Sweet Valley Saga II Magna Edition: The Wakefield Legacy: The Untold Story (Part One)
Here we go! The sequel to The Wakefields of Sweet Valley is sadly not as awesome as that book, and I spent much of my time reading this letting out gloomy sighs. I mean, I loved the last book. But this is like...you know when Rachel started dating Russ on Friends and everyone but her could see that Russ was just an even dorkier version of Ross, but with none of his good qualities? Well, this book is exactly like that.
I have to say, I was surprised at first that this book was even green-lit in the first place, as YA novels with male protagonists are notoriously difficult to sell to teenage girls. This is probably why the cover-designer put Liz and Jessica on the cover along with their ancestors. Also, the guy - Ned Wakefield? - looks like the bastard lovechild of Harrison Ford and David Duchovny. That's hot.
1866. We begin with Theodore Wakefield, younger son of the Earl of Wakefield. Wakefield has never had an Earl, but I'll cut the ghost-writer some slack here, as she isn't the first person to make up a phony English title. He's out riding with his older brother, James, and James' fiancée, Katerina von Alber. Katerina is the daughter of a German count, and was shipped over as part of an arranged marriage.
Let me just say: oh, please. Arranged marriages did occur in Victorian England but they weren't the norm, even amongst the aristocracy, and there certainly wasn't any need to look overseas for aristocrats to wed. I mean, read Trollope, Wood, Braddon, Collins, Dickens - all of them wrote books featuring aristocrats who marry lawyers and governesses. By the end of the century it was commonplace for British aristocracy to marry wealthy Americans, who obviously were untitled. Hell, even twenty years before this book is set, Thackeray's Becky Sharp, the daughter of a painter and a dancer, got away with marrying the eldest son of a baronet. The ghost-writer, however, implies that arranged marriages were simply another fact of life for the upper classes.
Rant over. Theodore flirts with Katerina because James isn't interested in her. They ride around some more and look at the scenery. According to the book, the Earldom is in "the village of Wakefield". Theodore's dad is Earl of a village? Man, that's embarrassing. I scarcely need even mention that Wakefield is a city, and has been since the Middle Ages.
Katerina talks about Wuthering Heights, which "had been written by someone who lived in a village only a few miles away". She thinks that the story is exciting and romantic. A moment here, please:
1. Wuthering Heights was published in 1847. By 1866, Emily Bronte was definitely more than "someone". If nothing else, she'd be known as literary superstar Charlotte Bronte's sister, thanks to Gaskell's popular 1857 biography.
2. Bronte lived on the other side of Yorkshire, nowhere near Wakefield - much more than "a few miles".
3. And the reference is so gratuitous, anyway, given that it was published almost twenty years before this book begins. If anything, they'd be chatting about the new Wilkie Collins.
4. Wuthering Heights sucks. Sorry, dudes. It had to be said. I'm a Jane Eyre girl.
I'm sorry for harping on about all this historical shiz - it's probably going to stop as soon as Theodore gets on the boat to America - but it's really bugging me.
Theodore isn't interested in Wuthering Heights: he wants to go to America and seek his fortune. First, though, he's going to go to Cambridge and study the classics. Katerina thinks that he is hotsauce, and she wants to marry him instead of his brother. They ride about some more, and the ghost-writer shows off her knowledge of Yorkshire by referencing real rivers and locations! I'd be impressed were it not for the Earl-of-Wakefield-Village fiasco.
Later, Theodore bitches at James for being mean to Katerina. James basically says, "Eh, I know it, but I'm looking forward to having sex with her and also I don't want to be disinherited." Because goodness knows that if he rejected Katerina, there would be absolutely no other eligible young ladies in all of England for him to marry. Seriously, did the ghost-writer misread Francine's notes and think that this part of the story was meant to be set in 1566?
James gets angry and crashes his horse into a stone wall. He's thrown from the horse and dies instantly. Quick, check his punch-cup for traces of vodka!
Now Theodore is heir apparent. Theodore's father is a bit of a bastard and basically informs Theodore of his plans about five minutes after the funeral. This is because English people are cold-hearted and standoffish. It's all true, guys. What you take for frolicking and merriment is in fact my sarcastic icy veneer. I secretly hate you all. Also, Theodore has to marry Katerina now. Theodore is emphatically against this. He's also not allowed to go to university anymore. Because you can't be aristocratic and well-educated, apparently. Theodore seethes.
