstein or The Phantom of the Opera while romantics read Jane Eyre. It is worth remembering that adventure and romance narratives WERE the young adult literature of past decades, among them the Baroness Orczy’s tale of love, espionage and a mysterious hero rescuing aristocrats from the bloody French Revolution…The Scarlet Pimpernel.

Half-empty glasses littered the table, unfolded napkins lay about, the chairs–turned towards one another in groups, of twos and threes–seemed like the seats of ghosts, in close conversation with one another. There were sets of two chairs–very close to one another–in the far corners of the room, which spoke of recent whispered flirtations, over cold game-pie and champagne; there were sets of three and four chairs, that recalled pleasant, animated discussions over the latest scandal; there were chairs straight in a row that still looked starchy, critical, acid, like antiquated dowagers; there were a few isolated, single chairs, close to the table, that spoke of gourmands intent on the most recherche dishes, and others overturned on the floor, that spoke volumes on the subject of my Lord Grenville’s cellars.
It was a ghostlike replica, in fact, of that fashionable gathering upstairs; a ghost that haunts every house where balls and good suppers are given; a picture drawn with white chalk on grey cardboard, dull and colourless, now that the bright silk dresses and gorgeously embroidered coats were no longer there to fill it in the foreground, and now that the candles flickered sleepily in their sockets.
…
It all looked so peaceful, so luxurious, and so still, that the keenest observer–a veritable prophet–could never have guessed that, at this present moment, that deserted supper-room was nothing but a trap laid for the capture of the most cunning and audacious plotter those stirring times had ever seen.

Just this one passage is proof enough that the Baroness, a native Hungarian who chose to write in English and spent the majority of her life in England, adored the English language. She was also a creative force in her time, penning her historical romance when “modernity” was the fashion and publishers scorned the result. Rather than giving up on her mysterious hero, the Baroness adapted her work into a play, adopting the “if you can’t go through, go around” idea. The play was such a success on stage that it proved there was a demand for old-fashioned heroism and the novel The Scarlet Pimpernel was published in 1905 and affectionately dedicated to the lead actors of the play. Johnston McCulley’s first Zorro story, The Curse of Capistrano, did not appear until 1919, leaving Baroness Orczy the clear originator of the “masked avenger” so widespread in 20th Century entertainment. Given how prevalent the trope has become, I have to wonder if anyone could possibly be surprised by the identity of the Scarlet Pimpernel anymore. Given how few characters are in the book, I also wonder when her original audience was expected to have it sussed out.

The Scarlet Pimpernel is told mostly from the perspective of Marguerite Blakeney, a Frenchwoman married to the wealthy English fop Sir Percy. The couple is not a happy one since the day of their marriage and now they avoid one another in private and wound each other in public. Marguerite’s only happiness is an occasional visit from her brother Armand. Approached by the French agent Chauvelin with evidence incriminating Armand as a traitor to the Revolution, Marguerite is blackmailed. To save her brother she must discover the location of the brave and cunning Scarlet Pimpernel and hand him over to Chauvelin. Marguerite must summon all her resourcefulness to save the hero all of England admires from her own betrayal.

This is fairly gripping stuff despite having very few action scenes. Baroness Orczy focuses on Marguerite’s internal struggle in the high stakes choice she must make: to save her brother she must send a noble man to the guillotine. Her emotions are believable and her motives sympathetic while the choices she must make are so dire that they keep the pages turning as she devises a spying method, tries to avoid getting caught, wonders whether to engage her husband on the matter and finally struggles to locate the Pimpernel before Chauvelin and his men – one woman alone in France. It’s very well done and livened up by Chauvelin’s always appearing at the worst possible moments and by occasional bouts of delightful realism little seen in books of this type. After all, when an epic chase is underway and the Channel must be crossed before it’s too late one hardly expects the mission to be called off on account of weather, yet heroes and villains alike are forced to wait out a sudden storm in a quiet seaside town. A sure drowning is of no use to the cause, yet so many adventure tales would prefer a dramatic battle with the elements where the practical Baroness chose to delay, thus exacerbating Marguerite’s fears and putting her in a spirit of desperation as things build to a finish.

The Scarlet Pimpernel is not without its flaws, however. Baroness Orczy falls prey to some repetitive language, more noticeable in some chapters than others. I lost track of how many times she referred to Percy’s inane laugh. In spite of the brilliantly ghoulish opening scene, she seems averse to violence and this lack of traditional derring-do, while not impairing the story as a whole, does leave the grand finale feeling somewhat deflated. The cinematic adaptations I have watched have each changed the ending to have greater suspense, and they also inject more scenes from the rescue missions performed by the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel, crafting a more conventional swashbuckler around the Baroness’ framework.

Though the ending disappointed me, there is plenty of satisfaction to be had in getting there and I was surprised by how reminiscent the set-up was to the young adult books I read as a teen. A nominally clever heroine interacting with two moody guys who are not all they might seem on the surface. It’s a common enough recipe and Chauvelin, whose impeccable manners never conflict with his gleeful villainy, is a splendid antagonist. Cosmetically, this whole plot could probably be instantly recycled with the addition of fangs or feminism, and the result would probably look a lot like the miniseries from 1999, which traded in guile for violence, gave Marguerite a more active role in events, equipped Chauvelin with a multilayered personality and hinted at some past attraction between the two. Baroness Orczy on the other hand maintains a strict demarcation between the just and the unjust in her story and I’m not holding my breath for a more accurate adaptation in the future.

Richard E. Grant 1999 — It did have its good points.

