REVIEW: Goblin Island
Goblin Island: Elsie J. Oxenham Girls Gone By Publishers 2007
I was charmed throughout Sunday afternoon by this first book by Oxenham, in which a Girl, the typist for her father, known as the Author, gets to know the Colquhoun family one summer. The antics of the white cat that insists on sitting on what looks like the most important pile of papers in a room, Tib, and the aptly named dog, Cigarette, who is fascinated by smoking, made me chortle. But Oxenham’s chief concern is the Colquhouns, who were orphaned when the eldest girl, Peggy, was eighteen. For two years she has been looking after her four younger brothers and sisters at their family home, Strongarra, while her elder brother Malcolm studies at university. Hopefully temporary financial troubles mean that they must let the house and squash together at an inhabitable cottage on an island, Innis Beg, on the nearby loch for the summer. The younger children are charmed by the idea, but the middle children, full of mischief, decide that the Maxwells - the Author and the Girl - will be their Enemy (for no clear reason, really. They are paying and it’s only temporary. I had much less sympathy for them than for Gwyneth in The Girl Who Wouldn’t Make Friends). And so they wage a feud for most of the summer.
The Oxenham tendency for nicknames is present and correct. Peggy and Malcolm are exempted, because they are grown ups, but their living siblings all have nicknames that are reminiscent of fairy tales - at least Jack doesn’t, but his sister Grizel*, close to him in age and his boon companion, becomes Jill. They are the mischievous ones - I nearly called them twins, but they aren’t in reality, only in spirit. Sheila has a red hooded cloak and is thus Red Riding Hood and the youngest, Robin, has a blue pinafore - being too young for a kilt - and is Little Boy Blue. Peggy is very sweet and pretty (although a little too soft on Jack and Jill) but I didn’t like her as much as I was meant to, as she wouldn’t let Grizel talk Gaelic - it’s one thing to correct her for talking Highlander English, but Gaelic? Humph. The Colqhouns clearly aren’t English, not when their family was involved in the legend that led to the nearby island being named ‘Goblin Island’.
For Jill is superstitious and believes in goblins and witches. Part of her prejudice against the Girl is that she owns a cat, which isn’t even black. Her elders think that school will rationalise it out of her (but why wouldn’t lessons with the local vicar do that?) The ‘war’ involves some vandalism, rudeness and petty thievery. I thought they were rather lightly let off. Certainly the Maxwells seem rather blase about their 'ghost'/intruder, discussing it merrily with the Mystery aka crippled Marjory whom they have informally adopted. Marjory gets to know Jack and Jill secretly. She’s in the noble invalid mould, and doesn’t get the Clara in the Alps ‘cure’ that I was half-expecting from all the talk of her disability not seeming to be permanent. Meanwhile, the other significant character is Don, Jean Maxwell’s brother who comes to be a locum nearby and is attracted to Peggy and pretends to be a Macdonald, not a Maxwell to gein Jack and Jill's confidence.
The book is full of typical Oxenham touches and characteristic ways of seeing things, although it’s a first (published) effort. The first person narrative is quaint, although there’s too much going on that Jean COULDN’T have known about, and oh, the shyness of the narrator/self-insert about the other manuscript that isn’t the one we're reading! We never know what Jack and Jill or her father thought of it and Jean decided to work on the story of how they all got on instead, which is mainly about the interactions and growing friendships between the Colqhuons and the Maxwells, ending in Peggy and Don's marriage and a bairn to unify them forever. I did like the descriptions of the locality, although it is set in a comparatively sunny, summery Highland world.
*Yes, I thought of the Chalet School too.
Edited on 27/4/11 for typos etc.
I was charmed throughout Sunday afternoon by this first book by Oxenham, in which a Girl, the typist for her father, known as the Author, gets to know the Colquhoun family one summer. The antics of the white cat that insists on sitting on what looks like the most important pile of papers in a room, Tib, and the aptly named dog, Cigarette, who is fascinated by smoking, made me chortle. But Oxenham’s chief concern is the Colquhouns, who were orphaned when the eldest girl, Peggy, was eighteen. For two years she has been looking after her four younger brothers and sisters at their family home, Strongarra, while her elder brother Malcolm studies at university. Hopefully temporary financial troubles mean that they must let the house and squash together at an inhabitable cottage on an island, Innis Beg, on the nearby loch for the summer. The younger children are charmed by the idea, but the middle children, full of mischief, decide that the Maxwells - the Author and the Girl - will be their Enemy (for no clear reason, really. They are paying and it’s only temporary. I had much less sympathy for them than for Gwyneth in The Girl Who Wouldn’t Make Friends). And so they wage a feud for most of the summer.
The Oxenham tendency for nicknames is present and correct. Peggy and Malcolm are exempted, because they are grown ups, but their living siblings all have nicknames that are reminiscent of fairy tales - at least Jack doesn’t, but his sister Grizel*, close to him in age and his boon companion, becomes Jill. They are the mischievous ones - I nearly called them twins, but they aren’t in reality, only in spirit. Sheila has a red hooded cloak and is thus Red Riding Hood and the youngest, Robin, has a blue pinafore - being too young for a kilt - and is Little Boy Blue. Peggy is very sweet and pretty (although a little too soft on Jack and Jill) but I didn’t like her as much as I was meant to, as she wouldn’t let Grizel talk Gaelic - it’s one thing to correct her for talking Highlander English, but Gaelic? Humph. The Colqhouns clearly aren’t English, not when their family was involved in the legend that led to the nearby island being named ‘Goblin Island’.
For Jill is superstitious and believes in goblins and witches. Part of her prejudice against the Girl is that she owns a cat, which isn’t even black. Her elders think that school will rationalise it out of her (but why wouldn’t lessons with the local vicar do that?) The ‘war’ involves some vandalism, rudeness and petty thievery. I thought they were rather lightly let off. Certainly the Maxwells seem rather blase about their 'ghost'/intruder, discussing it merrily with the Mystery aka crippled Marjory whom they have informally adopted. Marjory gets to know Jack and Jill secretly. She’s in the noble invalid mould, and doesn’t get the Clara in the Alps ‘cure’ that I was half-expecting from all the talk of her disability not seeming to be permanent. Meanwhile, the other significant character is Don, Jean Maxwell’s brother who comes to be a locum nearby and is attracted to Peggy and pretends to be a Macdonald, not a Maxwell to gein Jack and Jill's confidence.
The book is full of typical Oxenham touches and characteristic ways of seeing things, although it’s a first (published) effort. The first person narrative is quaint, although there’s too much going on that Jean COULDN’T have known about, and oh, the shyness of the narrator/self-insert about the other manuscript that isn’t the one we're reading! We never know what Jack and Jill or her father thought of it and Jean decided to work on the story of how they all got on instead, which is mainly about the interactions and growing friendships between the Colqhuons and the Maxwells, ending in Peggy and Don's marriage and a bairn to unify them forever. I did like the descriptions of the locality, although it is set in a comparatively sunny, summery Highland world.
*Yes, I thought of the Chalet School too.
Edited on 27/4/11 for typos etc.