Review: THE FIRST VIOLIN by Jesse Fothergill

Original Publication Date: 1877

Genre: Romance

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














Review by Rachel S:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

Review: MASTER FLEA by ETA Hoffmann

Original Publication Date: 1822

Genre: fairy tale, fantasy

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















Review by heidenkind:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Finally, I found the conclusion to be extremely irritating.

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






Download Master Flea by ETA Hoffmann at Project Gutenberg|Librivox

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

Original Publication Date: 1907

Genre: Literature, Germany, England 

Topics: Gender roles, friendship, epistolary, feminist

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Just loved this one.

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

Review: EMMA by Jane Austen

Proposed alternate title: Mr. Knightley is Always Right

Original Publication Date: 1815

Genre: women's fiction

Topics: marriage, women, coming of age, friendship, class




















Review by heidenkind:


The life of young, pretty, clever, and rich Emma Woodhouse is thrown into chaos—or at least discomfort—when her governess and best friend, Miss Taylor, gets married. Lonely, Emma tries to find other friendships in the small town of Highbury, but her managing ways only seem to spread misery, as her neighbor Mr. Knightley delights in pointing out. Will Emma ever be able to settle into a life of happiness, peace, and tranquility?

I actually liked Emma a lot more than I thought I would based on the film and television adaptations I've seen (of which there are an astonishing number, all things considered). In most adaptations, Emma comes across as a spoiled brat. Not to say she isn't, but I found her more sympathetic in the book.

Emma is separated into three parts: Emma vs Harriet Smith, Emma vs Jane Fairfax, and Emma vs Emma. Emma vs Harriet Smith was, quite frankly, REALLY hard to get through. If I hadn't promised Kelly from Reading with Analysis that I would read Emma for Jane Austen January, I probably would have DNF'd it before I got to Part 2. Emma is just SUCH a manipulative bitch. It was so bad I wondered if Jane Austen wasn't making fun of Prince George, whom she hated but was forced to dedicate Emma to (I guess because he asked her to). After all, like Prinny, Emma is the princess of her little village: no other person is her social equal, and that is NOT a benefit for her, personality- or character-wise. Yet everyone inexplicably thinks she's wonderful; and even if they don't, they don't say anything about it. Also like Prinny, Emma's dad is CRAZY. But, I will say this much for her: when Emma realizes she's made a mistake, she owns up to it and apologizes right away. So going into Part 2, I was inclined to think better of her.

I found Emma vs Jane Fairfax to be more amusing than Part 1. Mostly because I already knew what was going to happen, so I could enjoy the irony. But there was one thing that drove me insane: conversations that went on and on AND ON. Like we get it already! The joke has been made! Let me give you some examples of the fascinating topics under discussion:

The post office. Did you know they ship mail? And the mail often reaches its recipient! It's a wonder of organization, is what it is. Let's discuss this for TEN PAGES.
*silently screaming*<-me

MRS ELTON: Jane, I'm going to find you a governess position.
JANE: No thank you.
REPEAT AD INFINITUM

Gruel! It's a healthy dinner option for anyone who's ill or has completely given up on life. But did you know it shouldn't be too thick? Nor too thin.

In Emma vs Emma, Emma goes into a hate spiral because Harriet tells her Mr. Knightley is in love with her. And since everyone except Knightley has noticed he's a being moody bastard, Emma is inclined to believe her. I do have to admit I found Mr. Knightley pretty attractive and thought he and Emma had great chemistry. That is, at least until the part of the book where Emma gives him Frank Churchill's letter (and people today whine about email forwarding...) and Knightley goes through it line by line, criticizing everything Frank ever did or was wont to do. Because Knightley's not only a good man, a kind man, a beautiful man; he's the most perfect man to have ever walked the earth! At least since Jesus.

Look who's talking, buddy.

But enough unnecessary summary. The sculptor Louise Nevelson once said, "Life isn't one straight line. Most of us have to be transplanted, like a tree, before we blossom." And maybe it's because of that quote that I found Emma to be unsuccessful as a coming of age story. There were times when it reminded me of a Georgian version of Seinfeld: nothing changes. Emma's world is very small (though not idyllic—there are robberies and whatnot), and she never expresses even barest hint of a wish to leave or grow beyond it. She doesn't even move into Knightley's house—which is what, a five minute walk away?—after they're married! Emma may not be as wackadoo as her dad, but just like him she doesn't want anything to change, ever, and I would argue that includes herself. Sure, she realizes she's made a few mistakes over the course of the novel, but the ease with which she faces them and moves on makes me doubt she learned anything from them. For example, when she's like, "Mr. Knightley was right, I never should have befriended Harriet Smith!" it's because she thinks Mr. Knightley is in love with Harriet and she wants him for herself, not because she's had some sort inner revelation about how Harriet is significantly less happy now than she was before Emma condescended to notice her. Even in the last part of the novel she's still pretty selfish.

