School Stories
I had angharad's list. As it turns out, there were two books on it which I had already read (Ballet Shoes and Witch Week); I also read A Great and Terrible Beauty, which accordingly I have discussed at most length.
In the interest of full disclosure, I was extremely unimpressed by this book. The title and summary sounded promising; I have always loved Caroline Stevermer's A College of Magics, which sub_divided has reviewed in detail on this community, and this sounded similar. Upon picking it up, I quickly downgraded my expectations and hoped for something fun and trashy. Unfortunately, I did not even find the book particularly fun.
The basic plot is that Gemma Doyle, who has been raised in India under the British Raj, is sent to a finishing School in England called Spence after her mother is murdered under suspicious magical circumstances. Gemma has visions in which creepy people are telling her "join us"; this is never a good sign. She's also being followed by a good-looking Indian (or perhaps Rom) gentleman called Kartik, who is prone to leaving her warnings about how badly she is behaving by, for example, slashing up and scrawling over personal letters from her father and leaving them on her dormitory bed. He does help her out sometimes, though, and evidently his eyelashes are nice. So, a wash there, I guess. Anyway, Gemma gets minorly bullied by local Mean Girls Felicity and Pippa, and defends her scholarship-student roommate Ann, who engages in self injury (cutting), a fact that the book makes sure to remind us about several times but never actually engages with. Inevitably Gemma is just so cool that she falls into the cool clique, who begin meeting at night in a cave and acting for all the world as if they have seen The Craft one too many times-- painting blood on their faces, pretending they can open spirit doors, reading over a creepy 20 year old diary that Gemma found, and so on. Eventually Gemma owns up to her own magic, and their play-magic becomes real.
Wouldn't you know that not only is Gemma the chosen one, but she has red hair, green eyes, and is tall? Oh, and look at the lovely butt-shot half-turn fantasy-romance cover:
Gemma's characterization was not particularly interesting to me. She begins as one of the more inexcusable whiny teenagers I've met on paper; and beyond her later-manifested special ability-- to lie convincingly for her own social gain--nothing really redeems her from this. She befriends the in clique, she happily shuns their former allies along with them; this is Mean Girls if Lindsey Lohan never saw the light. It would be one thing if the narrative grasped this, but it all too easily forgives the lovely A-list socialites and lionizes their characters and plights. Poor Ann is really the only exception here, leading me to wonder if the only reason she is present in the text is simply as a token, as a statement of: "See? See? This social narrative isn't as horrible as it looks!" Ann is a charity case at Spense; she's a charity case here, too. She's there to make it OK for us readers to come around to Felicity. In the end, I was left with the sense that all these characters were sort of awful human beings; this in and of itself is interesting, but only if it is revealed-- it would be more apt to say that this text is complicit in the moral vacuum.
More troublesome was the repeated anachronism of the plot. I often felt as if I was reading a high school drama with some corsets thrown in to make it more exotic. India? Same bargain. It's telling that Gemma's reaction to London is, and I quote, "in a strange way, it all reminds me of India". What clearer sign could we have that these locations are all the same? Like cardboard sets with the words "India" and "London" written on them. The school itself is a stock gothic castle, and the fantasy land that Gemma and her clique eventually gain access to is a bland paradise where the girls safely engage in magical self-improvement schemes. Despite the repeated insistence that danger lurks everywhere, it is quite easy for these girls to accomplish their schemes; only one faces consequences, and that only at her own choice. The entire narrative is replete with anachronistic turns of phrase, attitudes toward art, and even humor. This also could have been done well if the author had played it up deliberately and made it a feature of the narrative; but it is fairly clear elsewhere in the text that she is trying to be oh so period. Again, the setting of the story is more gothic exoticism than real plot element; at its core, this story could easily be set in the modern day instead of 1891. It made me want to send the author back to reread A Little Princess!
It should also be mentioned that the entire book is written in Gemma's 1st person POV, present tense. I've read enough fanfiction in my time to be somewhat inured to this, but I'll admit that I found it somewhat tiresome in even such a short novel-- and particularly when it seems to have been used to no particular artistic effect. It is almost as if the eternal present moment, passing by, just contributes to the sense of this book as a transient artifact of consumer culture-- oh so current, oh so disposable.