Now, I can tell you right here, right now, that I am not cut out to be a protagonist in a Sweet Valley book. If someone offered me money, power, and a hot wife, you can bet your boots that I would snap up that sweet, sweet deal in a flash, and that would be the end of the story. I admit that not being allowed to go to university might have been a point of contention for me, but whatever. I'd be independently wealthy! I could read and study in my own time! Papa Wakefield, make me your heir.
Katerina talks Theodore into leaving - which seems counterproductive, given that she loooooooooves him. He has a big blow-up with his father and he decides to leave England forever and head off to America. Katerina watches him leave and she cries. Even though it was her who convinced him to leave, I've always felt really bad for her. She's not given any sort of resolution in the book and you just know that she'll either be shipped back to Germany to the disgrace of her family, or married to some guy she doesn't like very much. She's that sort of fictional character.
Anyway! Theodore is off to America to make his fortune! True story: at school, my friends and I had such trouble remembering the details of the history behind the settling of the Great Plains, we made up a song to the tune of Go West by the Village People. The first part went:
'87, the Act of Dawes,
Grasshoppers in '74,
Timber Act of '73:
Double land if ya planted trees!
Go West, ranching on the Plains,
So stressed, cowboys go insane,
Barbed wire and irrigation
Added to Indians' frustration!
It's not the world's best filk, but it's totally memorable if you recite it over the beat of the song, particularly the Pet Shop Boys cover! My entire knowledge of nineteenth-century America comes from this song and Little Women. And Back to the Future Part III.
Anyway, on the boat Theodore meets Alice Ulla Inga Hansen Benson Yansen Tallen Hallen Svaden Swanson Larson. "Swedish Alice", for short. They start dating. Swedish Alice can barely speak English, but Theodore doesn't care because he loves her. He tells her, "You had me at 'bork bork bork'!"
Theodore admires the new frock-coat and trousers he bought before getting on the boat. Wait. Wait. He's travelling to a strange country, where he knows no one, has no job or land or other source of income waiting for him, and is carrying no letter of introduction - and he has no friends left behind him in England to send him money. Why is he wasting the little money he has on fancy new clothes? Theodore is an idiot.
Swedish Alice asks him if he is going to work on the land and Theodore has a good hearty chuckle over the idea of "himself, an English lord, working the soil like a commoner". Theodore is so boned. Is he expecting money to just fall into his lap the moment he steps off the boat? Maybe he's hoping to live off Swedish Alice's relatives for a while. Whatever the case, he's still an idiot. A self-entitled idiot. With stupid hair. Yeah, I went there!
They land in New York, and, as you may recall, Theodore is detained at customs. Shouldn't have packed those nail scissors in your hand baggage, Theo! Seriously, I forget why he isn't allowed to leave with Swedish Alice straight away, which is pretty sad if you consider the fact that I literally just read this chapter. And, in fact, already recapped this scene from Swedish Alice's point of view. I am just not that interested in Theodore, I guess. Also, can I just say, I went to New York last week and nothing cool happened to me. Jessica Wakefield and her friends are barely there for five minutes before being mistaken for royalty and forced to attend snobby dinner parties.
Swedish Alice leaves New York and Theodore cries into his cholera-infected sheets, or whatever the hell is wrong with him.
Theodore buys a ticket to Cleveland, Ohio. Things I know about Cleveland: 1) There's a Hellmouth situated there; 2) That's everything I know about Cleveland. Oh, years spent in the Buffy fandom, you have served me well. Theodore vows not to give up until he has tracked Swedish Alice down and forced her to be his bride. He doesn't phrase it like that, but that's what's implied.
1884. Theodore is in Illinois, having joined the circus. Just like Jessamyn! He's good friends with a half-Native American girl called Dancing Wind. "Won't deny everything can't last...But it's closing in so fast...Feels just like we're dancing in the wind..." Ahem. Sorry - that was my seedy past as a Hanson fan raising its ugly head there. Dancing Wind is very pretty and Theodore talks about Swedish Alice with her.
Dancing Wind crushes on Theodore majorly, but he doesn't even know she exists! She likes being a part of the circus because it means that she doesn't have to go to school. Uh, unless she's thirteen years old, I'm not sure why that would be an issue. Assuming she's at least sixteen, there's no legal requirement for her to be in school at that age. Of course, if she is thirteen, this plotline has suddenly become ten times more gross.
Theodore and Dancing Wind nearly make out! Then they don't. Maybe he realises that it's skeevy to be macking on thirteen-year-olds. I don't know.