I also found Emma to be a more cynical novel than other Austen novels I've read. In Pride & Prejudice, you really get the sense that even though Darcy and Elizabeth got off on the wrong foot, they come to a true understanding of one another, flaws and all. With Emma, almost the opposite is true: she starts off as a matchmaker, believing she understands the human heart, and ends up thinking that no one can ever really know another human being. But that's cool, since she doesn't really care all that much anyway.

I'm glad I read Emma. It is a well-written book, but I don't think it will ever be my favorite Austen novel. Or even my fourth-favorite.

Incidentally, I listened to the Librivox version of the book narrated by Moira Fogarty, and she did a fantastic job. She gave every character his/her own voice and everything. I highly recommend it!



Download Emma by Jane Austen at Project Gutenberg|Librivox|GirleBooks

Review: THE SEVEN SLEUTHS' CLUB by Carol Norton

Original Publication Date: 1928

Genre: middle-grade

Topics: friendship, equality            





















Review by heidenkind:

In the small town of Sunnyside, seven high school girls start a club called the SSC, which originally means Spread Sunshine Club until one of the girls figures out their brothers are in a Conan-Doyle sleuthing club. After he tells her girls can't solve mysteries, they decide to change their name to the Seven Sleuths Club and look for mysteries to solve. But before that happens, they have to deal with their annoying brothers, schoolwork, and a new girl in town who's a bit of a snob.

The Seven Sleuths' Club is a combination of Little Women and The Babysitters' Club, with Moral Lessons about treating everyone equally regardless of class or race (and, more subtly, irrespective of gender), the value of hard work, and the importance of kindness and compassion. Despite that, the book doesn't come off as preachy—I probably only noticed the Moral Lessons because I'm old and I notice stuff like that. The lessons are well-integrated into the story and if I was a middle-grade reader—the novel's intended audience—it wouldn't have been too twee for me.

Although there are eight main girl characters, the heroine of the story is really Geraldine, a rich city girl whose father sends her to Sunnyside because she's traipsing out with boys at night without telling him. As her dad explains in a letter to the Colonel, who's taking care of her, "Now I want Geraldine to have boy friends in a frank, open way, but of this sub-rosa business, my son and I heartily disapprove," which is quite open-minded of him. At first the girls of the SSC make fun of Geraldine because she's a horrible snob, but gradually we learn she's just a poor little rich girl who never had a mom to teach her manners and she gets an attitude adjustment.

The girls of the SSC were pretty interchangeable as characters—they're all more or less church-going goody goodies—but I liked Geraldine. Another character whom I LOVED was Danny O’Neil, the son of a tenant farmer who's Irish. Danny's passion is art but his dad beats him whenever he sees him drawing. Now here's the kicker: for Valentine's Day, he carves book ends for one of the girls because he know she loves to read! BEST GIFT EVER. He is so sweet.

The Seven Sleuths' Club most definitely passes the Bechdel Test—the girls talk about school work, events they're planning, their hobbies, and of course what sorts of mysteries they're going to solve (it takes nearly the entire book for them to find one). But I'm not sure I would call it feminist or say that the girls have demonstrable agency, since all the decisions they make are a response to what men do. It starts with the formation of the club—the boys have a detective club, we need a detective club!—and moves on to Geraldine, who only decides to "improve herself" when the boy she's crushing on says he wants to marry a girl who's a decent homemaker. *eyeroll* Still, there are some light—very light—digs at the boys, and eventually the two clubs join in an equal partnership. Oh, and the idea that men and women can't have platonic friendships? Carol Norton obviously doesn't agree: although there are a few romances going on in the story, for the most part all the girls and boys in the novel are simply friends who hang out together.

While The Seven Sleuths' Club isn't exactly feminist by modern standards, and is a little preachy and overly cute (although much less so than other books of its ilk like, say, Little Women), I still enjoyed it and loved the characters. Definitely worth checking out if you're interested in historic middle-grade fiction!






Download The Seven Sleuths' Club by Carol Norton at Project Gutenberg|Librivox