There was one redeeming factor here in the diary, which tells a story with much more interest, much higher moral stakes, more fantasy, more gore, and more interest. I can only wish that Bray had told this story instead, and wonder if perhaps the truer horror of the gothic was something that she could not confront directly; she certainly holds it at arm's length here. More's the pity; when literature is timid, it becomes bland, and that is everywhere in evidence here.
Not recommended.
This, with The Magicians of Caprona, is one of two original Chrestomanci novels that feature the enchanter as a secondary character. Although I was disappointed that there was very little Chrestomanci here, as he's one of her better realized characters, this is quite a charming little book. The characters are believable-- and believable children, which is harder; and although the tone is overall light, the sense of the reality of the stakes is always present. It's something Jones does so well, it's part of what makes her a genius of children's literature, specifically-- that ability to capture both the whimsy and the honest-to-God scariness that characterize the child's powerlessness in the world. When the action moves away from the pranks and mayhem of the school and into the decidedly more sinister world of the adults in this book, the danger emerges dramatically; the "pun" of the novel is both cute and, in context, a hidden and somewhat terrifying statement about the power of political oppression and "witch hunts" in society more generally. It's a creampuff of a book, an easy read; but as with most of Jones' fiction, part of the trick is that she makes horrible things look like normal things-- like accepted things that you can just gloss over as part of the fairy tale or the worldbuilding-- and then reveals them so abruptly that you almost wonder if this is really children's literature you are reading. Which is, of course, the way horrible things often present themselves to us, as hidden things, societal things, things you don't see until the narrative shifts and all of a sudden there they are, and of course they have always been there all along. It's growing up she's writing, and it's learning in its brutality and necessity. I will always have a place for Jones, and although this is not my favorite of her books it is still:
Recommended.
Ballet Shoes was a childhood favorite of mine. Evidently, it's a pretty common childhood favorite; it's been adapted for TV twice.
Ballet Shoes is the story of three foundlings who have all been adopted by the man they call "Gum" (Great Uncle Matthew). Pauline, Petrova, and Posy were all given the last name "Fossil", and are part of Gum's collection of "curios"; but when Gum leaves and funds run low, they are sent out to learn dance as a means to help support the household. The book is a sort of fable; each sister has her own talent, her own personality, and, handily enough, her own color scheme. Pauline, the eldest, is blonde and rosy-cheeked and a perhaps little stuck-up in that "eldest" way, but essentially good natured. Her acting career, which gradually develops from her balletic upbringing, is the main mover of the plot. Petrova is pale and dark-haired and a bit stocky, and also intellectual and shy; she dreads dancing in public, though she gamely does so to help bring in income. She'd rather work with airplanes. Posy, as the youngest, is the least well-developed character; she's small, lithe, and red-haired, and her mother was a famous dancer. Posy is obsessed with dance to the exclusion of all else, and often acts the perfect innocent egotist-artiste about it. But she's still quite young at the end of the book.
What I always liked about this book was the way it showed the girls' differences, and also the way that despite its programmatic fairy-tale-ness it's still pretty honest about the pain of adolescence without wallowing in it. A couple of the bits I found most memorable are as followers: First, when Pauline is cast as Alice in a stage production because she looks "ridiculously Tenniel", despite the fact that her plainer and more hard-working friend did far better in the audition. Pauline's guilt-- needing the money, horrified at the unfairness, ashamed at benefiting at a friend's expense-- is depicted in its full complexity, honestly, unflinchingly, yet perfectly simply. It's a poignant moment in the fairy tale. In the end, only Pauline reaches adulthood, and it's largely because of the responsibilities and adult choices (with consequent emotions) that she must take on as the oldest Fossil.
Another memorable moment is Petrova's stage disaster, riding her sister's coattails as Mustardseed in a production of Midsummer Night's Dream. She completely fails to say her one and only line, "and I", instead squeaking ignobly; her costume is also embarrassing. Petrova's good humor carries her through the experience and solidifies her resolve to go into a field other than the stage.
Basically, Ballet Shoes is a simple but emotionally honest story, and one that is surprisingly positive about the strength and potential of girls-- and the existence of further life and career outside of school! The best "school" series, I think, are most poignant at such moments-- when the mayhem is over and the characters become arrows of the adults we imagine they will become.