The circus moves on to Minnesota, and we get to the bit from the previous book where Swedish Alice, Elisabeth, and Jessamyn decide to come to watch the show. Seven-year-old Jessamyn befriends all the circus hands and lets slip that her mother is Swedish. Theodore is suddenly convinced that she is Swedish Alice's daughter. Dancing Wind, quite rightly, is all, "Dude, EVERYone in Minnesota is Swedish," but Theodore is all, "Stop saying words." Dancing Wind reminds him that Swedish Alice has young daughters and will be married but Theodore is still all romantic about her and shit. Can you tell I'm really invested in Theodore and Swedish Alice getting back together?
Anyway, Dancing Wind gets jealous and reckless and does a crazy stunt from her trapeze onstage. She totally is thirteen. She totally falls and Theodore suddenly realises that it's Dancing Wind he loves, and not Swedish Alice! Gross, Theodore. Try falling in love with someone who doesn't still get an allowance.
Dancing Wind broke her hip, but she's okay because she's got Theodore's love to see her through. "Just don't walk away...When I've got you in my arms tonight...Feels just like we're dancing in the wind...Feeling just all right..." They get married. FYI, I looked up the anti-miscegenation laws in Minnesota in the nineteenth-century, and it was totally cool for whites and Native Americans to get married. As long as they don't travel to Idaho, Nevada, or Oregon, they should be fine!
1888. Theodore and his child-bride are living in Nebraska. They are living happily on extremely fruitful land. Theodore is good at rearing crops because, as everyone knows, in order to be a successful farmer there's no education like years of reading Ovid followed by a decade spent messing about with horses. Dancing Wind is pregnant. Both are pleased about this.
Nine months later, Dancing Wind gives birth to twins, James and Sarah. Having fulfilled her narrative purpose of providing Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield with some exotic ancestry, she dies.
1905. Theodore is living in California with his children. The focus for this part of the book is on Sarah, who has "dark-blonde hair". The chick on the cover is most emphatically not a blonde, I feel the need to point out. She wishes her life was more exciting. Her life is so boring that she doesn't keep a proper diary: she just makes adventures up where she's the heroine. She wonders if the story's love-interest should look like Theodore, her father. I put the book down in horror and disgust.
Sarah flirts with Edward Brooke (not this one), a cherry-picker on her father's farm. She shares her meal with him: a ploughman's lunch. Be amazed by Sarah's application of a phrase which wasn't in general use until the 1960s! They discover that they're both interested in cars and women's rights. Much to my relief, Sarah decides that the love-interest in her book is going to look like Edward.
After a week of coyly dancing around the subject like this, Sarah decides to present Edward as her suitor. Theodore is having none of it, though! Edward is poor and Theodore wants Sarah to marry someone rich! He's behaving JUST LIKE HIS FATHER! Do you see it? Do you see the likeness? I hate this ghost-writer. Theodore says that Sarah is allowed to go to college if she wants, but only to get her M.R.S. degree.
Sarah cries. She and Edward agree to keep seeing each other anyway in secret. They're like vigilantes. Vigilantes of LOVE. They're not very good at it, though, and they keep making out in public. Somehow, no one spots them, and James, Sarah's twin brother, is the only other person who knows about them.
There's a storm. James catches pneumonia and dies. A general rule: don't be called James in a Sweet Valley book. You'll probably end up dead (see also: Jessica's boyfriend James who was Margo'd to death).
1906. Our young lovers are about to graduate from high school, and they plan to marry as soon as they're able. Unfortunately, Theodore finds Sarah's diary - the adventure stories have long gone and instead she just rambles for pages about how much she loves Edward - and he's angry. He tells her, "You will love the man I choose for you!" because I guess he's turned into his father? I don't know - while I buy him developing a more conservative attitude as the years go on, I don't really think that this total turnaround is very believable. It certainly doesn't make him very likable, and I'm not really sure what the ghost-writer wants us-the-readers to think of him at the end of the story.
Sarah actually points all this out for him, winning my respect, but he remains unmoved. So she decides to elope with him. They hop on a train to San Francisco! Hurrah! This isn't quite the awesome of Jessamyn running away with the circus, but I'll take my thrills where I can get 'em. I've decided to like Sarah, as there are precious few other people to like in this book. Sarah thinks, "April eighteenth, 1906. Our wedding day," which amuses me - oh, irony!