I enjoyed this novel a great deal and would highly recommend it for literary, conservative and homeschooling families. Perhaps best suited for those 12 to 14 year olds who are old enough to be interested in romance plotlines but who are not ready to try and field the more explicit material to be found in modern young adult. While there are something like a dozen sequels, none of them are held in the same regard. All are available on Project Gutenberg but I don’t have any plan to pursue them. The original has a fond place on my shelves and that will do for me.

Here follows the spoiler-packed Parental Guide:

Violence: For a novel of the French Revolution this is fairly genteel stuff, owing to the majority of the novel taking place in England and on a lonely stretch of French coast. Chapter One, told from the combined viewpoint of the salivating mobs of Paris, is a much different kettle of fish, full of ghoulish rejoicing and vivid little details, with the tricotteuses especially memorable: knitting and gossipping…whilst head after head fell beneath the knife, and they themselves got quite bespattered with the blood of those cursed aristos. Orczy paints a grim picture of the mob rule she had so feared from her youth and it colours the whole book the appropriate scarlet. Elsewhere there’s not much to speak of – a scuffle where two of the League are captured (later released anticlimactically offscreen) and a severe flogging toward the very end of the book, all described in mild language. Speaking of language, this book is replete with wonderfully quaint expressions of vexation: La! Lud! Zooks! Zounds! Demmed! Jackanapes! Odd’s life! One usage of “damn” late in the book is therefore a little surprising.

Values: The Scarlet Pimpernel takes a staunchly conservative view on the French Revolution with hints of disapproval at the Revolution’s atheism and full sympathy for the aristocrats. All things English are revered.

This being a romance, a great deal of attention is paid to the Blakeney’s strained marriage. They only have one big scene together, a fairly electric conversation as they hesitate – cautious, proud, suspicious and yet hurt by the distance between them as the omniscient narration shows their frustrated love and inability to voice it. It’s truly a marvel that so much can be achieved within one dialogue while the grievances and poor decisions made by Marguerite and Percy are a rich example of the immature ideals of “romance” that plague relationships. After Marguerite finally confesses the full history of her time as a Revolutionary this stinging dialogue follows:

Percy: “…at the time of the Marquis’ death, I entreated you for an explanation… I fancy that you refused me all explanation then, and demanded of my love a humiliating allegiance it was not prepared to give.”
“I wished to test your love for me, and it did not bear the test. You used to tell me that you drew the very breath of life but for me, and for love of me.”
“And to prove that love, you demanded that I should forfeit mine honour,” he said, whilst gradually his impassiveness seemed to leave him, his rigidity to relax; “that I should accept without murmur or question, as a dumb and submissive slave, every action of my mistress.”

If they’d just talked it out from the first instead of arranging tests of character and dishing out the silent treatment… However, heroism wins the day and brings about reconciliation and reaffirmed devotion between these two. The language is a treat, by the way. “Forfeit mine honour” is the sort of phrase I love but will probably never have opportunity to use.

Bravery is valued but the Baroness yet more highly prized cleverness, for the Scarlet Pimpernel never once confronts his enemies but instead uses disguise and subterfuge. The finale has him disguised as a Jew, relying on French anti-semitism to see him escape unnoticed. This doesn’t really work as a plot point since it shares identical tactics and motivation with the role of the pestilential old woman he played in the first scene, and it ends up feeling both drab and parodic – perhaps it had some comedic visual element that worked in theaters of the time, but subsequent filmmakers always change the ending to something more workable.

Role Models: The Scarlet Pimpernel achieves his ends without the use of violence, preferring trickery. His valor and daring are unmatched in the text and the men who follow him are loyal unto death, yet Baroness Orczy contrasts them starkly with Chauvelin’s men, who follow the boss’s directives with unbending zeal and what proves a disastrous lack of imagination. The League of the Pimpernel have that spark of independent thought which allows Sir Andrew Ffoulkes to accompany Marguerite on her mission to France without any input from his leader.

As for Marguerite, while she does make a fairly believable (if somewhat abrupt) transformation from a distant and disdainful wife to loving and self-sacrificing, several GoodReads reviewers took issue with her being described as the cleverest woman in Europe when she is so often slow on the uptake. However, I do believe this reference is made to social wit and repartee rather than intelligence as we would think of it today. From being surprised that accusing an aristocrat of treason would get him executed to completely missing all clues to her husband’s hidden depths, Marguerite is sadly just not that bright.

Educational Properties: This is one of the big reasons I recommend this book to homeschoolers. This would make a great kickstart to a unit on the French Revolution, perhaps compared and contrasted with the American Revolution or even (since so much of the book is about Britain) a nice civics lesson on the differences between the neighboring monarchies and the attendant results. This book would also make a good springboard to classic Hollywood filmmaking through the 1934 film, starring Leslie Howard, Merle Oberon and Raymond Massey. The film still holds up very well today and could itself make a good compare and contrast with The Mark of Zorro, as the two masked avengers share many qualities. Superheroes would also apply if your child likes them.

Creative exercises might include something like a map charting escape routes from Paris or some kind of Diary of an Aristo. The storm system halting all action could tie-in to the science of storms and famous shipwrecks in history. And if your child really enjoys the novel, A Tale of Two Cities could be a good future read.

End of Guide.

Overall this is an enjoyable yarn that’s held up well through the years. Let me know your thoughts on The Scarlet Pimpernel. Also, if you’ve read any of the sequels, am I wrong to dismiss them?

Up Next: We jump ahead to the 1980s and a historical novel by Ann Rinaldi.

The Western Corner of the Castle

Category: British writers

A Stranger Came Ashore – Mollie Hunter

The Magic Snow Bird and Other Stories – Enid Blyton

Flower Fairies of the Spring – Cicely Mary Barker

Fantasy: The Stones are Hatching

Historical Fiction: The Scarlet Pimpernel