In the interest of full disclosure, I was extremely unimpressed by this book. The title and summary sounded promising; I have always loved Caroline Stevermer's A College of Magics, which sub_divided has reviewed in detail on this community, and this sounded similar. Upon picking it up, I quickly downgraded my expectations and hoped for something fun and trashy. Unfortunately, I did not even find the book particularly fun.
The basic plot is that Gemma Doyle, who has been raised in India under the British Raj, is sent to a finishing School in England called Spence after her mother is murdered under suspicious magical circumstances. Gemma has visions in which creepy people are telling her "join us"; this is never a good sign. She's also being followed by a good-looking Indian (or perhaps Rom) gentleman called Kartik, who is prone to leaving her warnings about how badly she is behaving by, for example, slashing up and scrawling over personal letters from her father and leaving them on her dormitory bed. He does help her out sometimes, though, and evidently his eyelashes are nice. So, a wash there, I guess. Anyway, Gemma gets minorly bullied by local Mean Girls Felicity and Pippa, and defends her scholarship-student roommate Ann, who engages in self injury (cutting), a fact that the book makes sure to remind us about several times but never actually engages with. Inevitably Gemma is just so cool that she falls into the cool clique, who begin meeting at night in a cave and acting for all the world as if they have seen The Craft one too many times-- painting blood on their faces, pretending they can open spirit doors, reading over a creepy 20 year old diary that Gemma found, and so on. Eventually Gemma owns up to her own magic, and their play-magic becomes real.
Wouldn't you know that not only is Gemma the chosen one, but she has red hair, green eyes, and is tall? Oh, and look at the lovely butt-shot half-turn fantasy-romance cover:
Gemma's characterization was not particularly interesting to me. She begins as one of the more inexcusable whiny teenagers I've met on paper; and beyond her later-manifested special ability-- to lie convincingly for her own social gain--nothing really redeems her from this. She befriends the in clique, she happily shuns their former allies along with them; this is Mean Girls if Lindsey Lohan never saw the light. It would be one thing if the narrative grasped this, but it all too easily forgives the lovely A-list socialites and lionizes their characters and plights. Poor Ann is really the only exception here, leading me to wonder if the only reason she is present in the text is simply as a token, as a statement of: "See? See? This social narrative isn't as horrible as it looks!" Ann is a charity case at Spense; she's a charity case here, too. She's there to make it OK for us readers to come around to Felicity. In the end, I was left with the sense that all these characters were sort of awful human beings; this in and of itself is interesting, but only if it is revealed-- it would be more apt to say that this text is complicit in the moral vacuum.
More troublesome was the repeated anachronism of the plot. I often felt as if I was reading a high school drama with some corsets thrown in to make it more exotic. India? Same bargain. It's telling that Gemma's reaction to London is, and I quote, "in a strange way, it all reminds me of India". What clearer sign could we have that these locations are all the same? Like cardboard sets with the words "India" and "London" written on them. The school itself is a stock gothic castle, and the fantasy land that Gemma and her clique eventually gain access to is a bland paradise where the girls safely engage in magical self-improvement schemes. Despite the repeated insistence that danger lurks everywhere, it is quite easy for these girls to accomplish their schemes; only one faces consequences, and that only at her own choice. The entire narrative is replete with anachronistic turns of phrase, attitudes toward art, and even humor. This also could have been done well if the author had played it up deliberately and made it a feature of the narrative; but it is fairly clear elsewhere in the text that she is trying to be oh so period. Again, the setting of the story is more gothic exoticism than real plot element; at its core, this story could easily be set in the modern day instead of 1891. It made me want to send the author back to reread A Little Princess!
It should also be mentioned that the entire book is written in Gemma's 1st person POV, present tense. I've read enough fanfiction in my time to be somewhat inured to this, but I'll admit that I found it somewhat tiresome in even such a short novel-- and particularly when it seems to have been used to no particular artistic effect. It is almost as if the eternal present moment, passing by, just contributes to the sense of this book as a transient artifact of consumer culture-- oh so current, oh so disposable.