Once in San Francisco, they check into a hotel as a married couple. EVEN THOUGH THEY ARE TOTALLY NOT MARRIED YET. Scandal! They barely have time to sit down, though, because, as we all know, the earthquake hits them!
Incidentally, I don't know why they went to San Francisco to get married. The Wakefields' farm is in San Diego, so they essentially travelled halfway up the country for no reason that I can see. I just looked it up on Google Maps, and it would have been quicker for them to go to Vegas! They could have got an Elvis impersonator to marry them and they'd have handily avoided the earthquake. See, Sarah really needed to hire me as her wedding planner.
Anyway. After the quake is over, Edward and Sarah have sex. Whoo-hoo! Awesome, dudes! I love how the twins' ancestors have all this premarital sex. Good for them. They're rescued and Edward decides to help save other people who are also trapped in hotel rooms and under fridges. For some reason, this was the first thing that popped into my mind:
Incidental note: I want to see an entire Sweet Valley book played out in cat macros. (This one: clearly Jessica, Y/Y?)
Edward runs into a burning building to save a baby. An orphaned baby. Who's dying of rabies. And who's only friend in the world is a motherless puppy-dog. The pathos, it kills me. Not as much as it kills Edward, though, who dies in the process. Sarah cries. I feel kind of bad about making fun of her ploughman's lunch earlier. She's had a rough year.
Sarah returns home to San Diego, amid much gossip. Her reputation is ruined, and that no-good varmint Rhett Butler simply refuses to marry her! Theodore is nice to her, though. I don't know why. I also don't know why I'm still expecting consistency from characters in a Sweet Valley book. Sarah decides to lie about being married to Edward, pretending that the marriage licence was lost in the earthquake. She thinks that they really were husband and wife, "if only for the briefest, most poignant of moments". Hee. Don't be so disloyal towards your dead boyfriend's staying power, Sarah!
After being at home for a few weeks, however, Sarah discovers that she's pregnant. Theodore is overjoyed at the prospect of a grandchild! Then Sarah confesses that she and Edward were never legally married. Maybe Sarah is a better person than I am, but I would have totally kept up the pretence. Or, you know, I'd have told my father but no one else. I mean, they eloped to San Francisco. It's not as though anyone's going to travel all the way up there and sift through the ashes and rubble of the earthquake's aftermath to see if there's a marriage licence to be found. I get that Sarah's child needs to take the last name of Wakefield - otherwise we'd all be reading about Elizabeth and Jessica Brooke - but really.
Predictably, Theodore is furious, like he never fathered a few bastards by barmaids down in Wakefield Village when he was growing up. He decides to send Sarah to Mendocino. He says that no one will have to know that she's having an illegitimate baby. Again, all this could be avoided by just NOT TELLING the neighbours that Sarah and Edward weren't married! Seriously. NO ONE WOULD KNOW. I don't usually advocate lying this much, but come on. It's a better alternative than sending Sarah away, which would arouse neighbourly suspicions more than anything else, I'd've thought.
1907. Baby Ted and Sarah are living happily in Mendocino. Theodore shows up and tells her that she can come home but the baby has to be adopted. Sarah is like, "Papa, don't preach!" and she and Theodore agree that she and Ted will live as far away from San Diego as possible. She refuses to accept any money from him, though, proving for the millionth time that all Sweet Valley characters are braver and yet much more stupid than I am. I'd have gone with the financial stability. Wait, I lie. I'd have gone with NOT TELLING THE NEIGHBOURS THAT I WASN'T MARRIED IN THE FIRST PLACE.
Sarah recognises the social stigma that Ted is going to suffer when word gets out that he is illegitimate and she decides to raise him as her nephew rather than her son. I just don't understand this. Surely, if she's going to lie to him anyway, would it not be better to tell a tiny lie (that she and Edward were married) which is almost identical to the truth, rather than an enormous lie which will clearly blow up in her face at some point?
And with that, I'm going to end the first part of this recap here.
I just want to say, from what we've seen so far, the ladies in this book get a pretty rough deal. Katerina's fiancée dies and then the guy she loves leaves the country without giving her a second glance. Dancing Wind is forced to give up a career she loves after she breaks her hip, and then she dies in childbirth. Then Sarah's brother dies, her boyfriend dies, and she's forced to raise her son miles and miles away from her family. This generally isn't an unrealistic portrayal of what life was like for women in the nineteenth-century, but if you recall The Wakefields of Sweet Valley, which was filled with women doing awesome, forward-thinking things, like running away with the circus and becoming spies, The Wakefield Legacy is, by contrast, kind of depressing.
