Title: The New House Mistress (1928)
Author: Elinor M. Brent-Dyer
Why this book?
Firstly, since I have a driving passion to own hardcover copies of every book Brent-Dyer ever wrote; and secondly because it was going cheap on trademe. Oh trademe, where would I be without you?
What's it all about anyway?
The Middles at St Helen's School are very upset to hear that their beloved teacher, Miss Lessing, is leaving to get married during the half-term holidays. Lead by the charming and popular Barbara Allen, they decide to treat whoever takes her place as badly as possible, in a misguided attempt to stay loyal to her predecessor. Miss Oswald, the new house mistress, is determined to win the girls over, and almost does so when she saves one of the student's lives. However, Barbara is only more determined to show Miss Oswald she isn't wanted.
Barbara is badly shaken when she hears that her younger sister and brother, both living in India with her parents, were almost killed by a savage crocodile; only the efforts of a mysterious English girl saved their lives. Unable to sleep, she takes to the lawn in the middle of the night for a dance, where she is caught and punished by Miss Oswald. She also runs into trouble with the new teacher when she purposefully throws a tennis match in order to display her dislike for her.
In a final show of rebellion, Barbara and her friends put on a play for the rest of the Middles, the performance to be held in the middle of the night. The chosen play is based on the ballad of Barbara Allen, which, incidentally, I had never heard of before but a few different versions of it can be found here. (Warning: it is pretty dire.) The play is a success, but one of the audience members accidentally sets fire to the dormitories. Barbara finally realises how badly she's been behaving - but her realisation may have come too late, since Miss Oswald has been badly injured in the fire...
The Good and the Bad
This was a pretty quick read, which was a little disappointing since Brent-Dyer's books are usually comparatively substantial. It also meant that she had less time to develop her characters, which again was disappointing, since characterisation is really one of her strengths. As a result we really only got to know Barbara, and I kind of feel like I would have liked her more if I'd seen her before she started acting like a total brat to Miss Oswald. Miss Oswald for her part only narrowly missed being a 'plaster saint' - she wasn't completely perfect, but on the other hand, she did save a total of four lives in the story, on three different occasions, which felt a little heavy-handed (and by 'a little' I mean 'ridiculously').
Title: Carnation of the Upper Fourth (1934)
Author: Elinor M. Brent-Dyer
Why this book? I actually read this book online, which always ruins a little of the magic for me, but I've never ever even see a copy of it for sale, and also reading it online it was free. Sweet.
What's it all about anyway?
Carnation has been travelling the world with her artist father, and has therefore never been to school before. Her arrival on the first day of term immediately attracts the attention of Madge, the local doctor's daughter. Madge is given to running after a new girl every term but this year, for the first time, it seems that her friendship with Carnation will last. Their friendship is cemented after Carnation's father falls ill, and Carnation moves in with Madge's large, boisterous family.
At school, Carnation proves to be excellent at both tennis and French, upsetting her classmate Birdie, who was until Carnation's arrival the reigning champion at both of these. An inter-school tennis competition is coming up, and Birdie is worried that Carnation will be chosen to play - but she won't. She starts a petition to have only sixth formers play in the match, which infuriates the school prefects who see her behaviour as rude. Birdie, upset that her plan didn't work, refuses to play properly and doesn't make it into the tennis team - Carnation and Madge both do.
Birdie's friend Joan is one of her many followers. Like most of the girls at school, they're both Girl Guides, and are meant to be spending a weekend doing tracking practice. Birdie's brother offers to take them to see to a lake, if they can get permission from their Guide Leader. Birdie easily convinces Joan to join her, and doesn't bother asking for permission. Birdie also doesn't bother to tell Joan when she unexpectedly can't make it to the tracking practice. Joan takes off for the lake by herself and almost drowns before Carnation and Madge find her and save her life. Joan doesn't blame Birdie for what has happened, but when the truth comes out and Birdie gets into trouble, she blames everything on Joan and physically attacks her.
Birdie has now lost most of her friends, and she blames it all on Carnation. She is determined that Carnation won't get to play in the inter-school tennis match, and hatches a plan to lock her in an Art Room so she won't make it to the game. However, Carnation is freed in time to play her match, and Birdie decides she's better off leaving for another school.
The Good and the Bad
Despite being the titular character, Carnation wasn't really that interesting. I mean, she's basically good at everything she does, has no apparent faults, and is almost completely passive in the sense that things happen to her and she reacts to them. Yawn. Madge, on the other hand, is lovely - she's good-hearted and good-humoured, she's passionate and she doesn't really think things through; there's something about her which is very 'real', unlike Carnation. Birdie, too, is realistic - not very pleasant, but there were definitely girls like her at my school, some seventy years after this book was written! She came across as very charismatic, and it wasn't surprising that a lot of girls followed her lead, at least until the full extent of her character was exposed.
The story dragged in several places. The chapter on Carnation's father's illness was very odd; one moment I was reading a jolly school story, the next moment it was all praying to God and bedside vigils; then her father was completely out of the picture and it was back to the school story again. The tennis also went on and on and on; I mean, all I wanted to know was whether Carnation and co. made it into the school team, I didn't want a play-by-play of every single match.
So should I read these books or what?
Um. Neither of these are EBD's strongest books, although as I said, her characterisation, as always, shines through. Of the two I preferred The New House Mistress, but I'd still tell anyone who's interested to hit her Chalet School series first.
Lights, camera...
OK, so I've seen four films so far at the festival, and I can recommend three of them for you to see when they come to a Cinema Near You:
Bright Star is about Keats; or, more accurately, is about his relationship with Fanny Brawne. I'm not sure how true to life it is (and I suspect it's a lot more sympathetic to Fanny than many Keats biographies are) but it was a really beautiful film. This is coming from someone who usually hates romance in any shape or form, so the fact that I actually liked it should tell you how fantastic Bright Star really is. I think it's due for international release in about six months, so go and see it then!
The Baader Meinhof Complex, by contrast, was harrowing to watch. It is basically a potted history of the R.A.F., a left-wing terrorist group in Germany which rose out of the social protest movements of the 60's and 70's. One of the very first scenes shows police attacking peaceful student protesters, and the R.A.F. responds by blowing up a department store; the group continues to blow up buildings and execute the people it sees as fascists. Eventually the R.A.F. leaders are captured and subjected to horrific treatment in jail; but even then they have a huge following, particularly among the educated middle class. The movie does drag towards the end, but it's brilliant all the way through - and scary.
There are only two words that one can possibly use to describe Dead Snow, and those words are "Nazi" and "Zombies". Eight Norweigian university students go to a friends' isolated cabin to spend their winter break and accidentally awaken a sleeping evil from WWII. Again, can I just say Nazi zombies. Awesome.
I can't actually recommend the fourth film I've seen, as it was actually a selection of short films by the artist Len Lye. It was pretty amazing though - if you ever get a chance to check out his work, do!
Posts
1 comment:
Since I did love all those Enid Blyton boarding school books, I may have to check out the books you reviewed. Jolly hockey sticks and all! :)
Post a Comment