There was one redeeming factor here in the diary, which tells a story with much more interest, much higher moral stakes, more fantasy, more gore, and more interest. I can only wish that Bray had told this story instead, and wonder if perhaps the truer horror of the gothic was something that she could not confront directly; she certainly holds it at arm's length here. More's the pity; when literature is timid, it becomes bland, and that is everywhere in evidence here.
Not recommended.
This, with The Magicians of Caprona, is one of two original Chrestomanci novels that feature the enchanter as a secondary character. Although I was disappointed that there was very little Chrestomanci here, as he's one of her better realized characters, this is quite a charming little book. The characters are believable-- and believable children, which is harder; and although the tone is overall light, the sense of the reality of the stakes is always present. It's something Jones does so well, it's part of what makes her a genius of children's literature, specifically-- that ability to capture both the whimsy and the honest-to-God scariness that characterize the child's powerlessness in the world. When the action moves away from the pranks and mayhem of the school and into the decidedly more sinister world of the adults in this book, the danger emerges dramatically; the "pun" of the novel is both cute and, in context, a hidden and somewhat terrifying statement about the power of political oppression and "witch hunts" in society more generally. It's a creampuff of a book, an easy read; but as with most of Jones' fiction, part of the trick is that she makes horrible things look like normal things-- like accepted things that you can just gloss over as part of the fairy tale or the worldbuilding-- and then reveals them so abruptly that you almost wonder if this is really children's literature you are reading. Which is, of course, the way horrible things often present themselves to us, as hidden things, societal things, things you don't see until the narrative shifts and all of a sudden there they are, and of course they have always been there all along. It's growing up she's writing, and it's learning in its brutality and necessity. I will always have a place for Jones, and although this is not my favorite of her books it is still:
Recommended.
Ballet Shoes was a childhood favorite of mine. Evidently, it's a pretty common childhood favorite; it's been adapted for TV twice.
Ballet Shoes is the story of three foundlings who have all been adopted by the man they call "Gum" (Great Uncle Matthew). Pauline, Petrova, and Posy were all given the last name "Fossil", and are part of Gum's collection of "curios"; but when Gum leaves and funds run low, they are sent out to learn dance as a means to help support the household. The book is a sort of fable; each sister has her own talent, her own personality, and, handily enough, her own color scheme. Pauline, the eldest, is blonde and rosy-cheeked and a perhaps little stuck-up in that "eldest" way, but essentially good natured. Her acting career, which gradually develops from her balletic upbringing, is the main mover of the plot. Petrova is pale and dark-haired and a bit stocky, and also intellectual and shy; she dreads dancing in public, though she gamely does so to help bring in income. She'd rather work with airplanes. Posy, as the youngest, is the least well-developed character; she's small, lithe, and red-haired, and her mother was a famous dancer. Posy is obsessed with dance to the exclusion of all else, and often acts the perfect innocent egotist-artiste about it. But she's still quite young at the end of the book.
What I always liked about this book was the way it showed the girls' differences, and also the way that despite its programmatic fairy-tale-ness it's still pretty honest about the pain of adolescence without wallowing in it. A couple of the bits I found most memorable are as followers: First, when Pauline is cast as Alice in a stage production because she looks "ridiculously Tenniel", despite the fact that her plainer and more hard-working friend did far better in the audition. Pauline's guilt-- needing the money, horrified at the unfairness, ashamed at benefiting at a friend's expense-- is depicted in its full complexity, honestly, unflinchingly, yet perfectly simply. It's a poignant moment in the fairy tale. In the end, only Pauline reaches adulthood, and it's largely because of the responsibilities and adult choices (with consequent emotions) that she must take on as the oldest Fossil.
Another memorable moment is Petrova's stage disaster, riding her sister's coattails as Mustardseed in a production of Midsummer Night's Dream. She completely fails to say her one and only line, "and I", instead squeaking ignobly; her costume is also embarrassing. Petrova's good humor carries her through the experience and solidifies her resolve to go into a field other than the stage.
Basically, Ballet Shoes is a simple but emotionally honest story, and one that is surprisingly positive about the strength and potential of girls-- and the existence of further life and career outside of school! The best "school" series, I think, are most poignant at such moments-- when the mayhem is over and the characters become arrows of the adults we imagine they will become.