Oh, well. Let's hope the story picks up a bit in Part Two!
Coming up: the return of the flapper twins, love and death in a Japanese prison camp, and Ned Wakefield's ponytail! Stay tuned!
I have to say, I was surprised at first that this book was even green-lit in the first place, as YA novels with male protagonists are notoriously difficult to sell to teenage girls. This is probably why the cover-designer put Liz and Jessica on the cover along with their ancestors. Also, the guy - Ned Wakefield? - looks like the bastard lovechild of Harrison Ford and David Duchovny. That's hot.
1866. We begin with Theodore Wakefield, younger son of the Earl of Wakefield. Wakefield has never had an Earl, but I'll cut the ghost-writer some slack here, as she isn't the first person to make up a phony English title. He's out riding with his older brother, James, and James' fiancée, Katerina von Alber. Katerina is the daughter of a German count, and was shipped over as part of an arranged marriage.
Let me just say: oh, please. Arranged marriages did occur in Victorian England but they weren't the norm, even amongst the aristocracy, and there certainly wasn't any need to look overseas for aristocrats to wed. I mean, read Trollope, Wood, Braddon, Collins, Dickens - all of them wrote books featuring aristocrats who marry lawyers and governesses. By the end of the century it was commonplace for British aristocracy to marry wealthy Americans, who obviously were untitled. Hell, even twenty years before this book is set, Thackeray's Becky Sharp, the daughter of a painter and a dancer, got away with marrying the eldest son of a baronet. The ghost-writer, however, implies that arranged marriages were simply another fact of life for the upper classes.
Rant over. Theodore flirts with Katerina because James isn't interested in her. They ride around some more and look at the scenery. According to the book, the Earldom is in "the village of Wakefield". Theodore's dad is Earl of a village? Man, that's embarrassing. I scarcely need even mention that Wakefield is a city, and has been since the Middle Ages.
Katerina talks about Wuthering Heights, which "had been written by someone who lived in a village only a few miles away". She thinks that the story is exciting and romantic. A moment here, please:
1. Wuthering Heights was published in 1847. By 1866, Emily Bronte was definitely more than "someone". If nothing else, she'd be known as literary superstar Charlotte Bronte's sister, thanks to Gaskell's popular 1857 biography.
2. Bronte lived on the other side of Yorkshire, nowhere near Wakefield - much more than "a few miles".
3. And the reference is so gratuitous, anyway, given that it was published almost twenty years before this book begins. If anything, they'd be chatting about the new Wilkie Collins.
4. Wuthering Heights sucks. Sorry, dudes. It had to be said. I'm a Jane Eyre girl.
I'm sorry for harping on about all this historical shiz - it's probably going to stop as soon as Theodore gets on the boat to America - but it's really bugging me.
Theodore isn't interested in Wuthering Heights: he wants to go to America and seek his fortune. First, though, he's going to go to Cambridge and study the classics. Katerina thinks that he is hotsauce, and she wants to marry him instead of his brother. They ride about some more, and the ghost-writer shows off her knowledge of Yorkshire by referencing real rivers and locations! I'd be impressed were it not for the Earl-of-Wakefield-Village fiasco.
Later, Theodore bitches at James for being mean to Katerina. James basically says, "Eh, I know it, but I'm looking forward to having sex with her and also I don't want to be disinherited." Because goodness knows that if he rejected Katerina, there would be absolutely no other eligible young ladies in all of England for him to marry. Seriously, did the ghost-writer misread Francine's notes and think that this part of the story was meant to be set in 1566?
James gets angry and crashes his horse into a stone wall. He's thrown from the horse and dies instantly. Quick, check his punch-cup for traces of vodka!
Now Theodore is heir apparent. Theodore's father is a bit of a bastard and basically informs Theodore of his plans about five minutes after the funeral. This is because English people are cold-hearted and standoffish. It's all true, guys. What you take for frolicking and merriment is in fact my sarcastic icy veneer. I secretly hate you all. Also, Theodore has to marry Katerina now. Theodore is emphatically against this. He's also not allowed to go to university anymore. Because you can't be aristocratic and well-educated, apparently. Theodore seethes.
Now, I can tell you right here, right now, that I am not cut out to be a protagonist in a Sweet Valley book. If someone offered me money, power, and a hot wife, you can bet your boots that I would snap up that sweet, sweet deal in a flash, and that would be the end of the story. I admit that not being allowed to go to university might have been a point of contention for me, but whatever. I'd be independently wealthy! I could read and study in my own time! Papa Wakefield, make me your heir.
Katerina talks Theodore into leaving - which seems counterproductive, given that she loooooooooves him. He has a big blow-up with his father and he decides to leave England forever and head off to America. Katerina watches him leave and she cries. Even though it was her who convinced him to leave, I've always felt really bad for her. She's not given any sort of resolution in the book and you just know that she'll either be shipped back to Germany to the disgrace of her family, or married to some guy she doesn't like very much. She's that sort of fictional character.
Anyway! Theodore is off to America to make his fortune! True story: at school, my friends and I had such trouble remembering the details of the history behind the settling of the Great Plains, we made up a song to the tune of Go West by the Village People. The first part went:
'87, the Act of Dawes,
Grasshoppers in '74,
Timber Act of '73:
Double land if ya planted trees!
Go West, ranching on the Plains,
So stressed, cowboys go insane,
Barbed wire and irrigation
Added to Indians' frustration!
It's not the world's best filk, but it's totally memorable if you recite it over the beat of the song, particularly the Pet Shop Boys cover! My entire knowledge of nineteenth-century America comes from this song and Little Women. And Back to the Future Part III.
Anyway, on the boat Theodore meets Alice Ulla Inga Hansen Benson Yansen Tallen Hallen Svaden Swanson Larson. "Swedish Alice", for short. They start dating. Swedish Alice can barely speak English, but Theodore doesn't care because he loves her. He tells her, "You had me at 'bork bork bork'!"
Theodore admires the new frock-coat and trousers he bought before getting on the boat. Wait. Wait. He's travelling to a strange country, where he knows no one, has no job or land or other source of income waiting for him, and is carrying no letter of introduction - and he has no friends left behind him in England to send him money. Why is he wasting the little money he has on fancy new clothes? Theodore is an idiot.
Swedish Alice asks him if he is going to work on the land and Theodore has a good hearty chuckle over the idea of "himself, an English lord, working the soil like a commoner". Theodore is so boned. Is he expecting money to just fall into his lap the moment he steps off the boat? Maybe he's hoping to live off Swedish Alice's relatives for a while. Whatever the case, he's still an idiot. A self-entitled idiot. With stupid hair. Yeah, I went there!
They land in New York, and, as you may recall, Theodore is detained at customs. Shouldn't have packed those nail scissors in your hand baggage, Theo! Seriously, I forget why he isn't allowed to leave with Swedish Alice straight away, which is pretty sad if you consider the fact that I literally just read this chapter. And, in fact, already recapped this scene from Swedish Alice's point of view. I am just not that interested in Theodore, I guess. Also, can I just say, I went to New York last week and nothing cool happened to me. Jessica Wakefield and her friends are barely there for five minutes before being mistaken for royalty and forced to attend snobby dinner parties.
Swedish Alice leaves New York and Theodore cries into his cholera-infected sheets, or whatever the hell is wrong with him.
Theodore buys a ticket to Cleveland, Ohio. Things I know about Cleveland: 1) There's a Hellmouth situated there; 2) That's everything I know about Cleveland. Oh, years spent in the Buffy fandom, you have served me well. Theodore vows not to give up until he has tracked Swedish Alice down and forced her to be his bride. He doesn't phrase it like that, but that's what's implied.
1884. Theodore is in Illinois, having joined the circus. Just like Jessamyn! He's good friends with a half-Native American girl called Dancing Wind. "Won't deny everything can't last...But it's closing in so fast...Feels just like we're dancing in the wind..." Ahem. Sorry - that was my seedy past as a Hanson fan raising its ugly head there. Dancing Wind is very pretty and Theodore talks about Swedish Alice with her.
Dancing Wind crushes on Theodore majorly, but he doesn't even know she exists! She likes being a part of the circus because it means that she doesn't have to go to school. Uh, unless she's thirteen years old, I'm not sure why that would be an issue. Assuming she's at least sixteen, there's no legal requirement for her to be in school at that age. Of course, if she is thirteen, this plotline has suddenly become ten times more gross.
Theodore and Dancing Wind nearly make out! Then they don't. Maybe he realises that it's skeevy to be macking on thirteen-year-olds. I don't know.
The circus moves on to Minnesota, and we get to the bit from the previous book where Swedish Alice, Elisabeth, and Jessamyn decide to come to watch the show. Seven-year-old Jessamyn befriends all the circus hands and lets slip that her mother is Swedish. Theodore is suddenly convinced that she is Swedish Alice's daughter. Dancing Wind, quite rightly, is all, "Dude, EVERYone in Minnesota is Swedish," but Theodore is all, "Stop saying words." Dancing Wind reminds him that Swedish Alice has young daughters and will be married but Theodore is still all romantic about her and shit. Can you tell I'm really invested in Theodore and Swedish Alice getting back together?
Anyway, Dancing Wind gets jealous and reckless and does a crazy stunt from her trapeze onstage. She totally is thirteen. She totally falls and Theodore suddenly realises that it's Dancing Wind he loves, and not Swedish Alice! Gross, Theodore. Try falling in love with someone who doesn't still get an allowance.
Dancing Wind broke her hip, but she's okay because she's got Theodore's love to see her through. "Just don't walk away...When I've got you in my arms tonight...Feels just like we're dancing in the wind...Feeling just all right..." They get married. FYI, I looked up the anti-miscegenation laws in Minnesota in the nineteenth-century, and it was totally cool for whites and Native Americans to get married. As long as they don't travel to Idaho, Nevada, or Oregon, they should be fine!
1888. Theodore and his child-bride are living in Nebraska. They are living happily on extremely fruitful land. Theodore is good at rearing crops because, as everyone knows, in order to be a successful farmer there's no education like years of reading Ovid followed by a decade spent messing about with horses. Dancing Wind is pregnant. Both are pleased about this.
Nine months later, Dancing Wind gives birth to twins, James and Sarah. Having fulfilled her narrative purpose of providing Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield with some exotic ancestry, she dies.
1905. Theodore is living in California with his children. The focus for this part of the book is on Sarah, who has "dark-blonde hair". The chick on the cover is most emphatically not a blonde, I feel the need to point out. She wishes her life was more exciting. Her life is so boring that she doesn't keep a proper diary: she just makes adventures up where she's the heroine. She wonders if the story's love-interest should look like Theodore, her father. I put the book down in horror and disgust.
Sarah flirts with Edward Brooke (not this one), a cherry-picker on her father's farm. She shares her meal with him: a ploughman's lunch. Be amazed by Sarah's application of a phrase which wasn't in general use until the 1960s! They discover that they're both interested in cars and women's rights. Much to my relief, Sarah decides that the love-interest in her book is going to look like Edward.
After a week of coyly dancing around the subject like this, Sarah decides to present Edward as her suitor. Theodore is having none of it, though! Edward is poor and Theodore wants Sarah to marry someone rich! He's behaving JUST LIKE HIS FATHER! Do you see it? Do you see the likeness? I hate this ghost-writer. Theodore says that Sarah is allowed to go to college if she wants, but only to get her M.R.S. degree.
Sarah cries. She and Edward agree to keep seeing each other anyway in secret. They're like vigilantes. Vigilantes of LOVE. They're not very good at it, though, and they keep making out in public. Somehow, no one spots them, and James, Sarah's twin brother, is the only other person who knows about them.
There's a storm. James catches pneumonia and dies. A general rule: don't be called James in a Sweet Valley book. You'll probably end up dead (see also: Jessica's boyfriend James who was Margo'd to death).
1906. Our young lovers are about to graduate from high school, and they plan to marry as soon as they're able. Unfortunately, Theodore finds Sarah's diary - the adventure stories have long gone and instead she just rambles for pages about how much she loves Edward - and he's angry. He tells her, "You will love the man I choose for you!" because I guess he's turned into his father? I don't know - while I buy him developing a more conservative attitude as the years go on, I don't really think that this total turnaround is very believable. It certainly doesn't make him very likable, and I'm not really sure what the ghost-writer wants us-the-readers to think of him at the end of the story.
Sarah actually points all this out for him, winning my respect, but he remains unmoved. So she decides to elope with him. They hop on a train to San Francisco! Hurrah! This isn't quite the awesome of Jessamyn running away with the circus, but I'll take my thrills where I can get 'em. I've decided to like Sarah, as there are precious few other people to like in this book. Sarah thinks, "April eighteenth, 1906. Our wedding day," which amuses me - oh, irony!
Once in San Francisco, they check into a hotel as a married couple. EVEN THOUGH THEY ARE TOTALLY NOT MARRIED YET. Scandal! They barely have time to sit down, though, because, as we all know, the earthquake hits them!
Incidentally, I don't know why they went to San Francisco to get married. The Wakefields' farm is in San Diego, so they essentially travelled halfway up the country for no reason that I can see. I just looked it up on Google Maps, and it would have been quicker for them to go to Vegas! They could have got an Elvis impersonator to marry them and they'd have handily avoided the earthquake. See, Sarah really needed to hire me as her wedding planner.
Anyway. After the quake is over, Edward and Sarah have sex. Whoo-hoo! Awesome, dudes! I love how the twins' ancestors have all this premarital sex. Good for them. They're rescued and Edward decides to help save other people who are also trapped in hotel rooms and under fridges. For some reason, this was the first thing that popped into my mind:
Incidental note: I want to see an entire Sweet Valley book played out in cat macros. (This one: clearly Jessica, Y/Y?)
Edward runs into a burning building to save a baby. An orphaned baby. Who's dying of rabies. And who's only friend in the world is a motherless puppy-dog. The pathos, it kills me. Not as much as it kills Edward, though, who dies in the process. Sarah cries. I feel kind of bad about making fun of her ploughman's lunch earlier. She's had a rough year.
Sarah returns home to San Diego, amid much gossip. Her reputation is ruined, and that no-good varmint Rhett Butler simply refuses to marry her! Theodore is nice to her, though. I don't know why. I also don't know why I'm still expecting consistency from characters in a Sweet Valley book. Sarah decides to lie about being married to Edward, pretending that the marriage licence was lost in the earthquake. She thinks that they really were husband and wife, "if only for the briefest, most poignant of moments". Hee. Don't be so disloyal towards your dead boyfriend's staying power, Sarah!
After being at home for a few weeks, however, Sarah discovers that she's pregnant. Theodore is overjoyed at the prospect of a grandchild! Then Sarah confesses that she and Edward were never legally married. Maybe Sarah is a better person than I am, but I would have totally kept up the pretence. Or, you know, I'd have told my father but no one else. I mean, they eloped to San Francisco. It's not as though anyone's going to travel all the way up there and sift through the ashes and rubble of the earthquake's aftermath to see if there's a marriage licence to be found. I get that Sarah's child needs to take the last name of Wakefield - otherwise we'd all be reading about Elizabeth and Jessica Brooke - but really.
Predictably, Theodore is furious, like he never fathered a few bastards by barmaids down in Wakefield Village when he was growing up. He decides to send Sarah to Mendocino. He says that no one will have to know that she's having an illegitimate baby. Again, all this could be avoided by just NOT TELLING the neighbours that Sarah and Edward weren't married! Seriously. NO ONE WOULD KNOW. I don't usually advocate lying this much, but come on. It's a better alternative than sending Sarah away, which would arouse neighbourly suspicions more than anything else, I'd've thought.
1907. Baby Ted and Sarah are living happily in Mendocino. Theodore shows up and tells her that she can come home but the baby has to be adopted. Sarah is like, "Papa, don't preach!" and she and Theodore agree that she and Ted will live as far away from San Diego as possible. She refuses to accept any money from him, though, proving for the millionth time that all Sweet Valley characters are braver and yet much more stupid than I am. I'd have gone with the financial stability. Wait, I lie. I'd have gone with NOT TELLING THE NEIGHBOURS THAT I WASN'T MARRIED IN THE FIRST PLACE.
Sarah recognises the social stigma that Ted is going to suffer when word gets out that he is illegitimate and she decides to raise him as her nephew rather than her son. I just don't understand this. Surely, if she's going to lie to him anyway, would it not be better to tell a tiny lie (that she and Edward were married) which is almost identical to the truth, rather than an enormous lie which will clearly blow up in her face at some point?
And with that, I'm going to end the first part of this recap here.
I just want to say, from what we've seen so far, the ladies in this book get a pretty rough deal. Katerina's fiancée dies and then the guy she loves leaves the country without giving her a second glance. Dancing Wind is forced to give up a career she loves after she breaks her hip, and then she dies in childbirth. Then Sarah's brother dies, her boyfriend dies, and she's forced to raise her son miles and miles away from her family. This generally isn't an unrealistic portrayal of what life was like for women in the nineteenth-century, but if you recall The Wakefields of Sweet Valley, which was filled with women doing awesome, forward-thinking things, like running away with the circus and becoming spies, The Wakefield Legacy is, by contrast, kind of depressing.
Oh, well. Let's hope the story picks up a bit in Part Two!
Coming up: the return of the flapper twins, love and death in a Japanese prison camp, and Ned Wakefield's ponytail! Stay tuned!